Understanding the dynamics of workplace violence can improve employee health and safety

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

 

IMAGE: KATHERINE (KATY) DECELLES IS A PROFESSOR OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO'S ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND CROSS-APPOINTED TO THE CENTRE FOR CRIMINOLOGY AND SOCIOLEGAL STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. SHE ALSO HOLDS THE SECRETARY OF STATE PROFESSORSHIP IN ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS. KATY’S RESEARCH IS ON UNDERSTANDING THE MICRO-MECHANISMS INVOLVED IN CONFLICT, EMOTION, MORALITY, INEQUALITY, AGGRESSION, CRIME, AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS. HER RESEARCH HAS BEEN HIGHLIGHTED IN OUTLETS SUCH AS THE SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE, SCIENCE MAGAZINE, BBC, CNN, AND THE NEW YORK TIMES. HER RESEARCH HAS RECEIVED AWARDS FROM THE ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT AND AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, AND SHE HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED FOR HER MBA TEACHING BY POETS & QUANTS (2018). view more 

CREDIT: ROTMAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

Toronto – Workplace violence is a pervasive problem with tremendous costs for individuals, organizations, and society. A new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) focuses on convenience-store robberies, one of the most common forms of workplace violence, and finds that robbers are significantly more likely to injure employees who are present on the sales floor rather than behind the cash register when a robbery begins. But industry standard safety training practices encourage employees to get out from behind the register for their safety.

“Unlike past studies, we used video of convenience-store robberies to examine why and when injuries during robberies occur,” says co-author Katherine DeCelles, a professor of organizational behavioural and human resource management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, who hold a cross-appointment to the University’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. “We suggest that an understanding of the interactive dynamics of workplace violence and emphasize the critical need to verify that common practices for organizations are evidence based for employee health and safety.”

Prof. DeCelles and her colleagues first examined 196 surveillance videos and archival data of convenience store robberies collected over a four-year period. The results showed a significant correlation between employee location at the beginning of the robbery and injury, with lower risk of injury if employees were behind the register when the robbery began than if they were on the sales floor. Follow-up studies involving 648 people, including both formerly incarcerated individuals and retail clerks, found that when presented with robbery onset scenarios, more than 81% of participants expected employees to be behind the register and anticipated significantly more violence during the robbery if the employee was on the sales floor rather than behind the register. Finally, the authors conducted a three-year longitudinal field study with revised safety protocols that provided a behavioral script to follow in case of a robbery while employees are on the sales floor. The authors found, in an additional 368 robberies, a significantly lower risk of injury when employees were on the sales floor as the robbery began following the protocol change, relative to before the intervention.

 

“This understanding of the dynamics of workplace violence and how to mitigate it is relevant for any retail organization and for developing effective policies which promote employee health and safety,” says Prof. DeCelles.

The research was co-authored with Maryam Kouchaki of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Nir Halevy of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

Bringing together high-impact faculty research and thought leadership on one searchable platform, the new Rotman Insights Hub offers articles, podcasts, opinions, books and videos representing the latest in management thinking and providing insights into the key issues facing business and society. Visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca/insightshub.

The Rotman School of Management is part of the University of Toronto, a global centre of research and teaching excellence at the heart of Canada’s commercial capital. Rotman is a catalyst for transformative learning, insights and public engagement, bringing together diverse views and initiatives around a defining purpose: to create value for business and society. For more information, visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca

-30-

For more information:

Ken McGuffin

Manager, Media Relations

Rotman School of Management

University of Toronto

E-mail:mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca

 

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2200026119 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Unexpected employee location is associated with injury during robberies

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Sep-2022

Docile raccoons are super learners and likely trash can criminal masterminds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

THE COMPANY OF BIOLOGISTS

Bustling with exciting urban opportunities, cities are attractive not only to human residents. Many creatures happily share human settlements, feasting on easy pickings. But what makes some creatures better suited for life in the urban fast lane? ‘Several cognitive abilities have been proposed as particularly important for urban wildlife’, says Lauren Stanton from the University of California, Berkeley, USA, including learning from situations and adapting to change. But no one had pinned down how one particularly successful urban colonist, the raccoon, has taken North American cities by storm. While studying for her PhD with Sarah Benson-Amram at the University of Wyoming, USA, Stanton, with Eli Bridge (University of Oklahoma, USA) and Joost Huizinga (OpenAI, USA), embarked on an ambitious program to get inside the heads of the urban mammals to find out what makes a great city dweller. The team publishes their discovery that the least bold and most docile animals are the best learners in Journal of Experimental Biology and suggest that targeting the boldest raccoons when there is human conflict could exacerbate the problem, as the most docile animals that remain are probably the true trash can raiding criminal masterminds.

‘We used live traps baited with cat food to humanely capture raccoons living in the city of Laramie, Wyoming’, says Stanton, who then transported the animals to the lab to assess their health and how feisty or docile they were. Then Stanton injected a tiny radio frequency ID tag between the animals’ shoulder blades to individually identify them before returning the animals to their home territories, keeping track of their impulsivity by recording each time an individual ended up in a trap again.

Having tagged 204 raccoons between August 2015 and September 2019, Stanton and the team then tested how well the wild raccoons learned and adapted to change by locating a raccoon-sized cubicle in the animals’ neighbourhood, equipped with two buttons: one that released a handful of tasty dog food treats when pressed, and a second one that provided nothing. However, once each raccoon had overcome its misgivings and learned to climb inside the cubicle and obtain its edible reward, the team turned the tables on the animals, switching which button dispensed the dog food reward, to find out how quickly the raccoons figured out the change. However, Stanton admits that she and her colleagues hadn’t factored in how popular the raccoon cubicle would be, with several animals often trying to crowd inside simultaneously, bumping and distracting the raccoon at the console as it tried to obtain its dog food treat.

After two patient years, 27 raccoons got the hang of visiting the cubicle, with 19 figuring out how to press the buttons to provide themselves with rewards, and 17 realising that they had to depress the other button when the team tried to outfox them. Initially, the youngest raccoons seemed the keenest to explore the experimental cubicle; however, the adults were better prepared for adversity when the researchers switched the console buttons. And when they checked the animals’ temperaments, the least bold and most docile raccoons seemed best prepared to learn how to operate the console, ‘which suggests a potential relationship between emotional reactivity and cognitive ability in raccoons’, says Stanton.

However, when the researchers compared how the raccoons in the Laramie suburbs coped, compared with the wild raccoons that tried out their paws in a peaceful lab, the captive animals seemed to pick up the test more readily, ‘likely because there were more distractions and interruptions during testing in the natural conditions’, says Stanton. And the team is keen to see wildlife managers dealing with troublesome urban raccoons learn from their experience, warning that going after more proactive, bold individuals may exacerbate problems, as the calmer, more docile individuals that are left may be the true criminal masterminds.

*********************

IF REPORTING THIS STORY, PLEASE MENTION JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AS THE SOURCE AND, IF REPORTING ONLINE, PLEASE CARRY A LINK TO:  https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.243726

REFERENCE: Stanton, L. A., Bridge, E. S., Huizinga, J. and Benson-Amram, S. (2022). Environmental, individual and social traits of free-ranging raccoons influence performance in cognitive testing. J. Exp. Biol. 225, jeb243726. doi:10.1242/jeb.243726.

DOI:10.1242/jeb.244806

Registered journalists can obtain a copy of the article under embargo from http://pr.biologists.com. Unregistered journalists can register at http://pr.biologists.com to access the embargoed content. The embargoed article can also be obtained from Kathryn Knight (kathryn.knight@biologists.com)[KK2] 

This article is posted on this site to give advance access to other authorised media who may wish to report on this story. Full attribution is required and if reporting online a link to https://journals.biologists.com/jeb is also required. The story posted here is COPYRIGHTED. Advance permission is required before any and every reproduction of each article in full from permissions@biologists.com.

THIS ARTICLE IS EMBARGOED UNTIL Thursday 22 September 2022, 18:00 HRS EDT (23:00 HRS BST)

 

 

 

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JOURNAL

Journal of Experimental Biology

DOI

10.1242/jeb.244806 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Environmental, individual and social traits of free-ranging raccoons influence performance in cognitive testing

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Sep-2022

Ancient Maya cities were dangerously contaminated with mercury

Exposure to mercury may have posed health hazard for ancient Maya

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FRONTIERS

The cities of the ancient Maya in Mesoamerica never fail to impress. But beneath the soil surface, an unexpected danger lurks there: mercury pollution. In a review article in Frontiers in Environmental Science, researchers conclude that this pollution isn’t modern: it’s due to the frequent use of mercury and mercury-containing products by the Maya of the Classic Period, between 250 and 1100 CE. This pollution is in places so heavy that even today, it pose a potential health hazard for unwary archeologists.

Lead author Dr Duncan Cook, an associate professor of Geography at the Australian Catholic University, said: “Mercury pollution in the environment is usually found in contemporary urban areas and industrial landscapes. Discovering mercury buried deep in soils and sediments in ancient Maya cities is difficult to explain, until we begin to consider the archeology of the region which tells us that the Maya were using mercury for centuries.”

Ancient anthropogenic pollution

For the first time, Cook and colleagues here reviewed all data on mercury concentrations in soil and sediments at archeological sites across the ancient Maya world. They show that at sites from the Classical Period for which measurements are available –  Chunchumil in today’s Mexico, Marco Gonzales, Chan b’i, and Actuncan in Belize, La Corona, Tikal, Petén Itzá, Piedras Negras, and Cancuén in Guatemala, Palmarejo in Honduras, and Cerén, a Mesoamerican ‘Pompeii’, in El Salvador –mercury pollution is detectable everywhere except at Chan b’i.

Concentrations range from 0.016 ppm at Actuncan to an extraordinary 17.16 ppm at Tikal. For comparison, the Toxic Effect Threshold (TET) for mercury in sediments is defined as 1 ppm.

Heavy users of mercury

What caused this prehistoric mercury pollution? The authors highlight that sealed vessels filled with ‘elemental’ (ie, liquid) mercury have been found at several Maya sites, for example Quiriqua in Guatemala, El Paraíso in Honduras, and the former multi-ethnic megacity Teotihucan in Central Mexico. Elsewhere in the Maya region, archeologists have found objects painted with mercury-containing paints, mainly made from the mineral cinnabar.

The authors conclude that the ancient Maya frequently used cinnabar and mercury-containing paints and powders for decoration. This mercury could then have leached from patios, floor areas, walls, and ceramics, and subsequently spread into the soil and water.

"For the Maya, objects could contain ch’ulel, or soul-force, which resided in blood. Hence, the brilliant red pigment of cinnabar was an invaluable and sacred substance, but unbeknownst to them it was also deadly and its legacy persists in soils and sediments around ancient Maya sites," said co-author Dr Nicholas Dunning, a professor at the University of Cincinnati.

As mercury is rare in the limestone that underlies much of the Maya region, they speculate that elemental mercury and cinnabar found at Maya sites could have been originally mined from known deposits on the northern and southern confines of the ancient Maya world, and imported to the cities by traders.

Health hazards and the ‘Mayacene’

All this mercury would have posed a health hazard for the ancient Maya: for example, the effects of chronic mercury poisoning include damage to the central nervous system, kidneys, and liver, and cause tremors, impaired vision and hearing, paralysis, and mental health problems. It’s perhaps significant that one of the last Maya rulers of Tikal, Dark Sun, who ruled around 810 CE, is depicted in frescoes as pathologically obese. Obesity is a known effect of metabolic syndrome, which can be caused by chronic mercury poisoning.

More research is needed to determine whether mercury exposure played a role in larger sociocultural change and trends in the Maya world, such as those towards the end of the Classic Period.

Co-author Dr Tim Beach, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said: “We conclude that even the ancient Maya, who barely used metals, caused mercury concentrations to be greatly elevated in their environment. This result is yet more evidence that just like we live today in the ‘Anthropocene’, there also was a ‘Maya anthropocene’ or ‘Mayacene’. Metal contamination seems to have been effect of human activity through history.”  

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Environmental Science

DOI

10.3389/fenvs.2022.986119 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Environmental legacy of pre-Columbian Maya mercury

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

23-Sep-2022

BHP coal mine workers in Australian state set to vote on industrial action
Reuters | September 21, 2022 | 

Mount Arthur thermal coal mine in Australia. (Image courtesy of BHP.)

Workers at four mines of the BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), which owns Australia’s largest metallurgical coal fields, will vote on strike action over working conditions and job security, their union said on Wednesday.


The possibility of industrial action at some sites of BHP Group’s joint venture with a unit of Mitsubishi Corp in Australia’s Queensland state comes as prices slump due to weaker steel demand in China.

Coking coal futures on the Dalian Commodity exchange closed at 2,192.5 yuan on Sept. 20, down from a high of 3,741 yuan in March.

“We had 15 months of negotiations with BHP, then another three months of negotiations assisted by the Fair Work Commission, but BHP refuse to do the right thing,” Stephen Smyth, the Mining & Energy Union’s (MEU) Queensland president, said in a statement.

Mitsubishi Development and BHP, one of the world’s biggest miners, did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

BMA, owned 50:50 by BHP and Mitsubishi Development, is Australia’s largest producer and supplier of seaborne metallurgical coal. The alliance operates seven mines in central Queensland’s Bowen Basin as well as the Hay Point Coal Terminal.

Smyth said the union will fight to protect permanent jobs after a steady decline over the last decade. Talks have not reached the point of discussing wage hikes as the focus was on working conditions, especially on job security, he said.

The union filed an application to strike with Australia’s workplace regulator on Monday but a date has not yet been set for the vote, a union spokesperson said in an emailed response.

More than 2,000 workers across four of BMA’s seven mines come under the current employment agreement, the union said.

BHP’s Queensland coal operations, which also include two mines operated by the miner independently, produced 41 million tonnes of steel-making coal in fiscal 2021. This is roughly 4% of the global total, data from the International Energy Agency showed.

(By Lewis Jackson and Renju Jose; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Mosaic floor dating to Byzantine era found in Gaza

(7 images)

A mosaic floor that dates back to the Byzantine era has been discovered by farmers in the central Gaza Strip. The mosaic, shown on September 21, 2022, will be protected, with an excavation project planned.


Ahmad al-Nabahin, 16, cleans a mosaic floor he discovered at his farm, which dates back to the Byzantine era, according to officials in the Al-Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip on September 21, 2022. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
License photo | Permalink


A closer look shows animal designs on the mosaic floor. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
License photo | Permalink



The full mosaic floor. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
License photo | Permalink



Ahmad al-Nabahin continues to clean. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
License photo | Permalink



Ahmad and his tools. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
License photo | Permalink



Palestinian farmer Salman al-Nabahin, 52, works with his son, Ahmad al-Nabahin. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
License photo | Permalink



The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of the mosaic, which will be protected. An excavation project will begin soon. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI
License photo | Permalink

US seeks action, possible UN resolution, on Myanmar junta

Thu, September 22, 2022 


The United States is seeking more pressure on Myanmar's junta through the United Nations and is urging the international community not to recognize upcoming elections, a senior official said Thursday.

"There is wide acknowledgement that the regime needs to feel more pressure," State Department Counselor Derek Chollet, who is leading US diplomacy on Myanmar during the annual United Nations General Assembly, told AFP.

He pointed to outrage over an air strike this month that killed 11 schoolchildren as well as the July execution of four prominent prisoners by the junta, which threw out the elected government in February 2021, ending a decade-long experiment in democracy.


Chollet said he held talks both with other governments and with representatives of the National Unity Government -- dominated by ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party -- and held a virtual meeting with armed ethnic groups inside the country also known as Burma.

He said he spoke with other nations about a Security Council resolution although the effort was in "the very early stages" with specifics not yet clear.

"We think we have to be realistic as on all issues about how far Russia and China are willing to let the Council take action," he said, referring to the veto-wielding allies of Myanmar's military.

"We think it's important to try," he said.

He said that he also conveyed to other governments that "we shouldn't lend any sense of credibility" to elections the junta plans for next August.

"I told them that we see no chance that these elections could be free and fair, given the fact that the regime doesn't control as much as half the territory, you've got political prisoners being locked up and killed, and Aung San Suu Kyi basically in isolation and no one has seen her for 20 months," Chollet said.

Earlier Thursday, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in Myanmar, Thomas Andrews, warned that the election would be "fraud."

The United States has imposed a series of sanctions, including targeting junta leaders, since the coup.

But it has held off on one step urged by activists, targeting Myanmar's oil and gas industry, amid opposition from ally Thailand which imports energy from its neighbor.

The Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN has unsuccessfully sought to broker a diplomatic way out of the crisis with the generals and some US partners, notably Myanmar's neighbor India, have hesitated at tough action.

sct/md

INDIAN IMPERIALISM  

Conflict Tourism: Kashmir Hottest New Destination For Indians

#KASHMIR IS #INDIA'S #GAZA

By Parvaiz BUKHARI
09/22/22 

Kashmir, India's hottest new travel destination, is also the site of its deadliest insurgency

Standing on a fortified Kashmir street, an Indian tourist poses triumphantly for her husband's camera, clutching the national flag in each hand and flanked by two soldiers carrying rifles.

India's hottest new travel destination is also the site of its deadliest insurgency, where regular skirmishes break out between separatist militants and Indian troops, half a million of whom are stationed in Kashmir.

A big-budget tourism campaign, inaugurated early last year, is luring Indians to Kashmir with the promise of stunning Himalayan scenery, snow-covered hill stations and the remote Hindu shrines dotting the Muslim-majority region.

More than 1.6 million Indian travellers visited the disputed territory in the first six months of this year -- a new record, according to local officials, and four times the number that visited over the same period in 2019.

Many fraternise and take selfies with soldiers, and are dismissive of the regular firefights between troops and rebels taking place out of sight from popular destinations.


"Now everything is fine in Kashmir," Dilip Bhai, a visitor from India's Gujarat state, told AFP while waiting in queue outside a restaurant guarded by paramilitary forces.

"The news of violence we hear in media is more rumour than reality," he said, adding that whatever armed clashes were happening "on the side" did not worry him.

Security forces have tightened a chokehold on Kashmir -- also claimed and partly controlled by Pakistan -- since 2019, when India's government revoked the limited autonomy constitutionally guaranteed to the region.

That year, thousands of people were taken into preventative detention to forestall expected protests against the sudden decision, while authorities severed communications links in what became the world's longest-ever internet shutdown.

Public protests have since been made virtually impossible, local journalists are regularly harassed by police and the region is shut off to foreign reporters.

But clashes still break out in the territory almost every week, with officials counting 130 suspected rebels and 19 members of the security forces killed over the first six months of the year.

The constitutional change opened up land purchases and local jobs to Indians from outside Kashmir, and for residents, this year's influx of travellers is the final insult.

"Promotion of tourism is good, but it is done with a kind of nationalist triumphalism," a leading Kashmiri trader told AFP, asking not to be named for fear of government reprisal.

"It's like war by other means," they added. "The way tourism is being promoted by the government is telling Indians: go spend time there and make Kashmir yours."

A 1989 rebellion against Indian rule in Kashmir started a long-running insurgency that killed thousands of people and sparked a panicked migration of Hindu residents from the Muslim-majority valley.

Periodic attempts to revive the tourism market faltered, with three popular uprisings between 2008 and 2016 leaving more than 300 civilians dead and scaring off potential visitors.

But after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government revoked Kashmir's limited autonomy three years ago, authorities again began promoting the region to Indians as one of the country's premier getaway destinations.

A promotional blitz followed, with festivals, travel marts, roadshows and summits featuring Indian travel operators, sponsored by the local government and 21 major cities across India.

The government announced the opening of a ski resort among 75 new "untapped destinations" for tourists, including some close to the heavily militarised de facto border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Authorities are also courting investors to build 20,000 hotel rooms in addition to the 50,000 already in the territory, and they eased a homestay policy to encourage residents to host visitors.

Sarmad Hafeez, the local government's tourism secretary, told AFP that the official budget to promote tourism had "quadrupled" in the past two years.

"We changed past perceptions about Kashmir," he said. "Events sent out a clear message that Kashmir is safe to travel to."

India's drive to open Kashmir's remarkable landscape to tourism comes as the rest of its established economy languishes after the change in the territory's status.

Drastic curbs on civic life and an intensified counterinsurgency campaign have stifled local business.

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The government has also removed tax barriers that had helped protect local production from outside competition.

"This was the last nail in the coffin of our manufacturing industry," Shahid Kamili, president of the Federation Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kashmir (FCIK), told AFP.

Industrial production accounts for 15 percent of the local economy, according to FCIK data -- three times the most optimistic figures for the tourism sector.

But 350,000 industrial workers lost their jobs since the region's autonomy was rescinded, Kamili said.

The region's potential for growth as a travel destination remains hampered by its violent history and prevailing unhappiness with Indian rule, leaving some visitors unnerved by the heavy security presence.

"If Kashmir is a part of India," a tourist from West Bengal told AFP, "then we should ask why there are so many security forces everywhere."

Half a million Indian troops are stationed in Kashmir to 

quell a separatist insurgency in the Muslim-majority region

Despite the push for tourism, drastic curbs on civic life and and intensified counterinsurgency campaign have stifled businesses in Kashmir

Kashmir's potential for growth as a travel destination remains

 hampered by its violent history and prevailing unhappiness with Indian rule


© Copyright AFP 2022. All rights reserved.

NASA gears up to deflect asteroid, in key test of planetary defense

THIS SHOULD BE THE JOB OF THE

U$A SPACE FORCE INC.
Issam AHMED
Thu, September 22, 2022 


Bet the dinosaurs wish they'd thought of this.

NASA on Monday will attempt a feat humanity has never before accomplished: deliberately smacking a spacecraft into an asteroid to slightly deflect its orbit, in a key test of our ability to stop cosmic objects from devastating life on Earth.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spaceship launched from California last November and is fast approaching its target, which it will strike at roughly 14,000 miles per hour (23,000 kph).

To be sure, neither the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, nor the big brother it orbits, called Didymos, pose any threat as the pair loop the Sun, passing some seven million miles from Earth at nearest approach.

But the experiment is one NASA has deemed important to carry out before an actual need is discovered.

"This is an exciting time, not only for the agency, but in space history and in the history of humankind quite frankly," Lindley Johnson, a planetary defense officer for NASA told reporters in a briefing Thursday.

If all goes to plan, impact between the car-sized spacecraft, and the 530-foot (160 meters, or two Statues of Liberty) asteroid should take place at 7:14pm Eastern Time (2314 GMT), and can be followed on a NASA livestream.

By striking Dimorphos head on, NASA hopes to push it into a smaller orbit, shaving ten minutes off the time it takes to encircle Didymos, which is currently 11 hours and 55 minutes -- a change that will be detected by ground telescopes in the days that follow.

The proof-of-concept experiment will make a reality what has before only been attempted in science fiction -- notably films such as "Armageddon" and "Don't Look Up."

- Technically challenging -

As the craft propels itself through space, flying autonomously for the mission's final phase like a self-guided missile, its main camera system, called DRACO, will start to beam down the very first pictures of Dimorphos.

"It's going to start off as a little point of light and then eventually it's going to zoom and fill the whole entire field of view," said Nancy Chabot of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which hosts mission control in a recent briefing.

"These images will continue until they don't," added the planetary scientist.

Minutes later, a toaster-sized satellite called LICIACube, which separated from DART a couple of weeks earlier, will make a close pass of the site to capture images of the collision and the ejecta -- the pulverized rock thrown off by impact.

LICIACube's picture will be sent back in the weeks and months that follow.

Also watching the event: an array of telescopes, both on Earth and in space -- including the recently operational James Webb -- which might be able to see a brightening cloud of dust.

Finally, a full picture of what the system looks like will be revealed when a European Space Agency mission four years down the line called Hera arrives to survey Dimorphos's surface and measure its mass, which scientists can only guess at currently.

- Being prepared -

Very few of the billions of asteroids and comets in our solar system are considered potentially hazardous to our planet, and none in the next hundred or so years.

But "I guarantee to you that if you wait long enough, there will be an object," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's chief scientist.

We know that from the geological record -- for example, the six-mile wide Chicxulub asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, plunging the world into a long winter that led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs along with 75 percent of species.

An asteroid the size of Dimorphos, by contrast, would only cause a regional impact, such as devastating a city, albeit with a greater force than any nuclear bomb in history.

Scientists are also hoping to glean valuable new information that can inform them about the nature of asteroids more generally.

How much momentum DART imparts on Dimorphos will depend on whether the asteroid is solid rock, or more like a "rubbish pile" of boulders bound by mutual gravity, a property that's not yet known.

We also don't know its actual shape: whether it's more like a dog bone or a donut, but NASA engineers are confident DART's SmartNav guidance system will hit its target.

If it misses, NASA will have another shot in two years' time, with the spaceship containing just enough fuel for another pass.

But if it succeeds, then it's a first step towards a world capable of defending itself from a future existential threat, said Chabot.

ia/mdl

After asteroid collision, Europe's Hera will probe 'crime scene'

A NASA mission to deliberately smash a spacecraft into an asteroid blasts off on Monday

September 23, 2022 - AFP

After NASA deliberately smashes a car-sized spacecraft into an asteroid next week, it will be up to the European Space Agency's Hera mission to investigate the "crime scene" and uncover the secrets of these potentially devastating space rocks.

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) aims to collide with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on Monday night, hoping to slightly alter its trajectory -- the first time such an operation has been attempted.

Astronomers around the world will watch DART's impact, and its effect will be closely followed to see if the mission passed the test.

The Hera spacecraft is planned to launch in October 2024, aiming to arrive at Dimorphos in 2026 to measure the exact impact DART had on the asteroid.

- 'A new world' -

Hera will be loaded up with cameras, spectrometers, radars and even toaster-sized nano-satellites to measure the asteroid's shape, mass, chemical composition and more.

"If an asteroid is made up of, for example, loose gravel, approaches to disrupt it may be different than if it was metal or some other kind of rock," she told the International Astronautical Congress in Paris this week.

"Asteroids are not boring space rocks -- they are super exciting because they have a great diversity" in size, shape and composition, Michel said.

"Unless you touch the surface, you cannot know the mechanical response," he said.

For example, when a Japanese probe dropped a small explosive near the surface of the Ryugu asteroid in 2019, it was expected to make a crater of two or three metres. Instead, it blasted a 50-metre hole.

"The surface behaved almost like a fluid," rather than solid rock, he added. "How weird is that?"

Binary systems like Dimorphos and Didymos represent around 15 percent of known asteroids, but have not yet been explored.

Learning about the impact of DART is not only important for planetary defence, Michel said, but also for understanding the history of our Solar System, where most cosmic bodies were formed through collisions and are now riddled with craters.

juc/dl/kjm

Water found in asteroid dust may offer clues to origins of life on Earth

Discovery offers new support for the theory that life may have been seeded from outer space

The dust was collected from the asteroid Ryugu by the Japan’s Hayabusa-2 probe.

 Photograph: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agen/Reuters

Agence France-Presse in Tokyo

Thu 22 Sep 2022

Specks of dust that a Japanese space probe retrieved from an asteroid about 186 million miles (300m kilometres) from Earth have revealed a surprising component: a drop of water.

The discovery offers new support for the theory that life on Earth may have been seeded from outer space.

The findings are in the latest research to be published from analysis of 5.4 grammes of stones and dust that the Hayabusa-2 probe gathered from the asteroid Ryugu.

“This drop of water has great meaning,” the lead scientist, Tomoki Nakamura of Tohoku University, told reporters before publication of the research in the journal Science on Friday.


Hayabusa2 comes home: remarkable space probe could open another window into how life originated

“Many researchers believe that water was brought [from outer space], but we actually discovered water in Ryugu, an asteroid near Earth, for the first time.”

Hayabusa-2 was launched in 2014 on its mission to Ryugu, and returned to Earth’s orbit two years ago to drop off a capsule containing the sample.

The precious cargo has already yielded several insights, including organic material that showed some of the building blocks of life on Earth, amino acids, may have been formed in space.

The team’s latest discovery was a drop of fluid in the Ryugu sample “which was carbonated water containing salt and organic matter”, Nakamura said.

That bolsters the theory that asteroids such as Ryugu, or its larger parent asteroid, could have “provided water, which contains salt and organic matter” in collisions with Earth, he said.

“We have discovered evidence that this may have been directly linked to, for example, the origin of the oceans or organic matter on Earth.”

Nakamura’s team, which is made up of about 150 researchers – including 30 from the US, Britain, France, Italy and China – is one of the largest teams analysing the sample from Ryugu.

The sample has been divided among different scientific teams to maximise the chance of new discoveries.

Kensei Kobayashi, an astrobiology expert and professor emeritus at Yokohama National University who is not part of the research group, hailed the discovery.

“The fact that water was discovered in the sample itself is surprising”, given its fragility and the chances of it being destroyed in outer space, he said.

“It does suggest that the asteroid contained water, in the form of fluid and not just ice, and organic matter may have been generated in that water.”

Researchers have used beams of muons to analyze the elemental composition of Asteroid Ryugu samples

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KAVLI INSTITUTE FOR THE PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS OF THE UNIVERSE

 

IMAGE: FIGURE 1: (LEFT) A MUONIC X-RAY CREATED AFTER A MUON IS CAPTURED BY AN IRRADIATED MATERIAL, AND (RIGHT) A SAMPLE OF THE ASTEROID RYUGU. view more 

CREDIT: (LEFT IMAGE) MUON ANALYSIS TEAM, (RIGHT IMAGE) JAXA

Stone samples brought back to Earth from asteroid Ryugu have had their elemental composition analyzed using an artificially generated muon beam from the particle accelerator in J-PARC. Researchers found a number of important elements needed to sustain life, including carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, but also found the oxygen abundance relative to silicon in asteroid Ryugu was different from all m

eteorites that have been found on Earth, reports a new study in Science.

In 2014, the unmanned asteroid explorer Hayabusa 2 was launched into space by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) with a mission to bring back samples from asteroid Ryugu, a type C asteroid that researchers believed was rich in carbon. After successfully landing on Ryugu and collecting samples, Hayabusa 2 returned to Earth in December 2020 with samples intact. 

Since 2021, researchers have been running the first analyses of the samples, led by University of Tokyo Professor Shogo Tachibana. Split into several teams, researchers have been studying the samples in different ways, including stone shapes, elemental distribution, and mineral composition. 

In this study, led by Tohoku University Professor Tomoki Nakamura, Professor Tadayuki Takahashi and graduate student Shunsaku Nagasawa of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), University of Tokyo, in collaboration with the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Institute for Materials Structure Science, Osaka University, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Kyoto University, International Christian University, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), and Tohoku University, have applied elemental analysis methods using negative muons, elementary particles produced by the accelerator at J-PARC. They applied the elemental analysis method using negative muons to stones from the asteroid Ryugu, succeeding in nondestructively determining their elemental compositions.

This was important, because if asteroids in the Solar System were built at the beginning of the formation of the Solar System itself, then they would still be withholding information about the average elemental composition at that time, and therefore of the entire Solar System.

Analysis of meteorites that have fallen to Earth have been carried out in the past, but it is possible these samples have been contaminated by the Earth's atmosphere. So, until Hayabusa 2, no one knew what the chemical composition of an asteroid was for sure.

But the researchers faced a challenge. Because of the limited amount of samples and the large number of other researchers wanting to study them, they needed to find a way to run their analyses without damaging them so that the samples could be passed on to other groups.

The team had developed a new method, which involved shooting a quantum beam, or specifically a beam of negative muons, produced by one of the world's largest high-energy particle accelerators J-PARC in Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, to identify the chemical elements of sensitive samples without breaking them. 

Takahashi and Nagasawa then applied statistical analysis techniques in X-ray astronomy and particle physics experiments to analyze muon characteristic X-ray.

Muons are one of the elementary particles in the universe. Their ability to penetrate deeper into materials than X-rays makes them ideal in material analysis. When a negative muon is captured by the irradiated sample, a muonic atom is formed (figure 1). The muonic X-rays emitted from the new muonic atoms have high energy, and so can be detected with high sensitivity. This method was used to analyze the Ryugu samples.

But there was another challenge. In order to keep the samples from being contaminated by the Earth's atmosphere, the researchers needed to keep the samples out of contact with oxygen and water in the air. Therefore, they had to develop an experimental setup, casing the sample in a chamber of helium gas (figure 2). The inner walls of the chamber were lined with pure copper to minimize the background noise when analyzing the samples.

In June 2021, 0.1 grams of Ryugu asteroid were brought into J-PARC, and the researchers ran their muon X-ray analysis, which produced an energy spectrum (figure 3). In it, they found the elements needed to produce life, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, but they also found the sample had a composition similar to that of carbonaceous chondrite (CI chondrite) asteroids, which are often referred to as the standard for solid substances in the Solar System. This showed the Ryugu stones were some of the earliest stones to have formed in our Solar System. 

However, while similar in composition to CI chondrites, the Ryugu sample’s oxygen abundance relative to silicon was about 25 per cent less than that of the CI chondrite (figure 4). The researchers say this could indicate that the excess oxygen abundance relative to silicon in CI chondrites could have come from contamination after they entered Earth's atmosphere. Ryugu stones could set a new standard for matter in the Solar System.

The team’s results show the success of the muonic x-ray method, and that it can be used to analyze samples from future space missions. 

Details of this study were published in Science on September 22.

Figure 2: The custom-made experiment setup developed to avoid the samples from being contaminated by the Earth’s atmosphere. The interior is filled with helium gas, and the chamber is lined with pure copper to minimize background noise.

CREDIT

Muon analysis team

Figure 3: Muonic x-ray spectral comparison of asteroid Ryugu sample and CI chondrite Orgueil.

CREDIT

Muon analysis team

Figure 4: Comparison of the elemental composition of asteroid Ryugu sample and CI chondrite Orgueil (K. Lodders, The Astrophysical Journal, 591, 1220-1247, 2003). The oxygen x-ray shows the Ryugu sample’s oxygen abundance relative to silicon was less compared to CI chondrite.

CREDIT

Muon analysis team

Figure 5: Group photo of the researchers.

CREDIT

Muon analysis team

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abn8671 

ARTICLE TITLE

Formation and evolution of carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu: Direct evidence from returned samples

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Sep-2022

Analysis of particles of the asteroid Ryugu delivers surprising results

Team from Goethe University Frankfurt contributes to article in Science

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GOETHE UNIVERSITY FRANKFURT

FRANKFURT. Frank Brenker and his team are world leaders in a method that makes it possible to analyse the chemical composition of material in a three-dimensional and entirely non-destructive way and without complicated sample preparation – yet with a resolution of under 100 nanometres. Resolution expresses the smallest perceptible difference between two measured values. The method’s long name is “Synchrotron Radiation induced X-Ray Fluorescence Computed Tomography”, in short SR-XRF-CT.

Japan had chosen Ryugu (English: Dragon’s Palace) as the probe’s destination because it is an asteroid which, due to its high carbon content, promised to deliver particularly extensive information about the origin of life in our solar system. The analyses conducted on 16 particles by the researchers together with the scientists in Frankfurt have now shown that Ryugu is composed of  CI-type material. These are very similar to the Sun in terms of their chemical composition. So far, CI-material has only rarely been found on Earth – material of which it was unclear how much it had been altered or contaminated when entering Earth’s atmosphere or upon impact with our planet. Furthermore, the analysis confirms the assumption that Ryugu originated from a parent asteroid which formed in the outer solar nebula.

Until now, scientists had assumed that there was hardly any transport of material within the asteroid due to the low temperatures during the formation of the CI material in the early days of the solar system and therefore scarcely any possibility for a massive accumulation of elements. By means of SR-XRF-CT, however, the researchers in Frankfurt found a fine vein of magnetite – an iron oxide mineral – and hydroxyapatite, a phosphate mineral, in one of the grains of the asteroid. Other groups of scientists established that the structure and other magnetite-hydroxyapatite regions in the Ryugu samples must have formed at a surprisingly low temperature of under 40 °C. This finding is fundamental for interpreting almost all the results that the analysis of the Ryugu samples has generated and will generate in future.

In areas of the samples containing hydroxyapatite, Frank Brenker’s team additionally detected rare earth metals – a group of chemical elements indispensable today for alloys and glassware for high-tech applications, among others. “The rare earths occur in the hydroxyapatite of the asteroid in concentrations 100 times higher than elsewhere in the solar system,” says Brenker. What’s more, he says, all the elements of the rare earth metals have accumulated in the phosphate mineral to the same degree – which is also unusual. Brenker is convinced: “This equal distribution of rare earths is a further indication that Ryugu is a very pristine asteroid that represents the beginnings of our solar system.”

It is by no means a matter of course that researchers from Goethe University Frankfurt were allowed to examine samples from the Hayabusa 2 mission: after all, Japan undertook this space mission alone and, according to information from 2010, raised €123 million for it. It therefore also wants to reap a large part of the scientific harvest. But ultimately Japan did not want to forego the expertise of the German SR-XRF-CT specialists.

The research results by the Hayabusa2 Initial Analysis of Stones Team (led by Prof. Tomoki Nakamura, Tohoku University), including this research result, were published in Science on Thursday, September 22, 14pm. JAXA press release: https://global.jaxa.jp/press/2022/09/20220923-1_e.html

---

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abn8671 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Formation and evolution of Cb-type asteroid Ryugu: Direct evidence from returned samples

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Sep-2022

Australian rescuers race to save stranded pilot whales

Author: AFP|Update: 23.09.2022


Fewer than 10 of the pilot whales are still alive on Ocean Beach, in remote western Tasmania / © AFP

Australian rescuers battled Friday to refloat the last surviving pilot whales from a mass stranding that killed nearly 200 of the animals on a surf-battered beach in Tasmania.

Fewer than 10 of the shiny black mammals are still alive on Ocean Beach, in remote western Tasmania, state wildlife services said.

About 30 of the animals were released into the ocean on Thursday, but some had beached themselves again, said Brendon Clark, incident controller with the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service.

Under cool drizzle, marine wildlife experts began to wrap up a complex days-long rescue operation that started with a large pod of the animals, which are part of the dolphin family, stranding on the beach mid-week.

Three pilot whales had yet to be reached because of their remote location on the shore and the difficult tidal conditions, Clark told reporters at the scene.

"The priority still is the rescue and release of those remaining animals and any others that we identify that re-strand," he said.

Next, Clark said, comes the task of disposing of the carcases.

- Carcasses -

© AFP

Wildlife workers used a fork-lift truck to line up whale carcasses along the beach, their tails pointed to the frigid ocean.

One small, young calf could be seen tied up alongside the larger adult pilot whales.

A long white line was looped around the tails of dozens of the animals to allow them to be towed en masse to disposal at sea.

Weather forecasts indicated the "best opportunity" for the operation would be on Sunday, Clark said.

If left in shallow waters or on the beach, the carcases could attract sharks and can carry disease.

"We are making every effort to consolidate the carcasses at the moment into one spot and then push ahead with getting them offshore," said Kris Carlyon, operations manager with the state wildlife services.

Once in the water the carcasses can attract predators or become a collision risk, Carlyon said, but experts hoped the winds and currents would push them out to sea, and some were expected to sink.

- Distress signals -

Whale sonar navigation / © AFP

Two years ago, Macquarie Harbour was the scene of the country's largest-ever mass stranding, involving almost 500 pilot whales.

More than 300 pilot whales died during that event, despite the efforts of dozens of volunteers who toiled for days in Tasmania's freezing waters to free them.

Scientists still do not fully understand why mass strandings occur.

Some have suggested pods go off track after feeding too close to shore.

Pilot whales -- which can grow to more than six metres (20 feet) long -- are also highly sociable, so they may follow pod-mates who stray into danger.

That sometimes occurs when old, sick or injured animals swim ashore and other pod members follow, trying to respond to the trapped whale's distress signals.

Others believe gently sloping beaches like those found in Tasmania confuse the whales' sonar, making them think they are in open waters.

The latest stranding came days after a dozen young male sperm whales were reported dead in a separate mass stranding on King Island -- between Tasmania and the Australian mainland.

State officials said that incident may have been a case of "misadventure".

Strandings are also common in nearby New Zealand.

There, around 300 animals beach themselves annually, according to official figures, and it is not unusual for groups of between 20 and 50 pilot whales to run aground.

But numbers can run into the hundreds when a "super pod" is involved. In 2017, there was a mass stranding of almost 700 pilot whales.