THEY DID NOT VETO IT

China urges caution as UN Security Council adopts first resolution on Myanmar in 74 years

By Global Times

Published: Dec 22, 2022

In this Sept 12, 2019 photo, China's Permanent Representative to the UN Zhang Jun speaks at the UN headquarters in New York.(Photo: Xinhua)

China's ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Zhang Jun stressed that the UN Security Council must always act with extra caution while making explanatory statement after abstaining from voting on the council's first-ever resolution on Myanmar on Wednesday, which demanded an end to violence and urged the military junta to release all political prisoners, including ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

China still holds concerns about the draft resolution that has just been put to a vote. In terms of form, China believes that it is more appropriate for the Security Council to adopt a presidential statement under the current circumstances. In terms of the content of the draft, although it has been revised, the tone is still unbalanced. Therefore, China had to abstain in the voting, Zhang explained.

There is no quick-fix solution to the Myanmar issue, let alone an external solution. Both democratic transition and national reconciliation will require time, patience and pragmatism. The international community should stick to the correct direction of promoting peace talks, and play a constructive role in promoting rational dialogue among all parties in Myanmar and bridging differences on the premise of respecting Myanmar's sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity and unity, Zhang noted.

He stressed that Myanmar is a member of the ASEAN family, and ASEAN has unique advantages in dealing with issues related to Myanmar. The international community should continue to listen to ASEAN's opinions, respect the "ASEAN Way," support ASEAN's unity and leadership, create necessary conditions and allow time and space for ASEAN to build consensus and play an active role.

"The UN Security Council must always act with caution. Blindly using the Security Council to exert pressure or even threaten sanctions will only intensify contradictions, intensify confrontation, complicate the situation and prolong the crisis, which the Security Council has learned a lot from dealing with Libya and other hotspot issues," Zhang said.

China and Myanmar are linked by mountains and rivers, and China's friendly policy toward Myanmar is geared toward all Myanmar people. China sincerely hopes that Myanmar will have political and social stability, its people will live and work in peace and contentment, and the country will develop and revitalize, Zhang said.

Since the political situation in Myanmar changed, China has always upheld an objective and fair attitude, worked hard to promote peace talks, and did its best to help Myanmar fight the epidemic and improve people's livelihood. China expects the Security Council to stick to the correct direction of political settlement and do more things that are conducive to safeguarding the fundamental interests of the Myanmar people and regional prosperity and stability, he noted.

Myanmar has been in crisis since the army took power from Suu Kyi's elected government on February 1, 2021, detaining her and other officials and responding to pro-democracy protests and dissent with lethal force, according to Reuters.

The resolution passed on Wednesday is the UN Security Council's first resolution on Myanmar in 74 years. The 15-member Security Council passed it with 12 yes votes and three abstentions from China, India and Russia.

Climate change is forcing cities to rethink their tree mix

2022/12/27

A blue medallion is pinned to an Ash tree in Chicago, which indicates it has been treated with pesticide to kill the Emerald Ash Borer and keep the tree alive is viewed on June 29, 2016. - 

Nova Safo/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

Cities need to plant more trees. But not just any trees.

As communities prepare for a massive influx of federal funding to support urban forestry, their leaders say the tree canopy that grows to maturity 50 years from now will need to be painted with a different palette than the one that exists today.

“You need a tree that’s going to survive the weather of today and the climate of the future,” said Pete Smith, urban forestry program manager with the Arbor Day Foundation, a Nebraska-based nonprofit that supports tree planting and care.

Forestry experts say trees are critical infrastructure that can help cities withstand the effects of climate change by providing shade, absorbing stormwater and filtering air pollution. But to do that, the trees themselves need to be resilient.

“We’re developing planting lists that are diverse, that look at tolerance to drought, storm events and flooding, heat, changes to the highs and lows,” said Kevin Sayers, urban forestry coordinator with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. “The extremes in the weather are really going to limit us.”

While arborists look for trees that will thrive in the climate conditions they’re likely to face in the coming decades, scientists say they can’t simply count on a handful of climate “winners.” Many cities, for example, have lost vast amounts of their tree canopy because they relied too heavily on one tree type that was later wiped out by a pathogen or pest, such as Dutch elm disease or the emerald ash borer.

“Unless we start diversifying the urban forest, we're going to end up losing quite a bit of it again,” said John Ball, South Dakota State University Extension forestry specialist and South Dakota Department of Agriculture specialist on forest health.

Ball urges cities not to plant more than 5% of any one genus of tree, but many communities have struggled to reach the diversity goals that he and other forest health experts recommend. Foresters say it takes effort to determine which trees will grow in challenging urban conditions, and nurseries often lack the less common trees they’re looking for.

Amid those challenges, cities and states are preparing to receive $1.5 billion in urban forestry funding approved by Congress earlier this year as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Forestry leaders say that the newfound support will be transformative, but turning the money into a healthy tree canopy decades from now will be a complicated task.

“The pressure is on, but in a good way,” said Kesha Braunskill, urban forestry coordinator with the Delaware Forest Service. “This is a once-in-a-career opportunity for all of us in urban forestry, and how we use it is going to impact those who are in our positions 50 years from now.”

‘A Little More Picky’

Some cities already are making changes.

Jeremy Harold, green space manager for Harrisonburg, Virginia, said the city once took a “cookie cutter” approach to tree planting, but is now working to broaden its species mix. The city sits in the Shenandoah Valley within the Appalachian Mountain range, but it has added trees such as willow oak and sweetgum from Virginia’s coastal plain region.

“I’m putting them in our inventory now, because as temperatures rise, those trees will be adapted,” Harold said. “We’re looking for species that can tolerate those temperatures and survive.”

In Seattle, many of the city’s bigleaf maples and western red cedars are struggling in urbanized areas. Foresters are now careful to plant them in favorable microclimates, with conditions such as good soil moisture and north-facing slopes that remain cooler.

“We’re being a little more picky about where we put them on the landscape,” said Michael Yadrick Jr., plant ecologist with Seattle Parks and Recreation.

Meanwhile, the city is planting more Pacific madrone and Garry oaks that tolerate hotter, drier conditions. And within individual tree species, it’s adding trees grown from seeds taken from further south in their range, with the goal of adding resilient genotypes to the mix.

State officials in Texas operate a genetic improvement program that has produced nine “Texas Tested, Texas Tough” tree species that are adapted to handle difficult conditions, including Shumard oaks and bald cypress.

“They've gone through this iterative process for decades and have proven to perform in this harsh environment that is Texas urban areas,” said Gretchen Riley, Forest Systems Department head with the Texas A&M Forest Service.

The agency provides seedlings to communities and is working to offer seeds to growers who can produce their own supply. It’s also working with six other states in the region to exchange species and genetic lines and test their viability in various conditions.

Scientists at the University of Florida are working to determine which trees best withstand high winds. They’re hoping to expand an existing Florida-based classification system by looking at research from hurricane-prone communities worldwide.

“We'd like to see this list used to target wind-resistant species in areas where a tree falling over could damage property or harm people or infrastructure,” said Allyson Salisbury, a researcher at the university.

Foresters say their preparations won’t result in a complete makeover of the trees they plant. They emphasize that such decisions are an inexact science that could carry unintended consequences.

“People say we should bring species up from Southern locations,” said Lydia Scott, director of the Chicago Region Trees Initiative, a partnership of organizations and agencies dedicated to improving the area’s urban canopy. “That's fine until we get a two-week cold snap in the winter that kills off all those trees that are not adapted to the cold.”

A Need for Seed

Above all, experts say that diversity is the best way to ensure that many trees survive the changes that are coming, rather than pinning all their hopes on guesstimates of which trees might thrive. In most communities, the existing tree canopy is far from that goal.

“Many cities are dominated by a small number of species or genera,” said Mark Ambrose, a research assistant with the North Carolina State University College of Natural Resources. Ambrose, whose position is funded by the U.S. Forest Service, has researched the makeup of the country’s existing urban tree canopy.

Elm trees once were among the most prominent trees in America’s urban forests. When Dutch elm disease wiped out many of those trees, many cities replanted with ash. Now they’re taking down millions of trees that have been ravaged by the emerald ash borer. Today, maples proliferate in cities, and foresters are casting a wary eye toward any threats to those trees.

“You could plant elm and ash anywhere on any soil and grow them,” said Ball, the South Dakota forestry specialist. “Now we’re done with the easy trees. You better know what your soils are like. You’ve got to understand the micro-environments in your community and fine-tune your plantings.”

Urban forestry leaders say they want to plant a greater diversity of trees, but getting the seedlings they need has proven to be challenging.

“Nurseries have a shortage of the species diversity we’re looking for, and that’s tough to crack because it’s the private sector,” said Keith Wood, a contractor with the National Association of State Foresters who staffs the group’s committee on urban and community forestry.

Arborists cite a feedback loop wherein nurseries grow only what sells, and cities buy only what’s available. Some have gotten around that loop by contracting with nurseries in advance to grow the seedlings they’ll need in the coming years. The Chicago Region Trees Initiative plants 54 tree species, some of which it pays for over a five-year period as nurseries grow them.

“We're getting the species we want, the sizes we want, the numbers we want, all when we want them,” said Scott, the Chicago-area leader.

Some cities are reluctant to contract for trees years in advance, unwilling to take on inflexible cost obligations amid unpredictable budget cycles.

But nurseries need some certainty if they’re going to grow less-marketable and harder-to-cultivate species on a large scale, said Nancy Buley, communications director with J. Frank Schmidt & Son Co., a large nursery in Oregon that supplies many urban planting efforts.

“For the cities and nonprofits to get the more unusual trees to meet their species diversity goals,” she said, “they’re really going to need to contract in some way.”

Dressing 'revolution' seeks artificial skin for burn victims
Agence France-Presse
December 27, 2022

An Urgo researcher shows a wound that could be treated by an artificial skin 

© ARNAUD FINISTRE / AFP

Far from the humble sticking plaster, medical firms and researchers are seeking to create the "ultimate dressing" -- artificial skin they hope will revolutionize the treatment of severe burns.

For the last 18 months, researchers from the French firm Urgo have been working towards achieving this Holy Grail of wound treatment, which would save serious burn victims from the painful and repeated skin grafts they currently endure.

The 100-million-euro ($106,000-million) "Genesis" project hopes to have a product ready by 2030.

Guirec Le Lous, the president of Urgo's medical arm, told AFP that it is a "crazy" project.

"Are we capable of designing artificial skin in a laboratory? No one in the world has succeeded," he said.

Inside Urgo's laboratory in Chenove, near the eastern French city of Dijon, living cells are being chilled before they can be cultivated.

"You have to be able to recreate all the functions of skin," including protecting against external threats and regulating the temperature, Le Lous said.

It must also be relatively easy to make, because artificial skin must be "available for all and at the right price," he said, without revealing the exact technology or type of cells Urgo is using.

Urgo, a family-owned business since 1880, has long made dressings for chronic wounds such as diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers.

"Since the 2000s, we have worked on materials that will correct healing problems: dressings have become intelligent, interactive with wounds, allowing them to perform better," Urgo's research director Laurent Apert said.

He called the change "a revolution".

- Silver bullet -

Urgo is far from alone in pushing the boundaries of what dressings can do.

Researchers at the University of South Australia have developed a new kind of dressing that knows when to release nanoparticles of silver, which can break down antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

"Our treatment is unique in that it capitalizes on the anti-bacterial properties of silver, but avoids over-exposure, by only activating when infection in present," lead researcher Zlatko Kopecki said in a statement.

This makes the dressing "a much safer and effective treatment for children," he added.

Children suffer almost half of burn injuries worldwide, most of them aged between one to five years old, according to research using the World Health Organization's Global Burn Registry.

- 'Night and day' -

Another new technique does away with the idea of dressing altogether.

For a product from French startup VistaCare Medical, patients put their affected leg into a large device which never touches their wound.

Instead the chamber controls the humidity, temperature and other aspects important to healing.

"There is no more dressing. The idea is to put the wound in an enclosure, in a sterile air, VistaCare Medical president Francois Dufay said.

"With this system, we provide the wound with what it needs, at the right time."

VistaCare Medical's device is currently used in around 20 French hospitals, but next year the firm plans to apply for approval in the United States for a product to be used in the home.

The new developments have shaken up the world of wound healing, long a neglected area of medical research.

Isabelle Fromantin, who heads the wounds and healing research unit at the Curie Institute in Paris, said that "compared to 20 years ago, it's night and day in terms of wound care".

Along with her team, Fromantin has developed dressings that reduce the odors from necrotic wounds seen in some cancers.

However she said that not everything can be achieved by new technologies -- healing is a process that varies from person to person, depending on their age and health.

"Believing that a dressing will heal you all by itself is utopian," she said.

© 2022 AFP

Fly away home: rare Eastern Sarus cranes released in Thailand

Agence France-Presse
December 27, 2022

Captive-bred Eastern Sarus cranes have been released in northeast Thailand, where they were last seen in the wild in 1968 © Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP

As the sun came up, 13 Thai Eastern Sarus cranes were released over a rippling reservoir in northeast Thailand, the latest effort to revive the almost-extinct species in the kingdom.

More commonly known as Thai cranes, the birds nearly disappeared from the country roughly 50 years ago -- they were last spotted in the wild in 1968 -- before a collaboration between the Thai government, Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo and United Nations to save them.

A breeding program, using fowl donated by Cambodia, began in 1989, with the first reintroduction in 2011.

Sarus cranes are classed by the ICNC as "vulnerable", with an estimated 15,000 remaining in the wild -- with the Thai sub-species having been thought to have disappeared from Thailand's wild wetlands.

But since 2011, more than 150 captivity-bred birds -- which can grow to up to six feet (1.8 meters) and weigh almost seven kilograms (15 pounds) -- have been released in Buriram province.

"It is the only place where the Thai cranes are able to live and reproduce on their own," said Governor Chaiwat Chuntirapong.

The birds were transported in large, specially adapted boxes -- their red-feathered heads watching through mesh windows -- from the Wetland and Eastern Sarus Crane Conservation Center where they were bred to the Huai Chorakhe Mak Reservoir.

The latest flock of 13 cranes were released all at once on Christmas Day. The tall birds loudly honked and clumsily flapped as they unsteadily took to the skies accompanied by cheering children and spectators.

It was the final moment in a long journey for the researchers, who carefully nurtured the cranes from hatching, gradually introduced them to the wild and then took them to their final flight to freedom.

"The herdsman wears a suit that hides her body and wears a bird's head puppet on her hands to teach the birds everything from feeding to familiarizing them with nature," said Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo researcher Tanat Uttaraviset.

As a result of the long process, roughly 60 to 70 percent of the birds survive in the wild, he said.

Prior to their release, each bird is micro-chipped and tagged, allowing researchers to track them and improve the conservation efforts.

As well as rearing and releasing the cranes, an important part of the program has been educating people about the species and the environment.

Huai Chorakhe Mak Reservoir was chosen partly thanks to its natural proliferation of water chestnuts -- an important food source for cranes in the dry season.

But their habitat remains threatened by the "widespread invasion of agriculture", said director of Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo Thanachon Kensing.

The zoo has established a learning centre, teaching tourists and locals about how to better care for the environment the birds need to survive.

"Changing villagers' attitudes is difficult," Thanachon admitted.

"But if we can communicate with them... this project will be successful," he said.

Watching his red-headed charges soar off over the sparkling waters, researcher Tanat had just one hope.


"The ultimate goal is to secure the crane population," he said.

© 2022 AFP

A single dose of psilocybin improves depression in treatment-resistant patients, but with adverse effects

2022/12/27


A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that psilocybin therapy may offer therapeutic benefits for patients with treatment-resistant depression. When administered alongside psychological support, a 25 mg psilocybin dose reduced depression scores among treatment-resistant patients. However, adverse effects were reported, and further clinical trials are needed.

Clinical depression is typically treated with a combination of anti-depressant medication and psychotherapy. While most patients experience a reduction in symptoms with anti-depressants, a subset of people fail to respond to the medication. A case that does not respond to two courses of anti-depressants is referred to as treatment-resistant depression.

Preliminary studies have suggested that psilocybin — a psychedelic compound found in certain species of mushrooms — may have antidepressant properties. In their recently-published study, researchers Guy M. Goodwin and his colleagues explored its potential to treat depression among people who are resistant to usual treatment.

“The potential of psychedelics in mental health has been investigated by scientists for many years, but only recently has research moved to larger scale studies,” explained Goodwin, the chief medical officer at COMPASS Pathways.

“These large trials are needed to demonstrate treatments are safe and effective, receive regulatory approvals, and get them to people who urgently need new options. We focus on areas of unmet need in mental health, for example treatment-resistant depression, which affects 100 million people globally.”

“We have just begun a phase 3 programme in treatment-resistant depression, which is the largest-ever clinical trial of psilocybin therapy globally, and we’re also studying COMP360 psilocybin therapy in post-traumatic stress disorder and anorexia nervosa.”

The researchers conducted a double-blind, randomized clinical trial among 233 patients diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression. The study was conducted at 22 sites in 10 different countries. For 3-6 weeks leading up to the study, participants tapered off any antidepressants they were taking and met with a therapist to prepare for the trial. Participants were then randomly assigned to receive either a 25 mg, a 10 mg, or a 1 mg dose of psilocybin. The 1 mg dose served as a control condition.

After the treatment, participants were followed for 12 weeks. The day after the treatment and one week after treatment, the participants attended therapist-led integration sessions to help them reflect on the psilocybin experience. Participants also completed assessments of depression over the phone at various time points throughout the study.

Goodwin and his team analyzed changes in participants’ depression scores, comparing the groups who received 25 mg and 10 mg of psilocybin to the control group. The results revealed that from baseline to week 3, the 25 mg group showed improvements in their depression scores that significantly exceeded changes in the 1 mg group. Change in depression scores was no different between the 10 mg and 1 mg groups.

“We saw positive results in a particularly difficult to treat type of depression – treatment-resistant depression – where patients have tried at least two antidepressant treatments without success,” Goodwin told PsyPost.

“Our study showed that after a single 25mg dose of COMP360 psilocybin therapy with psychological support, approximately 30% of patients were in remission at three weeks, and we saw effects lasting for up to three months.”

Notably, adverse events were reported in all groups, the most common being headaches, nausea, dizziness, and fatigue. Reports also included suicidal ideation and self-injurious behavior, and these events were more common among those who took 25 mg or 10 mg compared to 1 mg.

Limitations of the study include that the sample was not ethnically diverse, with 92% of participants being White. Additionally, the study did not assess whether participants could correctly guess which dose of psilocybin they received, which means that placebo effects cannot be entirely ruled out.

Overall, the findings suggest that a single dose of 25 mg of psilocybin — but not 10 mg — can improve depression symptoms among people with treatment-resistant depression when administered alongside therapy. Nevertheless, the adverse events are cause for concern, particularly the reports of worsening suicidality.

“We are about to start the world’s first ever phase 3 pivotal programme of psilocybin therapy in treatment-resistant depression,” Goodwin said. “Our phase 3 programme will seek to validate our phase 2b results published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and also investigate if a second dose of COMP360 psilocybin can increase rates of treatment response seen in the phase 2b study.”

The study, “Single-Dose Psilocybin for a Treatment-Resistant Episode of Major Depression”, was authored by G.M. Goodwin, S.T. Aaronson, O. Alvarez, P.C. Arden, A. Baker, J.C. Bennett, C. Bird, R.E. Blom, C. Brennan, D. Brusch, L. Burke, K. Campbell‑Coker, R. Carhart‑Harris, J. Cattell, A. Daniel, C. DeBattista, B.W. Dunlop, K. Eisen, D. Feifel, M.K. Forbes, H.M. Haumann, D.J. Hellerstein, A.I. Hoppe, M.I. Husain, L.A. Jelen, J. Kamphuis, J. Kawasaki, J.R. Kelly, R.E. Key, R. Kishon, S. Knatz Peck, G. Knight, M.H.B. Koolen, M. Lean, R.W. Licht, J.L. Maples‑Keller, J. Mars, L. Marwood, M.C. McElhiney, T.L. Miller, A. Mirow, S. Mistry, T. Mletzko‑Crowe, L.N. Modlin, R.E. Nielsen, E.M. Nielson, S.R. Offerhaus, V. O’Keane, T. Páleníček, D. Printz, M.C. Rademaker, A. van Reemst, F. Reinholdt, D. Repantis, J. Rucker, S. Rudow, S. Ruffell, A.J. Rush, R.A. Schoevers, M. Seynaeve, S. Shao, J.C. Soares, M. Somers, S.C. Stansfield, D. Sterling, A. Strockis, J. Tsai, L. Visser, M. Wahba, S. Williams, A.H. Young, P. Ywema, S. Zisook, and E. Malievskaia.

© PsyPost

Why rituals have been crucial for humans throughout history – and why we still need them

The Conversation
December 27, 2022

Champagne Toast with Sparklers (Shutterstock)

Each December, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, among others, take over our thoughts and our wallets as we participate in ceremonies our ancestors have practiced for as long as we can remember. These are all example of traditions. And in most cases, traditions are accompanied by rituals.

What’s the difference?

In scientific terms, a “tradition” refers to the passing down of customs and beliefs from one generation to the next. A “ritual”, on the other hand, is a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order, and which is often embedded in a larger symbolic system, such as religion or philosophy.

For example, while celebrating birthdays is a tradition, blowing out the candles on a cake is a ritual. Similarly, while getting married is a tradition, exchanging vows is a ritual.

New rituals can be created at any time. To become tradition they only need to be understood and replicated by a wider community.


Communities around the world have different rituals practiced during weddings, often passed down through generations. Shutterstock

And it’s not just in grand gestures that humans practice rituals; some are so embedded into our everyday lives we no longer recognise them. The very particular way someone makes their tea or coffee in the morning is a ritual they enact daily.

Basically, rituals are everywhere. That raises the question: why do we have them at all?

Archaeological evidence for the earliest rituals

Ritual behavior has very deep origins in humanity. However, tracking these origins and their development is difficult as rituals often leave little or no physical traces behind for archaeologists to find.

Thus far, the best evidence for ancient rituals is the deliberate burial of loved ones. The oldest example is found at Mt Carmel in Israel, where some 130,000 years ago a Neanderthal woman was laid to rest by her community.


Mt Carmel in Israel is the site of the oldest known human burial. A Neanderthal woman was laid to rest here some 130,000 years ago. Michelle Langley

Archaeologists also suggest the extensive use of colored pigments (particularly bright red) to paint bodies, objects and rock walls points to the practice of “symbolic” behavior, including ritual. The oldest reliable evidence for colourant use dates to between 500,000 and 310,000 years ago and comes from several archaeological sites in southern Africa.

Another type of evidence that is often intrinsically tied to rituals and traditions is musical instruments. Bone flutes dating back to about 42,000 years ago have been found in Western Europe. How long people have used the very first instruments – the human voice, clapping hands and stomping feet – remains unknown.


This bone flute, found at the German Palaeolithic site of Hohle Fels, is at least 42,000 years old. Jensen/University of Tubingen

Why do we have rituals?

Rituals play a very important role in human communities for a number of reasons.

First, rituals help reduce individual and collective anxieties, especially when we ourselves, our family, or our whole community is facing uncertain times or crisis.

Research has shown that by praying or singing together we feel connected and supported and our anxiety is reduced. This may explain why Parisians were moved to sing together as they watched their beloved Notre Dame Cathedral burn in 2019.


Parisians sing together as Notre Dame burns – a spontaneous ritual to deal with an unexpected crisis.

Rituals also help reduce anxiety by allowing us to feel control over our surroundings. For instance, new parents may be anxious about protecting their baby. Rituals that welcome the infant into the family and community help them feel they’ve done everything possible – including drawing on supernatural protection – to ensure their child’s wellbeing.

Second, rituals bring people together to celebrate or otherwise mark important life milestones. Births, graduations, marriages and deaths are all marked by rituals and traditions across the globe. These events provide a time and place to gather and encourage people to renew their bonds with friends and family.

These bonds are especially important in times of bad luck, which helps explain why the incentive to maintain them has endured through human history.

Imagine living tens of thousands of years ago, when human communities were much smaller and often lived farther apart. If a volcano erupted, the resulting destruction could mean plant and animal resources – essential food and materials needed for survival – would not be available for months, or perhaps years.

You would then have to rely on the bonds you maintained with neighboring communities through shared rituals. Such bonds would encourage the sharing of resources until circumstances improve.

Finally, rituals help us remember and share huge amounts of cultural information. By learning a format or pattern of behavior through ritual, we can absorb information and recall it later more easily.

This approach works astonishingly well to ensure information is passed down orally over long periods. Thus far, the oldest story dated using scientific methods is the Aboriginal Gunditjmara people’s story of the Budj Bim volcano eruption, which occurred 37,000 years ago in what is now south-western Victoria.

Being able to retain information about changes in the landscape, its plants, animals and people ultimately increased the likelihood that your family would not only survive – but thrive.

Rituals will remain

Without rituals, and the traditions in which they become embedded, it is unlikely humanity would have advanced to its current state of cultural and technological development.

We wouldn’t have been able to continually gather and share information, maintain bonds over extensive geographical areas, or make it through difficult periods.

Despite being surrounding by increasingly complex technologies, rituals today remain more important than ever. With extreme weather events and conflicts continuing to displace people all over the globe, they will act as an essential social glue that holds our communities together.

Michelle Langley, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Griffith University

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

'It just dies': Yellow-band disease ravages Thailand's coral reefs

Agence France-Presse
December 28, 2022

Yellow-band disease is rapidly spreading and killing corals off the eastern coast of Thailand © Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP

Underneath the calm turquoise waters off eastern Thailand, a rapidly spreading disease is killing corals over vast stretches of the sea floor, and scientists fear it may be getting worse because of climate change.

Yellow-band disease -- named for the colour it turns corals before destroying them -- was first spotted decades ago and has caused widespread damage to reefs in the Caribbean. There is no known cure.

But it was detected for the first time off Thailand's eastern coast just last year, near the popular tourist city of Pattaya, and has already spread over roughly 600 acres (240 hectares) of the sea.

"I haven't seen anything like this before," said marine scientist Lalita Putchim, of Thailand's Department of Marine and Coastal Resources.

"Everywhere we went we saw it, and we expect to see more of it as we go."

Scientists believe overfishing, pollution and rising water temperatures because of climate change may be making the reefs more vulnerable to yellow-band disease.

The disease's impact cannot be reversed, unlike the effects of coral bleaching.

"When the coral is infected with this disease, it just dies," Lalita said.

The loss of corals could have a devastating impact on the ecosystem -- the reef is "like a forest", sustaining massive amounts of life, and its death could eventually impact humans too, she added.

Thai scientists are hoping their investigation into this outbreak will help find a way to stop or cure yellow-band disease.

On one research trip near Samaesan island in Chonburi district, Lalita and her team donned diving gear on a boat before heading underwater.

They photographed infected corals, taking measurements and photographs while harvesting samples to study later.

Thai marine authorities are using social media to track reports of infected reefs, and have also asked the public to report any sightings of affected corals.

Thai researchers have also been aided by local volunteers, as well as business owner Thanapon Chaivanichakul, who collected underwater photographic evidence.

"I was shocked when I first saw it," Thanapon told AFP, using a series of expletives to describe the disease.

The disease is also a threat to the livelihoods of many in the area.

Choopan Sudjai, the owner of a sightseeing boat, relies on the income from tourists who come to see the area's natural beauty -- especially the coral reefs.

"Now that the coral has been infected and will be destroyed, what will we do in five years?" said the 55-year-old.

"It feels as if our own home has been destroyed."

They survived the hunters: now king penguins face climate change

Agence France-Presse
December 29, 2022

King penguins stand just under a meter tall © PATRICK HERTZOG / AFP

Once hunted to the brink of extinction, the thousands of king penguins that densely congregate on the remote Possession Island each year now face a new threat: climate change.

The birds spend most of their life at sea, but come breeding time in December half the world's population flock to the islands in the southern Indian Ocean's Crozet archipelago, roughly halfway between Antarctica and the southeastern tip of Africa.

Robin Cristofari, a specialist in penguins at Finland's University of Turku, looks out on a colony massed at a bay on Possession Island.

"This species was not very far from extinction" after being massacred by seal hunters from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th, he said.

When the hunters ran out of seals to kill, they used the penguins as fuel, burning them to melt seal blubber in cauldrons, said Cristofari.

For a short time they even made penguin oil, "but it was not good quality", he added.

The king penguin population rebounded in the latter half of the 20th century, but their numbers plateaued around 20 years ago.

"After that first hurdle, the species now faces a second, more insidious one: climate change," Cristofari said.

He was the lead author of a 2018 study that found that global warming was on track to wipe out 70 percent of the world's king penguins by the end of the century.

Polar Front

King penguins stand just under a meter (three feet) tall and sport black-and-white tuxedos accessorized with bright orange on their necks and beaks.

They only return to land to breed, and are very picky about where they do so.

It must be a dry place, without winter sea ice around the island, and have a smooth beach of sand or pebbles as well as plentiful, accessible sources of food.

This means breeding spots need to be close to the Antarctic Polar Front, where cold waters from the south converge with warmer northern flows to create an area abundant with fish, squid and other marine food.

In January, the polar front is usually 350 kilometers (about 220 miles) south of the Crozet archipelago.

But during hot years it can be up to 750 kilometers away -- too far for penguins to get food and quickly return to their hungry hatchlings and relieved partner.

"Reproductive success is directly related to the distance from the polar front," Cristofari said.

But with the polar front drifting southwards as human-driven climate change warms the world, the Crozet Islands could soon become uninhabitable for king penguins.

And that would leave the flightless birds with only a handful of islands to the south, many of which cannot sustain large breeding colonies.

"We are not worried about the species, the population will not disappear in the next 50 years," Cristofari said. But their way of life could be seriously disrupted, he said.

- 'Playful and curious' -

King penguins live for about 25 years and have their first chicks aged about six or seven.

Out of more than a million breeding pairs worldwide, around half breed on the Crozet Islands.

They typically arrive in early November, selecting and mating with the partner with whom they will stay faithful for a year.

The parents share equal responsibilities during the 50-day incubation period and the first month after the chick hatches.

Cristofari said the "playful and curious" birds barge into the gigantic nesting colonies on the islands, carefully waddling with their egg nestled between their feet.

Finding a place among the crowd, the partners take turns using their bellies to warm their precious future offspring, Cristofari said.

The parent not caring for the egg or chick heads out to sea in search of food. Their partner back on land can go a month without eating.

The chicks are well fed until May then fast during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. The parents come back to feed their offspring occasionally until spring.

"The cycle is timed to make it as easy as possible for the chick to start feeding on its own, ideally during the peak of summer," Cristofari said.

Then, a full year after hatching, the hungry penguins enter the water to catch their own food for the first time.


© 2022 AFP

Trump allies were desperate to 'conjure up' voter fraud — but they couldn't find any: former prosecutor

Matthew Chapman

RAW STORY
December 29, 2022
 
Senator Lindsey Graham smiles A SHIT EATING GRIN behind President Trump 

at the rally in the Bojangle's Coliseum in 2020. (Shutterstock.com)

On Thursday's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room," former federal prosecutor Elie Honig tore into former President Donald Trump's associates for doing everything in their power to hunt for voter fraud, despite the fact that there wasn't any and they appeared to know there wasn't any.

This came after the release of a transcript from Christina Bobb, a Trump attorney, who revealed a damning conversation Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had with her.

"According to this new transcript from a Trump lawyer, Senator Lindsey Graham ... said 'Just give me five dead voters,'" said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "That's a direct quote. How desperate were Trump's allies to find anything to back up their false claims of voter fraud?"

"Well, Wolf, one thing that jumps out to me from these transcripts is they knew they had nothing," said Honig. "Whether it's Lindsey Graham, Donald Trump Jr., these transcripts show us that in the hours and days after the votes were actually cast in November, they realized they had lost, they realized their only hope was to conjure up these claims of voter fraud, and they just couldn't find any."

A case in point, said Honig, is the fact that Graham "apparently wasn't even able to get anything enough to satisfy him on that small ask" to find five dead voters.

'The point here is they knew they needed some evidence of voter fraud, they had absolutely none, yet they claimed it anyway," said Honig.

Elie Honig says Trump's team were desperate to "conjure up" voter fraud

ECOCIDE
Brazil's haunting graveyard of ships risks environmental disaster, warns activist group

Reuters
December 29, 2022
By Pilar Olivares

GUANABARA BAY (Reuters) - On a stormy evening in mid-November, a huge, abandoned cargo ship broke free of its moorings and slowly floated into the massive concrete bridge that carries cars across Brazil's Guanabara Bay to Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil's navy said the 200-meter-long (660-ft.) Sao Luiz, a rust-spattered bulk carrier built in 1994, had been anchored in the bay for more than six years awaiting legal proceedings before it crashed into Latin America's longest over-water bridge. The navy said it was investigating.

"The Sao Luiz is still in the Port of Rio today, with 50 tonnes of fuel oil in it," Sergio Ricardo, co-founder of socio-environmental group Movimento Baia Viva (Living Bay Movement) told Reuters, also pointing to high levels of corrosion.

"The ship is unsafe and can cause an environmental disaster," he said.

Worldwide, financial and legal problems are common reasons for owners abandoning ships.

The Sao Luiz is one of dozens of ships left to rust on the iconic but heavily polluted bay, once home to vast mangroves and thriving marine life.

The mangroves are now much reduced and pollution exacerbated by the graveyard of ships is threatening local sea-horses, green turtles and Guiana dolphins, a symbol of Rio de Janeiro.

A survey by the Rio de Janeiro State University found this year that just 34 Guiana dolphins remained in the bay, down from around 800 in the 1990s.

Besides the ships' effect on marine life and passing vessels, which must navigate an obstacle course of half-floating hulks, pollution in the bay imposes a financial cost of some tens of billions of reais a year with its pollution, Ricardo estimated.

Fernando Pinto Lima, a 62-year-old former fisherman in the bay, told Reuters he used to be able to quickly catch 50 to 100 kilograms of fish. "Now to catch fifty kilograms, it'll take you a week or a month," he said.

Following the Sao Luiz crash, local media reported that authorities were studying how to remove the ghost ships. But the derelict vessels continue to molder on and under its muddy waters.

($1 = 5.2186 reais)

(Reporting by Pilar Olivares; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Bradley Perrett)








Read More