CTHULHU STUDIES

The Search for a Model Octopus

A lab in Massachusetts may have finally found an eight-armed cephalopod that can serve as a model organism and assist scientific research


PUBLISHED : 17 APR 2022
NEWSPAPER SECTION: SUNDAY SPOTLIGHT
WRITER: ELIZABETH  PRESTON

Bret Grasse, a manager of cephalopod operations at the Marine Biological Laboratory, and a lesser Pacific striped octopus, in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

 MATT COSBY/nyt

LONG READ

The tank looked empty, but turning over a shell revealed a hidden octopus no bigger than a Ping-Pong ball. She didn't move. Then all at once, she stretched her ruffled arms as her skin changed from pearly beige to a pattern of vivid bronze stripes.

"She's trying to talk with us," said Bret Grasse, manager of cephalopod operations at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), an international research centre in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in the southwestern corner of Cape Cod.

A wild 'chierchiae', a miniature, zebra-striped octopus, at the lab. 

MATT COSBY/nyt

The tiny, striped octopus is part of an experimental colony at the lab where scientists are trying to turn cephalopods into model organisms: animals that can live and reproduce in research institutions and contribute to scientific study over many generations, like mice or fruit flies do.

Cephalopods fascinate scientists for many reasons, including their advanced, camera-like eyes and large brains, which evolved independently from the eyes and brains of humans and our backboned relatives.

Joshua Rosenthal, a neurobiologist, at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. MATT COSBY/nyt

An octopus, cuttlefish or squid is essentially a snail that swapped its shell for smarts. "They have the biggest brain of any invertebrate by far," said Joshua Rosenthal, a neurobiologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory. "I mean, it's not even close."

Model cephalopods would be a boon for biologists. But keeping these brainy and often bizarre animals in captivity -- particularly octopuses -- presents both ethical and logistical challenges.

The researchers at Woods Hole have had earlier success with raising squid over multiple generations. Yet a single squid can't tell scientists everything about cephalopods.

Caroline Albertin, a developmental biologist at the lab. MATT COSBY/nyt

"Having different models to answer different questions is, I think, incredibly valuable," said Caroline Albertin, a developmental biologist at the facility.

But octopuses have long confounded scientists because of several unfortunate habits: They eat each other. They're notorious escape artists. Mothers die as soon as they reproduce, so it's hard to build up a breeding population.

That has made the model octopus a kind of white whale -- until last year, when Mr Grasse and his colleagues announced they had raised three consecutive generations of an especially promising octopus species in their lab, more than anyone had before.

Meet Octopus chierchiae, a miniature, zebra-striped octopus with a trick up its sleeves.

Roy Caldwell, a behavioural ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley, first met Octopus chierchiae, also called the lesser Pacific striped octopus, in the mid-1970s in Panama.

He was pulling rocks from the ocean to find mantis shrimp hiding in cracks. "Every once in a while, these cute little striped octopus would come out," he said.

He brought a few of the octopuses back to Berkeley. Soon after, "One of the females laid eggs, and I thought that was kind of a bummer because I knew that she would die," Prof Caldwell said. "And she didn't die." A couple of months later, she laid eggs again.

A 1984 paper by Arcadio Rodaniche, a Panamanian scientist, confirmed Prof Caldwell's observation: Females of this species, unlike nearly every other octopus, could reproduce several times.

A soda bottle adapted for use as an incubator for baby cephalopods at the lab. MATT COSBY/nyt

This trait, combined with their convenient size, made them an enticing subject for lab research. Unfortunately, Prof Caldwell couldn't find any more in Panama. None of the biologists or collectors he asked had seen any, either.

The little cephalopod was only a memory until around 2010, when "I got an email from a high school student," Prof Caldwell said, "who wanted to know how he could take care of his new pet octopus". The student sent a photo. The octopus's zebra stripes were unmistakable.

Prof Caldwell traced the octopus back to a collector in Nicaragua. Finally, he could obtain a few lesser Pacific striped octopuses and try to get a colony going in his lab.

But over three or four years of attempts, he never got past the second generation. After that, Prof Caldwell said, the females' eggs didn't hatch. He suspected inbreeding was a problem, as well as diet. "We didn't know quite what to feed them."

That question was still unanswered in 2016, when Mr Rosenthal came to the Marine Biological Laboratory with a dream of making model cephalopods to aid scientific research.

Bret Grasse, a manager of cephalopod operations at the lab, checks on some of his charges. MATT COSBY/nyt

He recruited Mr Grasse, who was known as something of a cephalopod whisperer, from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. Taylor Sakmar, also a Monterey Bay aquarist, came to Cape Cod to help build a new kind of facility for many-armed animals.

Today, that facility is a dim, burbling room packed with rows of tanks and smelling of seawater. People squeeze between racks, checking tanks, mopping puddles and feeding several species of cephalopod around the clock.

When the scientists started their Octopus chierchiae colony in 2018 with seven animals from Nicaragua, they offered the creatures a buffet of live and frozen seafood.

Then they watched the animals' body language and changing skin colours to see what they liked best. (Lesser Pacific striped octopuses always have their stripes, but can dial up the contrast or fade the stripes away almost entirely.)

"After you work with these cephalopods long enough, you essentially can learn how to speak cephalopod," Mr Grasse said.

An octopus will reach out to taste an offered item with its suckers. If it tastes good, the octopus quickly wraps the food close with all eight arms and scoots off to a shelter to eat it. If it doesn't like what's offered, the octopus may fling the food onto the side of its tank.

Observing the octopuses in their care, the scientists also discovered that males who are ready to mate perform a rapidly vibrating dance with their arm tips, as if twirling a bunch of maracas.

A hummingbird bobtail squid in an aquarium at the lab. 

MATT COSBY/nyt

After the octopuses mated and babies emerged from their eggs, Mr Grasse housed the young -- which are bright orange and smaller than a lentil -- in individual PVC-pipe cylinders so they wouldn't snack on one another. He discovered that the hatchlings go through a phase of "intense swimming", where they can escape through the tiniest gap between an enclosure and its lid.

Typically, materials such as AstroTurf or the fuzzy side of a Velcro strip can keep octopuses from scaling vertical surfaces, Mr Grasse said, because their suckers won't stick. But the extra-small babies of the lesser Pacific striped octopuses could climb these materials like a ladder.

"Typically, octopuses are more easily secured than this species," Mr Grasse said.

He now uses expandable foam lids to tightly seal the hatchlings' enclosures. A tank for adult Octopus chierchiae has a perimeter of Velcro, along with what Mr Grasse called his "really high-tech security system" -- a heavy rock on the lid.

In 2015, Ms Albertin was part of a team that sequenced the very first cephalopod genome. "I am astonished at how fast this has all gone," she said. "Cephalopods have a lot to teach us about the world. And we're finally at a point where we can try to start understanding them."

But an ideal lab animal for the molecular age isn't just one you can keep healthy for many generations, Mr Rosenthal said. It's also one whose DNA scientists can manipulate.

By turning genes off, or adding new genes or markers to an animal's cells, scientists can see the machinery of biology more clearly. Such research in mice and other lab animals has let researchers directly test the roles of individual genes, for example, and create animal models of human diseases. But it has been more challenging with cephalopods, especially the octopus.

Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory have succeeded in using the tool CRISPR-Cas9 to edit the genes of a squid local to Cape Cod, as well as the lab's hummingbird bobtail squid, they said.

To inject materials into these animals' tough eggs, they've used sharpened quartz needles and specially designed tiny scissors.

For scientists who want to manipulate cephalopod genetics, the hummingbird bobtail squid is the most promising model animal to date, Ms Albertin said: "Easy to raise, easy to poke and easy to keep in our incubation chambers."

But studying squid isn't enough.

"People often think about cephalopods as kind of all the same thing," Ms Albertin said. "Octopuses, squid -- they're all squishy and float around in the ocean. But they're actually quite different."

There's a problem with octopus eggs. All the ones Ms Albertin has worked with have a "hard, leathery eggshell", she said. Her needles can't pierce it.

She's been able to cut into the eggs with scissors -- only to encounter another problem, which Mr Rosenthal politely called "positive pressure", and Ms Albertin described as the yolk "squeezing out of its eggshell like toothpaste out of a tube".

"Honestly, I don't know that anyone has figured out how to inject into an octopus egg yet," Ms Albertin said.

The scientists don't think it's impossible. But they'll have to figure it out before the lesser Pacific striped octopus becomes the type of model organism Mr Rosenthal has envisioned.

While gene editing with the lesser Pacific striped octopus remains elusive, the species could help tackle another cephalopod mystery.

Octopus bimaculoides, or the California two-spot octopus, is a common lab cephalopod that scientists can get from the wild. But it has disadvantages. For one, it's much bigger -- a two-spot octopus tank at the Marine Biological Laboratory has a brick on top so its occupant can't get out.

The other problem is that the mums die. One two-spot octopus at the lab was active and curious, shooting a jet of water at visitors; a neighbouring tank held a dying female hunched over her clusters of transparent eggs. The mother was unmoving, one eye visible.

The rapid decline of mother octopuses fascinates Z Yan Wang, an evolutionary neuroscientist at the University of Washington, Seattle. "This animal that has such a complex nervous system lives such a short amount of time," Prof Wang said.

In a 2018 study, she documented how female two-spot octopuses first stopped eating while they tended their eggs, stroking them and blowing water across them. Then the mothers turned pale and began acting strangely, sometimes eating their own arm tips or wounding themselves with their suckers, before dying.

Prof Wang hopes to learn more about this process when she launches her own lab this autumn. She plans to acquire lesser Pacific striped octopuses from the colony started by Mr Grasse and company, and start her own colony using their methods. In the animals' brains, she may find the key that lets them survive reproduction.

She has been meeting with a group of other cephalopod researchers, including the Cape Cod team, to talk about how to move forward with using the lesser Pacific striped octopus in research. "We're all very invested in this species," Prof Wang said.

Prof Caldwell, who wasn't able to breed Octopus chierchiae beyond two generations, has also been a part of these conversations. He said the results at the facility in Woods Hole, keeping the animals alive for three generations, show promise.

From the seven wild Octopus chierchiae, Mr Grasse and his colleagues have raised over 700 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In the last generation, though, they let the colony peter out.

It was 2020, and because of Covid restrictions, only one person could be in the facility at a time.

A two-spot octopus, with a brick atop his aquarium lid to thwart his ability to escape, at the lab.

 MATT COSBY/nyt

The scientists had to put the brakes on breeding the octopuses, to make sure they didn't make more animals than they could care for. Only one colony member, a geriatric female over 2 years old, is still alive.

Additionally, the colony was showing signs of inbreeding trouble. Fewer hatchlings were living to adulthood. One baby hatched with 16 arms.

This winter, though, five new lesser Pacific striped octopuses arrived at the facility from Nicaragua. The scientists will use what they've learned to start a new colony. This time, they hope to keep the gene pool healthy by periodically adding new wild animals.

With their welfare in mind, Mr Grasse is providing shells, artificial plants and other objects to enrich all the cephalopods' artificial homes.

He also makes sure the animals have variety in their diets, changes of scenery and now and then a fun project such as a shrimp in a jar. These enrichments help their "mental health", he said.

Letting species perform their natural behaviours, whether that means hunting for prey or hiding in sand, lowers their stress, said Robyn Crook, a neuroscientist at San Francisco State University. In her own lab, "The enclosures we use for octopuses are incredibly rich, to the point that we often can't find them," she said.

Prof Crook keeps a self-sustaining colony of hummingbird bobtail squid, which she began with individuals from the Marine Biological Laboratory.

In a study last year, she showed that octopuses seem to experience pain. She hopes that her lab's biological findings will influence how other scientists care for these animals in captivity.

"The better the welfare of the animal, the better experimental data that you get. And the fewer animals you need," Prof Crook said. "And just generally, it's better science."

In the United States, no laws regulate research on invertebrates. When scientists want to study an animal with a backbone, such as a mouse or bird or fish, they need ethics approval from a committee within their institution. Scientists studying worms -- or highly intelligent cephalopods -- can do whatever they want.

Baby cephalopods at the lab. 

MATT COSBY/nyt

Some institutions, including the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), are voluntarily using the same review process for their research on cephalopods. "We want to do the right thing by them," Mr Rosenthal said.

In the absence of new laws, Prof Crook says captive breeding is another way to improve the welfare of octopuses and other cephalopods. If an animal comes from the wild, researchers don't know how it was caught or handled before reaching them.

"There's not really any sources of captive-bred cephalopods other than the MBL. So it's an amazing resource," she said.

A lesser Pacific striped octopus curls into a hiding spot.

 MATT COSBY/nyt

Prof Crook hopes that by raising animals like the lesser Pacific striped octopus, the team in Woods Hole will not only improve the lives of lab animals, but give scientists a powerful new tool to answer big questions in biology.

"They're incredibly complex -- evolutionarily speaking, neurobiologically speaking -- and they're totally different from us, which is why we study them," Prof Crook said. "Cephalopods are in a really unique position to tell us things about the brain that we might not otherwise ever learn."

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Copyright: © 2022 by The New York Times

CLUELESS AND TONE DEAF

VP Harris serves wine made in West Bank settlement at Passover seder

Psagot Winery has named a blend after Trump envoy Mike Pompeo, challenged labeling laws; vice president’s aide says choice ‘not an expression of policy’

By JACOB MAGID 

TOI

Vice President Kamala Harris (R) and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff host a Passover seder in the Vice President's Residence, serving wine from the Psagot settlement winery, on April 16, 2022. 

(Doug Emhoff/Twitter)

US Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff served wine made in a West Bank settlement at their Passover seder on Friday.

The surprising choice in spirits, given the Biden administration’s critical stance toward Israeli settlements, was spotted on the vice president’s seder table in photos posted on Twitter by Harris and Emhoff.

The bottle was from the Psagot Winery, a company based in the West Bank north of Jerusalem that has made headlines in recent years.

The winery challenged a 2016 French court ruling that said goods made in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Golan Heights must be labeled as originating in an “Israeli settlement.” The challenge to the European Court of Justice was unsuccessful.

Psagot released a wine blend named after former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in 2020 after he repudiated a 1978 State Department legal opinion that said civilian settlements in the West Bank were “inconsistent with international law.”

Pompeo was Washington’s top envoy under former US president Donald Trump, whose administration largely supported the settlement movement, unlike US President Joe Biden’s White House.

Pompeo visited the winery in November 2020, together with Trump’s ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

The winery’s CEO, Yaakov Berg, who hosted Pompeo, said Sunday that the vice president’s seder planners appeared to have chosen a Cabernet Sauvignon that sells for around $40. He quipped to Army Radio that he’d make a wine named for Harris if she votes against a revival of the 2015 P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran.


Then-US ambassador to Israel David Friedman (L) and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (2nd L) during a visit to the Psagot Winery in the West Bank, on November 19, 2020. 

(State Department/Twitter)

The Biden administration harshly criticized Israel when it advanced plans for some 3,000 settlement homes last year, calling such steps “completely inconsistent” with efforts to maintain prospects for peace.

But the administration has not heeded calls from progressive groups like J Street to more formally back that stance up by reversing the decision made by Pompeo, or repudiating the Trump peace plan, which envisioned Israel annexing the West Bank settlements.

Israeli winemaker Yaakov Berg holds a bottle of his red blend named after former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Psagot Winery in the Sha’ar Binyamin industrial park near the Psagot settlement in the West Bank, north of Jerusalem, on November 18, 2020. 

(Emmanuel Dunand/AFP)

Some pro-Palestinian voices jeered Harris’s Passover wine choice, including James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute.

“Psagot’s vineyards are on stolen Palestinian land. It’s not cool,” Zogby said.

The vast majority of the land on which the winery was established historically was farmed by residents of the adjacent Palestinian village of al-Bireh. It was seized by the IDF in 1979 for what it said were security reasons, though some of the farmers were still able to reach their land. That changed after the Second Intifada when the Psagot settlement established a security fence around the community. It extended well beyond the 140 dunams (34 acres) that the IDF had allocated for the settlement, to 650 dunams (160 acres). The winery founders used that extra land on the outskirts of the town, but inside the security fence, to plant their grapes.

Berg, at the time of Pompeo’s visit, declared: “We are here forever. We have been praying to come back to Israel and specifically to here for 2,000 years… We didn’t conquer. We just came to our homeland.”

In response to the vice president’s use of Psagot wine, former ambassador Friedman cracked, “Next year I would recommend that the Second Family serve the ‘Friedman’ vintage from the Psagot Winery. I may be biased but I think it’s very good.”

Harris’s senior aide Herbie Ziskind said, “The wine served at the Seder was in no way intended to be an expression of policy.”

ToI staff contributed to this story.

Avian flu spreads to more than 30 states; public health threat deemed low


A crane sick with H5N1 type Avian Influenza, or bird flu, is shown on the bank of Hula Lake at Israel's Hula Valley Nature Reserve. 

File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo


April 16 (UPI) -- A highly contagious avian flu had spread to more than 30 states by Saturday, but the risk to public health is low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed in a statement that the avian flu has spread to a commercial chicken flock in Lancaster County, Penn., and a domestic chicken flock in Utah County, Utah.

Pennsylvania and Utah are among more than 30 states where the bird flu, H5N1, has spread since January, CDC data shows.

While the virus spreads easily among birds with more than 27 million affected since January, according to CDC data, no human cases have been found in the United States.

The CDC previously announced that current strains lack the changes seen in previous strains that rose the risk for infection and severe illness.

"Based on past experience with earlier H5N1 bird flu viruses -- and what is known about this group of viruses from existing epidemiologic and genetic sequence data -- CDC believes the health risk to the general public is low," CDC spokesperson Kate Grusich recently said in a statement to NBC News.

In England, one human case was reported to the World Health Organization in January of a person who raised birds, but the case "has remained clinically asymptomatic and is now considered to not be infectious," the U.N. health agency said.

Still, the flu has affected consumers pocketbook since egg and poultry prices have increased. The average weekly price for large eggs was up 44% compared to the same time last year, the USDA reported Monday.

Wholesale poultry prices were up 4% in February, and the USDA has predicted that the prices could rise to between 9% and 12% later this year.

The University of Minnesota Raptor Center has advised people to take down backyard bird feeders and bird baths while the virus is circulating.

DRILL, BABY, DRILL

Public lands to reopen for oil and gas drilling in a first under Biden

Interior department raises royalty rates by 50% as administration juggles high oil prices and climate impact

Guardian staff and wires

Sat 16 Apr 2022 

As federal officials weigh efforts to fight the climate crisis against pressure to bring down high gasoline prices, the interior department is moving forward with the first onshore sales of public oil and natural gas drilling leases under Joe Biden.

The move also calls for a sharp increase in royalty rates for companies, ostensibly to limit global emissions driving the climate crisis, though economists say the effect will be relatively small.

This is what Joe Biden should do to protect the US from a spiraling oil crisis

The royalty rate for new leases will increase to 18.75% from 12.5%. That’s a 50% jump and marks the first increase to royalties for the federal government since they were imposed in the 1920s

Biden suspended new leasing just a week after taking office in January 2021. A federal judge in Louisiana ordered the sales to resume, saying interior officials had offered no “rational explanation” for canceling them.

The government held an offshore lease auction in the Gulf of Mexico in November, although a court later blocked that sale before the leases were issued.

Friday’s announcement comes as Biden faces pressure to expand US crude production after the pandemic and war in Ukraine have caused a surge in fuel prices and otherwise generally roiled the world economy.

Last month, the Democratic president announced plans to release 1m barrels daily from the US strategic oil reserves to, as he put it, “ease the pain families are feeling right now” at the country’s fuel pumps because of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

Yet Biden also faces calls from within his own party to do more to curb emissions from fossil fuels that are driving the climate crisis.

Leases for 225 sq miles (580 sq kilometers) of federal lands primarily in the western US will be offered for sale in a notice to be posted on Monday, officials said. The parcels represent about 30% less land than officials had proposed for sale in November and 80% less than what was originally nominated by the industry.

The sales notices will cover leasing decisions in nine states: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Montana, Alabama, Nevada, North Dakota and Oklahoma.

Interior department officials declined to specify which states would have parcels for sale or to give a breakdown of the amount of land by state, saying that information would be included in Monday’s sales notices. They said the reduced area being offered reflects a focus on leasing in locations near existing oil and gas development including pipelines.

Oil derricks owned by Extraction Oil & Gas pump in Weld County, Colorado.

 Photograph: Alex McIntyre/AP
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Hundreds of parcels of public land that companies nominated for leasing had been previously dropped from the upcoming lease sale because of concerns about wildlife being harmed by drilling rigs.

At the time, officials said burning fuel from the remaining leases could cost billions of dollars in climate crisis impacts. Fossil fuels extracted from public lands account for about 20% of energy-related US greenhouse gas emissions, making them a prime target for climate activists who want to shut down leasing.

Republicans want more drilling, saying it would increase US energy independence and help bring down the cost of crude. But oil companies have been hesitant to expand drilling because of uncertainty over how long high prices will continue.

Friday’s announcement comes after interior officials had raised the prospect of higher royalty rates and less land available for drilling in a leasing reform report issued last year.

“For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries,” said Secretary Deb Haaland. “Today, we begin to reset how and what we consider to be the highest and best use of Americans’ resources.”

But the move brought condemnation from both ends of the political spectrum: Environmentalists derided the decision to hold the long-delayed sales, while oil industry representatives said the higher royalty rates would deter drilling.

Nicole Ghio with the environmental group Friends of the Earth said Biden was “auctioning off our public lands to big oil”, putting oil industry profits ahead of future generations that will have to deal with the worsening consequences of the climate crisis.

Meanwhile, American Petroleum Institute vice-president Frank Macchiarola said officials removed some of the most significant parcels that companies wanted to drill while adding “new barriers” that would discourage companies from investing in drilling on public lands.

Two oil drilling rigs seen in background behind a pump jack in an oil field near Midland, Texas.

 Photograph: Larry W Smith/EPA

Lease sales and royalties that companies pay on extracted oil and gas brought in more than $83bn in revenue over the past decade. Half the money from onshore drilling goes to the state where it occurred.

Most states and many private landowners require companies to pay royalty rates higher than 12.5%, with some states charging 20% or more, according to federal officials.

The royalty rate for oil produced from federal reserves in deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico is 18.75%. In the November auction that was later canceled, energy companies including Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil offered a combined $192m for offshore drilling rights in the Gulf.

New leases that are developed could keep producing crude long past 2030, when Biden has set a goal to lower greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50%, compared with 2005 levels. Scientists say the world needs to be well on the way to that goal over the next decade to avoid catastrophic climate crisis.

Economists say a higher royalty rate would have a relatively small effect on global emissions, because any reductions in oil and gas from federal lands would be largely offset by fuel from other sources.

Biden to resume oil, gas leases on federal land


Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland delivers remarks during a virtual Tribal Nations Summit as part of national Native American Heritage Month in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House in November 2021. 

File Photo by Sarah Silbiger/UPI | License Photo

April 15 (UPI) -- The Department of the Interior announced Friday that President Joe Biden's administration would resume oil and gas leases on federal land but has increased the royalty rate that companies pay to the government.

The Interior Department described the royalty increase, which rose to 18.75% from 12.5%, as the "first-ever increase in the royalty rate" and said in a statement that it was made "to ensure fair return for the American taxpayer and on par with rates charged by states and private landowners."

The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management will post the notices to begin auctioning 144,000 acres of public land in nine states, an 80% reduction from what the agency had previously identified as eligible land, on Monday.

The move to resume selling those leases, the first under the Biden administration, comes after the Interior Department had paused them in February amid a fight with Republican states over the use of a carbon cost metric that put a high dollar amount on damages caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The decision on Friday to resume those leases, as well as the implementation of the royalty rate hike, was made as Biden faces pressure to lower energy costs while also battling climate change.

"For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries above local communities, the natural environment, the impact on our air and water, the needs of Tribal Nations, and, moreover, other uses of our shared public lands," said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

"Today, we begin to reset how and what we consider to be the highest and best use of Americans' resources for the benefit of all current and future generations."

The Interior Department also noted that the parcels that will be leased are near existing oil and gas developments and infrastructure to "help conserve the resilience of intact public lands and functioning ecosystems."

The new leases are the Biden administration's second attempt to increase the amount of federal property drilling after attempting to sell 80 million acres of leases in the Gulf of Mexico, which a federal judge in January blocked in January after ruling the impact on climate change was not properly assessed.

The United Nations last week released a 3,675-page report urging countries to make "immediate and deep emissions reductions" or face devastating climate change consequences.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which included 278 of the world's top economic and scientific researchers from 65 countries, provides details in the report on the last remaining paths to stop irreversible damage to the planet.

The report found that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by 43% by 2030 and reach net zero in the 2050s to stabilize global warming at around 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature target agreed upon in the Paris Climate Accords. Methane will also need to be reduced by about 33%.

If the global emissions of greenhouse gasses are not reduced, it will lead to worsening natural disasters and the destruction of ecosystems among other threats to humanity.

Michigan protests continue after police shooting of immigrant


April 16 (UPI) -- Protests are continuing in Grand Rapids, Mich., in the wake of the police-involved shooting of 26-year-old immigrant from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

About 100 protesters marched through the city's downtown area for a fourth consecutive day on Friday, calling for justice for Patrick Lyoya, who was shot and killed by a Grand Rapids police officer last week, WZZM-TV and MLive.com reported.



The demonstrators gathered outside Grand Rapids Police Headquarters several times during the four-hour march, chanting the name of Lyoya.

Organizers said further demonstrations are planned for Saturday.

The protests have come following the release of body camera video and audio recordings of the confrontation between an unnamed officer and Lyoya, who were involved in a struggle during a traffic stop.

The video showed the officer's body camera deactivates at the moment Lyoya is fatally shot. Home security camera across the street and cellphone video from a passenger in Lyoya's car continued to document the shooting and aftermath.

The release of the footage sparked the renewed protests from frustrated Grand Rapids citizens demanding justice in the April 4 shooting and similar recent police-involved shootings.

Among Friday's demonstrators were a a group of medical students from Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine, who called themselves White Coats for Black Lives.

"I'm from West Michigan, and I have just never felt this much disappointment in my community," first-year medical student Marissa Solorzano told WOOD-TV. "So sure, we have to wait for this process, but I mean, you also have to help your community heal as we're processing that instantaneous disgust that you feel when you find out about these things."

Police were not present during Friday's demonstration by design, Grand Rapids Police Department Chief Eric Winstrom said.

"We're trying to accommodate the First Amendment rights of these individuals as well as we can," he told the broadcaster. "And so far it's been a successful few days of protests. We haven't made a single arrest and there haven't been any issues as far as safety is concerned."

Crews work to fix sinking decommissioned destroyer 

USS The Sullivans


Crews are working to fix the hull of USS The Sullivans, a 78-year-old decommissioned Fletcher-Class destroyer, that was pictured apparently sinking at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park. 

Photo courtesy U.S. Coast Guard Buffalo Sector/Facebook

April 15 (UPI) -- Crews are working to fix the hull of USS The Sullivans, a 78-year-old decommissioned Fletcher-Class destroyer, that was sinking at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park.

The ship, which earned 11 battle stars in World War II, as well as the Korean War and Cuban missile crisis, has been in the care of the nonprofit military park in western New York. The Buffalo Naval Park has been working since November 2021 to repair its hull.

The USS The Sullivans began taking water Wednesday night and was tipping on its starboard side by Thursday morning, according to photos shared by the nonprofit.

"The breach that occurred yesterday appears to be a new issue and we are working diligently to understand the cause and address it as quickly as possible," the military park said in a statement.

"We appreciate everyone's support and the offers to help. This is truly the City of Good Neighbors and this historic ship continues to guide us to stick together."

A dive team and other emergency crews from Bidco Marine Group have been working to determine what caused the breach on the aft, or back, side of the ship, WKBW reported. Water pumps have been able to keep the ship in equilibrium with as much water being pumped out as is entering the vessel.

The U.S. Coast Guard's Sector Buffalo said in a statement that it has been using large pumps capable of removing more than 13,000 gallons a minute.

"The Coast Guard will continue to monitor progress and we look forward to USS The Sullivans' return to operational status," the statement reads.

Local residents who flocked to the pier told WIVB that they were "devastated" to see the listing 2,100-ton destroyer.

"It's such a legend. Such a historical feature in our area so when you say the words heartbreaking and tragic, if somehow this is unable to be saved it truly is heartbreaking," local resident Michele Starwalt-Woods said.

USS The Sullivans, now a historic landmark, was commissioned in 1943 and named after five brothers from Waterloo, Iowa, according to the Buffalo Marine Park.

It was responsible for "shooting down eight Japanese planes, bombarding Iwo Jima and Okinawa, as well as rescuing American pilots and crew from burning or sinking vessels."

The destroyer was initially intended to be named the USS Putnam, but the name was changed to honor the five brothers from Waterloo who all died when the USS Juneau sunk during the battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942, according to Naval History and Heritage Command.

The brothers -- whose names were Albert Leo, Francis Henry, George Thomas, Joseph Eugene and Madison Abel -- had insisted that the U.S. Navy station them on the same ship.

"The brothers all received the Purple Heart Medal posthumously and were entitled to the American Defense Service Medal, Fleet Clasp; Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with four engagement stars and the World War II Victory Medal," according to the Naval History and Heritage Command.

"They had also earned the Good Conduct Medal."

The Sulllivans were survived by their parents and a sister, as well as Albert Leo Sullivan's wife Katherine Mary Sullivan and their son, James Thomas.

China's Shenzhou 13's crew of 3 lands after 6 months in orbit


Astronaut Zhai Zhigang is shown exiting from the return capsule of the Shenzhou 13 spaceship at the Dongfeng landing site in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. 

Photo by Cai Yang/Xinhua/EPA-EFE

April 16 (UPI) -- Three astronauts in China's Shenzhou 13 capsule landed safely Saturday morning after a record six months in orbit.

The crew of three landed in the Dongfeng landing site in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region after departing from the Tianhe core module of the Tiangong space station.

All the astronauts, including Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu, radioed into China National Space Administration's mission control center in Beijing that they were feeling fine shortly after landing, prompting applause.

The astronauts, or taikonauts, as Chinese astronauts are called, had launched into space on the Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on Oct. 15.

They spent most of their time in orbit aboard the Tianhe.

From Tianhe, the astronauts performed two spacewalks, conducted more than 20 different science experiments, and delivered two live educational lectures.

"A real-time, interactive event with China's taikonauts highlights the reality of the country's technological achievement and displays the competencies and utility of its space program," Molly Silk, doctoral researcher of Chinese space policy at the University of Manchester in England, told Space.com recently. "Such an event serves to enhance national pride and to encourage young citizens to pursue science-based careers."

The taikonauts also spent time getting ready for the next crewed mission, the Shenzhou 14, which is expected to launch in early June.

Their time in orbit nearly doubled the prior record of three Chinese astronauts sent to the same space station for 92 days on the Shenzhou 12 mission.

Taikonaut Wang also set a record as the first woman to set foot aboard the Tianhe and the first Chinese woman to conduct a spacewalk.

Six months is the typical duration of a mission to the International Space Station, with missions sometimes spanning much longer than that, but China is not a part of that program.

Last month, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov returned to earth after a record-breaking 355 days in space.

Two robotic cargo spacecraft have also been launched to Tianhe, and another is expected to launch to the core module next month.

ANTI-FASCISTS
VS

ARYAN NATIONALISTS

Hanuman Jayanti procession pelted with stones in Delhi

Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, visits the Hanuman Mandir temple after the Aam Aadmi Party won the Delhi Assembly elections in February 2020. File Photo by EPA-EFE/STR



April 16 (UPI) -- A procession for Hanuman Jayanti, a Hindu religious festival, was allegedly pelted with stones in the Jahangirpuri area of Delhi on Saturday, officials said.

Senior police officials told The Times of India that a "clash broke out" between two groups throwing rocks at each other that led to several injuries including police officers, as well as some torched vehicles.

It was not immediately clear who the opposing groups were and why the violence had broken out.

Delhi Police Commissioner Shri Rakesh Asthana said in a statement that the situation is now "under control" and that law enforcement had deployed "adequate additional force" in Jahangirpuri and other "sensitive" areas.

"Senior officers have been asked to remain in field and closely supervise the law-and-order situation and undertake patrolling," he said. "Strict action will be taken against rioters. Citizens are requested to not to pay heed to rumors and fake news on social media."

Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, called the stone-pelting incident "highly condemnable" in a statement to Twitter and said he had spoken with the region's lieutenant governor Anil Baijal.

"He assured that all steps are being taken to ensure peace and that guilty will not be spared," Kejriwal said.

Leaders of the nation's ruling political party Bharatiya Janata also condemned the violence on Twitter and called for investigations into the incident. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not yet publicly addressed the fighting.

Adesh Gupta, head of the party in Delhi, said the violence was "not a coincidence but a big conspiracy."

"I appeal to all Delhiites to maintain peace. We demand that the culprits should be given the strictest punishment," he said.

Kapil Mishra called the incident a "terrorist act" perpetrated by "Bangladeshi infiltrators" in a statement posted to Twitter.

"The settlement of Bangladeshi infiltrators is now daring to attack the citizens of India," he said. "Now it has become necessary to remove illegal infiltrators from the country by checking the papers of each of them."

ONE OF THE GREATS

Mike Bossy, prolific scorer for NHL's Islanders, dies at 65

By Alex Butler

April 15 (UPI) -- Mike Bossy, one of the most prolific goal-scorers in NHL history, died after a battle with lung cancer, his daughter announced Friday. The New York Islanders legend was 65.

"It is with great sorrow that I announce the passing of my father, Mike Bossy," daughter Tonya said in a news release issued through TVA Sports. "He left us on April 15, and he is no longer in pain.

"My dad loved hockey, sure, but first and foremost he loved life. And until the end of his journey, he hung on. He wanted to live more than anything. This life, which he held at the end of his arms, decided otherwise, for reasons that escape us."

The Islanders selected Bossy with the No. 15 overall pick in the 1977 NHL Draft. The Montreal native spent his entire 10-year NHL career with the franchise. He won four-consecutive Stanley Cup titles from 1980 through 1983.

The eight-time All-Star also was a three-time winner of the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, an award given for sportsmanship combined with playing ability. He claimed the Calder Memorial Trophy as the 1977-78 Rookie of the Year.

Bossy also won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1981-82 as the MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He led the NHL in goals in 1978-79 and 1980-81.

"The New York Islanders organization mourns the loss of Mike Bossy, an icon not only on Long Island but across the entire hockey world," Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello said in a news release. "His drive to be the best every time he stepped on the ice was second to none."

Bossy's 573 career goals rank No. 22 in NHL history. Wayne Gretzky leads that list with 894 career scores, followed by Gordie Howe (801), Alex Ovechkin (776), Jaromir Jagr (766) and Brett Hull (741), among NHL legends.

Bossy, who later worked as an analyst for TV Sports channel, retired from that role last year. He announced then that he was battling lung cancer.

"On behalf of TVA Sports, we would like to offer our most sincere condolences to the family of our colleague Mike Bossy, his wife Lucie, his daughters Josiane and Tanya, his grandchildren whom he loved so much, as well as his loved ones," TVA Sports said.

"Mike was recognized not only as one of the greatest players in the history of the National Hockey League, but also as a passionate, courageous, outspoken and generous gentleman."

Bossy was inducted into the National Hockey League Hall of Fame in 1991. His No. 22 was retired by the Islanders in 1992.

Dogs on vegan diet might be healthier, survey suggests

By Amy Norton, HealthDay News

While dogs are generally known for eating meat and chewing on animal bones, new research 

suggests a vegan diet could be healthier for them. 

Photo by SNGPhotography/Pixabay

Dogs may be famous meat lovers, but canines who follow a vegan diet might be a bit healthier, a new survey suggests.

British and Australian researchers found that dogs on vegan diets -- one without animal products or byproducts -- tended to have fewer health problems, based on their guardians' reports, than those who ate "conventional" meat-based products.

Owners in the vegan group reported lower rates of obesity, digestive troubles, arthritis and issues with eye and ear health.

Overall, 70% rated their vegan canine companion as "healthy," versus 55% of owners whose dogs ate conventional dog food.

Those numbers, however, do not prove vegan diets are healthier for dogs, according to veterinary nutritionists who reviewed the findings.

"This is really a study of owners' perceptions," said Dr. Julie Churchill, a professor of veterinary nutrition at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine.

It's very likely, Churchill noted, that "pet parents" who give their dogs a vegan diet are themselves vegan. That complicates the survey results for a number of reasons.

Because those individuals believe veganism is the healthiest diet choice, they may see their dogs as healthier. Beyond that, Churchill said, vegan humans probably have generally healthier lifestyles -- including more physical activity for themselves and their dogs.

In general, evidence is lacking that vegan dog foods actually help dogs live longer, healthier lives, said Dr. Joseph Wakshlag, a professor at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine.

Like Churchill, he said the current findings may reflect the perceptions and lifestyles of the humans surveyed, rather than effects of their dogs' diets.

Those caveats made, both veterinarians said it's possible for dogs to get the nutrition they need on a vegan diet. What's critical, they said, is that dogs eat high-quality commercial products that are formulated to meet their nutrient requirements.

Dogs do need a lot of protein, Churchill said, and that's easier to achieve with meat sources. Vegan diets need to be more carefully crafted to meet that goal. If you want to use vegan commercial products, she advised talking to your veterinarian about your dog's nutritional needs, and which products will meet them.

Of course, Churchill said, it's always wise to consult your vet about dog food products, vegan or meat-based. The market is full of them, she noted, but they are not all equal in quality.

The current study, funded by the food awareness organization ProVeg International, included more than 2,500 dog owners. Most, 54%, said they fed their dog conventional meat-based diets. One-third reported using raw meat diets, and 13% vegan diets.

Respondents generally used commercial pet foods, rather than homemade, according to lead researcher Andrew Knight, a veterinary professor of animal welfare at the University of Winchester Center for Animal Welfare in the United Kingdom.

Overall, half of respondents in the conventional-diet group said their dog had some type of health issue, versus 43% of those who used raw meat, and 36% in the vegan group.

Dogs eating raw meat made fewer visits to the vet. But that does not necessarily mean they were healthier, all three veterinarians stressed.

Vets generally warn against giving dogs raw meat, because of the risk of contamination with pathogens. So people in that raw-meat group may have tended to shun veterinarians' advice, the experts said.

According to Knight, a growing number of companies are making high-quality vegan dog food products.

"We have sufficient confidence, scientifically, that dogs can be healthy -- and indeed, thrive -- on nutritionally sound vegan diets," he said.

Churchill cautioned, though, that she would not recommend vegan diets for still-growing puppies or pregnant dogs, whose nutritional needs are greater. Plant-based diets, she noted, are less digestible because of the fiber content.

Again, Churchill said, it all comes back to talking to your vet about what products are right for your dog, and understanding that will change based on life stage.

Talking about portion size is a good idea, too.

"Dogs gorge, by nature," Churchill said, and when they are constantly "seeking" food, that can be misread as true hunger.

Obesity is one of the top canine health issues. While there are multiple reasons, Churchill said, overeating and lack of exercise are prime contributors.

The study was published this week in the journal PLOS ONE.

More information

The American Kennel Club has more on dog nutrition.

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