It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
STAY THE COURSE GIVE PROVINCES MORE $$$$ Liberals should drive daycare improvements, not redo system, report says
OTTAWA — A new report is urging the Trudeau Liberals to embrace "aggressive incrementalism" on their promised path toward a national child-care system, arguing the government should quickly build on what's already there rather than push wholesale change. RIGHT WING THUNK TANK The paper from the C.D. Howe Institute suggests that trying to revamp how child care is delivered in Canada by moving responsibility to Ottawa from the provinces appears unlikely to succeed.
Provinces aren't likely to agree to national standards, the authors write, pointing to recent federal efforts on child care. The think-tank's report says the federal government should bundle funding for child care into an annual transfer payment similar to one it already provides to help provinces cover the cost of health care. The report's authors say the money should focus first on expanding the supply of licensed child-care spaces.
The authors add that any federal moves need to be aimed at quickly building up child-care services nationally because the status quo is not sustainable.
The report is the latest in a series of arguments being put before the Trudeau Liberals on the road to next month's budget, in which child care is expected to feature prominently.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has promised the budget will outline a plan for a national child-care system, modelled on the publicly funded program in Quebec.
Child care has been debated federally for decades, including the role Ottawa should play in an area of provincial jurisdiction
Ken Boessenkool, one of the C.D. Howe report's authors, said there is no need to shift jurisdictions, just have Ottawa help the country do more of what has worked and do it better.
"We're saying we're not on the wrong path, we just have to do more of what we've been doing and do it more quickly," said Boessenkool, the J.W. McConnell Professor of Practice at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.
"And we don't need to blow the system up to fix it."
He said the federal government should pick a lane on what it wants to do on child care to drive the agenda, specifically focusing on funding the expansion of spaces where they are needed most. A report this month from Deloitte Canada estimated the government could spend between $7 billion and $8 billion on child care, which would return between $1.50 and $5.80 for every dollar spent through a combination of new revenues and reduced spending on social supports.
The two reports argue the federal government is better placed financially than provinces to boost spending on child care because federal fiscal room should loosen if and when emergency COVID-19 spending subsides. To help with household finances, Boessenkool and co-author Jennifer Robson, an associate professor of political management at Carleton University, say the government should make the federal child-care tax deduction refundable, meaning that eligible parents could get more money back from the government. At the moment, it is deemed non-refundable, so it can only lower amounts owed, not boost a tax refund.
The authors contend the change in tax treatment would help low-income families qualify for the deduction, and help middle-income families more easily afford daycare.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 30, 2021.
Jordan Press, The Canadian Press
WHO report on coronavirus origins 'only scratched the surface,' scientists say
A joint investigation by the World Health Organization and China into the origins of the coronavirus released Tuesday offered little in the form of concrete findings about how the pandemic started — something scientists say will take months and maybe years of work.
"This is only the start," Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO food safety scientist who led the research team, said Tuesday in a news briefing. "We've only scratched the surface of these very complex set of studies that need to be conducted."
The report said the coronavirus likely emerged in bats and spread to an intermediary animal before it spilled over into humans. It also downplayed a speculative theory that the virus leaked from a lab in China, describing that scenario as "extremely unlikely."
The newly released findings are the culmination of a joint study by Chinese scientists and a WHO-led team that visited China last month. The trip was hampered by delays by China and took place more than a year after the first reported outbreak.
Joint WHO-China study says origins of coronavirus still an open question
Critics have also said the probe was limited and insufficient because it relied on access dictated by the Chinese government. Many of the Chinese scientists involved were affiliated with state-run institutions, and, in some cases, investigators did not have full access to records and raw data.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Seton Hall University's School of Diplomacy and International Relations, said China's support — and the transparency issues that go along with it — will continue to be a challenge moving forward.
"If you want to conduct further studies on this, you need the cooperation from China," Huang said. "I didn't find anything in the report to suggest the Chinese side said they are going to be cooperating with further investigations in China."
In his presentation of the report's findings, Embarek said all members of the research team — both the experts convened by the WHO and their Chinese counterparts — agreed to the recommendations for further research in the coming weeks and months. But it's not clear what specific commitments have been made between China and the WHO, or when additional investigations could begin.
The next round of studies aim to zero in on some of the likely pathways that were identified. The proposed investigations include combing through genomic data to identify outbreaks before December 2019 that may have been missed, and to follow possible chains of transmission from the first-known cases in humans.
"So many of the studies now, as is typical in an outbreak situation, have been casting quite a broad net, but have now provided us with a very deep dive into what happened in the early phase of this pandemic," Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who was a member of the WHO delegation, said Tuesday in a news briefing. "That really will help us target the follow-up studies."
Huang said China may be motivated to work with the WHO, but added that the government is likely cognizant of potential political fallout from the findings.
"China does have incentives to build a good reputation and show that it is indeed a responsible stakeholder in this global fight against the pandemic and future pandemics," he said, "but the politicization around tracing the origin has also raised the stakes way too high. The government is keenly aware of the negative ramifications if the study points to China as the origin of the outbreak."
Adding to the tense political atmosphere are the persistent speculations that the virus leaked from a lab. Members of the WHO-led delegation have said they did not find credible evidence to support such a hypothesis, but skeptics, including Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have promoted the theory.
Embarek said that while the current body of research seems to point to bat origins, the investigators are keeping an open mind and will follow the science.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed that nothing has been ruled out, adding that it will take time to pin down the exact origins of the virus.
"As far as WHO is concerned, all hypotheses remain on the table," he said in a statement. "This report is a very important beginning, but it is not the end. We have not yet found the source of the virus, and we must continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned as we do."
Researchers discover new type of ancient crater lake on Mars
IMAGE: RAISED RIDGES SPIDERING ACROSS THE FLOOR OF A MARTIAN CRATER WERE LIKELY CREATED BY RUNOFF FROM A LONG-LOST GLACIER THAT ONCE DRAPED THE PLANET'S SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS. view more
CREDIT: NASA
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Researchers from Brown University have discovered a previously unknown type of ancient crater lake on Mars that could reveal clues about the planet's early climate.
In a study published in Planetary Science Journal, a research team led by Brown Ph.D. student Ben Boatwright describes an as-yet unnamed crater with some puzzling characteristics. The crater's floor has unmistakable geologic evidence of ancient stream beds and ponds, yet there's no evidence of inlet channels where water could have entered the crater from outside, and no evidence of groundwater activity where it could have bubbled up from below.
So where did the water come from?
The researchers conclude that the system was likely fed by runoff from a long-lost Martian glacier. Water flowed into the crater atop the glacier, which meant it didn't leave behind a valley as it would have had it flowed directly on the ground. The water eventually emptied into the low-lying crater floor, where it left its geological mark on the bare Martian soil.
The type of lake described in this study differs starkly from other Martian crater lakes, like those at Gale and Jezero craters where NASA rovers are currently exploring.
"This is a previously unrecognized type of hydrological system on Mars," Boatwright said. "In lake systems characterized so far, we see evidence of drainage coming from outside the crater, breaching the crater wall and in some cases flowing out the other side. But that's not what is happening here. Everything is happening inside the crater, and that's very different than what's been characterized before."
Importantly, Boatwright says, the crater provides key clues about the early climate of Mars. There's little doubt that the Martian climate was once warmer and wetter than the frozen desert the planet is today. What's less clear, however, is whether Mars had an Earthlike climate with continually flowing water for millennia, or whether it was mostly cold and icy with fleeting periods of warmth and melting. Climate simulations for early Mars suggest temperatures rarely peaking above freezing, but geological evidence for cold and icy conditions has been sparse, Boatwright says. This new evidence of ancient glaciation could change that.
"The cold and icy scenario has been largely theoretical -- something that arises from climate models," Boatwright said. "But the evidence for glaciation we see here helps to bridge the gap between theory and observation. I think that's really the big takeaway here."
Boatwright was able to map out the details of the crater's lake system using high-resolution images taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The images revealed a telltale signature of ancient streambeds -- features called inverted fluvial channels. When water flows across a rocky surface, it can leave behind course-grained sediment inside the valley it erodes. When these sediments interact with water, they can form minerals that are harder than the surrounding rock. As further erosion over millions of years whittles the surrounding rock away, the mineralized channels are left behind as raised ridges spidering across the landscape. These features, along with sediment deposits and shoreline features, clearly show where water flowed and ponded on the crater floor.
ut without any sign of an inlet channel where water entered the crater, "the question becomes 'how did these get here?"' Boatwright said.
To figure it out, Boatwright worked with Jim Head, his advisor and a research professor at Brown. They ruled out groundwater activity, as the crater lacked telltale sapping channels that form in groundwater systems. These channels usually appear as short, stubby channels that lack tributaries -- completely opposite from the dense, branching networks of inverted channels observed in the crater. A careful examination of the crater wall also revealed a distinct set of ridges that face upward toward the crater wall. The features are consistent with ridges formed where a glacier terminates and deposits mounds of rocky debris. Taken together, the evidence points to a glacier-fed system, the researchers concluded.
Subsequent research has shown that this crater isn't the only one of its kind. At this month's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Boatwright presented research revealing more than 40 additional craters that appear to have related features.
Head says that these new findings could be critical in understanding the climate of early Mars.
"We have these models telling us that early Mars would have been cold and icy, and now we have some really compelling geological evidence to go with it," Head said. "Not only that, but this crater provides the criteria we need to start looking for even more evidence to test this hypothesis, which is really exciting.
CAPTION
The researchers mapped where water flowed and ponded within the crater floor.
CREDIT
NASA/Benjamin Boatwright
CAPTION
A topographic map shows the raised ridges (dark yellow) and low-lying areas where water ponded (white).
CREDIT
NASA/Ben Boatwright
Ever wondered what red foxes eat?There's a database for that
Researchers create a free, online database on global carnivore diets to help conservationists and educators
CREDIT: CARNIDIET - OWEN MIDDLETON, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
Research into the diets of a large number of the world's carnivores has been made publicly available through a free, online database created by a PhD student at the University of Sussex.
From stoats in the UK to tigers in India, users are now able to search for detailed information about the diets of species in different geographical locations around the globe.
Created by doctoral student Owen Middleton, CarniDIET is an open-access database which aims to catalogue the diets of the world's carnivores by bringing together past peer-reviewed research. He hopes it will be a useful resource for conservationists and researchers, as well as educators and nature-lovers alike.
Owen said: "There is so much information out there that is useful for conservation, but much of it isn't digitized, or it may be difficult for people to access.
"Typically, anybody interested in species' diets would have to go through an extensive body of literature, but through CarniDIET, there's now an easy way to access this information with all the original references cited."
The main purpose of CarniDIET is to facilitate further conservation research by providing a place to easily access data describing the ecological requirements and ecological effects of many endangered species, which can vary across their geographic ranges.
However, there are also hopes that the tool can be more widely used by teachers, students and citizen scientists.
Owen said: "Species diets can vary massively geographically and CarniDIET is a really easy way to find out how the diet of a red fox might be different in the UK compared to China, or how the diets of lions and leopards differ.
"Users can search by a particular species or country, and simply click on an interactive map of the world to find out what carnivores eat in that area.
"It will be invaluable for younger school students learning about the food chain, or older students delving into a bit more depth about endangered species or working on geographical case studies."
Dr Chris Sandom, Senior Lecturer in Biology at the University of Sussex, added: "CarniDIET is a really exciting new tool for conservationists, researchers and educators.
"Understanding the diets of animals is hugely important for conservation; you can't protect animals in isolation, they're connected in food webs. If prey species are under threat or have dwindling numbers, it will have a knock-on effect on their predators, and leave those species threatened too.
"CarniDIET will be a useful tool to help demonstrate this by clearly showing which prey species carnivores are eating, and to an extent, are reliable on in particular geographical locations."
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The tool, which will be available to use from 30 March 2021, is described in a research paper, published in Global Ecology and Biogeography. It still only covers a fraction of the available data out there and the aim is to continue developing CarniDIET by incorporating more studies and more species of carnivore. The database can be accessed at https://bit.ly/3weP1Ht.
Mysterious living monuments
How will the biggest tropical trees respond to climate change?
SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
VIDEO: INTERVIEW WITH CO-AUTHORS EVAN GORA, POST DOCTORAL FELLOW, SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE AND ADRIANE ESQUIVEL-MUELBERT, LECTURER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM, UK. AVAILABLE WITH SPANISH SUBTITLES ON REQUEST.view more
CREDIT: SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Giant trees in tropical forests, witnesses to centuries of civilization, may be trapped in a dangerous feedback loop according to a new report in Nature Plants from researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama and the University of Birmingham, U.K. The biggest trees store half of the carbon in mature tropical forests, but they could be at risk of death as a result of climate change--releasing massive amounts of carbon back into the atmosphere.
Evan Gora, STRI Tupper postdoctoral fellow, studies the role of lightning in tropical forests. Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, lecturer at the University of Birmingham, studies the effects of climate change in the Amazon. The two teamed up to find out what kills big tropical trees. But as they sleuthed through hundreds of papers, they discovered that nearly nothing is known about the biggest trees and how they die because they are extremely rare in field surveys.
"Big trees are hard to measure," said Esquivel-Muelbert. "They are the pain in a field campaign because we always have to go back with a ladder to climb up to find a place to measure the circumference above the buttresses. It takes a long time. Studies focusing on the reasons trees die don't have enough information for the biggest trees and often end up excluding them from their analysis."
"Because we generally lack the data necessary to tell us what kills trees that are above approximately 50 centimeters in diameter, that leaves out half of the forest biomass in most forests," Gora said.
Only about 1% of trees in mature tropical forests make it to this size. Others wait their turn in the shade below.
The other thing that makes tropical forests so special--high biodiversity--also makes it difficult to study big trees: There are so many different species, and many of them are extremely rare.
"Because only 1-2% of big trees in a forest die every year, researchers need to sample hundreds of individuals of a given species to understand why they are dying," Gora said. "That may involve looking for trees across a huge area."
Imagine a study of blood pressure in people who have lived to be 103. One would have to locate and test seniors from cities and towns around the world: a time-consuming, logistically complex and expensive proposition.
A large body of evidence shows that trees are dying faster in tropical forests than ever before. This is affecting the ability of forests to function and in particular, to capture and store carbon dioxide.
"We know the deaths of largest and oldest trees are more consequential than the death of smaller trees," Gora said. "Big trees may be at particular risk because the factors that kill them appear to be increasing more rapidly than the factors that seem to be important for smaller-tree mortality."
In large parts of the tropics, climate change is resulting in more severe storms and more frequent and intense droughts. Because big trees tower above the rest, they may be more likely to be hit by lightning, or damaged by wind. Because they have to pull ground water higher than other trees, they are most likely to be affected by drought.
Hoping to better understand what is happening to big trees, Gora and Esquivel-Muelbert identified three glaring knowledge gaps. First, almost nothing is known about disease, insects and other biological causes of death in big trees. Second, because big trees are often left out of analyses, the relationship between cause of death and size is not clear. And, finally, almost all of the detailed studies of big tropical trees are from a few locations like Manaus in Brazil and Barro Colorado Island in Panama.
To understand how big trees die, there is a trade-off between putting effort into measuring large numbers of trees and measuring them often enough to identify the cause of death. Gora and Esquivel-Muelbert agree that a combination of drone technology and satellite views of the forest will help to find out how these big trees die, but this approach will only work if it is combined with intense, standardized, on-the-ground observations, such as those used by the Smithsonian's international ForestGEO network of study sites.
Esquivel-Muelbert hopes that the impetus for this research will come from a shared appreciation for these mysterious living monuments:
"I think they are fascinating to everyone," she said. "When you see one of those giants in the forest, they are so big. My colleague and Amazonian researcher, Carolina Levis, says that they are the monuments we have in the Amazon where we don't have big pyramids or old buildings....That is the feeling, that they have been through so much. They are fascinating, not just in the scientific sense but also in another way. It moves you somehow."
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Funding for this study was from STRI, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the TreeMort project as part of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.
The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, headquartered in Panama City, Panama, is a unit of the Smithsonian Institution. The institute furthers the understanding of tropical biodiversity and its importance to human welfare, trains students to conduct research in the tropics and promotes conservation by increasing public awareness of the beauty and importance of tropical ecosystems. Promo video.
Gora, E.M. and Esquivel-Muelbert, A. 2021. Implications of size-dependent tree mortality for tropical forest carbon dynamics. Nature Plants. doi: 10.1038/s41477-021-00879-0
CAPTION
The flowery crown of Dipteryx oleifera, one of the biggest trees on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, towers above the forest. Big trees may be most exposed to the effects of climate change: more frequent and severe drought, and the high winds and lightning of monster storms.
CREDIT
Evan Gora, STRI
CAPTION
Measuring the largest rainforest trees requires carrying a ladder out into the jungle, often to hard-to-access sites. Long term forest monitoring plots such as the Smithsonian's ForestGEO network use standard techniques to measure giant trees. However, in remote areas, researchers may decide to leave the biggest trees out of their studies, because it is too time-consuming to measure them.
CREDIT
Sean Mattson, STRI
THE BLACK SEA IS AN INLAND SEA
In the deep sea, the last ice age is not yetover
Gas hydrate deposits in the Black Sea react to post-glacial climate changes
IMAGE: DRILL CORES FROM THE MARUM-MEBO200 ARE RECOVERED ON DECK OF THE RV METEOR. view more
CREDIT: CHRISTIAN ROHLEDER.
Gas hydrates are a solid compound of gases and water that have an ice-like structure at low temperatures and high pressures. Compounds of methane and water, so-called methane hydrates, are found especially at many ocean margins - also in the Black Sea. In addition to a possible use as an energy source, methane hydrate deposits are being investigated for their stability, as they can dissolve with changes in temperature and pressure. In addition to releases of methane, this can also have an impact on submarine slope stability.
During a six-week expedition with the German research vessel METEOR in autumn 2017, a team from MARUM and GEOMAR investigated a methane hydrate deposit in the deep-sea fan of the Danube in the western Black Sea. During the cruise, which was part of the joint project SUGAR III "Submarine Gas Hydrate Resources" jointly funded by the BMWi and BMBF, the gas hydrate deposits were drilled using the mobile seafloor drilling device MARUM-MeBo200. The results of the investigations, which have now been published in the international journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, have provided the scientists with new insights into changes in the stability of gas hydrates.
"Based on data from previous expeditions, we selected two working areas where, on the one hand, methane hydrate and free methane gas coexist in the upper 50 to 150 metres of the hydrate stability zone and, on the other hand, a landslide and gas seeps were found directly at the edge of the gas hydrate stability zone", explains Prof. Dr. Gerhard Bohrmann, expedition leader from MARUM and co-author of the study. "For our investigations we used our drilling device MARUM-MeBo200 and broke all previous depth records with a maximum depth reached of almost 145 metres".
In addition to obtaining samples, the scientists were, for the first time, also able to carry out detailed in situ temperature measurements down to the base of the gas hydrate stability under the seabed. Previously, this baseline was determined using seismic methods, from which the so-called "bottom simulating reflector" (BSR) was obtained as an indicator of this base. "However, our work has now proven for the first time that the approach using the BSR does not work for the Black Sea", explains Dr. Michael Riedel from GEOMAR, lead author of the study. "From our point of view, the gas-hydrate stability boundary has already approached the warmer conditions in the subsurface, but the free methane gas, which is always found at this lower edge, has not yet managed to rise with it", Riedel continues. The reasons for this could be attributed to the low permeability of the sediments, which means the methane gas is still "stuck" down there and can only rise very, very slowly under its own power, according to the scientist.
"However, our new analyses of the seismic data have also shown that in a few places the methane gas can break through the BSR. There, a new BSR is just establishing itself over the 'old' reflector. This is new and has never been seen before", says Dr Matthias Haeckel, co-author of the study from GEOMAR. "Our interpretation is that the gas can rise in these places, as disturbances in the seabed here favour the flow of gas", Haeckel continues.
"In summary, we have found a very dynamic situation in this region, which also appears to be related with the development of the Black Sea since the last ice age", says Michael Riedel. After the last glacial maximum (LGM), the sea level rose (pressure increase), and when the global sea level rose above the threshold of the Bosporus, salty water from the Mediterranean Sea was able to propagate into the Black Sea. Before that, this ocean basin was basically a freshwater lake. In addition, global warming since the LGM has caused a temperature rise of the bottom water in the Black Sea. The combination of these three factors - salinity, pressure and temperature - had drastic effects on the methane hydrates, which decompose as a result of these effects. The current study exemplifies the complex feedbacks and time scales that induce climate changes in the marine environment and is therefore well suited to estimate the expected consequences of today's more rapid global warming - especially on the Arctic gas hydrate deposits.
Cruise leader Gerhard Bohrmann summarizes: "At the end of the SUGAR-3 programme, the drilling campaign with MeBo200 in the Black Sea showed us once again very clearly how quickly the methane hydrate stability in the ocean deposits also changes with environmental fluctuations".
CAPTION
Harbor test with the drilling rig MARUM-MeBo200.
CREDIT
Torsten Klein
Reference:
Riedel, M., T. Freudenthal, J. Bialas, C. Papenberg, M. Haeckel, M. Bergenthal, T. Pape, and G. Bohrmann, 2021: In-situ borehole temperature measurements confirm dynamics of the gas hydrate stability zone at the upper Danube deep sea fan, Black Sea. Earth and Planetary Sci. Lett., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2021.116869.
IMAGE: LEARNING CONSERVATION FIELDWORK IN INDONESIA view more
CREDIT: ERIN POOR, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
In a new study published in Conservation Science and Practice, researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) partnered with Indonesian experts to explore the motivations and challenges of women pursuing a career in conservation sciences in Indonesia. Given that Indonesia is one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet but is simultaneously experiencing extreme rates of deforestation, it is an important target country for the conservation of global biodiversity. Conservation work remains male-dominated in Indonesia, especially fieldwork, so gaining a better understanding of the cultural norms and barriers in place for Indonesian women aspiring to a career in conservation represents an important step in supporting women in this field. With more diverse faces and voices representing global conservation, the country and others like it can tap into the full potential of their intellectual and creative resources to help solve grave global challenges like dwindling biodiversity.
"We are facing huge challenges in the conservation of biodiversity globally," says Erin Poor, postdoctoral researcher in Environmental Science and Technology (ENST) at UMD and leader of this work. "Climate change, habitat loss and encroachment, an increasing human population putting stress on natural landscapes, increased agriculture - these are all large, complex, multidisciplinary challenges. The more intelligent minds we have working to identify creative solutions that benefit humans and wildlife, the better. This means enabling and creating space for women and other underrepresented groups to voice their ideas for conservation solutions."
In order to explore this idea while also practically supporting Indonesian women in conservation, Poor developed and facilitated a workshop in Riau Province, central Sumatra, Indonesia due to its importance in global conservation. Working closely with Indonesian leaders at the World Wildlife Fund-Indonesia (WWF) and the Universitas Gadjah Mada, Poor and the UMD team identified a need for culturally appropriate training and mentorship for women wanting to conduct conservation fieldwork. The workshop was held from September 13-15, 2019, with the goal of providing participants with networking opportunities and offering a setting in which more experienced women in conservation could mentor less experienced women and train them on practical fieldwork skills. As a pilot workshop, 11 Indonesian early-career women attended the workshop, with 3 established Indonesian women providing mentorship and instruction.
"The young women in our workshop were excited and passionate about conservation," says Poor. "We seemed to pick up on the lack of technical training for these women (which may also be an issue among men), and the lack of encouragement and support evidenced by discouragement from family members, a lack of female mentors and networks, and societal perceptions about female roles. Women are excited and passionate about conservation work, they just need to be given the support and tools to be effective."
Documenting the motivations and challenges of these women and their unique experiences represents an important step in making sure women in conservation have the support they need, explains Jennifer Mullinax, assistant professor with ENST and co-author.
"It was telling to see the limited information that existed on the paths, support, and limitations of women in STEM in Indonesia. This is one of the first bricks in the wall of knowledge we need to build a more inclusive and diverse conservation discipline in the global south."
Mullinax provided support for the trip to Indonesia, which was in many ways a continuation of work that Poor had started while pursuing her PhD. "I believe strongly in uplifting and supporting women, especially women in STEM," stresses Mullinax. "As Erin was describing her experiences in Sumatra and her intentions of having the training workshop, I suggested this may be an opportunity to survey the participants and start documenting the needs and barriers of women pursuing STEM in Indonesia. Everyone was on board and considered it a great opportunity as well as potential justification for doing more, larger training and surveys in the future."
To assist with the survey development and analysis, Poor and Mullinax reached out to Jen Shaffer, assistant professor in Anthropology with the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS). Shaffer identified a key motivator for the women in this study as a love of nature and a passion for the environment, while challenges were mainly related to gender and cultural norms.
"Although I was unable to participate in the workshop, I really appreciated the opportunity to document the motivations and challenges that established and early career Indonesian women working in conservation science expressed," says Shaffer. "Some of their challenges are unique, and others are experienced by women scientists regardless of where they live and work. Reading their motivation responses to work in conservation was also very uplifting. I saw lots of parallels with discussions I've had with students and colleagues working in conservation science, and it shows our common feelings of passion for, excitement about, and care for nature. We are all working towards a common goal."
"The women in our study expressed some of the same sentiments that I experienced," adds Poor. "First, conservation advertisements often advertise for men - expressing inherent doubt in the physical capabilities of women to do field work. Secondly, Indonesia is extremely diverse in religious, ethnic, and social beliefs, but a belief persists in some geographic regions and in some parts of society that women should be in less physical jobs or be family and household caretakers. Another factor impacting women in the field is that some people also still believe that unmarried men and women should not be alone together."
Poor experienced some of these issues firsthand during her time in Indonesia as a doctoral student. "For me, this was extremely personal," says Poor. "I spent two years in Indonesia doing field work for my PhD research. Almost all of my female friends and I faced sexual harassment and discrimination repeatedly. The field teams I worked with were all male (who were all excellent professionals), and I tried to recruit women to join my team but I only found one woman who actually was able and willing to come to the field. She ended up being hired by WWF as a field team leader (only the second woman in central Sumatra) after my research, and I count that as one of the biggest successes of my research. After experiencing persistent doubt about my abilities as a woman in Indonesia, working to get more women in the field became a personal passion of mine."
Despite these challenges, Poor and the team are hopeful for the future of women in conservation and have plans to expand this work. Poor has been elected as the Vice President of Membership for the Society for Conservation Biology, and she hopes to reach out to young women to increase their involvement in the field. She and the team also hope to continue their research and training efforts on a broader scale.
"I hope this spurs others to take a look at recruitment and retention of women scientists in other areas as well," adds Poor. "By identifying the challenges and motivations women are facing, especially in understudied biodiverse areas in the global south, we can work to remove these challenges and encourage motivations. However, this must be done at the request and with the coordination of scientists in those locations. I am hoping that in Indonesia specifically, those involved with this study will begin thinking about and implementing similar workshops and events specifically geared towards young women conservation biologists."
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This paper is entitled "Increasing diversity to save biodiversity: Rising to the challenge and supporting Indonesian women in conservation" and is published in Conservation Science and Practice, DOI: 10.1111/csp2.395.
Gender discrimination threatens crop yield among smallholder farmers in Africa,researchers say
Studies conducted in Tanzania and drawing on case studies across East Africa show that policies giving women better access to resources and information must be prioritized to reverse the trend.
INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TROPICAL AGRICULTURE (CIAT)
IMAGE: WOMEN ARE OFTEN 'INVISIBLE' IN AGRICULTURE, RESEARCHERS SAY. view more
CREDIT: GEORGINA SMITH
A study examining bean productivity among smallholder farmers in Tanzania, has found that on average, yields are 6% lower among female than male farmers. Women are often 'invisible' in agriculture, researchers say, due to social structural barriers and national agricultural policies, which do not address discriminatory land rights; education and agricultural information and decision making, which must be tackled to reverse this trend.
The paper 'What Does Gender Yield Gap Tell Us about Smallholder Farming in Developing Countries?' published in the open access scientific journal Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing (MDPI), analyzed data from southern region in Tanzania since 2016 and also drew on research from case studies conducted in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe among other countries in the region.
Eileen Nchanji, Gender Specialist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (The Alliance), said: "We think this six percent drop in productivity is significant, because it shows that with access to the right information and resources, and if we are intentional about making gender part of new interventions, women will be able to increase their yields significantly."
"Our case studies from Burundi and Zimbabwe have shown that, when women have access to improved seeds and information, they can double their yields," she added. By bringing the public and private sector together, and targetting women, youth and men together with improved seed varieties and better knowledge about agricultural practices and collective decision making on farm operations, productivity among the whole community increases.
Researchers highlight that issues of more concern to women are often ignored at policy level. They include providing more nutritious food crops such as beans for the family instead of relying on staples like maize which may fetch more income but offer less nutritional value; selection of varieties with attributes such as faster cook-times or easier processing attributes; as well as overall household food security.
Among the challenges women face in boosting crop yields are land rights and ownership. Even if women have gained access to better seeds and knowledge on how to plant them to increase yields, they may not have the power to implement changes if the land is not theirs. Similarly, while women contribute around 65% more on-farm labor than men, they do not always have the same access to information or technology, resulting in lower yields.
Agness Nduguru, a researcher at the Agricultural Research Institute Uyole, Mbeya, Tanzania, said that a key solution at community level is to ensure the co-distribution of end resources to both women and men. "Even if we conduct training about gender constraints and differences, and communities are aware about production and yield gaps, at policy-level, if we want to eliminate poverty, women have to be able to make their own decisions."
The Alliance's Agricultural Economist, Enid Katungi, said: "We researched on who manages the land or makes decisions about the plot; what age and sex they are; what information and knowledge they have access to. We found structural differences; women tend to cultivate more degraded land, highlighting power differences within households when it comes to resources. So it's clear we need interventions to address those differences at both developmental and policy level, involving all decision makers in the community at all levels."
The study also reveals that women who engaged their families in decisions on varieties to plant often had better yields, and that access to improved varieties boosted productivity by 35% compared to growing indigenous or local varieties, implying that access to better information and resources for both men and women is key. Yet a woman's age, family size, years of schooling and how they spend income from beans or other crops all restrict a woman's ability to produce more food and nutritious family meals in general.
Key recommendations in the paper to tackle gender inequality for improved agricultural yields include gender-specific support to close the yield gap, ensuring equal income distribution and reduced poverty among female farmers. These include deliberate women empowerment strategies through trainings and free improved seed provision, participatory plant breeding that considers variety attributes that appeal to women; national policy on gender issues in agriculture and general public support to finance women's agriculture.
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Mysteries of malaria infections deepenafter human trial study
Scientists have discovered that tracking malaria as it develops in humans is a powerful way to detect how the malaria parasite causes a range of infection outcomes in its host
IMAGE: A VOLUNTEER BEING INJECTED WITH MALARIA PARASITES. view more
CREDIT: PROFESSOR ALEX ROWE, PERSONAL CHAIR OF MOLECULAR MEDICINE, INSTITUTE OF INFECTION AND IMMUNOLOGY RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
Scientists have discovered that tracking malaria as it develops in humans is a powerful way to detect how the malaria parasite causes a range of infection outcomes in its host.
The study, found some remarkable differences in the way individuals respond to malaria and raises fresh questions in the quest to understand and defeat the deadly disease.
Malaria, caused by the parasite - Plasmodium falciparum - is a huge threat to adults and children in the developing world. Each year, around half a million people die from the disease and another 250 million are infected. Malaria parasites are spread to humans through the bites of infected mosquitoes.
The outcomes that follow a malaria infection can vary from no symptoms to life-threatening disease and death. The precise reasons why people respond in different ways to the same parasite infection are still unknown, experts say.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with teams at the Universities of Oxford and Glasgow and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, explored infection outcomes in 14 volunteers who were injected with malaria parasites.
Scientists studied how the volunteers responded to the parasites over the course of 10 days. The group were then treated with antimalarial drugs to cure the infection before there was any risk of them developing severe symptoms.
The study, published in eLife, found that the immune systems in about half of the volunteers were rapidly alerted to the presence of parasites and began to produce signals to mobilise host defences.
These volunteers began to suffer symptoms of malaria such as fever and headache. The other volunteers, however, either showed no sign of immune activation, or else started to develop responses to dampen their body's immune response. These volunteers did not develop malaria symptoms.
Dr Phil Spence, Sir Henry Dale Fellow, Institute of Infection and Immunology Research, University of Edinburgh and one of the project leads, said: "It looks like most of the variation in malaria is due to intrinsic differences between people in how they respond to infection.
"We need to do further work to tease out the underlying factors responsible for immune variation, such as investigating human genetics and prior experience of other infections."
The study also asked whether variation in parasite growth rate, the rate at which a parasite replicates within the body, or virulence factors, the properties of a parasite thought to make an infection more severe, were different in the volunteers and if this had a bearing on infection outcomes.
Surprisingly, the researchers found that although parasite growth rates did vary substantially between volunteers, this was not linked to outcomes. For example, a volunteer could have a small number of parasites with a strong immune reaction or have a large number with no symptoms.
Furthermore, monitoring the parasite virulence factors through time, in particular a family of molecules called group A var genes, showed no differences between volunteers and no changes over the course of infection.
Professor Alex Rowe, Personal Chair of Molecular Medicine, Institute of Infection and Immunology Research, University of Edinburgh and project co-lead, said: "The biggest surprise from our study was that there was no variation in expression of the parasite virulence factors.
"Current theory, based on data from infected patients in malarious countries, suggested that parasites expressing group A var genes would rapidly come to dominate as the infection progressed, but this was not seen in our volunteers.
"There are many possible reasons for this - maybe a parasite collected more recently from a field site would give a different result, or maybe longer infection times are needed so the host immune response can influence these changes."
The unexpected results from this study shows the power of human volunteer studies to raise new questions and give novel insights into diseases that have been studied in other ways for many decades, according to the team.
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The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust and the UK Medical Research Council.
For further information, please contact: Rhona Crawford, Press and PR Office, 0131 650 2246, rhona.crawford@ed.ac.uk
