Wednesday, February 05, 2020

Locust invasion threatens wildlife and livelihoods in Kenya

by Tim Knight, Fauna & Flora International

Credit: Vladimir Wrangel/AdobeStock

Kenya is bracing itself for a humanitarian and conservation catastrophe in the wake of a desert locust invasion on an unprecedented scale. The infestation is already affecting more than a quarter of the entire country and in danger of wreaking havoc nationwide.

While the size of these swarms has not yet swollen to apocalyptic levels, there are fears that numbers could reach plague proportions if the insects are not effectively controlled, with potentially dire consequences not only for community livelihoods but also for some of the continent's most iconic wildlife.

The swarms now invading Kenya arrived from Somalia and Ethiopia, where they have already caused widespread devastation of crops and grazing land before moving south and then west on the prevailing winds.

Sera Wildlife Conservancy, a long-standing partner of Fauna & Flora International (FFI), recently found itself directly in the path of these insatiable invertebrates.

This community-run conservancy is a key member of the wider Northern Rangelands Trust consortium that FFI helped to establish in 2004. It harbors a small but crucial population of the critically endangered eastern black rhino, happily augmented when a new calf was born there in late 2019.

The locusts descended on Sera shortly before dusk on January 22nd, and roosted overnight in the trees before flying away around noon the following day, much to the relief of conservancy staff and nearby communities. Rangers who witnessed their arrival described the flying swarms as "moving clouds" and 'thick, white smoke." The damage caused during their mercifully brief feeding frenzy has yet to be fully assessed, but the main concern is what might happen if they return.

Locusts blanket the ground in Sera Wildlife Conservancy. Credit: Sera

"We've never witnessed anything like this before," said Reuben Lendira, Sera's Conservancy Manager. "This is the first invasion since the establishment of the conservancy. Though the locusts have only been in the conservancy for a few hours since their arrival in northern Kenya at the end of last year, we remain concerned as they are present in neighboring areas and there are chances that they will keep visiting us."

A single desert locust consumes its own body weight in food in a day. Half a million of these insects—a tiny percentage of the average swarm—will devour as much vegetation as ten elephants in just 24 hours. It is easy to see how quickly an entire landscape could be denuded and defoliated, posing a serious threat to the survival of large herbivores throughout Kenya, included those at Sera. In addition to serving as a vital rhino sanctuary, the conservancy also provides protection for other threatened wildlife, including African elephant, lesser kudu and reticulated giraffe.

Locust outbreaks are a natural phenomenon—triggered by abundant rainfall and the plentiful vegetation that results—but there seems little doubt that a prolonged spell of extreme weather has played a role in this instance. Unseasonal torrential downpours in the Arabian Peninsula precipitated by a series of cyclones (a symptom of our changing climate) were followed by further extended bouts of heavy rain, creating ideal conditions for successive generations of locusts to breed within a very short timeframe.

The sheer scale of the infestation in Kenya is difficult to comprehend from the ground, but one swarm alone was estimated by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to cover 2,400 square kilometers—an area almost the size of Paris.

If unchecked, locust numbers could reach plague proportions
within six months. Credit: Vladimir Wrangel/AdobeStock

The locust invasion could spell disaster for threatened
herbivores such as the lesser kudu.
Credit: Juan Pablo Moreiras/FFI

But even swarms of this size are just the tip of the antenna compared to what could be in store. It is conceivable that locust numbers, if unchecked, could increase 500-fold within six months, with cataclysmic consequences for crops, pasture, people and wildlife.

To date, localized aerial spraying—using chemicals that are purportedly safe for other wildlife and humans—has failed to contain the invasion. As a result, people on the ground are taking things into their own hands, using more harmful pesticides that could have a serious environmental impact.

Despite reassurances, concerns remain about the possible health implications for wildlife—and humans—when they feed on sprayed vegetation, or drink from water sources contaminated by pesticides.

The invasion has not yet spread to Kenya's food-producing regions, but pastoralist communities including those in and around Sera are understandably nervous about losing the grazing land on which their livestock depend. The locust invasion poses a real threat to conservation, livelihoods and security in northern Kenya, according to FFI's Josephine Nzilani: "Under conservancy grazing plans, pasture is divided into dry and wet season grazing areas, but the locusts could upset this regime. If wet season grazing areas are plundered, herders may be forced to resort to dry season grazing areas, meaning they won't have areas to graze when the dry season comes. They will have to migrate to other areas, and this often leads to grazing conflicts."

It is hoped that control measures will be escalated nationwide in the coming days and weeks, before the swarms multiply to the point where they are unmanageable. In the meantime, Sera remains on red alert.

Locusts the latest curse of East Africa weather extremes

Provided by Fauna & Flora International

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BIBLICAL
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PLAGUE
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=LOCUSTS
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=AFRICA
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=KENYA
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SOMALIA

Collaboration leads to increased trust in agricultural nature management

by Wageningen University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Collectively organizing agricultural nature management leads to increased levels of trust between those involved, as well as to a more confidence in the policy. This conclusion was formulated by researchers from Wageningen University & Research following a two-year study of one of these collectives, Agricultural Nature Drenthe (known by its Dutch acronym AND). Their conclusion reflects findings gathered through discussions with farmers, AND-employees, civil servants and other stakeholders.

Agricultural nature management contributes significantly to biodiversity in the European rural areas, is an important instrument in rural policy and is the second pillar in the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Farmers receive compensation for their efforts in implementing agricultural nature management policy through subsidies, partly funded by Europe. Management measures generally applied in the Netherlands are: Postponing mowing to protect pasture birds, planting herb-rich borders to attract more insects and food for the birds that inhabit the fields, as well as conservation of landscape elements such as wooded banks and pools.

Forty agricultural collectives for collaboration

Ecologists, civil servants and farmers criticized the way the EU was implementing nature management. Their criticism was primarily directed at the fragmentation of agricultural areas, a lack of constructive cooperation at a regional level, slow and cumbersome administrative processes and an increasing lack of trust between all involved as a result. In response to this criticism, the EU issued a decree in 2014 enabling farmers to organize themselves in groups to implement nature policy themselves. In the Netherlands, this led to the formation of forty agricultural collectives.

Collective format results in increased faith in agricultural nature management

This new collective set-up has generated an increase in confidence in agricultural nature management. Project manager Jasper de Vries explains: "The fact that nature management is now discussed with the provincial authorities rather than with the Ministry of Agriculture (LNV) proved instrumental. This makes it much easier to respond to local circumstances and allows people to feel heard." Additionally, the new system means an increase in interaction between farmers and other organizations. Eloquently put by one of the interviewees: "I feel that we, as farmers, are now collectively caring for the environment." René Vree Egberts, the director of Agricultural Nature Drenthe, is delighted with the results. "The research shows that we are able to support farmers and nature by collaborating. This fact is also reflected in the increased number of participants in agricultural nature management since implementing these collectives."

Reactions from others also inspire confidence in nature management. The researchers encountered farmers whose enthusiasm was sparked by the reactions from outsiders, for example seeing passers-by hopping off their bikes to take pictures of the blooming borders of their fields, or receiving requests from schools wanting to visit.

Negative experiences from the past (with the former system) occasionally pop up. Especially in instances where things aren't progressing as they should, people are quick to refer to mistakes from the past. This shows that, in spite of the positive outcome, trust cannot be taken for granted and requires constant upkeep.

Oireachtas committee: Farmers should champion the planting of forests to tackle climate change

More information: Trusting the People and the System. The Interrelation Between Interpersonal and Institutional Trust in Collective Action for Agri-Environmental Management, Sustainability, ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v … 24p7022-d295690.html

When it comes to your mutual funds, managers' political beliefs matter

by Caroline Newman, University of Virginia

We know extreme political polarization isn't great for the democratic process, but one University of Virginia professor wanted to know what it does to our investments.

Studying data from 2,500 mutual fund managers between 1992 to 2016, Darden School of Business professor Richard Evans and his co-authors, Melissa Porras Prado and Antonino Emanuele Rizzo of Portugal's Nova School of Business and Economics and Rafael Zambrana of the University of Notre Dame, focused on individuals who disclosed donations to candidates or political action committees. The data included contributions to the 2016 presidential election.

They found that mutual funds managed by teams with diverse political viewpoints—typically a combination of Republican and Democratic donors—performed better than those whose managers shared political beliefs and donated to similar political causes.

There is a catch, however. The maxim held true in times of low political polarization, as measured by national organizations like the Pew Research Center. High political polarization, however, negatively affects team decision-making across the board.

Asked if we are in a time of high political polarization, Evans, speaking as the recent impeachment trial raged in Washington last week, kept it simple.

"I would certainly say so," he said. The study, he argues, makes the case that, even in times of high political polarization, we need to fight for bipartisanship because it leads to better results.

We spoke with him to learn more.

Q. Once you controlled for other variables, what did you discover about the relationship between performance and team members' political views?

A. Using a standard database of mutual fund managers from 1992 to 2016, we could see which managers donated to political candidates or PACs and how their teams performed. If a manager did not donate to a candidate or PAC, he or she was not assigned a political affiliation.

We found that diverse teams, on average, performed better. For example, if Republican managers are on a team with Democratic managers, that team will likely fare better than a team with only Republican managers, or only Democratic managers. They make different decisions and pick stocks differently, likely because of the debate that different perspectives generate. Having those debates and conversations forces you to look into new ideas or defend your decisions.

In all, the outperformance was about 0.4% annually, in risk-adjusted terms. That may not sound like a big number, but our analysis adjusts for risk and other fund, manager and investment adviser characteristics.

Q. Did this relationship hold true in times of high polarization?

A. It didn't. In high-polarization times, we found that polarization undid all of the potential benefits of diverse teams and could actually impede decision-making.

It also had an interesting effect on the promotion and demotion probabilities of individual fund managers. In low-polarization times, those decisions appeared to be a function of past performance. In high-polarization times, however, we found that, for managers who have a different political ideology than the average manager at their firm, past performance becomes almost irrelevant. In other words, in times of high polarization, holding different political views than your colleagues could decrease the probability that you get promoted, and increase the probability that you get demoted.

Q. What else did you learn about how political ideology influences fund managers' decisions?

A. It was interesting to see what happens when funds did very well. On teams with similar political ideologies, managers tended to simply reinvest that money to in the same stocks as before, which actually hurts performance in the long run. More diverse teams, though, tended to reinvest in something different, helping the fund's performance in the long run.

Additionally, previous studies suggest that Democratic fund managers are more likely to invest in high-ESG stocks—a measure of environmental, social and governance factors that help determine the social and environmental impact of a company. Funds run by Republican managers are less likely to invest in these stocks. If you have more diverse teams, however, they tend to diversify across both.

Q. What are the implications of your study for financial firms right now, in times of high polarization?

A. I think it is a good reminder to encourage a culture that respects different perspectives. The more you can do as an organization to help your employees respect other co-workers and their ideas, the better your organization will perform. It's similar insight to what we see in team diversity literature, showing the benefits of having team members from different backgrounds.

One of my favorite books is "Team of Rivals" [by Doris Kearns Goodwin] about President Abraham Lincoln. It talks about how Lincoln staffed his cabinet with people who had pretty different views. It was hard to manage, certainly, and differences, real or perceived, do matter. But if you can work to look past that, I'm certain you will make better decisions.

Ecologists find how forest age affects the accumulation of carbon in the soil

by RUDN University

Ecologists from RUDN University have studied abandoned vineyards and forests in Italy and found that a high concentration of nitrogen and carbon could be observed in the soil of an old oak forest left free from anthropogenic stress for about 200 years, while in the soils of vineyards abandoned relatively recently, the concentration is many times less. The data show that even Mediterranean soils, affected by humans, can accumulate large amounts of carbon and nitrogen in the process of changing the vegetation community. The article was published in the journal PLOS One.

In the last 100 years, Mediterranean ecosystems were no longer exploited by humans so intensively. The environmental protections in Europe have strengthened, as well. Because of that, some forests began to recover and go through the processes of secondary succession, i.e., the change of one vegetation community to another after the former's destruction. One of the important consequences of this process is the restoration of soil fertility, earlier depleted due to human activities, and in particular, an increase in the concentration of carbon and nitrogen in the soil and biomass. Scientists previously believed that forest ecosystems needed to accumulate carbon for at least several centuries, first in plants, then in soil, for the amount of this element to reach the average for a virgin forest. However, there was no exact data on these processes, and almost no research on the Mediterranean old oak forests have been conducted, despite the fact that they occupy 160 thousand hectares in Italy alone.

Giovanna Sala and Riccardo Valentini from RUDN University and their colleagues from Germany and Italy studied vineyards on the island of Pantelleria, located between Sicily and Tunisia. Some of them were abandoned relatively recently, only several decades ago, while others have already been replaced by oak forests which grew over the past hundred years or more that passed since they were abandoned and therefore not affected by human activity.

The researchers separated three classes of land areas. First, zones abandoned less than 45 years ago; shrub species are typical there, e.g., a mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus) and green olive tree (Phillyrea latifolia). Second, territories abandoned 70 to 45 years ago; habitats holm oaks (Quercus ilex), which grow only up to five meters, are typical, as well as shrubs, a mastic tree and phyllyrea. Third, maquis shrubland aged 70 to 100 years. The term "maquis" denotes ecosystems dominated by thickets of evergreen hard-leaved and thorny shrubs and undersized trees.

The environmentalists compared these maquis ecosystems with an old forest over 100 years old, formed by holm oaks and creepers from the genus Smilax.

The researchers analysed the chemical composition of underground biomass, soil and litter for nitrogen and carbon content using drying, weighing, and chemical analysis of the samples. The results showed that in old-aged forests the amount of nitrogen and carbon in all layers of the soil is higher than in abandoned vineyards. While the underground biomass of the youngest maquis contained 15 milligrams of carbon per hectare, for an old-aged oak forest this figure was 100 milligrams.

A similar picture was observed when the surface layers of the soil were analyzed: Carbon content for old forests was 100 milligrams, and for former vineyards 30 milligrams. The amount of nitrogen in abandoned vineyards soil was 3.5 milligrams and 10 for old oak forests. The environmentalists compared the collected data and found that the carbon/nitrogen ratio does not change during the change of ecosystems.

The RUDN University ecologists showed the dynamics of the development of forest ecosystems during the change of one vegetation community to another after years of destruction of forests by humans. The soil scientists have proven that the older the ecosystem, the more nitrogen and carbon are accumulated in it, in all layers of the soil and in the litter.

Soil scientists determine how abandoned arable land recovers

More information: Emilio Badalamenti et al. Carbon stock increases up to old growth forest along a secondary succession in Mediterranean island ecosystems, PLOS ONE (2019). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220194

What's causing mysterious 'ice rings' to form in the world's deepest lake?

The culprit was swirling beneath the ice.

A satellite view of an ice ring on Lake Baikal. Is it the one true ring to rule them all?
(Image: © MODIS/NASA)

The humongous, mysterious "ice rings" that pockmark the world's deepest lake during Siberia's winter and spring months may look like icy crop circles, but they're not due to alien activity, atmospheric conditions or even, as previously thought, methane bubbles percolating from the lake's bottom.

Rather, it appears that warm, swirling eddies of water under Lake Baikal's thick ice are responsible for these ice rings, some of which are up to 4 miles (7 kilometers) in diameter and can be seen from space, a new study finds.

Solving this mystery, however, wasn't an easy affair. An international team of researchers from France, Russia and Mongolia elected to travel to the lake biannually in 2016 and 2017, drill holes in the ice near the rings, and drop sensors into the water below. One year, their van got stuck in the ice. Twice.

Related: In living color: A gallery of stunning lakes

The researchers' van got trapped in the ice on the eastern boundary of a ring in Lake Baikal in March 2016. (Image credit: A. Kouraev)

In Siberia's colder months, Lake Baikal — the largest freshwater lake in the world, by volume — freezes over. The ice is so thick, people routinely drive over it, said study lead researcher Alexei Kouraev, an assistant professor at the Laboratory for Studies in Spatial Geophysics and Oceanography (LEGOS) at the Federal University in Toulouse, France.

"It's a no-brainer," Kouraev told Live Science. "It's a very long lake, and if you want to go from one side to another, either you do 400 kilometers [248 miles] one way and then 400 kilometers on the other coast." But the trip across the ice is just about 25 miles (40 km), "so the choice is evident," he said.

However, while the ice is thick outside of and inside these rings of thin ice, the rings themselves can put vehicles and their occupants at risk, Kouraev said.

Satellite photos show the mysterious ice rings in Siberia's Lake Baikal. The researchers focused on the rings in the dotted red box. Previously detected rings are shown in red, while newly detected rings are in orange. (Image credit: Limnology and Oceanography, 2019; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; Corona and Landsat data are from the U.S. Geological Survey.)

The fellowship of the ice rings

Ice rings have formed on Lake Baikal since at least 1969, and can last anywhere from days to months, satellite images show. However, these rings have unpredictable behavior, and show up in different parts of the lake from year to year. Moreover, they tend to appear in late April, but can crop up as early as January or as late as May, Kouraev said.

But scientists couldn't figure out how they formed. One of the more popular theories, indeed one that Live Science reported on in 2009, suggested that the greenhouse gas methane bubbles up from the lake's deep bottom to cause these rings. But Kouraev and his colleagues noticed that some of these ice rings formed in the lake's shallower waters, areas with no known gas emissions.

After analyzing data from the sensors they had dropped into the lake, the scientists found that the lake had warm eddies flowing clockwise under its ice cover. The currents weren't as strong at the center of the eddies, which explained why the centers of these rings still had thick ice, Kouraev said. However, the current at the edge of the eddies was strong, which explained why the ice on top of this edge was thinner, he said.

The sensors revealed that the water at these eddies was 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 2 degrees Celsius) warmer than the surrounding water. What's more, the eddies had a lens-like shape, a phenomenon that is common in oceans but rare in lakes.

Related: In photos: Monster waves

Notice how the ice rings change shape from March to April in 2016. (The April 17th image is not to scale with the others.) (Image credit: Limnology and Oceanography, 2019; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; Satellite data are from MODIS and Landsat.)

But why did these eddies form in the first place? According to the sensors, which were kept underwater for 1.5 months at a time, as well as thermal-infrared satellite imagery, it appeared that the eddies formed each fall, before the lake froze over. Moreover, strong winds blowing in waters from the nearby Barguzin Bay could help them form, Kouraev said.

He noted that, so far, these ice rings have only been found in Lake Baikal, as well as the nearby Lake Hovsgol in Mongolia and Lake Teletskoye, also in Russia.

As for drivers who cross the frozen lake in their vehicles, Kouraev said that while cracks are easy to spot, the rings themselves can be harder to see at ground level because they're covered with ice. As a public service, Kouraev and his colleagues, who jokingly call themselves the Fellowship of the Ice Rings, have written booklets, given presentations and told Russia's national park service and ministry of emergencies about the rings. They also routinely update their website about the location of newly formed ice rings, which are visible in satellite images.

The study was published online in the journal Limnology and Oceanography in October 2019.
Album: Stunning photos of Antarctic ice
In photos: The vanishing ice of Baffin Island
In photos: Antarctica's Larsen C Ice Shelf through time

Originally published on Live Science.

SCARY SHEEP WITH HUMAN EYES

Why this 15th-century 'Jesus-lamb' painting is creeping people out

The restored lamb from Jan and Hubert van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece gazes into your soul.

(Image: © St Bavo’s Cathedral; © Lukasweb; photo: KIK-IRPA. Restorers: © KIK-IRPA)

"The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb," a 15th-century masterwork by the brothers Jan and Hubert van Eyck, has finally been restored after three painstaking years of work — and people are freaked out.

Uh, so apparently they restored the Ghent Altarpiece and pic.twitter.com/JljwfEZlzuJanuary 20, 2020

What's got spectators so baa-listic? Apparently, it's the titular lamb's weirdly humanoid face. Take a look at this close-up of the painting pre- and post-renovation, and you'll see. (Warning: You may have a hard time unseeing it.)

Don't worry, this is not another "monkey Jesus" screw-up. The lamb's mannish face is actually part of the original painting, long lost to history, the restorers told The Art Newspaper.

"[The discovery was] a shock for everybody — for us, for the church, for all the scholars, for the international committee following this project," Hélène Dubois, who led the restoration for the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage since 2016, told The Art Newspaper.

A bit of background: "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" is the centerpiece in a series of 12 panels known as the Ghent Altarpiece, painted for the altar of St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. The lamb in the painting's forefront symbolizes Jesus. It bears a wound on its breast, similar to the one Jesus received during his crucifixion, and is bleeding into a nearby chalice as crowds of adoring angels look on. The lamb's face, meanwhile, remains perfectly stoic, as its human-like eyes stare directly out of the painting toward the viewer.

The details all fit with the van Eyck brothers vision — before the lamb's face was painted over by two other artists during a major restoration in 1550, anyway. Perhaps cathedral visitors at the time shared the opinions of modern critics who find the lamb's human eyes weird and overly "confrontational," as the restorers gave the sheep a more naturalistic animal's face.

Therapist: The uncovered face of the Lamb of God in the Ghent Altarpiece isn't real. It can't hurt you.The uncovered face of the Lamb of God in the Ghent Altarpiece: pic.twitter.com/RBmm48wN0wJanuary 20, 2020

While the recent restoration to the van Eycks' original vision has jarred many observers, those behind the project said they could not be happier.

"When I saw the lamb for the first time as van Eyck painted it, I had to catch my breath," Dubois told the Flemish newspaper De Standaard. "It is of a shocking beauty. "

The man-faced lamb panel will join several others from the Ghent Altarpiece on display at St. Bavo's Cathedral in February.

Originally published on Live Science.

Churchgoers freak out after restoration of priceless 15th century painting reveals Lamb of God's terrifying human eyes

The Ghent Altarpiece has been restored to show a 'cartoonish' Lamb of God

Lamb's face was changed in the 16th Century to make it more animal-like

Scholars, church officials and art critics are all shocked by the discovery

By RYAN FAHEY FOR MAILONLINE 23 January 2020

Art critics were stunned after the restoration of a priceless 15th century painting revealed an 'alarmingly humanoid' depiction of the Lamb of God.

The Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan Von Eyck, which is housed at St Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium, has undergone a £1.8 million restoration project which first started in 2012.

The eerie 'cartoonish' lamb's face has been said to be 'alarmingly humanoid' by the Smithsonian Magazine, while other critics have called for further research into the discovery.

During the second phase of the project, restorers found the original central panel had been modified during the 16th Century. The board depicts a lamb standing on top of an altar with a pierced chest and blood flowing into a chalice, which represents the Lamb of God.

An undated photo shows the Ghent Altarpiece's Lamb of God before (left) and after the restoration

A December 2019 file photo shows a detail of the restored original of 'Adoration of the Mystic Lamb' altarpiece (1432) by the brothers and Flemish artists Hubert van Eyck and Jan van Eyck at the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent (MSK) in Ghent, Belgium

The overpaint, which was not visible on technical documents, was removed gradually over the course of three years. Once ripped off the team were 'shocked' to discover an 'intense gaze' and 'large frontal eyes' on the original animal.

The representation laying under the overpaint was 'cartoonish' with a lamb that has a 'more intense interaction with the onlookers', according to Hélène Dubois, the head of the restoration project.

Dubois told the Art Newspaper the discovery came as a 'shock for everybody-for us, for the church, for all the scholars, for the international committee following this project,' she said.

Though the lamb's true visage was first revealed in December last year, it has only just been picked up by social media and the art world in past weeks.

Critics are struggling to make sense of why it was originally painted in such an anthropomorphic way and why it was changed in the 1500s.

The representation laying under the overpaint of the Ghent Altarpiece showed a 'cartoonish' animal, with a lamb that has a 'more intense interaction with the onlookers', according to Hélène Dubois, the head of the restoration project

The style is novel for paintings from the Netherlands of this era, Dubois said.

The overpainting could have been an attempt to offset the severity of the 'humanised identification of the lamb', Koenraad Jonckheere, professor of Renaissance and Baroque art at Ghent University, told the BBC.

He added that painters were likely trying to change the lamb's face to look more like an animal.

Belgium's Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (RICH), however, said the Van Eyck brothers followed a common style of Middle Age-painting by depicting the Lamb of God in a human-like fashion.

'The choice for removing the overpaint was carefully weighed out, and it was fully supported by all involved,' the institute told the BBC. 'The results of the restoration have been praised by experts, the public and St Bavo's Cathedral.'

An undated photo shows a member of the restoration team pictured during the project in Ghent, Belgium

The painting, complete with its restored human-like lamb, is being returned to St Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent on 24 January.

The altarpiece, which is to be put on public display, is believed to have been started by Jan Van Eyck's brother, Hubert Van Eyck.

The altarpiece was plundered by Napoleon in the 18th Century and thieved again by the Nazis in the Second World War.

IT'S A QUANTUM UNIVERSE

Oddball sexaquark particles could be immortal, if they exist at all

These supremely stable particles could explain dark matter.
By Paul Sutter - Astrophysicist

(Image: © Shutterstock)

After decades of poking around in the math behind the glue the innards of all matter together, physicists have found a strange hypothetical particle, one that has never appeared in any experiment. Called a sexaquark, the oddball is made up of a funky arrangement of six quarks of various flavors.

Besides being a cool-sounding character, the sexaquark could eventually explain the ever-maddening mystery of dark matter. And physicists have found that if the sexaquark has a particular mass, the particle could live forever.

Related: 11 unanswered questions about dark matter

Quarks of nature

Almost everything you know and love is made of tiny particles known as quarks. There are six of them, given the names, for various nerdy reasons, of up, down, top, bottom, strange and charm. The up and down varieties are the lightest of the bunch, which makes them by far the most common. (In particle physics, the heavier you are, the more likely you are to decay into smaller, stabler things.)

The protons and neutrons inside your body are all composed of trios of quarks; two ups and a down make a proton, and two downs and an up make a neutron. Indeed, due to the complicated nature of the strong force, quarks really enjoy hanging out in groups of three, and that is also by far the stablest and most common configuration.

Occasionally in our particle colliders, we create particles each consisting of a pair of quarks; these conglomerations are unstable and quickly decay into something else. Sometimes, when we try really hard, we can glue five quarks together and make them play nicely with each other — briefly — before they, too, decay into something else.

And to date, those are all the combinations of quarks that we've been able to manufacture.

However, there may be something stranger.

Related: Strange quarks and muons, oh my! Nature’s tiniest particles dissected

The forge of the elements

After decades of poking around the mathematical corners of the strong nuclear force, physicists found a strange combination that has yet to appear in our experiments: an arrangement of six quarks, consisting of two ups, two downs and two stranges: the sexaquark.

Theories don't predict a mass for the sexaquark; this value would depend on the precise arrangement and interaction of the individual quarks inside that particle, so it's up to the experimental physicists to suss it out. And as for the sexaquark's stability? Calculations suggest that if its mass falls below a certain threshold, it would be absolutely stable forever, meaning it wouldn't ever decay. And if the mass is a little bigger than that, but still below a certain threshold, then the particle would decay, but over such long timescales that it might as well be stable forever.

So if it's stable, why haven't we ever seen it?

Curiously, the range of stable masses for the sexaquark falls below the threshold of what many particle collider experiments can create; these tools were designed to study much rarer, much heavier, much more fleeting particles. In other words, the sexaquark may be hiding in plain sight, having simply flown under the radar all these years.

But particle colliders aren't the only place to make sexaquarks. The earliest moments of the Big Bang were a frenetic hotbed of nuclear energies, with temperatures and pressures high enough to forge helium and hydrogen out of a raw soup of quarks. And that forge may have also flooded our cosmos with sexaquarks, along with all the more-familiar subatomic characters.

Preliminary calculations suggest that if the sexaquark is a real thing within the right range of masses, it could have been produced in ridiculous abundance in the early universe. And it could have survived that youthful inferno. In fact, sexaquarks may still exist, not really interacting with anything, not really decaying into anything else — just existing, creating extra gravitational pulls wherever they collect, due to their mass.

An invisible particle that's flooding the universe and that interacts only through gravity? Bingo. That's dark matter.A light in the dark

In order for the sexaquark to make up dark matter, it has to actually exist. That is currently a subject of debate, because the object has never been spotted in a particle collider experiment. But like we saw earlier, the sexaquark's relatively light mass may mean it's been able to slip by unnoticed, simply because we haven't been looking for it.

But that's beginning to change. The BaBar Detector at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California is really good at producing lots of combinations of quarks, including some really heavy ones that decay into stabler and more reasonable arrangements. BaBar should also produce a bumper crop of sexaquarks, if they exist.

A paper published Jan. 2 to the arXiv database has reported the latest result: no sign of the sexaquark. But that finding is certain to a confidence level of only 90%. That means that if the more massive and less stable combinations of quarks do decay into stable sexaquarks, they do so very rarely, at a rate of only 1 decay in every 10 million.

Does this rule out the sexquark as a dark matter candidate? Not quite. It could be that the conditions of the early universe allowed enough sexaquarks to be made that they could account for the amount of dark matter that we estimate is in the universe. But the new result does make it challenging to use the sexaquark to explain dark matter.

Nice try, sexaquark, but no cigar — at least, not yet.

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of Your Place in the Universe.

Originally published on Live Science.

The U.K.'s official government investigation of UFOs can be traced

to a group formed in 1950: the Flying Saucer Working Party.

From the early 1950s until 2009, a department in the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence (MoD) documented and investigated reports of UFOs. Now, more than a decade after the program ended, many of those formerly classified files about UFO sightings will be made available to the public for the first time.

Previously, some MoD files about UFOs had been published online at the U.K. National Archives website, The Telegraph reported. However, all of the agency's UFO reports will be released this year on "a dedicated gov.uk web page," a spokesperson for the British Royal Air Force (RAF) told The Telegraph.

The decision came after PA Media, a British news agency, filed a request for the UFO files under the Freedom of Information Act, according to The Telegraph. MoD officials decided "it would be better to publish these records, rather than continue sending documents to the National Archives," the RAF spokesperson said.

Related: 15 Far-Out Facts About Area 51

The U.K.'s fascination with UFOs spiked around 1950, prompting the MoD to form the Flying Saucer Working Party to address the phenomenon, according to the U.K. National Archives. UFOs in the early 1950s even captured the attention of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who sent a memo to his air minister in 1952 asking, "What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to? What can it mean? What is the truth?"

The flying saucer group concluded that UFOs were hoaxes, delusions or ordinary objects that were misidentified, recommending "that no further investigation of reported mysterious aerial phenomena be undertaken." Nevertheless, other MoD divisions continued the work of official UFO investigation in the U.K., ushering such efforts into the 21st century, The National Archives reported.

The last UFO report to be published online by the MoD dates to 2009, covering sightings that took place from January through the end of November of that year. These included "a silver disc-shaped light" (reported in January 2009), "up to 20 orange and red glowing lights" (reported in June), "a large bright silver/white ball/sphere" (reported in July) and "three blazing gold orbs in a diagonal line in the sky" (reported in September).

After MoD enacted a policy change on Dec. 1, 2009, the agency no longer recorded or investigated UFO sightings, according to the report. But what they did find — including many recent UFO reports that were previously available only as hard copies — will be published online within the next few months, said Nick Pope, a former UFO investigator for the MoD.

"There should be some interesting nuggets in these new files," Pope told The Express.