Israel's use of poison gas in Gaza 'must be probed': Haaretz

Haaretz has called for an urgent investigation into the use of poison gas by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Families of hostages are urging for a ceasefire in Gaza to ensure the safe return of the captives [Getty]

The New Arab Staff
22 January, 2024

Leading Israeli daily Haaretz called on Monday for an urgent investigation into the suspected use of poison gas by Israeli forces in Gaza in an op-ed published on Monday.

The newspaper raised significant questions regarding the role of Israeli forces in an incident involving recovering the bodies of three Israeli hostages from a tunnel in Jabalya, northern Gaza, on 14 December.

The hostages, identified as soldiers Ron Sherman and Nick Beiser, and civilian Elia Toledano, were reportedly abducted by Hamas on 7 October.

The Israeli army provided their families with a pathology report detailing how the bodies were found approximately a month later.

Sherman’s mother, Dr. Maayan Sherman, a veterinarian, claimed that the results of the report suggested he was murdered by poison gas allegedly used by the Israeli forces in the tunnels. She accused the government of knowingly putting the hostages at risk.

"Not by Hamas, think more in the direction of Auschwitz and the showers but without Nazis and without Hamas. Not by accidental fire, not by friendly fire, but premeditated murder: bombs with poison gas," she wrote in a Facebook post.

Israeli army Spokesperson Daniel Hagari responded evasively, stating it was not possible to determine the cause of death and avoiding direct confirmation or denial of the family's claims.

Haaretz, in its lead editorial, has called for a thorough investigation into the incident.

The paper called for answers to critical questions, which included whether the Israeli forces used poison gas in Gaza tunnels, and if so, was it legally justified under international laws of war.

Haaretz questioned if such tactics were employed, who authorised their use, and whether the hostages' lives were taken into account during the decision to attack the tunnel.

The daily called for a transparent and independent investigation into the incident, rather than wait for Israel's war on Gaza to end.

Toxic gas has been used by Israel before in the besieged enclave.

In 2014, Palestinian health officials reported that tens of Palestinians, including children, suffered temporary asphyxiation after inhaling poisonous gases released by Israeli troops during incursions into the Gaza Strip.

The reported attack came as Israel staged incursions into the northern and southern Gaza Strip, dubbed "Operation Protective Edge".

Israel has destroyed 1,000 of Gaza's 1,2000 mosques since 7 October, officials say

Israeli attacks since October 7 have led to the destruction of 1,000 mosques and the killing of over at least 100 Muslim preachers.

More than 100 Muslim preachers were also killed in the deadly Israeli offensive on the besieged enclave [Getty]


Some 1,000 of 1,2000 mosques in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed in Israeli attacks since October 7, local authorities said on Sunday.

More than 100 Muslim preachers were also killed in the deadly Israeli offensive on the besieged enclave, Gaza's Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs said in a statement, adding that a church, several administrative buildings and Quranic schools were destroyed in the Israeli onslaught.

These include the Great Omari Mosque, one of the most important and ancient mosques in historical Palestine, and the Church of Saint Porphyrius, thought to be the third oldest church in the entire world.

"The reconstruction of these mosques will cost around $500 million," the statement said.

"The Israeli occupation continues to destroy dozens of cemeteries and dig up graves, violating their sanctity…and stealing the corpses inside, in a clear challenge to international charters and human rights," it said.

"We appeal to the Arab and Islamic nations and people of conscience to fulfil their responsibilities towards the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," it added.

Israel launched an indiscriminate and relentless military campaign against the Gaza Strip on 7 October, killing over 25,000 people - mostly women and children - and wounding at least 62,000.

The Israeli offensive has displaced over 85 percent of Gaza's population and enforced a total siege leading to acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

It has also destroyed at least 60 percent of the enclave's infrastructure through repeated targeting of hospitals, schools, universities and more than 100 heritage sites.

These include a 2,000-year-old Roman cemetery in northern Gaza excavated only last year, and the Rafah Museum, a space in southern Gaza which was dedicated to teaching about the territory's long and multi-layered heritage - until it was hammered by air strikes early on in the war.

The latest war on Gaza was not the first time Israel targeted heritage sites. Dozens of sites, including the now-obliterated Great Omari Mosque, suffered damage in 2014.

A report by UNESCO, the United Nations body that designates and protects World Heritage sites, cites further destruction of cultural and historic sites in Gaza in 2021.

A Louisiana teen traveled to the West Bank to learn about his roots. He was shot dead.

“My son is an American before Palestinian,” his grieving father said as he grappled with the U.S. government’s role in the violence in Gaza and the West Bank. “Americans, us, our government backs it up.”

Funeral held for a 17-year-old Palestinian-American killed in West Bank

Jan. 21, 2024
By Chantal Da Silva, Raf Sanchez and Lawahez Jabari


AL-MAZRA’A AL-SHARQIYA, West Bank — Tawfic Hafeth Abdel Jabbar, 17, was born and raised in Louisiana, in a city called Gretna across the Mississippi River from New Orleans and surrounded by the delta’s swampland and bayous.

It’s a long way from the mountains of the occupied West Bank, but when Tawfic arrived in May, he was excited to properly explore the landscape of the village where his dad grew up, and to learn more about his roots as a Palestinian American.


“He loved the outdoors,” his father, Hafeth Abdel Jabbar, told NBC News — and Tawfic was eager to spend more time in Al-Mazra’a Al-Sharqiya, about 10 miles northeast of Ramallah, and to enjoy all the reasons Palestinians “love their homeland,” he said.

He never imagined he would end up burying his son on that very same land.

“Tawfic is gone,” said Abdel Jabbar, 40. “He was killed in cold blood.”Tawfic’s mother, center, weeps over his body during his funeral procession on Saturday.Marco Longari / AFP via Getty Images

Tawfic’s family says he was a victim of mounting settler violence in the territory, which has been on the rise since the war began.

As an American, Abdel Jabbar said, he would have expected the U.S. to seek justice for his son. But he says the Biden administration’s support of Israel, including with weapons, and what he sees as a tepid response from the White House to Tawfic’s death make him doubt that his government will act in his son’s interest.

‘They took the best of us’

In video from his funeral shared by his father, Tawfic's head is wrapped in a keffiyeh, the traditional Palestinian scarf. There are cuts and bruises on his face. Flowers surround him as his family says their final farewells.

Tawfic Hafeth Abdel Jabbar, 17, pictured far left.

“They all say they took the best of us,” Abdel Jabbar said, describing his son as a lovely and outgoing teen who was “very loved.”

He hoped to study engineering in college — and was considering pursuing his degree in the West Bank.

Abdel Jabbar said Tawfic had gone out for a picnic with friends on Friday when he was shot by a person witnesses told Abdel Jabbar appeared to be an Israeli settler, who initially opened fire, followed by someone wearing a uniform for the Israel Defense Forces.

The IDF said it had received a report regarding an “off-duty police officer and a civilian who fired toward a Palestinian individual suspected of hurling rocks” in the area. It confirmed an IDF soldier was also in the area and said it was investigating a claim that the soldier fired at the Palestinian.

The Israel Police said it was also investigating the incident. Asked to confirm whether the civilian was an Israeli settler, the IDF referred NBC News to the Israel Police, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the civilian’s identity.

Abdel Jabbar dismissed the suggestion his son might have been “hurling rocks” as a “lie.” But, he said, even if rocks were thrown in the area, “so what?”

“If they were throwing rocks 150 meters to the street, what is it going to do to a tank? Or to a jeep? Or to a car full of soldiers? You’re gonna shoot the car 10 times because a guy threw a rock?” he said.

Speaking with NBC News shortly after his son’s funeral, Abdel Jabbar described racing to the scene when he heard his son had been shot. He found him bleeding in a truck with two gunshot wounds — one to the head and another in the chest. “I took him with my bare hands out of the car,” he said.

T

he truck in which Tawfic Hafeth Abdel Jabbar was shot dead sits over Highway 60 in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.Chantal Da Silva

The grieving father said people in IDF uniforms were already on the scene when he arrived — and he said they “pointed their guns at us, warning, ‘We will shoot you,’” if he and others did not leave the area.

“We didn’t care. We went to the car and we grabbed him,” he said.

The IDF did not immediately respond to a question about that specific claim.

Hafeth Abdel Jabbar, 40.

Chantal Da Silva

Blood could be seen on the shattered windshield and seats of the truck Tawfic was shot in. Shards of glass were strewn along the terrain where his family says the vehicle rolled over before coming to a halt over a section of Highway 60.

The incident comes as human rights groups have documented a rise in settler violence in the occupied West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began.

Since Oct. 7, at the start of the war in Gaza, 344 Palestinians, including 88 children, have been killed by security forces and settlers across the West Bank, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Blood smeared on the broken windshield of the car Tawfic Hafeth Abdel Jabbar was in when he was shot.

Chantal Da Silva

Dror Sadot, a spokesperson for B’Tselem, an organization that documents human rights violations against Palestinians, told NBC News in a phone interview on Sunday that cases of reported settler violence are rarely thoroughly investigated by Israeli authorities — and even more rarely prosecuted.

Settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, are Jewish communities that have formed in the West Bank after it was occupied by Israel in 1967. Israel maintains that only settlements built without permits or on state land should be considered illegal.
‘My son is an American’

Even as settler attacks in the West Bank increased, Abdel Jabbar thought the small village he grew up in would remain far from the violence.

He repeatedly assured friends and family in the U.S. that Al-Mazra’a Al-Sharqiya was safe when they expressed mounting concerns over violence in the territory.

His anger is deepened by his shock over what he sees as the U.S. government’s indifference to his son’s killing.

On Friday, the U.S. State Department confirmed that a U.S. citizen had died in the West Bank and offered condolences to the family. It said U.S. officials were still working to understand the circumstances and had asked the Israeli government for more information. Hours before, national security spokesman John Kirby said in a briefing that while U.S. officials didn’t have “perfect context about exactly what happened,” the White House was “seriously concerned about it.

”

A photo taken earlier this month shows Tawfic and a friend standing on the vehicle and in the location where he would later be shot.

Supplied by the Abdel Jabbar family.

The response, Abdel Jabbar said, was “humiliating” for his family. “He didn’t say a child — he didn’t say who was the killer.”

Abdel Jabbar also questioned the U.S. government’s allegiances, should it conduct an investigation into his son’s death, “when my government is supporting” Israel, including in its offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 25,000 people since the war began, with more than 62,000 injured and thousands more missing and considered dead, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attacks that killed about 1,200 people in Israel and saw more than 260 taken hostage into the enclave, where more than 100 people remain captive, according to Israeli officials.

“Where’s your concern there?” Abdel Jabbar said, addressing the White House. “Where’s the weapons that you send them to kill all these children?” he said, referring to the billions of dollars Israel receives from the U.S. in military assistance annually, including emergency arms transfers to further bolster Israel’s war chest last month.

“Americans, us, our government backs it up,” Abdel Jabbar said. “Takes our money to give it to them,” he said, referring to Israel.

Since the start of the war, President Joe Biden has urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza, but the death toll has continued to skyrocket in the months since. And Biden’s administration has expressed mounting concerns over settler violence in the West Bank.

Tawfic, furthest right, pictured as a child on a trip to Florida.

Abdel Jabbar said his family had been contacted by U.S. officials about his son’s case and was expecting a visit from them. As an American citizen, he said, he expected the U.S. to seek justice over his son’s death.

“[I] work hard, built myself, pay taxes ... I married there, had all my children there. I’m a part of the community there. I’m an American citizen,” he said. “I live that American dream. But where’s the humanity?”

“My son is an American before Palestinian. He was born in the U.S.,” he said. “On his passport, [it] says ‘We will protect you. ... We will protect you and bring you justice.’”

“Where’s my son’s justice?” he said.

Chantal Da Silva is a breaking news editor for NBC News Digital based in London.

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Poultry plant slapped by feds after underage worker dies in horrifying machine mishap

By Alex Oliveira
Published Jan. 21, 2024

A Mississippi poultry plant where an underage worker violently died after being pulled into machinery over the summer is entirely responsible for the horrifying incident, federal regulators ruled after an investigation.

“Disregarded safety standards” at the Mar-Jac Poultry plant in Hattiesburg directly led to the death of Duvan Tomas Perez in July, investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ruled last week.

“Mar-Jac Poultry is aware of how dangerous the machinery they use can be when safety standards are not in place to prevent serious injury and death,” OSHA Regional Administrator Kurt Petermeyer said in a statement.

“The company’s inaction has directly led to this terrible tragedy, which has left so many to mourn this child’s preventable death.”

Perez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan immigrant who had been in the US for about 6 years, was cleaning out a deboning machine at the Mar-Jac plant on July 14 when it suddenly activated and drew him in.
3Duvan Tomas Perez was just 16 years old when he was pulled into a deboning machine in July and killed

“The teen was caught in the rotating shaft and sprockets and pulled in, sustaining fatal injuries,” the OSHA report said.

Investigators found that contrary to proper protocol, the machine had not been disconnected from power before cleaning began, and that a failsafe device intended to prevent the machine from turning on during cleaning was not in use.

Those basic safety measures were not observed despite a supervisor being present before and during the cleaning, according to OSHA.

Perez’s death was the second fatal accident resulting from improper safety precautions at the Mar-Jac plant in two years.

Mar-Jac has been cited for poor safety resulting in employee deaths by OSHA twice in the last two years Google Maps

In 2021, an employee died after their sleeve became caught in machinery, fatally pinning the worker alongside the machine.

“Following the fatal incident in May 2021 Mar-Jac Poultry should have enforced strict safety standards in its facility,” Petermeyer said.

“Only about two years later nothing has changed and the company continues to treat employee safety as an afterthought, putting its workers at risk. No worker should be placed in a preventable, dangerous situation, let alone a child,” he added.

Mar-Jac was fined $212,646 in penalties for Perez’s death.

The Mar-Jac plant in Hattiesburg, Missouri. The underage Perez was employed there in violation of labor lawsGoogle Maps

It is unclear whether Mar-Jac will also face fines for violating Mississippi labor laws, which prohibit children under 18 from working in poultry plants due to the associated dangers.

Mar-Jac did not respond to requests for comment.

“Our employees are our family and we constantly strive to provide them with a safe and pleasant working environment,” the Mar-Jac website reads.

“Whether it’s providing ice cream parties for employees or other social events, we realize what an invaluable asset our employees represent.”

Who will be most at risk from increasing fatal humidity?

A hot day in New Delhi, India, May 2023. 

Credit: NurPhoto / Getty Images

January 22, 2024
Ellen Phiddian

Deadly levels of humid heat are not a common phenomenon, yet.

But on current climate pathways, it’s likely parts of the world will get so hot and humid that humans will be literally unable to survive the weather in coming decades.

And according to an Australasian research team, populations under the most threat are also often the least well-equipped to handle it.

They are sounding the alarm on humid heat stress in a commentary published in One Earth.

The “theoretical limit of human survival”, as the researchers call it, is a wet-bulb temperature of 35°C.

“The wet bulb temperature is a measure that incorporates both air temperature and humidity,” explains lead author Emma Ramsay, a postdoctoral research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

“If you’re measuring it on the ground, it’s a thermometer with a wet cloth wrapped around it. Essentially, it’s measuring the temperature if the water evaporated.”

Evaporating water – or rather, evaporating sweat – is how humans cool down. The more moisture in the air, the warmer something needs to be for water to evaporate and the harder it is for the body to cool itself.

“Eventually, our core body temperature would rise, and we wouldn’t be able to survive for much longer than a few hours,” Ramsay tells Cosmos.

The wet-bulb 35°C limit, according to Ramsay, is “purely based on physics”.

“It really was an ideal limit, and any real human would almost certainly struggle in conditions below that.”

There have been a few isolated recordings of the lethal 35°C limit in recent years – although only briefly. People haven’t seen longer and more deadly periods of deadly humid heat.

“In human history, it’s never passed these limits,” says Ramsay.

“But what’s kind of scary is that the best available climate projections now show that parts of the world are on track to reach these upper limits. In some parts, only 1 or 2°C warming could be [enough].”

Unfortunately, the places that are at most risk are also often the least prepared.

“There’s one billion people living in informal settlements – so, what we think of as slums – primarily located in developing countries across the tropics,” says Ramsay.

“When you look at a map of where the most informal settlements are, in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, they line up almost exactly with these really high-risk locations for humid heat stress.”

Beyond taking action to limit greenhouse gas emissions, how should the world cope with humid heat stress? Evacuating these areas isn’t a feasible option, says Ramsay.

“I think any kind of widespread migration due to climate change would be hugely catastrophic for the world. So helping communities adapt is a priority. And there are a number of ways that we can do that.”

A significant one, according to the researchers’ paper, is urban planning. Cities are particularly hot places, but tree planting and other green spaces have a significant cooling effect.

“Green and blue spaces in the city help to keep it cool,” says Ramsay.

Buildings to shelter from the heat can help too – but not necessarily private homes.

“Air conditioning obviously seems like an almost inevitable solution, but it’s not going to be equitable, and it’s not going to be sustainable,” says Ramsay.

“We already see during heatwaves that everyone turning on the air conditioning can put a huge load on the power grid, and a blackout can be deadly in that situation. So we know that air conditioning isn’t a viable solution for the future.

“What we can do is have places like humid heat shelters where, during the very worst heat waves, people can go and seek shelter in an air-conditioned space.”

Cities also need better meteorological science to manage this. In sub-Saharan Africa, according to the paper, just 6% of urban settlements have a meteorological station within 5km.

“For this to be effective, we need to be able to send out warnings and alerts through what are known as early warning systems,” says Ramsay.

“In Australia, if there’s a heatwave or a flood, you’ll get a text or an alert from the BOM. But in many developing countries, these just don’t exist, and they don’t have the climate data to really be feeding into these systems either.”

Ramsay and colleagues write in their paper that “such efforts must be prioritised to protect the most vulnerable from the existential threat of humid heat”.

Psychoactive drug helps veterans with traumatic brain injury

One dose of ibogaine was shown to dramatically reduce depression and PTSD

Credit: Dylann Hendricks / Unsplash+ / collage by Freethink

Kristin Houser

JANUARY 21, 2024

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Between 2000 and 2022, nearly 460,000 U.S. service members sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) during training or combat.

TBI puts people at a higher risk of developing depression, PTSD, and anxiety, as well as other disorders.

A small study out of Stanford University found that a dose of ibogaine, a psychoactive drug, reduced the symptoms of TBI based on self-reports.

A single dose of the psychoactive drug ibogaine appears to reduce the symptoms of a traumatic brain injury in military vets, according to a small Stanford University study, though more research is needed to confirm the promising results.

The challenge: A traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs when you hit or jerk your head hard enough that your brain moves violently inside your skull. This may cause brain damage that leads to problems with cognition, emotion, or movement.

Such injuries are unfortunately common among U.S. military veterans.

Between 2000 and 2022, nearly 460,000 service members sustained a TBI during training or combat, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, and those injuries put them at higher risk than other vets of developing depression, PTSD, anxiety, suicidality, or a substance abuse disorder.


They were all willing to try most anything that they thought might help them get their lives back.Nolan Williams

The idea: While standard treatments, such as antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds, can help some vets overcome the symptoms of a TBI, they don’t work for everyone, leading some to try more radical options, including ibogaine, a psychoactive substance found in certain plants.


“There were a handful of veterans who had gone to this clinic in Mexico and were reporting anecdotally that they had great improvements in all kinds of areas of their lives after taking ibogaine,” said Nolan Williams, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford.

The study: Williams and his colleagues have now published a study detailing what happened after ibogaine treatment on 30 special forces vets with a history of TBI, all of whom had independently scheduled appointments at the Mexican ibogaine clinic, which is run by Ambio Life Sciences.

“These men were incredibly intelligent, high-performing individuals who experienced life-altering functional disability from TBI during their time in combat,” said Williams. “They were all willing to try most anything that they thought might help them get their lives back.”

Before and after traveling to Mexico for the ibogaine treatment — a single oral dose of the drug combined with magnesium to help prevent potential heart complications — the vets completed questionnaires and underwent assessments to measure their levels of PTSD, anxiety, depression, and disability.

No other drug has ever been able to alleviate the functional and neuropsychiatric symptoms of traumatic brain injury.Nolan Williams

After the treatment, they had an average disability score of 5.1 (indicating no disability) compared to 30.2 (mild to moderate disability) prior to it. The vets’ self-reported symptoms of PTSD, depression, and anxiety also fell by an average of 88%, 87%, and 81%, respectively.

These effects persisted for one month after the ibogaine treatment, the period of time covered by the new paper, but the researchers plan to follow up with the vets for one year.

“No other drug has ever been able to alleviate the functional and neuropsychiatric symptoms of traumatic brain injury,” said Williams. “The results are dramatic, and we intend to study this compound further.”

Looking ahead: While the study suggests that ibogaine may be able to help vets overcome the symptoms of a TBI, it is far from conclusive.

The study was small and lacked a control group, and because all of the participants had already actively sought out the ibogaine treatment, some of them must have expected it would help, and that could have influenced their responses.

To truly determine the drug’s potential, we need larger, placebo-controlled trials, and given the fact that ibogaine is a schedule 1 drug in the U.S., securing approval for them here may be tough. Still, the Stanford team is eager to dig deeper into ibogaine as a treatment for TBI and beyond.

“I think this may emerge as a broader neuro-rehab drug,” said Williams. “I think it targets a whole host of different brain areas and can help us better understand how to treat other forms of PTSD, anxiety, and depression that aren’t necessarily linked to TBI.”

This article was originally published by our sister site, Freethink.

Dogs provide better emotional support than human friends, partners: study

Profound impact of dogs lies in their unconditional love and non-judgmental support

By Web Desk
January 21, 2024

True love: a woman and her Valentine's Day date pose behind a heart-shaped pastry during a February 14 Paris flash mob. 

—AFP/file

New research has unveiled the distinctive ability of dogs to induce both psychological and physiological calmness in their owners during challenging situations, National Geographic reported.

Unlike human interactions, the profound impact of dogs lies in their unconditional love and non-judgmental support, affecting mental well-being and physical responses.

Evangeline Wheeler, a professor of psychology at Towson University, underscores the predictability and reliability of dog companions, fostering a sense of security through their unconditional love and non-critical demeanour.

Studies, featured in Psychosomatic Medicine and the Journal Emotion, illustrate that the presence of a dog leads to smaller increases in blood pressure and heart rate during stressful tasks compared to the presence of human friends or partners.

In scenarios involving stress-inducing tasks such as the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), participants accompanied by a companion dog exhibited lower stress levels, emphasising the unique ability of dogs to provide a comforting and stabilising influence.

Beyond their physical presence, the act of conversing with one's dog plays a pivotal role in emotional well-being. Engaging in daily conversations with dogs serves as a gentle reminder of meaning and purpose, contributing to a sense of security and unconditional love.

Lori Kogan, a counselling psychologist, and professor at Colorado State University, acknowledges the raw honesty and acceptance defining the relationship between humans and dogs.

The research underscores the therapeutic benefits of confiding in dogs about emotionally charged issues. Individuals are more willing to share difficult emotions, such as depression and anxiety, with their dogs compared to romantic partners or friends.

In addition to providing emotional support, interacting with dogs releases oxytocin, known as the "love hormone," which decreases the stress response in the short term.

Scientific first: Researchers find traces of disease in dolphin poop

UH News » Research 

• January 21, 2024
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Reading time: 2 minutes

Scientists have found a new non-invasive way to identify a deadly virus in dolphins that could be a testing breakthrough. For the first time, researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi Health and Stranding Lab have successfully detected Fraser’s morbillivirus, which can cause respiratory and neurological disease, in the feces of a dolphin. The findings published in Marine Mammal Science provide a new tool to identify and monitor threats faced by Hawaiʻi’s marine mammals.

This is particularly important for Hawaiʻi’s dolphin populations, where a disease outbreak could have devastating effects. Marine mammals, recognized as sentinels of ocean health, have an important role in maintaining the delicate balance of marine ecosystems.

(Photo credit: U.S. Commander Pacific Fleet Environmental Readiness Division)

Researchers collected feces from a stranded dolphin infected with the virus and conducted experiments to simulate the detection of the disease in seawater. The team demonstrated the surprising ability to detect Fraser’s morbillivirus in dilutions of feces in seawater at a level of 1 to 1,000. Using this non-invasive approach, testing poop collected from live animals in the wild will enable researchers to assess the health status of marine mammals with a hands-off approach.

“This is the first time that a pathogen responsible for mass mortalities of dolphins and whales, and that affects multiple organ systems other than the digestive tract, has been demonstrated in the feces of whales and dolphins,” said Kristi West, lead author and an associate researcher at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology.

Testing in the wild

Morbilliviruses have been responsible for mass mortalities of dolphins and whales during outbreak events. This study recommends that permitted research vessels studying dolphins and whales collect fecal samples using flasks and nets to test for disease.

“It is logistically difficult to test live, wild dolphins for the presence of disease, and the current study provides a method that can be applied to detect infectious disease in live dolphins and whales,” said Cody Clifton, a co-author and graduate student at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources.

The research was funded by the U.S. Navy and NOAA Fisheries. Reporting distressed or deceased marine mammals provides vital information for understanding causes of mortality and evaluating threats to protected species in Hawaiʻi and the greater Pacific. Sightings can be reported to the NOAA hotline at 1-888-256-9840.

Congo’s blackwater Ruki River is a major transporter of forest carbon - new study

THE CONVERSATION
Published: January 21, 2024

River Ruki. Photo by Matti Barthel, Author provided


The Congo Basin of central Africa is well known for its network of rivers that drain a variety of landscapes, from dense tropical forests to more arid and wooded savannas. Among the Congo River’s large tributaries, the Ruki is unique in its extremely dark colour, which renders the water opaque below a few centimetres’ depth.

This large blackwater river caught the attention of our carbon biogeochemistry research team when we visited its confluence with the Congo River at the city of Mbandaka. Mbandaka is a small city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, located about 600km upstream from Kinshasa on the Congo River. The area around Mbandaka is known as the Cuvette Centrale and is characterised by its vast low-lying topography, much of which floods during the rainy season and results in extensive swamp forests.

As we watched the placid dark water of the Ruki flow by, we wondered just how much carbon this river was transporting and where it came from. To answer these questions, we decided to measure the carbon in the Ruki for one year to account for seasonal changes.

The results of this study show that the Ruki is a major contributor of dissolved carbon to the Congo River, and that the majority of this carbon is sourced from the leaching of forest vegetation and soils. These results also suggest that the way in which calculations are made about how much carbon tropical forests accumulate might be off the mark – perhaps slightly overestimated.

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These findings are important because rivers are major conduits of carbon from land to ocean and atmosphere, supplying organic matter to downstream ecosystems and carbon dioxide to the air. It is important to quantify how much carbon they are moving, where it is coming from, and where it ends up. Such accounting helps scientists understand how different ecosystems function, what role they play in the carbon cycle, and how they might respond to future or ongoing human perturbations such as climate or land-use change.
The heart of the forest

The Ruki River lies at the centre of the Congo Basin. It drains a uniquely homogeneous 188,800km² of pristine lowland and swamp forests. Since climate, vegetation, soils, geology and the concentration of human impacts vary widely across Earth’s surface, it’s uncommon for a watershed of this size to have such uniform land cover. There are likely no other such uniform watersheds of this size on earth.

River Ruki. Travis Drake

This means we had an opportunity to pinpoint how a specific land cover influences the quantity and composition of organic material leached from decomposing plants and soils and carried by rainwater to river channels. Knowing this, we can “unmix” the signals measured in the Congo River and better ascertain the differences in carbon export between the many tributaries and land covers of the basin.

We found that Ruki supplies 20% of the dissolved carbon in the Congo River though it makes up only 5% of the Congo’s watershed by area. This contribution is so high because the Ruki’s water is extremely concentrated in dissolved organic matter. In fact, it is significantly richer in dissolved carbon than even the Amazon’s Rio Negro (“Black River”), which is famous for its black colour also stemming from high concentration of organics.

Water with very high concentrations of organic matter signals neither a good nor bad thing. It just means lots of carbon is contained in the water.

Because the Ruki watershed is so flat, rainwater drains slowly and has plenty of time to leach organic material from its dense vegetation. It’s like leaving multiple bags of tea to steep in water over a long period of time.

One of the reasons we wanted to know where these organic compounds were originating from is that large areas of the Ruki are underlain by enormous tracts of peat-like soils. These organic-rich soils have accumulated over hundreds to thousands of years from the buildup of partially decomposed plant matter.

If this peat was being leached or eroded into the river, through some form of disturbance, it could be released as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and compound the greenhouse effect, much like the unearthing and combustion of fossil fuels.

Our radiocarbon isotopic measurements of the dissolved carbon indicate that there is very little peat carbon entering the river (none of it is very old), and that the dissolved carbon is sourced instead from forest vegetation and recently formed soil.

This is good news for now, but it’s something to keep an eye on if periods of drought or human activity disturb these carbon-rich peat soils.
Balancing the forest sink

Why does it matter if the Ruki transports a large amount of carbon?

One answer is that the carbon lost from terrestrial ecosystems to rivers can determine whether forests are taking up more carbon from the atmosphere (sinks) than releasing it (source) to the atmosphere. Most assessments of the balance (carbon coming in versus carbon going out of a forest) fail to account for the carbon that moves laterally to rivers.

In the case of the Ruki, the high amount of carbon that is contained in the river per unit area of the watershed suggests that this lateral movement of carbon from the Congo’s lowland forests comprises a significant proportion of the carbon balance, that is, the difference between what is coming in from photosynthesis and what is returned via respiration.

Thus, tropical forests like those around the Ruki might not accumulate quite as much carbon as we once thought. Further research is required to pin down whether this is the case. But our work on the Ruki already indicates that areas drained by such blackwater rivers may be particularly prone to carbon accounting errors like this.

Authors

Travis Drake
Postdoctoral Researcher, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

Johan Six
Professor of Sustainable Agrosystems, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

Matti Barthel
Research Technician, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

Disclosure statement

Travis Drake received funding from the Swiss National Science Fund.

Johan Six received funding from Swiss National Science Fund.

Matti Barthel receives funding from Swiss National Science Fund.
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Billions of cicadas will buzz this spring as two broods emerge at the same time

JANUARY 21, 2024
Clare Marie Schneider

A cicada sheds its nymph shell in Chevy Chase, Md., during the emergence of Brood X in May 2021.

Carolyn Kaster/AP file photo

Much of the eastern United States can prepare for what one entomologist described as a "spectacular, macabre Mardi Gras" this spring.

The event Jonathan Larson, an extension entomologist at the University of Kentucky, is referring to is the simultaneous emergence of two cicada broods that will erupt in states from Virginia to Illinois come late April through June.

Periodical cicadas, which have the longest known insect life cycle, spend most of their life underground in an immature nymph form before surfacing from the ground every 13 or 17 years for a brief adult life. A brood constitutes multiple species of cicadas that merge on the same cycle.

"It's like a graduating class that has a reunion every 17 or 13 years," says Gene Kritsky, professor emeritus of biology at Mount St. Joseph University and author of A Tale of Two Broods: The 2024 Emergence of Periodical Cicada Broods XIII and XIX.

Brood X Cicadas Are Busy And So Are The Scientists Who Study Them

Although cicadas are a valuable food source for birds and small mammals, in large numbers their deafening calls can be annoying and their carcasses littering the ground can be a nuisance. The last time the Northern Illinois Brood emerged 17 years ago, "they were out in such abundant numbers that Chicagoans were having to remove them with shovels, to clear sidewalks and roads," said Floyd Shockley, an entomologist and the collections manager for the Department of Entomology at the National Museum of Natural History.

The last time the two broods — Brood XIX and Brood XIII — emerged simultaneously was in 1803. Shockley says their surfacing makes for an "extremely rare, once-in-a-lifetime event."

Brood XIX, known as the Northern Illinois Brood, contains three different species of cicadas and emerges only every 17 years. The Great Southern Brood, or Brood XIII, is on a 13-year cycle and contains four different species of cicadas.

Shockley says the Great Southern Brood will start appearing in late April through the first or second week of May across 15 states, mostly in the South, running from Virginia and into Alabama and Mississippi.

No, You Don't Need To Be Worried Your Dog (Or Cat) Is Eating Cicadas

As for the Northern Illinois Brood, Shockley says people will start to see these cicadas closer to mid-May through the first week of June. The brood will be highly concentrated across four states, including Illinois, parts of Wisconsin, Indiana, and a bit of Michigan.

Across the east, Kritsky says, "we'll probably see billions of cicadas" due to the dual emergence of the two broods. While you may hear or see cicadas in your area well into September, the perennial cicadas will die off by June, their song replaced by annually occurring cicadas for the rest of the summer.

Once the ground reaches the optimal temperature of 64 degrees Fahrenheit, the insects find their way to nearby trees and shed their skins, Kritsky said. It takes about four to five days for the adult males to start singing, but once they do, their songs can be louder than a jet engine.

The male cicadas "produce this chorus that attracts the females to the trees," says Larson. "Then they'll pair up and have courtship songs," singing individually to female cicadas in an attempt to persuade them to mate. After mating, the female cicada lays her eggs in a tree and then they die, littering the base of trees and leaving behind what Kritsky describes as a "delicate, rotten Limburger cheese" smell.

The cycle begins all over when the cicada eggs drop from the tree, returning to the ground for another 13 to 17 years. Although they spend years underground in an immature state, the adult lifespan of a cicada ranges only from four to six weeks.

Here Come The Cicadas

"It's pretty much this big spectacular macabre Mardi Gras," says Larson. "It's a lot of singing, lots of paramours pairing up, and then lots of dying."

While the two broods this spring will mostly be separated by time and place, "they will overlap for several weeks," in Illinois, says Shockley. This overlap could result in some Illinois residents hearing all seven species of the two broods singing their cacophonous mating calls together, he says. Additionally, Shockley says the overlap could result in "an extremely rare opportunity for genetic crossing between 13-year cicadas and 17-year cicadas that could lead to the emergence of a new brood."

All the experts NPR spoke with emphasized that the bugs' ephemeral emergence is not harmful to humans or pets. While the sheer amount of them may be shocking if you're in certain high density areas, they won't bite or sting you, says Larson. "Your pets will probably try to eat them," he adds. "And they're going to be OK."

Shockley added not to spray pesticides on the bugs. The chemicals could impact birds and small mammals that might feed on the cicadas. "Or it could hit non-target things like butterflies and bees that you actually want to have around your home," he says.

While Larson says people may be "disgusted by the situation," he emphasized that it's a unique, beautiful spectacle of nature that you can't encounter elsewhere in the world.

Kritsky described the short-lived emergence of the cicadas as "like having a David Attenborough special in your backyard," referring to the British naturalist and broadcaster. "If you're lucky enough to live in an area where these things are going on, get your kids out there. Watch this."