New Paper Shows Why Face Masks Are Essential In Curbing Covid-19
Alice G. Walton Senior Contributor 

FORBES NWO DEEP STATE JUST KIDDING

OR AM I 

FORBES THE MAGAZINE IS MORE LIBERAL 

THAN ITS OWNER OR FOX BUSINESS NEWS

Face masks GETTY

As Covid-19 cases mount in several states, and the U.S. as a whole still is still posting frighteningly high numbers, some local leaders are finally requiring face masks in public. But there has been no federal level directive on the matter. Masks have been strangely politicized, while numbers of cases and hospitalizations are rising in many areas. A new paper out in the journal the Physics of Fluids helps visualize exactly why masks are important in reducing the spread, and which types of mask appear to be most effective.

"While there are a few prior studies on the effectiveness of medical-grade equipment, we don't have a lot of information about the cloth-based coverings that are most accessible to us at present," said study author Siddhartha Verma in a statement. "Our hope is that the visualizations presented in the paper help convey the rationale behind the recommendations for social distancing and using face masks."

The team used a manikin (a medical mannequin) to model coughing and sneezing. The spray was replicated using a pump of water and glycerin solution (“respiratory jets”) paired with fog machine particles (“tracer particles”) to help visualize the activity. Lasers captured the behavior of the particles as they escaped the masks through gaps or the fabric itself. The team repeated the experiment with a variety of mask types—a bandana, a mask made from a folded handkerchief using instructions from the U.S. Surgeon General, a stitched mask made of two layers of quilting cotton, and a drugstore brand cone face mask.
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The stitched mask and store-bought masks were the most effective (see images below). The stitched mask was able “to arrest the forward motion of the tracer droplets almost completely,” the authors write. There was little leakage through the material itself—most of it came from gaps above the nose. The leakage traveled 2.5 inches on average.


Homemade mask, quilting fabric VERMA ET AL 2020

The cone mask was also quite good, though the team notes a little more leakage than the homemade mask. Jets traveled about 6 inches.


Store-bought mask. VERMA ET AL 2020

The handkerchief mask was mediocre, with an average jet distance of 1.25 feet. The team writes that “while the forward motion of the jet is impeded significantly, there is notable leakage of tracer droplets through the mask material.” Some droplets also escaped through the top of the mask. The bandana (not pictured) performed considerably worse, with average jet distance of 3.5 feet.


Handkerchief mask, constructed per US Surgeon General's instructions VERMA ET AL 2020

The team also looked at the spray of a cough and sneeze when the manikin was wearing nothing over its face: This, of course, spewed droplets far and wide, with particles reaching 12 feet—twice the distance that social distancing guidelines say to maintain. In fact, another study out today in the same journal analyzed the aerodynamics of droplets as they move through the air or evaporate and fall—they traveled up to 13 feet. The findings are also in line with earlier work, suggesting that droplets can linger in the air for many minutes.

It is, of course, important to point out that the new study was just a small observational study, with manikins rather than people—and the coughs and sneezes generated by the pump were simply a model of the human versions.

Still, the new research, along with previous studies, suggest that wearing a mask in public is a relatively simple and cheap way to reduce the spread of the virus. It’s not a stand-alone and it’s not foolproof, but it does seem to help. Masks, along with the other known strategies—social distancing and hand-washing—all work in concert to reduce the risk. Financial models also suggest that a mask mandate could save the economy considerably, as it might obviate the need for further lockdowns.

It’s also worth mentioning that masks are worn as much or more for other people than for yourself—that’s why everyone needs to wear one to be effective. “We have witnessed some aversion to using face masks, and hopefully the study will help convey that using masks is primarily an effort to protect the most vulnerable members of our society (i.e., the elderly, or people with underlying health conditions),” said Verma in an email. “This is crucial since current estimates suggest that one in three infected people (35%) do not show overt symptoms, and could potentially infect such vulnerable individuals inadvertently.”

These realities are all the more important as people return to work and school in the coming months, and second waves are possible, or probable. “Promoting widespread awareness of effective preventative measures is crucial,” the team concludes, “given the high likelihood of a resurgence of COVID-19 infections in the fall and winter.”

Glow-in-the-dark sneezes show best homemade face mask is quilted cotton

The stitched quilted cotton mask proved most effective, allowing droplets from the nose and mouth to travel just 2.5 inches.

With a folded handkerchief mask over the nose and mouth, droplets from coughs and sneezes traveled 1 foot, 3 inches. Photo courtesy of Florida Atlantic University College of Engineering and Computer Science

June 30 (UPI) -- To figure what types of homemade mask best prevent the spread of COVID-19, scientists at Florida Atlantic University used glycerine and laser light to illuminate the movement of droplets from coughs and sneezes.

Researchers report the distance droplets move can be cut by more than half by using a homemade mask -- from more than 8 feet, to less than 2 feet.

For the new study, published Tuesday in the journal Physics of Fluids, researchers focused on cloth-based coverings, as most other research has focused on medical-grade masks.

"Such masks have been recommended for public use by various agencies, but there are no clear guidelines on the best material or construction technique that should be used," Siddhartha Verma, lead author and an assistant professor at Florida Atlantic, told UPI in an email.

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They found that without a mask, droplets traveled more than 8 feet -- beyond the 6 feet recommended for "social distancing." With a bandana, droplets traveled 3 feet, 7 inches. With a folded cotton handkerchief, the droplets traveled 1 foot, 3 inches. The stitched quilted cotton mask proved most effective, allowing droplets from the nose and mouth to travel just 2.5 inches.

Scientists also tested a cone mask, widely available at local pharmacies. The commercial mask allowed droplets from simulated coughs and sneezes to travel 8 inches.

For the study, researchers sprayed a solution of distilled water and glycerin through the mouth of a mannequin to create glow-in-the-dark droplet clouds resembling those produced by coughs and sneezes.

RELATED California to require face coverings in public as coronavirus cases spike

Researchers projected the glow-in-the-dark coughs and sneezes through several types of homemade masks, using cameras to measure how far the droplets traveled.

"We visualized the droplets in a sheet of laser light," said co-author Manhar Dhanak, department chair, professor and director of SeaTech at Florida Atlantic. "The droplets scatter the light and hence become visible."Researchers determined that creating a tight seal and layering material were the most important factors in creating an effective barrier.

"The effectiveness of a mask does not necessarily depend on the thread-count of the fabric," Verma said.

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While masks are effective in reducing the risk of transmission of viral infections, Dhanak said that "given the possibility of leakage, it is important to use a combination of social distancing, mask use, hand-washing and other recommendations from healthcare professionals in order to minimize the chances of transmission."

In future studies, Verma and Dhanak plan to more closely examine leakage around the sides of different kinds of masks and how to curtail it."We are also looking into the impact of environmental conditions in a room on the spread of the droplets and wider applications of our techniques in design of barriers, shielding and air-conditioning systems in the workplace and open-plan offices," Verma said.


upi.com/7018246

Oglala Sioux President Says Trump “Doesn’t Have Permission” to Visit Mt. Rushmore
JUL 01, 2020

In South Dakota, the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe has ordered President Trump to cancel a planned visit to Mount Rushmore on July 3 for his Independence Day celebration. Julian Bear Runner told The Guardian, “The lands on which that mountain is carved and the lands he’s about to visit belong to the Great Sioux nation under a treaty signed in 1851 and the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and I have to tell him he doesn’t have permission from its original sovereign owners to enter the territory at this time.”

Donald Trump should stay away from Mount Rushmore, Sioux leader says

The president’s planned visit to the monument on ‘stolen’ Native land risks spreading coronavirus, tribal president warns

Edward Helmore

Wed 1 Jul 2020 09.00 BSTLast modified on Wed 1 Jul 2020 20.25 BST
 

Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. ‘Trump coming here is a safety concern,’ said the Oglala Sioux president, Julian Bear Runner. Photograph: Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images


Donald Trump should not carry out his planned 3 July visit to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota because it represents a safety risk in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and is an insult to Native Americans on whose stolen land it was built, the president of the Oglala Sioux tribal council has said.

Several Native American groups are planning protests for Trump’s controversial trip to the 79-year-old stone monument carved into the Black Hills that is set to include the first fireworks display at the site since 2009 and an air force flypast.

“Trump coming here is a safety concern not just for my people inside and outside the reservation, but for people in the Great Plains. We have such limited resources in Black Hills, and we’re already seeing infections rising,” the Oglala Sioux president, Julian Bear Runner, in an interview with the Guardian.


South Dakota governor threatens to sue over Sioux's coronavirus roadblocks

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“It’s going to cause an uproar if he comes here. People are going to want to exercise their first amendment rights to protest and we do not want to see anyone get hurt or the lands be destroyed,” Bear Runner said.

Trump’s visit to the huge site that commemorates four US presidents was a violation of the historic treaties that the US government had signed with Native Americans that were meant to govern the sacred Black Hills, the Oglala tribal president said, adding that Trump should have asked permission for the trip from the seven Sioux tribal governments.

“The lands on which that mountain is carved and the lands he’s about to visit belong to the Great Sioux nation under a treaty signed in 1851 and the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and I have to tell him he doesn’t have permission from its original sovereign owners to enter the territory at this time,” Bear Runner said.

The 1868 treaty acknowledged Sioux sovereignty over the Black Hills in perpetuity but after gold was discovered in the area the federal government forced the Sioux to relinquish this part of their reservation. In 1980, the US supreme court ruled that tribal lands covered by the treaty had been taken from the Sioux illegally.
Julian Bear Runner, president of the Oglala Sioux tribal council. 

Photograph: Ryan Hermans/AP

Bear Runner added that Trump’s visit could only be approved if the US president sat down with the leaders of the seven tribal councils in a government-to-government consultation.

“As leader of the United States he has obligation to … honor the treaties that are the supreme law of the land,” the 34-year-old president said.

Trump’s visit comes after months of escalating tensions between Native Americans and South Dakota state and federal authorities over jurisdictional power to isolate reservation lands from the spread of Covid-19 that has devastated many Native communities elsewhere.


In early May, leaders of the Oglala and Cheyenne River Sioux refused a request from South Dakota’s Republican governor, Kristi Noem, to remove checkpoints leading to their reservation that they say have helped protect the tribe from all but a handful of coronavirus cases.

Last week, the Cheyenne Sioux accused Trump administration officials of a sustained and unlawful campaign of threats against the tribe aimed at taking control of tribal land policing after the Cheyenne and Oglala Sioux rejected Noem’s demands.

Trump’s planned visit also comes amid a reckoning over racism and a reconsideration of provocative representations of colonial power across the US.

In New Mexico, home to more than a dozen Pueblo Indian reservations as well as part of the Navajo Nation, a movement is under way to the remove monuments to the Spanish conquistadors Juan de Oñate and Diego de Vargas.

Native American activists have argued for years that the memorial to US presidents carved into Mount Rushmore is equally offensive as monuments to Confederate leaders or Spanish conquistadors.

The monument was, they argue, carved into a mountain with its own spiritual meaning, sits on stolen land, was designed and executed by a sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, who had ties to white supremacists, and represents presidents each of whom had dirty hands in terms of slavery and racial oppression.

“The rocks already had spiritual meaning before westerners came to squat our territory,” Bear Runner said. “The land is rightfully ours, and we didn’t give the Black Hills over. It would be wrong for me as a tribal leader to remain diplomatic. We consider the carvings a symbol of trying to wipe us away and to say they had conquered us.”

For years there have been calls by activists to remove the four presidents – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt – from the mountain. Each either owned slaves, made racist remarks or initiated actions that contributed harm to Native peoples.

Of the four, Lincoln gives the greatest offense to Native Americans for ordering the largest mass execution in American history when 38 Sioux were hanged in Minnesota during the Dakota war of 1862.

“They don’t tell the true story and it’s wrong. We hear only the highlighted story of the good things these men have done for this country but they don’t tell that this land belongs to Native Americans, that the Black Hills belong to the Sioux nations, or the hanging of these Dakota men,” Bear Runner said.

The social and cultural desecration the monument represents, has led many Native activists to call for the removal of the monument. But Governor Noem tweeted last week: “Not on my watch.”

Dozens of Healthcare Workers Died of COVID-19 After OSHA Dismissed Pleas for PPE

HEY HEY USA

 HOW MANY HEROES 

HAVE YOU KILLED TODAY

JUL 01, 2020


A new report finds U.S. health workers filed more than 4,100 complaints about a lack of personal protective equipment during the pandemic — even as hundreds died of COVID-19. The report from Kaiser Health News and The Guardian found officials with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration rapidly closed many complaints without issuing citations. Researchers found just a single instance when OSHA issued a fine: a $3,900 penalty for a Georgia nursing home that failed to report worker hospitalizations on time.

27,000 Coronavirus-Linked Deaths Have Gone Uncounted in U.S., Study Estimates

Ed Cara
Today 11:16AM
•Filed to:CORONAVIRUS

Health care workers in Brooklyn transporting a deceased patient who died of covid-19 to a refrigeration truck for temporary storage in early April.Photo: Angela Weiss (Getty Images)

It will take a long time to truly know the toll of deaths and injuries caused by the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. But a new study out Wednesday provides an early estimate of the excess deaths linked to the viral disease in the United States. It suggests that the country’s official count may have missed up to 27,000 deaths as of late May.


Counting excess deaths—defined as deaths above the baseline seen in previous years during the same time period—from all causes is often considered a more accurate way to measure the fatal impact of a newly emerged and widespread disease, since the official toll can miss people who weren’t diagnosed before they died. Initially, doctors and scientists can have trouble identifying or confirming deaths caused by a new disease, either due to a lack of familiarity with its symptoms, no available tests to confirm a diagnosis, or simply because the disease wasn’t known to exist in that area at the time.

Scientists did quickly create a relatively accurate test for the coronavirus that causes covid-19 after its discovery in China late last year. But the U.S. federal government’s delayed and flawed response left states without testing readily available for months once the pandemic started to pick up steam in March. The lack of testing also hindered attempts to recognize and contain the earliest outbreaks in states like New York and Washington, which further enabled its spread. It’s now thought that the virus was circulating locally in the U.S. as early as January.

In this new study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers tried to calculate excess deaths across the country from March 1 to May 30.

Between those months, 95,235 deaths were officially attributed to covid-19 in most of the U.S. But the authors calculated, based on comparing deaths this year to other recent years, that there were likely 122,300 excess deaths during that time, about 28% higher than the official count of covid-19 deaths. That leaves about 27,000 deaths above the normal March-May baseline in the U.S., which suggests the virus has killed many more people than the official count says.

“The number of reported covid-19 deaths likely represents an undercount of the true burden caused by the virus,” lead author Daniel Weinburger, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Yale University, told Gizmodo via email. “There have been questions about whether the reported statistics overcount covid-19 deaths. Our analyses suggest the opposite.”

There are limitations to these findings, though. For one, there wasn’t available death data from the states of Connecticut and North Carolina at the time, so they weren’t included in either the count of covid-19 or excess deaths. As of early July 1, Connecticut and North Carolina have reported 4,322 and 1,343 covid-19 deaths, respectively.

Another caveat is that the authors made several adjustments and assumptions for their estimates, including trying to account for delays in states reporting deaths. Many states, especially early on in the pandemic, have had backlogs of tests, meaning that someone who was tested for covid-19 and died from it in March may have gone unconfirmed for months. States are still occasionally adding large numbers of new deaths that occurred earlier than reported. However, Weinburger said that their assumptions should make their model more accurate than other attempts to measure the number of excess deaths during the pandemic.

“Some news outlets have generated estimates of excess deaths by simply comparing the number of deaths in each week to the average number of deaths in that week in previous years,” he said. “This ignores trends over time (e.g. increases or decreases due to changing population sizes). It also does not adjust for reporting delays, so they are not able to provide estimates for more recent weeks.”

Perhaps the most important consideration is that not all of these excess deaths were necessarily caused by covid-19 directly. Some excess deaths may reflect deaths of people with chronic conditions that weren’t treated because of the strains on some hospitals or because they were fearful of getting care at the time due to the pandemic. But the team’s data and other research doesn’t support the theory voiced by many skeptics of the lockdowns that the actions created to slow the pandemic caused lots of preventable deaths, and certainly not more deaths than those caused by the pandemic itself during that time.

“There have certainly been increases in deaths due to heart attacks, strokes, Alzheimer’s, and some of these could be linked to avoiding emergency healthcare,” Weinburger said. “I think the increases related to lockdown measures are small compared to the increases caused directly by covid-19. A number of states that implemented lockdown measures but had small epidemics of covid-19 in March-May had little excess death.”

Untangling how deadly covid-19 has been and will be is something that will take a long time. But it’s likely that we’ve been getting better at it as time has gone on, since tests have become more available. So we might not see such a wide gap between excess and covid-19 deaths going forward, provided testing remains available. But there may still be differences between states, depending on their guidelines for declaring a death to be due to covid-19 (some but not all states now publicly share data on probable covid-19 deaths).

Even now, this study highlights just how much suffering has been caused by covid-19, and how much of its destruction early on we may have missed. Weinburger and his team, for their part, hope that their research and model will continue to provide a key tool in measuring the true toll of the pandemic.

As of July 1, the U.S. has reported around 127,000 coronavirus deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker.

Ed Cara Science writer at Gizmodo and pug aficionado elsewhere

Shell Is the Latest Oil Company to Do a Belly Flop


Brian Kahn
Today 11:52AM
Filed to:BIG OIL
Photo: Ben Stansall (Getty Images)

We’re halfway through 2020, and I think we can all safely say it’s been a pretty terrible year. There’s been so much terrible stuff in the past two months alone, I can’t even remember the bad stuff that happened in January. But I’m sure it sucked.

So I’ll take minor bits of good news where I can get it. And the latest is Shell writing down $22 billion on its balance sheets, making it the latest oil company to acknowledge that things are probably not going back to the way they were.

The company announced it expected the dip in value to be driven by both its oil and gas sides of the business on Tuesday. The problem, for Shell and other fossil fuel companies big and small, is that the pandemic has cratered demand. The price of oil dipped into negative territory for a hot second in April, and the fallout has continued. Shell follows in the footsteps of BP, which did the whole write down thing in mid-June to the tune of $17.5 billion. The Shell announcement came the same week Chesapeake Energy, the company that led the fracking boom in the U.S., declared bankruptcy after years of riding high on debt.

While the coronavirus has certainly spurred the industry’s free fall, there are signs this may be the start of a permanent decline. Even before the pandemic, the fracking industry was looking at some bills coming due that it was in all likelihood going to be unable to pay. And Big Oil stocks that have traditionally led the stock market had lost ground. That was underscored this week when Tesla’s stock price surpassed Exxon’s. Symbolic? Sure. But these are signs in the real world oil ain’t coming back.

In May, Shell foreshadowed what was to come when its C-suite level executives told investors the coronavirus has caused “major demand destruction that we don’t even know will come back.” When the pandemic recedes, the climate crisis still looms large (hell, it’s looming large even as the pandemic rages). Digging up more oil and gas is simply not an option in the coming decade, and the world—and the oil industry—is increasingly waking up to that.

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Watching the oil industry’s rapid decline is a marvel to behold after decades of climate activist pressure did almost nothing to budge it. While it’s good news in the sense that it edges the world closer to keeping the climate habitable, it’s bad news for oil and gas workers. Shell and BP are among oil companies trying to become “energy” companies. What exactly the shape of an energy company looks like remains to be seen, though it’s worth noting oil companies’ climate plans are of questionable repute at best. The one thing that is clear: People will lose their jobs.

Shell has been offering voluntary buyouts. BP also announced it was laying off 10,000 workers. While the company was nice enough to give them laptops, that a laptop is not a job, nor is it a long-term solution. Letting capitalism do its thing is a surefire way to screw workers (see: coal, cars, history). Governments need to stop trying to bring oil back by funding a dirty recovery and come up with a plan to help fossil fuel workers transition to the economy-to-be. Shell is only the latest oil company to flail, but it certainly won’t be the last.

SPACE
A Massive Star Has Disappeared Without a Trace

"the case of the dog star that did not bark in the night"

George Dvorsky
Yesterday 6:00AM
Filed to:VANISHING STARS


Artist’s impression of the disappearing star.Image: ESO
An unusually bright star has gone missing, in a mystery of cosmic proportions.

An object inside the Kinman dwarf galaxy has disappeared from view, according to new research published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. This massive and exceptionally bright blue star was hypothesized to exist based on astronomical observations made between 2001 and 2011, but as of 2019, it is no longer detectable.

The authors of the study, led by PhD student Andrew Allan of Trinity College Dublin, have conjured two possible explanations: Either the star has experienced a dramatic drop in luminosity and is now partially hiding behind some dust, or it transformed into a black hole without sparking a supernova explosion. If it’s the latter, it would represent just the second known failed supernova.

The Kinman dwarf galaxy is located 75 million light-years from Earth, so it’s not close by any means. Astronomers cannot discern individual stars owing to the tremendous distances involved, but the hypothesized star in question is a luminous blue variable (LBV), which is detectable at extreme distances. LBVs are massive and unpredictable stars at the end of their lives. The variable nature of this star, through its dramatic shifts in spectra and brightness, can be spotted from Earth. Incredibly, this suspected star is 2.5 million times brighter than our Sun.

Or at least it was.


Image of the Kinman Dwarf galaxy, also known as PHL 293B. This tiny galaxy is too far for scientists to pick out individual stars, so what look like stars in this Hubble image are either stars in foreground or gigantic star clusters within the galaxy itself.Image: NASA, ESA/Hubble, J. Andrews

Observations gathered from 2001 to 2011 pointed to a late-stage LBV in the Kinman dwarf galaxy. In 2019, a team of astronomers wanted to take another look to see how it was doing, and they did so using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. To their surprise, there was nothing to see—a result that was both exciting and discouraging at the same time.

“We were all pleasantly surprised to find that the star’s signature was not present in our first observation taken in August 2019 using the ESPRESSO instrument of ESO’S Very Large Telescope,” Allan told Gizmodo. “We initially hoped for a higher-resolution observation that resembled the past observations, which we would use for our models.”

Figuring there was something wonky with ESPRESSO, Allan and his colleagues decided to take another look with the telescope’s X-shooter instrument.

“We rechecked the ESPRESSO observation a number of times but were unable to detect the star’s signature,” said Allan. “As the conditions were not perfect on the day this observation was made, we wanted to make sure the signature was truly absent. This time we used the X-Shooter instrument of the Very Large Telescope and were happy to find that this also pointed towards the star disappearing.”

With nothing new to see, and with a mystery that suddenly needed to be solved, the team dove into the archives, looking at previous observations of the dwarf galaxy. As it turns out, the suspected massive star experienced a strong outburst period that came to end around 2011. LBVs are known to throw the odd temper tantrum, resulting in a sudden loss of mass and a sharp increase in brightness.

In the wake of this particular outburst period, it’s possible that “we are seeing the end of an LBV eruption of a surviving star, with a mild drop in luminosity, a shift to hotter effective temperatures, and some dust obscuration,” wrote the authors in the study. So the star might still be active, it’s just now too dim for us to detect from Earth.

Another possible explanation is that the star collapsed into a massive black hole without an accompanying supernova explosion—what astronomers call a failed supernova.

“This would be consistent with some of the current computer simulations that predict that some stars will not produce a bright supernova when they die,” Allan told Gizmodo. “This happens when a massive black hole is formed, and it is not spinning very fast. However a collapse to a black hole without producing a supernova has only been observed once in the past, in the galaxy of NGC 6946 where a smaller massive star seemed to disappear without a bright supernova explosion.”

If a supernova-less transition into a black hole is the case, it would mark the first known example of this happening to a massive star in a low metallicity galaxy, a finding that “could hold important clues as to how stars could collapse to a black hole without producing a bright supernova,” said Allan.

“It’s a very interesting finding that is reported in the paper, with a very careful and well done analysis,” Beatriz Villarroel, a postdoc at IAC Tenerife and the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, told Gizmodo. “LBVs are unstable stars, and the analysis presented by the authors certainly contributes to the understanding of these quizzical objects. In this particular case, it’s likely that they’ve observed the end of a strong eruption with a surviving star,” said Villarroel, who wasn’t involved in the new study.

Weird ‘Vanishing Stars’ Could Potentially Be Aliens, Study Claims

After you have eliminated the impossible 
whatever is left, no matter how improbable is
the truth. 
S. Holmes, Consulting Detective 

As a relevant aside, the new paper is not to be confused with a similar paper co-authored by Villarroel from last year. Instead of tracking the disappearance of LBVs, Villarroel and her colleagues tracked a phenomenon known as red transients, in which dim red dots get brighter and then recede from view.

Imre Bartos, a physicist at the University of Florida, said we have lots to learn about massive stars and how they die, given their rarity and short lifetimes.

“The current consensus is that stars cannot end their lives as black holes heavier than about 65 times the mass of the Sun,” Bartos, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told Gizmodo. “If the disappearance of the star is indeed due to its collapse to a heavier black hole, we will have to rethink our understanding of how stars live and die.”

To which he added: “At this point, there are still uncertainties about this result and it is important to study this observation further, so additional observations and a thorough search for similar disappearances are critical.”

To support the failed supernova hypothesis, Villarroel said, “we need to look for objects that stay missing for decades.” And given the “very short time scales involved in the observations in the current paper, it makes me think we’re going see more [activity] from that star again,” she told Gizmodo.

That’s an exciting possibility, requiring astronomers to train their telescopes toward the Kinman dwarf galaxy. This mystery is far from being solved, but if Villarroel is correct, there’s still potential for this star, if it still exists, to shine brightly once again.

Correction: Because of a typo, we wrote that the star was 2.5 times brighter than the Sun. It’s actually 2.5 million times brighter, which is a whole lot more.

Weird ‘Vanishing Stars’ Could Potentially Be Aliens, Study Claims


George Dvorsky
12/17/19 
•Filed to:WE’RE NOT SAYING IT’S ALIENS

Now you see it, now you don’t: A celestial object appears in an old telescopic plate (left) but is strangely missing in a later plate (right).Image: Villarroel et al. (2019

A comparative analysis of historical and contemporary astronomical data has resulted in the discovery of approximately 100 star-like objects that unexpectedly vanished. These strange occurrences are likely natural, but scientists say alien technology is a remote possibility.

They start off as dim red dots in the night sky. But then they start to get brighter—anywhere from several to thousands of times brighter. And then they disappear, vanishing from sight in typically less than an hour.




But what are they?

New research published in the Astronomical Journal calls them “red transients,” of which roughly 100 have been chronicled by the authors, a team led by Beatriz Villarroel from Stockholm University and the Institute of Astrophysics of Canarias in Spain. More colloquially, they’re referred to as “vanishing stars,” and they’re baffling scientists.

The red transients were detected thanks to Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO)—a project that’s living up to its name. Established in 2017, VASCO researchers are hunting for objects outside of Earth’s immediate area that have mysteriously disappeared. As the authors note in the study:

Unless a star collapses directly into a black hole, there is no known physical process by which it could physically vanish. If such examples exist this makes it interesting for searches for new exotic phenomena or even signs of technologically advanced civilizations.

For the latest research, Villarroel and her colleagues looked at archival astronomical data collected during the previous century, particularly data found in the U.S. Naval Observatory Catalogue (USNO). This old data was then compared to modern celestial catalogs, including the recently concluded Pan-STARRS Data Release-1 (DR1).

From a pool of 600 million objects, the scientists found 151,193 that weren’t represented in the modern catalogs. To date, Villarroel and her colleagues have only had a chance to analyze 23,667 of these anomalous objects, or just 15.7 percent. Taking this preliminary sample set aside and studying them closer, the researchers found most of them to be “artifacts of various sorts,” wrote the authors, such as smudges on lenses and other visual defects.

But roughly 100 of these objects could not easily be explained away, warranting their designation as red transients. These objects tended to be very red and made distinguishing movements across the field of view, namely larger proper motions than typical objects in the USNO catalog. Known celestial phenomena, such as asteroids, fast-moving stars, or stars that have simply moved away from view, were ruled out as possibilities.

Now, stars don’t just up and disappear without a trace. Stars, of course, eventually burn out, but they tend to expire in one of two ways, either retiring as white dwarfs or going out with a tremendous bang in the form of a supernova. Another possibility—although a theoretical one at that—is for a star to fall into a black hole, in what astronomers refer to as a failed supernova.

In the new study, the researchers didn’t completely rule out the possibility that supernovae were to blame, saying further research is needed to be sure. As for failed supernovae, they’re expected to be exceptionally rare, and the authors “demonstrate with theoretical calculations that one is not likely to encounter a failed supernova in the VASCO searches,” as they wrote in the study. Another possibility not ruled out by the scientists is that the transient flashes of light are massive solar flares emanating from red dwarfs, among other natural possibilities.

The Many, Many Times Astronomers Mistook Mundane Phenomena for Aliens

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Fascinatingly, the researchers devoted significant space in the new study for a more radical possibility: the activities of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). Of course, invoking the alien card is often a good sign that scientists are flummoxed—something seen repeatedly over the course of astronomical history. But that doesn’t mean they should refrain from raising this possibility, and this case is no exception.

As the authors speculate, the dots of red light could be powerful lasers used for interstellar communication or heat waste emanating from Dyson spheres—hypothetical megastructures that envelop entire stars.

Interestingly, VASCO started off as a kind of SETI side project, that is, searching for weird stuff in space that can’t otherwise be explained as originating from natural phenomenon.

“But we are clear that none of these events have shown any direct signs of being ETI,” said Martin López Corredoira, a co-author of the paper, in a press release. “We believe that they are natural, if somewhat extreme, astrophysical sources.”

A thorough follow-up study of these red transients is warranted, according to the authors, who added that their investigation into all 151,193 objects still needs to be concluded. To that end, they hope to recruit artificial intelligence to speed up the process and also arrange a citizen science project.

George Dvorsky is a senior staff reporter at Gizmodo.

HOCKEY  IN THE AGE OF THE PLAGUE

Toronto, Edmonton on verge of being named NHL hub cities pending CBA agreement, source says

BACK TO THE FUTURE FORWARD TO THE PAST

IS THIS THE ONLY WAY TORONTO CAN GET INTO THE PLAYOFFS?!

By Mark Zwolinski Sports Reporter
Wed., July 1, 2020

Get ready for an all-Canadian party when the NHL resumes its season with a 24-team playoff.

According to an industry source, both Toronto and Edmonton have been all-but-approved as the two hub cities to host the teams for the NHL’s return from the COVID-19 pause.

“Nothing’s official yet,” the source said, on the condition of anonymity.

Both the league and its players’ union talked into the early hours of Canada Day to iron out return-to-play details, COVID-19 protocols and other issues, that if agreed upon, would result in an extension to the current collective bargaining agreement.

It appears the CBA extension is the final hurdle to a package that will see hockey not only return to a pair of Canadian hosts, but forge a labour peace that could also include NHL players returning to the next two Olympics (2022 and 2026, pending talks with the IOC).

Both sides returned to talks on Canada Day, with hopes that a full agreement on all issues will be ready for a vote by the NHLPA membership — as soon as Thursday or Friday.

Nothing has been officially announced, and talks continued Wednesday regarding COVID-19 protocols and CBA details.

Toronto has been mentioned widely as an all-but-a-sure bet as one of the NHL’s two hub cities. If it’s approved, the city would need to get ready for 12 teams — and upwards of 600 players and team staff — descending on the Scotiabank Arena for games.

It’s possible the Ricoh Coliseum could also host games, while practices could be held at the Ford Performance Centre.

Toronto would also need to establish a quarantine zone for all personnel, as well as testing protocols and other safety precautions. Fans will not be admitted into the games, which are expected to begin in early August, after a three-week training camp.

That camp — which represents Phase 3 of the NHL’s four-phase return to hockey — is scheduled to open July 10.

It’s possible an agreement would not be ratified until early next week, but the clock is ticking on a July 10 startup.

Hotels have not been announced, but it’s expected that most, if not all, of the teams, would be isolated into one or two hotels.

UPDATED
Scientists say new strain of swine flu virus is spreading to humans in China

The virus should be “urgently” controlled to avoid another pandemic, scientists say in a new study.

A new strain of the H1N1 swine flu virus is spreading silently in workers on pig farms in China, according to a new study. 

–Alex Kraus/Bloomberg

By  Mike Ives,
The New York Times Company
July 1, 2020 

HONG KONG — A new strain of the H1N1 swine flu virus is spreading silently in workers on pig farms in China and should be “urgently” controlled to avoid another pandemic, a team of scientists says in a new study.

H1N1 is highly transmissible and spread around the world in 2009, killing about 285,000 people and morphing into seasonal flu.

The newer strain, known as G4 EA H1N1, has been common on China’s pig farms since 2016 and replicates efficiently in human airways, according to the study published Monday. So far, it has infected some people without causing disease, but health experts fear that could change without warning.

“G4 viruses have all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus,” the study said, adding that controlling the spread in pigs and closely monitoring human populations “should be urgently implemented.”

The study, published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is based on the surveillance of pigs in 10 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2018. In the last three years of the study, researchers collected 338 blood samples from workers on 15 pig farms and 230 from people in nearby households.

The study found that 10.4% of the workers and 4.4% of the others tested positive for antibodies to G4 EA H1N1, and that workers between the ages of 18 and 35 tested positive at a higher rate: 20.5%.

Predicting risk is not a precise science, but close attention to the virus would be advisable, said Ian H. Brown, head of the virology department at Britain’s Animal and Plant Health Agency and one of two scientists who reviewed the paper before it was published.

“It may be that with further change in the virus it could become more aggressive in people much as SARS-CoV-2 has done,” Brown said in an email Tuesday, referring to the new coronavirus.

The study was sent for review in early December, weeks before the coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan began making global headlines.

Li-Min Huang, director of the Division of ​Pediatric Infectious Disease​s at National Taiwan University Hospital, said that a crucial next step would be finding out whether any of the infected workers at the pig farms had contracted the virus from humans, as well as whether any had spread the virus to their families.

“It’s a very important study, and the virus looks quite dangerous,” Huang said. “We need to be worried about any disease with the potential to spread human to human.”

Eurasian variations of H1N1 have been circulating in pigs in Europe and Asia for decades, the study said, but the incidence of G4 viruses in farmed Chinese pigs with respiratory symptoms began rising sharply after 2014.

Recent evidence “indicates that G4 EA H1N1 virus is a growing problem in pig farms, and the widespread circulation of G4 viruses in pigs inevitably increases their exposure to humans,” it said.

Asked about the new strain at a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said that it was not an “immediate threat” but “something we need to keep our eye on the just the way we did with in 2009 with the emergence of the swine flu.”

The study was a collaboration among government agencies in China, including the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the World Health Organization, scientists from several universities in China and the University of Nottingham in Britain. Brown teaches at the University of Nottingham but was not involved in the research.

The H1N1 virus that caused a pandemic in 2009 had a relatively low fatality rate, estimated at 0.02%. By contrast, the fatality rate of the 1918 flu pandemic was about 2.5% of its victims. But that virus killed an estimated 50 million, perhaps more, because it infected so many people and spread at a time when medical care was cruder.

Determining the fatality rate of the new coronavirus is a key question for epidemiologists, but one they may not be able to answer until the pandemic has ended.

China downplays potential new swine flu pandemic
 01/07/2020 - 

Chinese authorities have played down the pandemic threat of a new swine flu strain discovered in pigs Noel Celis AFP/File

Beijing (AFP)

China on Wednesday played down the threat of a new swine flu strain with pandemic potential that researchers discovered in pigs, saying the study is "not representative".

The deadly COVID-19 pandemic, which has now infected more than 10 million people worldwide, first emerged in China and is thought to have originated in bats and jumped to humans through an unknown intermediary animal.

The new swine flu strain found in China, according to the study published Monday in the US science journal PNAS, had "all the essential hallmarks" to infect humans and raised fears over another potential pandemic.

But China's foreign ministry moved to downplay fears on Wednesday.

"The G4 virus mentioned in the relevant report is a subtype of the H1N1 virus," foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in a routine briefing.

"Experts have concluded that the sample size of the report is small and not representative."

Zhao added that "relevant departments and experts" will continue to step up monitoring of the disease, send warnings and handle it in a timely manner.

The new G4 swine flu strain is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009, according to the study, which was authored by scientists at Chinese universities and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

G4 was observed to be highly infectious, they said, replicating in human cells and causing more serious symptoms in ferrets than other viruses.

Researchers took 30,000 nasal swabs from slaughterhouse pigs in 10 Chinese provinces, allowing them to isolate 179 swine flu viruses.

According to the study, 10.4 percent of pig slaughterhouse workers tested had already been infected.

So far, there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission. China did not elaborate further on how many had been infected by G4.

"It is of concern that human infection of G4 virus will further human adaptation and increase the risk of a human pandemic," the researchers wrote, calling for urgent measures to monitor people working with pigs.

© 2020 AFP

Dr. Anthony Fauci says new virus in China has traits of 2009 swine flu and 1918 pandemic flu

WED, JUL 1 2020
Berkeley Lovelace Jr.@BERKELEYJR

KEY POINTS

White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said U.S. health officials are keeping an eye on a new strain of flu carried by pigs in China that has characteristics of the 2009 H1N1 virus and 1918 pandemic flu.

The virus, which scientists are calling “G4 EA H1N1,” has not yet been shown to infect humans but it is exhibiting “reassortment capabilities,” Fauci told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during a hearing Tuesday. 

The H1N1 swine flu emerged in Mexico in April 2009, infecting 60.8 million people in the U.S. and at least 700 million worldwide. An estimated 151,700 to 575,400 people died from the virus across the globe, according to the CDC.


Fauci: New virus in China has traits of 2009 swine flu and 1918 pandemic flu

White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that U.S. health officials are keeping an eye on a new strain of flu carried by pigs in China that has characteristics of the 2009 H1N1 virus and 1918 pandemic flu.

The virus, which scientists are calling “G4 EA H1N1,” has not yet been shown to infect humans but it is exhibiting “reassortment capabilities,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee during a hearing.

“In other words, when you get a brand new virus that turns out to be a pandemic virus it’s either due to mutations and/or the reassortment or exchanges of genes,” he told lawmakers. “And they’re seeing virus in swine, in pigs now, that have characteristics of the 2009 H1N1, of the original 1918, which many of our flu viruses have remnants of that in it, as well as segments from other hosts, like swine.”

The H1N1 swine flu and 1918 pandemic flu were both considered horrific viruses that spread across the globe.

The H1N1 swine flu emerged in Mexico in April 2009, infecting 60.8 million people in the United States alone and at least 700 million worldwide. An estimated 151,700 to 575,400 people died from the virus across the globe, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is now seen as one of a variety of seasonal flu viruses.

The 1918 flu, which Fauci has often compared to Covid-19, is estimated to have killed between 30 million and 50 million people, according to the CDC. More than 20 million people died in World War I, by comparison.

The new strain that is spreading in pig farms in China has been identified as having “all the essential hallmarks of a candidate pandemic virus,” scientists say.

Fauci said Tuesday there’s always “the possibility that you might have another swine flu-type outbreak as we had in 2009.”

“It’s something that still is in the stage of examination,” he said. It’s not “an immediate threat where you’re seeing infections, but it’s something we need to keep our eye on, just the way we did in 2009 with the emergence of the swine flu.”

Fauci’s comments came as the coronavirus continues to rapidly spread across the U.S., with the seven-day average of new cases growing by 5% or more in at least 40 states, including Arizona, Texas, Florida and Oklahoma, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Public health officials and physicians have criticized the Trump administration’s lack of coordinated response to the virus. In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has downplayed the virus, saying the U.S. is nearing the end of the pandemic, contrary to experts in his own administration.

Earlier this month, Fauci said Covid-19 turned out to be his “worst nightmare” come to life as the coronavirus continues to rapidly spread across the globe.

He said the virus is “very different” from other outbreaks such as Ebola and HIV. The virus jumped from an animal host and has a high degree of transmissibility and mortality, he said. It is historically one of the worst pandemics the world has ever experienced, he said, adding people have compared it to the 1918 flu.

First detected in Wuhan, China, about six months ago, the new coronavirus has already infected more than 10.4 million people across the globe, killing more than 500,000.

On Tuesday, Fauci told lawmakers that he is concerned about the rise in new cases in places such as Texas and Florida.

He said reopening schools in the fall season will depend on the dynamics of the outbreak and the particular location of the school in question.

Retirement age is increasing – but our new study reveals most only work 10 years in good health after 50

by Marty Parker, Carol Jagger, Milica Blagojevic-Bucknall and Ross Wilkie, 

The Conversation

Healthy working life expectancy is the average number of years people in a population are likely to be healthy and in paid work from age 50. Credit: ALPA PROD/ Shutterstock

In 1800, the global average life expectancy was only 29 years. Today, life expectancy continues to rise, with babies born in the UK in 2018 expected to live to 87.6 years for men and 90.2 years for women on average. But as life expectancy rises, so does retirement age.

Since retirement is expensive, and state pensions are paid for by workers who pay tax, many governments are now concerned there aren't enough working adults to fund the growing number of people in retirement. As such, many countries have decided to increase retirement age. In the UK, state pension age is increasing from 65 to 66 this year and will reach 67 in 2028.
Though we're living longer, this doesn't necessarily mean our health will allow us to work for additional years. Healthy working life expectancy tells us the average number of years people in a population are likely to be healthy and in paid work from the age of 50. Healthy working life expectancy focuses on working life after age 50, which is when health problems (such as common age-related diseases, including pain or mobility issues) can make it difficult for people to continue working or find a job that fits their needs.

Our study of healthy working life expectancy found that on average, people in England can expect to be healthy and in work for almost nine and a half years after age 50. However, these years are not necessarily lived consecutively as people may temporarily leave work or experience health problems. These findings came from data on 15,284 people aged over 50 in England who were interviewed several times from 2002 to 2013.
Compared to the national average, healthy working life expectancy is higher for men (10.94 years) and lower for women (8.25 years). We also found that healthy working life expectancy is higher for people in non-manual or self-employed occupations (such as office workers) than those in manual occupations (such as electricians or care workers). It also increased alongside education level.

People also tend to have longer healthy working lives in the south compared to the north of England. This reflects the worse health and economic conditions typically seen in the north. The amount and type of jobs available regionally also influence differences in healthy working life expectancy, as people who cannot find a job that suits them won't be able to continue working.

We also split the population into five equal-sized groups based on deprivation. We found that the people living in the least deprived areas tended to stay healthy and in work for almost four years longer (10.53 years) than those living in the most deprived areas (6.80 years).
Regional map showing average number of healthy working years expected from age 50 in England. Credit: Parker et al, 2020, Author provided

Healthy working life

Many factors contribute to the different average lengths of healthy working life between groups. The higher healthy working life expectancy in men compared to women can at least partly explained by women having been able to access their state pensions earlier before 2018.

A region's healthcare quality, prevalence of health problems, access to job opportunities, and whether a workplace can accommodate a person's needs are all factors that explain the differences in healthy working life expectancy. These factors may also be barriers that can prevent groups with lower healthy working life expectancy from remaining in employment. For example, those in manual occupations (and their employers) may be less able to accommodate health problems later in life.

Given that people with higher education or those living in less deprived areas are estimated to have a longer healthy working life expectancy suggests a link with socioeconomic status. Lower socioeconomic status is associated with poorer physical and mental health, and low-paid work or unemployment. Possible explanations for this link include lower quality job opportunities, money worries, and insufficient income to afford a healthy lifestyle.

Increases in retirement age has been a response to higher life expectancy nationally. However, some regions have seen bigger improvement compared with others, while some have seen declines. But international research indicates that living longer does not necessarily mean more time spent in good health—and our findings also suggest that many people will find it challenging to work until the new retirement age.

A key reason for increasing retirement age is to ensure the financial sustainability of the state pension programme. But if a large proportion of the population aren't healthy enough to work for longer, there may be an increased need for government financial support due to unemployment or disability. Those with health problems who can't afford to leave work may find that, without adaptations, their health interferes with their productivity, their daily tasks, or that their working hours may make them less able to effectively look after their health.

In the UK, health gaps are widening. Without interventions to improve health and access to good work opportunities, it's possible that some groups could see healthy working life expectancy stay the same or even decrease. For these sub-populations, waiting longer to receive state pension income could be particularly difficult.

Though the upward trend in life expectancy stalled in 2014-2015 in many high-income countries, retirement age is still set to increase in numerous countries, including the US, the UK and Australia. Monitoring healthy working life expectancy may be important in the future for knowing whether people will be able to stay in work alongside changes to the retirement age.


Explore further

Physically demanding jobs linked to shorter working lives and more sick leave

Provided by The Conversation

Special edition: African advancement and the consequences of colonialism

Issued on: 30/06/2020 

ACROSS AFRICA © France 24

By:Georja Calvin-Smith

Laura DI BIASIO

While the murder of George Floyd in the United States has revived anti-racism movements around the world, it has also stirred up the painful history of colonialism. In this special edition, FRANCE 24 takes a look at the history behind the tumultuous relationship between Europe and Africa. Reports from South Africa, Nigeria, Cameroon and DR Congo explore the complicated collective memory of former colonial powers and the nations they controlled.

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