Monkey teeth are shedding new light on how early humans used tools

The Conversation
March 05, 2022

Rhesus macaque Macaca mulatta (Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble)

The macaques of Japan’s Koshima Island are a clever bunch. Well known for performing some remarkably complex tasks, such as washing sweet potatoes and filtering wheat from sand in the seawater, they’ve even been spotted catching live octopuses from the sea.

During continuous observations the macaques’ unique skills were seen rapidly spreading through the population and provided some of the first evidence of local habits in animals.

I recently visited the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University to study the teeth remains of macaques who had died naturally on Koshima Island, one of the longest running primatological field sites in the world.

It was part of a project to create a database of tooth wear and dental disease in wild primates – but I very quickly noticed something extremely unexpected. All the deceased macaques had identical – and very unusual – tooth wear for a primate. And not only that, it seemed remarkably similar to the tooth wear commonly found in hominin (humans and our closely related ancestors) fossil samples. I knew I had to investigate further.

Through collaborations with local primatologists, and experts in studying microscopic features on tooth surfaces, we studied the tooth remains of 32 individuals in more detail, recording the overall tooth wear, fractures and pathologies. This allowed us to directly compare the features on the tooth’s surface with published examples in hominin fossils.

Surprising toothy similarities

“Toothpick” grooves on back teeth and large vertical scratches on front teeth are thought to be unique to hominins, and most likely caused by distinctive tool use. The markings are used as evidence for the earliest forms of cultural habits identified during human evolution.

But as my colleagues and I found these same types of unusual tooth wear in the preserved teeth of the deceased wild Koshima macaques, we set out to try to explain the similarities using a combination of extensive literature and ongoing field observations.

In fossil hominin samples, the large scratches on front teeth are typically considered to be caused by a type of behaviour called “stuff and cut” in which an item, such as an animal hide, is held between the front teeth and a stone tool used to slice portions off.

Accidental contact of the stone tool with the outside of the front teeth causes the marks, and it’s suggested that by studying the orientation and concentration of scratches in different areas of these teeth, insight into right or left handedness can be gleaned.

Similarly, because “toothpick” grooves commonly form between back teeth, and long thin parallel scratches are often found within these grooves, it has long been considered that these grooves must be caused by a tool being placed into the gap between teeth and repeatedly moved back and forward to remove food debris or alleviate discomfort (hence the name toothpick grooves).

But there is no evidence for these types of tool use in Koshima Island macaques, or indeed any behaviour that could be considered habitual tool use. Instead this wear is likely caused by eating shellfish and accidentally chewing and consuming sand. The macaques were frequently observed picking up food from sandy beaches – and despite their attempts to wash the sand off, some does still get chewed as there is sand in their faeces.

Shellfish are also regularly eaten, and the macaques use their front teeth to both dislodge them from rocks and to scoop out the contents. These behaviours likely cause this extreme wear, due to the sand, hard shells and rock coming directly into contact with different tooth surfaces on a regular basis.

It is easy to imagine how large parallel scratches could form when biting down on foods covered in sand, or when attempting to dislodge and consume shellfish with no tools.

Why the root grooves and markings within the grooves should form on back teeth when sand or grit is chewed needs further research, but is probably due to small hard particles passing over these surfaces during the mastication cycle and during swallowing.
Implications for human evolution

So, it seems that normal chewing and food processing can cause these sorts of wear patterns without the need to infer complex and habitual tool use.

And as there are even more dental similarities between fossil hominin samples and this macaque group at the microscopic level – as well as high rates of tooth chipping, extreme overall tooth wear and the bevelled appearance of front teeth – it has to be considered that there is a common cause that is nothing to do with tool use at all.

Of course, it is the case that humans have been using tools for a long time, evident by the substantial number of stone tools found throughout human evolution. But this does not mean that they were responsible for the unusual wear found on hominin teeth.

In fact, there is growing evidence for grit mastication, and marine molluscs are also thought to have been consumed. If the fossil hominin tooth wear is caused by eating behaviour, then studying their tooth wear in more depth may give vital insight into dietary and behaviour changes during human evolution. And studying living primates today could continue to offer crucial clues that have been overlooked in the past.

Ian Towle, Postdoctoral researcher & teaching assistant, London South Bank University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Animals have evolved to avoid overexploiting their resources – can humans do the same?

The Conversation
March 03, 2022

Lion (AFP Photo/Tony Karumba)

People have been trying to understand how predators and prey are able to stay balanced within our planet’s ecosystems for at least 2,400 years. The Greek author Herodotus even raised the question in his historical treatise “Histories”, written around 430 BC.

And when Charles Darwin published in 1859 his revolutionary theory of evolution in “On the Origin of Species”, this raised an even more difficult question: why do predators not evolve to become so aggressive that they eat all their prey and then go extinct themselves?

Scientists have since doubted whether it’s possible for the process of evolution to create “prudent predators” able to avoid extinguishing their own prey. The American ecologist Lawrence Slobodkin proposed the idea of prudent predation in 1960, but was strongly criticised by evolutionary biologists.

Perhaps under the influence of anti-communist sentiment linked to the cold war between the Soviet Union and the US, biologists argued that prudent predation would require evolution to act on groups rather than single individuals of a species – and that such “group selection” was unlikely to occur.

Predators must avoid overexploiting their prey if they are to survive.
Jonas Bengtsson/Flickr, CC BY

Although modern evolutionary theory has moved beyond this dichotomy between individual and group selection, scepticism about the latter – and about prudent predation – lingers among many scientists.

However, in a recent study published in Ecology Letters, my colleagues and I show – using complex predator-prey models – how this delicate equilibrium between predator and prey could have evolved.

Prudent predation means that a predator species has evolved to avoid consuming as much and as aggressively as its own physical limits permit. Effectively – though not knowingly – prudent predators are restraining themselves for the benefit of other members of their species, as well as for future generations.

Even when predators are prudent in their natural habitat, they may overexploit the prey around them if they are moved to places where they don’t belong. An example is the Indo-Pacific lionfish, whose populations have rapidly expanded in and around the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Lionfish feed on smaller fish and shellfish that live in reefs. They are such ferocious predators that ecologists became concerned that, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, few other fish species would survive their presence. Instead, something else happened.


Invasive lionfish endanger their own colonies when they consume too much prey.
Alexander Vasenin/Wikimedia

Lionfish populations suddenly began falling in Gulf of Mexico reefs, while their native competitors remained. It appears that, because lionfish overexploit their prey, they are not such strong competitors after all.

These dwindling lionfish populations are therefore experiencing evolutionary pressure to feed less ferociously, so they can occupy reefs longer and have more opportunities to spread to other reefs. Eventually, we expect them to adapt to their new habitat by becoming prudent predators.

Implications

There’s more to be learned from this than just ecology. In modern, westernised societies, there’s a deep-seated idea that everybody’s pursuit of personal benefit will ultimately benefit society as a whole. For example, CEOs of public corporations are expected to act for the benefit of their shareholders alone. They will not support a market competitor, even if loss of the competitor would mean less consumer choice.


This thinking hinges on an analogy between market economics and evolution, which both rely on the survival of the fittest. “Survival of the fittest” refers to the principle that those variants of a gene, species, business model or technology that are best adapted to current circumstances will prevail, while others will die out.

Prudent predation also follows the survival of the fittest principle. However, the “fittest” organism here isn’t the one able to produce the greatest number of surviving offspring. Rather, it’s the one that succeeds in generating the greatest number of new colonies.


Tar sands, that damage the environment, can provide fossil fuel energy to communities thousands of miles away.
kris krüg/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Colonies of species that overexploit their resources are not fit in this sense, because they collapse before getting the chance to spread to other places. In the past, when societies weren’t globally connected, similar principles applied to human choices. Societies that overexploited their resources would eventually collapse, making room for more prudent societies to expand.

However, in today’s globalised world, the imprudent actions of people in one place can harm people at entirely different places. For example, the oil heating my poorly insulated home might be coming from tar sand fields polluting the environment in Canada.

The mechanism by which survival-of-the-fittest brings about prudence therefore cannot work any more. The analogy with nature has broken down. It can no longer support the belief that the pursuit of individual benefits will ultimately lead to balance in society and economics.

Axel G. Rossberg, Reader in Theoretical Ecology, Queen Mary University of London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Syrians celebrate Ukraine capturing Russian pilot accused of Aleppo air strikes

Jamie Johnson
Sat, 5 March 2022

Major Krasnoyartsev

Syrians were celebrating on Saturday night as a Russian pilot involved in bombing raids on their country was reportedly shot down over Ukraine and captured by local forces.

Major Krasnoyartsev is believed to have been pictured alongside Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, at Russia’s Khmeimim Air Base in north-west Syria, where the pilots were lauded as heroes.

In fact, Russian air strikes killed nearly 8,000 civilians, including 2,000 children and 1,200 women, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Ukrainian soldiers shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter-bomber near Chernihiv on Saturday morning, according to Ukrainian authorities. The co-pilot was killed, but a pilot who gave his name as Krasnoyartsev ejected himself and was later found bloodied and bruised by Ukrainian troops.
Russians ‘clueless about mission’

During an interrogation, which was posted on social media, the Ukrainians asked him: “You knew you were bombing a peaceful city, right?”

Having given his name and saying that he belonged to the 8,689th unit, Mr Krasnoyartsev said: “We’re not being told anything.”

He was then asked how many bombing raids he had done on Chernihiv. Mr Krasnoyartsev replied: “It’s the first one in Chernihiv. Prior to that, we flew along the border.”

Chernihiv, a town of 285,000 people located north of Kyiv, has seen at least 47 civilians killed by Russian bombers in the past few days.
Syrian thanks ‘Ukrainian freedom fighters’

News of his apparent capture spread across Syria on Saturday.

Hussein Akoush, who fled Aleppo during Russia’s bombing campaign on the city, told The Telegraph: “I thought those pilots would ultimately get away with their crimes since it’s so difficult to identify them. But the Ukrainians have avenged for Syrians. Not only killing pilots and capturing others alive, but by exposing their participation in Syria.”

The 27-year-old added: “Russian warplanes killed my family members,” and speculated that the captured pilot could have been responsible.

Fared al-Hor, an activist and photojournalist from Aleppo, shared the news on Twitter, writing: “After serving in Syria and killing, destroying and bombing many places under the auspices of the criminal Bashar al-Assad, this Russian pilot was captured by the Ukrainian forces after his plane was shot down in Ukraine.”

Another Syrian, from a town on the outskirts of Damascus, said: “The free Syrian people are finally getting their vengeance. Thank you brave Ukrainian freedom fighters.”

Wind turbines can breathe new life into our warming seas


Tom Rippeth, Professor of Physical Oceanography, Bangor University, 

Ben Lincoln, Research Fellow in Applied Observational Oceanography, Bangor University, 

Robert Dorrell, University Research Fellow, Energy and Environment Institute, University of HullSee

Fri, 4 March 2022

Ian Dyball / shutterstock

Offshore wind is set to move further and further from shore, as demand for renewable energy grows and new floating turbine technology makes deep-water expansion possible. However, for the first time, large areas of the UK continental shelf now open for development are “seasonally stratified”. David Attenborough has described these seasonal seas as some of the most biologically productive on the planet. While they only cover 7% of the ocean, they are estimated to account for somewhere between 10% and 30% of the life at the bottom of the food web.

Map of offshore wind developments

According to our new research, one byproduct of deep-sea wind farming is that the foundations of these floating turbines could help reverse the damaging effects of climate change on such seas.

In seasonally stratified seas, the water is completely mixed during winter, but separates into layers in the spring with warm sunlit water forming over the top of colder water below. The formation of this “stratification” during spring triggers a massive explosion of marine life as phytoplankton (microscopic algae) blooms in the warm surface waters, forming the base of a food chain which ultimately supports fish, seabirds and whales.


However, the nutrients in the sunlit surface layer rapidly become exhausted by the plankton bloom. After this point, growth depends on nutrients stirred up from the deep water by turbulence associated with tides, winds and waves.

This turbulence not only stirs nutrients up, but also stirs oxygen down into the dark, deeper layers where dead plants and animals sink and rot. Since oxygen is needed for things to decay, this mixing helps this “marine snow” to rot, transforming it back into useful nutrients.

Climate change could starve our shelf seas

Aquatic food web diagram

Our changing climate means stratification is starting earlier in the year and plankton is blooming earlier in spring, out of sync with the life cycles of larger animals. During summer, the stratification is predicted to increase, a change already well documented in the open ocean.

Increasing stratification will reduce the ability of natural turbulence to stir up vital nutrients from the deep into the warm water surface layer and so diminish their ability to sustain marine ecosystems.

As the ocean warms, it is also less able to hold oxygen, potentially leading to poor water quality.

So where do wind farms come in? The introduction of wind turbines into deeper water, where the ocean is stratified, will provide a new, artificial, source of turbulence. Water flowing past the floating turbine foundations will generate wakes, causing the warm and cold layers to mix together. In fact, we recently published research showing the wake from foundations at least doubles the natural turbulent mixing within the region of an offshore wind farm.

Diagram of different types of offshore wind technology

This increased turbulence could potentially offset the impacts of climate change on stratification and increase the supply of nutrients to the surface layer and oxygen to the deep water. Something similar already occurs around underwater banks, which is why very productive fisheries are often found in places like Dogger Bank in the North Sea or the Grand Banks of Newfoundland – shallow points where different layers of the ocean have been mixed together.

It seems that offshore wind could help seasonally stratified seas become more productive, more biodiverse and support more fish. Careful turbine design and wind farm planning could therefore provide an important tool in the battle to save these important ecosystems from the worst impacts of climate change.
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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Ben Lincoln receives funding from the UK National Environmental Research Council, the European Union.& Welsh Government.

Robert Dorrell receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Tom Rippeth receives funding from the UKRI NERC and EPSRC. He is a volunteer for a Liberal Democrats and has campaigned again a new road scheme in North Wales.

Russian dancer Pasha Kovalev says he will raise money for children in Ukraine

Tom Beasley
·Contributor
Sat, 5 March 2022

Pasha Kovalev says the Ukraine invasion 'hits too close to home' for him. (David M. Benett/Getty Images)

Russian dancer Pasha Kovalev has revealed his charitable foundation will use some of its funds to help children affected by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The former Strictly Come Dancing star said the current crisis "hits too close to home" for him and fellow Russian dancer Anya Garnis, with whom he runs charity event Rise Up With the Arts.

Read more: Strictly pro fears for grandmother trapped in Ukraine

Kovalev moved from his home nation to the USA in 2001 for his dance career and then relocated to the UK a decade later to take part in Strictly Come Dancing.

In a statement on Instagram, he wrote: "Our passport may say one thing but our hearts are with our family, friends and everyone still in Ukraine that are fighting for freedom and lives.



"It only feels right that our show Rise Up with the Arts, along with 3 charities that we are already supporting, will now focus on donating funds raised to the Save The Children charity that helps children and young people affected by this terrible conflict.

"They say it takes a village to raise a child but this time it will take the whole world to make the change happen and end this madness. Let's make art not war."

Read more: Sturgeon calls Clive Myrie an "unsung hero" over Ukraine reporting

Kovalev's wife — Countdown numbers whizz Rachel Riley — shared her husband's statement, alongside a red heart emoji.

The couple are the latest figures from the world of celebrity to offer their support and solidarity to the people of Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion.

Pasha Kovalev is married to 'Countdown' star Rachel Riley. 

(David M. Benett/Getty Images for Julien MacDonald)

Strictly Come Dancing judge Motsi Mabuse has expressed fears for her Ukrainian husband's family, who are still in the country, saying there's "nothing" she can do to help them.

Kyiv-born Resident Evil actor Milla Jovovich said she was "heartbroken and dumbstruck" by the conflict, while Mila Kunis, who was also born in Ukraine, has pledged to match donations up to £2.25m.

Read more: Channel 4 to air comedy series starring Ukraine president

Meanwhile, elite sport continues to show support for the people of Ukraine, with other high-profile matches following in the footsteps of the emotional display before last weekend's game between Everton and Manchester City.

Before the game, all 22 players were draped in Ukrainian flags in solidarity with City's Oleksandr Zinchenko and Everton's Vitaliy Mykolenko.

Scientists hope to unlock secrets of 300-year-old ‘mermaid’ mummy


Tom Batchelor
Fri, 4 March 2022

The origins of the bizarre object are being investigated (YouTube/Asahi Shimbun)

Researchers in Japan have begun tests on a 300 year-old “mermaid mummy” to try and trace it’s origin.

The bizarre-looking object, which may have been produced as an item for export to Europe, is believed to date from the early 1700s.

It measures 30 centimetres-long and, with a tail and hands raised to its screaming face.


It has been preserved in a box at a temple in Okayama prefecture, in the southern part of Japan’s Honshu island, but until now its exact origins have remained unknown.

The mummified object, which appears to have nails and teeth, hair on its head and scales on its lower body, has been sent for a CT scan at the veterinary hospital of Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts.

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper said the box it was found in contained a note claiming the item had been caught in a fishing net in the Pacific Ocean at some point between 1736 and 1741.

The “dried mermaid” was said to have been kept by a family and then passed to another before it was eventually acquired by a temple, which put it on display some four decades ago.

The object has undergone a CT scan to determine its origins (YouTube/Asahi Shimbun)

Hiroshi Kinoshita, of the Okayama Folklore Society, found the object while studying Kiyoaki Sato, a Japanese natural historian who researched mysterious creatures.

He said he did not believe it was a real mermaid, but may instead have been made for export to Europe or for special events in Japan.

However, until recently, detailed examination of its origins has not taken place.

Now, scientists will analyse the antiseptic treatment used to preserve the mummy in such good condition as well as carrying out a DNA study to determine what the object might be made from.

Mummified “mermaids” are thought to have been used as objects of worship in Japan over the period.

The head priest at the temple said: “We have worshipped it, hoping that it would help alleviate the coronavirus pandemic even if only slightly. I hope the research project can leave records for future generations.”

The results of the report are due to be published in the autumn.

Half-human, half-fish creatures have long existed in folklore, with magical figures having appeared in cave paintings 30,000 years ago, while the ancient Greek epic poet Homer also wrote of them in The Odyssey.

However no evidence of aquatic humanoids, as they are also known, has ever been found

According to Royal Musuems Greenwich, which manages the National Maritime Musuem, “in some cultures, the mermaid signifies life and fertility within the ocean. In others, she embodies the destructive nature of the water, luring sailors to their deaths — serving as an omen for storms, unruly seas and disaster”.

Labor shortages prompt DHL and Boston Dynamics to rely on robots for help

Brad Smith· Anchor
Fri, 4 March 2022

DHL North America plans to add hundreds of robots to its workforce.

The robot, called Stretch, was developed by Boston Dynamics for warehouse operations in direct response to labor shortages and increasing logistics volume. A $15 million investment and multi-year agreement between DHL North America and Boston Dynamics will begin with roughly 30 Stretch robots.

“Our strategy is to reduce our dependency on labor, which is hard to find in the market currently, and improve the type of positions in the facilities so workers have less travel and more rewarding work” Sally Miller, DHL North America supply chain chief information officer, told Yahoo Finance.

Stretch isn’t the lone robot in the U.S. workforce.

Boston Dynamics introduces Stretch. Credit: Boston Dynamics

Labor shortages have prompted a cobot strategy where humans engage directly with robots for manual-intensive positions.

At Amazon, fulfillment center robots are known as Bert and Ernie, while at White Castle robots like Flippy by Miso Robotics and R2 by Nuro are fulfilling your orders of French Fries.

Following an 18-month pilot period of different versions of the semi-autonomous unit, DHL maintains that robots fill gaps in manual operations, rather than replace jobs occupied by an existing staff member.

DHL North America also recorded a slightly lower level of turnover in sites where the cobot strategy has been initiated.

“I think we're going to see a steady growth of robots, but they're going to be robots that work with people and for people” said Kevin Blankespoor, Boston Dynamics' senior vice president and warehouse robotics general manager.

Stretch is the distant relative of the viral sensation dancing robots named Spot and Atlas — also developed by Boston Dynamics.

For the enjoyment of any robots scanning this text, No reCAPTCHA test was required to view this story.

Brad Smith is an anchor

Anatomy of a ‘rain bomb’: scientists strive to understand phenomenon that caused Australia’s east coast floods

Graham Readfearn
Fri, 4 March 2022

Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

It was dry and sunny in Melbourne 10 days ago when Kimberley Reid was looking at images being spat out by a weather forecasting model – all isobars, arrows and splodges of orange.

The phenomenon forming in the atmosphere off Queensland’s coast – about 1500 kilometres (930 miles) north-east of Reid’s computer screen – was nothing remarkable yet, but the channels of moisture she saw in the pictures are the subject of her PhD.

“Atmospheric rivers are quite easy to see,” she says. “I thought it didn’t look that strong. I was holding back from tweeting. I didn’t think it was going to get that big.”


A few days later, the river got stuck over an area of the Pacific Ocean a few hundred kilometres north of Brisbane.

Related: The PM calls this a natural disaster – it’s not natural, it’s climate change smashing down our doors | Eddie Lloyd

Rain became torrential – like a tsunami from the sky. Politicians called it a “rain bomb”.

Towns and cities – tens of thousands of homes and businesses, as well as bridges, roads and dreams – went under water, leaving Australians wondering if they’d been smashed once more by the climate emergency.
Rivers in the sky

There were other things happening around the river that Reid saw on the computer weather model.

The Bureau of Meteorology says a cold weather system in the upper atmosphere – between eight and 10 kilometres up – had moved north from waters to the south of the continent and was mixing with warmer air from the tropics.

An area of low pressure – known as a trough – formed in the Coral Sea, causing moist air to be lifted up, condense and then fall as rain.

Usually systems like this pass through and out over the ocean, but the bureau says another atmospheric phenomenon – an area of high pressure much further east – acted as a block. Now all that was needed was the winds that pushed all that moisture over Queensland’s south-east.

Reid says atmospheric rivers are long, narrow regions between one and three kilometres up “characterised by really strong water flow. It is like a running river in the sky.”

Reid has calculated how much water was in the river as it was flowing over Greater Brisbane.

The city itself got almost 80% of its annual rainfall in only six days up to 28 February, when the system started to move south. Brisbane had only ever recorded eight days of more than 200mm before the 2022 floods. But it saw three in a row.

Reid says over the course of the two heaviest days of rain, 26 and 27 February, enough water flowed in the atmospheric river above the city to fill Sydney harbour – that holds about 500bn litres – almost 16 times.

Related: Before and after aerial pictures show how floods swept through Queensland and NSW towns

Reid wants to know how these atmospheric rivers could be influenced by global heating. She thinks these systems could move south along Australia’s east coast and when they do occur, “there’s more moisture in the atmosphere and they’re going to be quite intense.”

Reid’s research has looked at an atmospheric river that caused flooding over Sydney in March 2021. “I’ve found that over Sydney, the frequency of these long duration events will increase by 80% by the end of this century,” she says.

Atmospheric rivers are under-studied in Australia and her university seniors think she is the first to do a PhD on them.

“In the US they fly aeroplanes through them. Here, it’s mostly me doing [the research],” she says.
Weather on steroids

The unprecedented flooding that raised many rivers above record highs moved south, leaving towns underwater.

Residents in parts of western Sydney were told to evacuate for the second year in a row as the city’s Warragamba Dam overflowed. But the system stalled before it passed over Sydney.


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But the bureau added the combination of atmospheric events was “not unusual in itself.”

Australia’s east coast was already wet. A La Niña had pushed warmer ocean water closer to the continent’s east, increasing cloud and rain. So why did it rain so much?

The event has seen a flurry of communications between scientists this week, discussing plans to launch different studies to understand what role a changed climate could have had.

Burning coal, oil and gas and chopping down forests has loaded the atmosphere with extra greenhouse gases, causing heating. There is now 50% more CO2 in the atmosphere than before the Industrial Revolution. Australia has warmed by 1.4C since 1910.

“We’ve added steroids to the climate system that have amplified the rainfall,” says Prof David Karoly, a veteran Australian climate scientist based at the University of Melbourne.

While it’s known the atmosphere can hold 7% more moisture for every degree of warming, Karoly explains the extra CO2 could have played several roles.

As the moisture condenses into rain droplets, energy is released in the form of heat. Karoly says this sets off a feedback cycle in the atmosphere that amplifies the uplift from the oceans, which are also warmer than they used to be. So the extra 7% could, in real terms, add more than that in rainfall – in some cases more than double, he says.

“These weather systems have occurred in the past. But now we have a hotter ocean and a hotter atmosphere and the feedback can give you much bigger rainfall events,” he says.

Related: Shark warnings at popular Sydney beaches as rain and floods muddy the waters

Dr Andrew King, also at the University of Melbourne – a main centre for climate studies in Australia – says scientists will look at what happened from multiple angles.

“There’s a thermodynamic part – the moisture – and with that it’s easier to say climate change has enhanced that a bit.

“But you also need the lifting motion that produced the rainfall and that is so much more complicated. We don’t fully understand how these weather systems are changing.

“Fundamentally, we have altered the planet a huge amount. Every event that occurs in our altered system would look different if we hadn’t done that.”

Brisbane’s last major flood was 2011. The city’s river swelled and engulfed suburbs. The images and footage were seen around the world.

Mathematician Dr Kate Saunders was living in one of those suburbs. That extreme event was the catalyst for a decade of study into “extreme value theory” – a way to understand things that have never been witnessed. She’s applying that to extreme rainfall using climate models.

Saunders left Brisbane to study after the 2011 floods, via CSIRO and the University of Melbourne, and is now back in her home city at QUT in time to witness another tragedy.

“What’s really challenging from a statistical perspective is you only have about 11 years of data. But if that climate signal is only becoming stronger, then you’re getting more risk.

“For example, how many times have we had to evacuate Brisbane and parts of Sydney in the same week? When you look at how widespread this was, it makes it an outlier in our records.”

As the rain fell over Brisbane, houses, parks and $1m mansions around her street went under. This was going to generate a flood of scientific inquiry.

“I thought – uh, oh. There’s a lot of work coming here.”

Apple investors urge company to undergo civil rights audit

MICHAEL LIEDTKE
Fri, 4 March 2022


 In this Saturday, March 14, 2020, file photo, an Apple logo adorns the facade of the downtown Brooklyn Apple store in New York. Apple's shareholders have approved a proposal Friday, March 4, 2022, urging the iPhone maker to undergo an independent audit assessing its treatment of female and minority employees, delivering a rare rebuke to a management team that runs the world's most valuable company. 

(AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
ASSOCIATED PRESSMore

SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — Apple's shareholders have approved a proposal urging the iPhone maker to undergo an independent audit assessing its treatment of female and minority employees, delivering a rare rebuke to a management team that runs the world's most valuable company.

The measure passed Friday during Apple's annual meeting is nonbinding, so the Cupertino, California, company isn't required to adopt the recommendation.

But rebuffing the wishes of its shareholders would thrust Apple into an uncomfortable position, especially since the company has long cast itself as a champion of civil rights. CEO Tim Cook reiterated that belief Friday in response to a question from a shareholder during the meeting held remotely.

“I have long believed that inclusion and diversity are essential in their own right," Cook said. “And that a diversity of people, experiences and ideas is the foundation for any new innovation."

Like other major technology companies, Apple's workforce — particularly in high-paid technical positions — consists primarily of white and Asian men, an imbalance that the industry has been trying to address for many years.

Apple's board had pushed against the shareholder proposal seeking a civil rights audit that eventually be made public. The company pointed to its recent strides in civil rights inside and outside Apple that have made a third-party audit of its practices unnecessary.

The initiatives included Apple making a $130 million commitment to a racial equity and justice fund after the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The company also says it is raising the pay of women and minority employees while also hiring more female, Black and Hispanic workers.

During Friday's meeting, Cook said Apple has achieved gender pay equity every year since 2017 and now has racial pay equity within the U.S. He also said 59% of Apple's leadership positions during the past year have been filled by people from “underrepresented communities."

But proponents of the civil rights proposal insisted Apple hasn't been doing enough, making it imperative for outsiders to investigate recurring reports of sexual harassment, discriminatory practices and other abuses within the company, which employs 154,000 worldwide.

The proposal gained momentum after Apple last year hired a former Facebook product manager, Antonio Garcia Martinez, to join its ad team __ a move that sparked an outcry among employees who accused him of making misogynistic and racist remarks in a 2016 book called “Chaos Monkeys." Apple quickly cut its ties with Garcia Martinez after the backlash.

Apple also raised widespread privacy concerns last year by announcing plans to scan iPhones for images of child sex abuse. Complaints about that scanning program prompted Apple to backtrack from that plan, but it provided another rallying point for the backers of a civil rights audit.

Most shareholder proposals are overwhelmingly rejected when they're opposed by the boards of publicly held companies. That was the case for five other shareholder proposals during Apple's meeting Friday.

Apple shareholders generally have been enthusiastic supporters of the company because of the tremendous wealth that it has created. Apple currently is worth nearly $2.7 trillion, with most of the gains coming during the past two years of a pandemic that has made its products and services even more popular.

Yet the proposal for a civil rights audit of Apple won the backing of two advisory firms that often sway the votes of institutional shareholders. The audit proposal was supported by 5.13 million shares and opposed by 4.45 million shares, with 131.2 million shares abstaining, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Apple.

The outcome “shows that investors want to know if Apple is making a difference in tackling potential harms to key stakeholders stemming from its products and policies," said Dieter Waizenegger, executive director of SOC Investment Group, which was one of the shareholders that filed the civil rights proposal. “Investors heard from Apple’s corporate and retail workers who bravely spoke out against inequitable and harmful conditions even under the threat of retaliation.“

Similar shareholder proposals seeking civil rights audits have been adopted during the past year at several other publicly held companies, including CitiGroup.

Although he didn't say whether Apple intends to submit to a civil rights audit, Cook described gender and racial equity “essential to the future of our company."

Nasa’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ recalls Cold War tensions between Russia and the West

Jon Kelvey
Fri, 4 March 2022

Nasa’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’ recalls Cold War tensions between Russia and the West

Three days into Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine, Nasa tweeted a portrait of the Earth from afar — in which our planet can be seen as a pale blue dot just below the stunning gold of Saturn’s rings backlit by the Sun, next to the immense black semicircle of Saturn itself in silhouette.

“You are here,” the US space agency wrote in the tweet, before noting the image was taken nine years ago in 2013 by Nasa’s Cassini mission to the ringed gas giant.

But the significance of tweeting that image, at that time, runs deeper than a mere anniversary, whether Nasa intended it to or not.

The Cassini image is not the first “pale blue dot” portrait of Earth taken by a spacecraft. That honor belongs to Voyager 1, which on 14 February 1990, turned its cameras toward Earth as the Nasa probe was leaving the Solar System.

The Earth looks even paler, even smaller, a true dot in the vastness of space in the Voyager 1 image, and it was the famous planetary scientist and science communicator Carl Sagan who popularised the term “pale blue dot” in his 1994 book of the same name.

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives, he wrote.

“Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.”



Sagan was an active proponent of nuclear disarmament and wrote about the horrors a nuclear war between the United States and the then Soviet Union could unleash upon the world, as well the horror of war more generally.

Nasa’s tweet over the weekend came as the Soviet Union’s successor state, the Russian Federation, was three days into an invasion of Ukraine that has once again raised the specter of global nuclear war, a ghost many had hoped was buried in the rubble of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin wall.

It also came as Nasa and the European Space Agency try to navigate a political minefield, trying to cooperate with international sanctions with Russia as they can, while also maintaining crucial cooperation with their Russian space agency counterparts to maintain joint operations on the International Space station, which currently hosts a crew of four US and one ESA astronaut, as well as two Russian cosmonauts.

Russia has been a partner in the space station since 1993 and contributed to the building of the ISS and its being continually crewed for the past 21 years, an outpost of peaceful international cooperation above what, with some perspective, is a relatively small, pale blue dot.