Canals used to drain peatlands are underappreciated hotspots for carbon emissions

The study found that one-third of the organic carbon leached from peatland soils into canal waters gets broken down and released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

 

IMAGE: 

CANAL DITCHES LIKE THIS ONE IN WEST KALIMANTAN, INDONESIA ARE OFTEN USED TO DRAIN PEATLANDS FOR CONVERSION TO AGRICULTURE. CREDIT: JENNIFER BOWEN

view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: JENNIFER BOWEN

A new study led by UC San Diego Scripps Institution of Oceanography postdoctoral scholar Jennifer Bowen finds that canals used to drain soggy peatlands in Southeast Asia are likely hotspots for greenhouse gas emissions. 

The results, published March 8 in Nature Geoscience and supported by the Scripps Institutional Postdoctoral Program and Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, identify a previously unaccounted for source of emissions from these threatened, carbon-rich landscapes. Findings from the study suggest that the degradation of tropical peatlands in Southeast Asia has released even more planet-warming carbon dioxide than previously estimated. 

Peatlands cover just 3% of Earth’s land surface, but they store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined. Peatlands form in places where year-round flooding prevents dead plants from fully breaking down by limiting their exposure to oxygen. These water-logged conditions allow dead plants – and the carbon that they absorbed from the atmosphere while growing – to accumulate in the peat soil over hundreds or even thousands of years. 

But human activities have damaged or destroyed many of the world’s peatlands. In Southeast Asia, people have drained and deforested around 60 million acres of peatlands over the past three decades, largely for palm oil and timber harvest, leaving only 6% untouched. Draining and damaging peatlands exposes their accumulated dead plant material to oxygen, causing it to decompose and release carbon dioxide. Globally, degraded peatlands alone account for around 5% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions annually. 

“These are some of the largest stores of carbon in the world outside of the ocean and they’ve been locked up for thousands of years,” said Lihini Aluwihare, a chemical oceanographer at Scripps Oceanography and co-author of the study. “Reintroducing any of that carbon into the atmosphere is of major concern when it comes to climate change. That’s why it’s so important that we figure out what controls the release of carbon from disturbed peatlands.”

But even this daunting tally of the carbon emissions from degraded peatlands largely focuses on the emissions from dried out peat soils and rarely accounts for the carbon released into waterways. 

“We know that damaged peatlands are releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide,” said Bowen. “But what happens to the carbon flowing through drainage canals before it reaches rivers or the ocean is less understood. If we don’t know what’s happening there we could be missing carbon that is entering Earth’s atmosphere and not being accounted for in the current carbon budget.”

To understand what happens to carbon released from peatlands into waterways, the researchers collected water samples from peatland canals in West Kalimantan, Indonesia in 2022. In a series of lab experiments, the study authors measured how quickly microbes could break down the organic matter in vials of peatland canal water and how much carbon dioxide they produced in the process. In additional experiments, the team measured the rate of a process known as photochemical mineralization in which sunlight causes organic matter to break down and give off carbon dioxide. 

Once Bowen and her co-authors figured out the rate at which microbes and sunlight produced carbon dioxide in the lab, they assessed the factors likely to accelerate or slow carbon emissions from peatland drainage canals in the real world across Southeast Asia. The experiments suggest that sunnier days, higher oxygen concentrations in the canal water, and high levels of mixing within canal waters can lead to higher rates of carbon dioxide emissions.

Based on the results of the experiments, the team estimated that each square meter of peatland canal area in the region releases an average of roughly 70 milligrams of carbon dioxide per day. More work is needed to identify where rates may be higher or lower on the landscape, said Bowen, but the results suggest breakdown by sunlight and microbes may send around 35% of the peat carbon that dissolves into the drainage canals into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

“This is the first time anyone has quantified these processes in a tropical peatland, and 35% of the carbon dissolving into these canals is a lot of emissions,” said Aluwihare. “To me, this says that these canal systems are likely a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions on top of the emissions from dried out peat soils, and we are probably underestimating the climate impacts of degrading these systems.”

Aluwihare added that the significant carbon emissions in the peatland canals are likely diminishing the amount of dissolved peat being exported to the ocean. While the fate of peat carbon flowing into the oceans isn’t entirely understood, some may end up being stored again in the marine environment. If that’s the case, Aluwihare said, these results suggest the oceans can’t do as much as scientists thought to prevent peat carbon from re-entering the atmosphere.

In addition to Bowen and Aluwihare, Putri Juliandini Wahyudio and Gusti Anshari of the Universitas Tanjungpura in Indonesia as well as Alison Hoyt of Stanford University contributed to the study.

 

---

JOURNAL

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-024-01383-8 

ARTICLE TITLE

Canal networks regulate aquatic losses of carbon from degraded tropical peatlands

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Mar-2024

 AND IT'S NOT RAW

Higher bacterial counts detected in single-serving milks

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University scientists have detected higher bacterial counts in commercial, paperboard single-serving containers two weeks after processing than milk packaged in larger containers from the same facilities.

“These small paperboard milk containers are typically served in schools,” said senior author Nicole Martin, assistant research professor in dairy foods microbiology. “Since children are important milk consumers, we wanted to take a deeper dive into finding out what was going on.”

The scientists believe carton-filling machinery likely contributed to those higher counts in the post-pasteurization process. The research published in the Journal of Dairy Science.

Transportation and milk delivery routines to schools have changed in recent years, said Martin Wiedmann, professor of food science. Rural schools in New York once received fresh milk deliveries every two or three days, but now schools may receive deliveries once a week or less.

“Milk is a perishable product, and it is minimally processed, but it does have a shelf life and consumers expect that,” Martin said. “The imbalance of the shelf life between the larger containers and the smaller ones intrigued us.”

The researchers recruited four commercial milk processing facilities to collect data on single-serving carton samples of skim, white 1%, chocolate and chocolate 1% milk.

Over two initial sampling visits to four processors, the scientists found higher bacterial counts after seven and 14 days of storage, as well as slightly lower sensory scores (how the milk tasted) compared to high-quality samples.

For the first sampling visit, the Cornell scientists found no gram-negative spoilage (indicating bacterial presence) in any of the facilities’ freshly processed milk. By day 7, one facility saw gram-negative spoilage at 30%, which grew to 41% by day 14. The remaining three facilities saw single-digit gram-negative spoilage scores (3%, 8% and 6%) on day 7, rising to 19%, 23% and 14% by day 14.

The scientists followed up in the commercial facilities and learned that the carton-forming mandrels – those machinery parts that open the small, flat-lying, single-serving carton in the filling process – needed more attention and cleaning. Wiedmann acknowledged that due to its intricacy, the dairy processing equipment for single-serving paperboard cartons is tricky to clean.

“These are complex pieces of equipment,” he said. Members of his program helped to perform cleaning and sanitation at the commercial facilities to ensure consistency and to develop standard protocols.

“In the long term,” Wiedmann said, “our program can help improve the design of this equipment and perhaps make it easier to clean.”

This project was funded by the New York Dairy Promotion Order.

For additional information, read this Cornell Chronicle story.

Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews. 

- 30 -

 

 

---

JOURNAL

Journal of Dairy Science

DOI

10.3168/jds.2023-23940 

 

Permitless open carry laws may lead to more firearm-related suicides

Study authors suggest ease of access to firearms may be responsible for the increase in suicide rates in these states

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS

Key Takeaways 

• Suicide by firearm rates increased 18% in nine years in states that began allowing firearm owners to openly carry a firearm without a permit, a new study finds.  

• U.S. rates of firearm-related suicide rose from 21,175 in 2013 to 26,328 in 2021, an increase that may be related to more permissive open carry laws. 

CHICAGO: In states that relaxed firearm laws to allow openly carrying a loaded firearm in public without a permit, significantly more people died by firearms and suicide than in states without permitless open carry laws, according to study findings published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS). 

In this study of death data from all 50 states, researchers found that a change to permitless open carry laws within the nine-year study period also was strongly associated with increases in both the rate of firearm-related suicide and the total suicide rate. Most suicides each year were due to firearms, the investigators reported. 

“Our analysis suggests that because of the change in the law, which provides easier access to firearms, we saw an increased firearm suicide rate and total suicide rate,” said principal study author Jose J. Diaz, MD, FACS, trauma medical director at Tampa General Hospital. Dr. Diaz is also a professor of surgery at the University of South Florida, Tampa, where the study was conducted. 

Multiple studies have shown associations between specific firearm laws and their impact on firearm-related deaths. For example, requiring a permit to purchase a firearm is associated with a decrease in firearm-related homicide, and universal background checks and ammunition background checks are associated with a decrease in total firearm mortality.1 Dr. Diaz said he and his research team focused their study on permitless open carry laws because these laws have become more common in the U.S. but remain understudied. 

For this study, the researchers evaluated states’ annual rates of total firearm-related deaths, total suicides, and total homicides from 2013 to 2021. Death statistics came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System. 

The investigators also performed a causal analysis to estimate the effects of a state’s policy change to open carry laws that require no permit. The researchers excluded states that enacted permitless open carry before 2013. Therefore, they compared data from states that changed to permitless open carry during the study with states that maintained laws banning permitless or all open carry. 

Key Findings 

• During the study period, five states switched to permitless open carry laws, 19 states prohibited open carry or required a permit, and the other 26 states already allowed permitless open carry before 2013. 
• Total firearm deaths in all 50 states increased from 33,636 in 2013 to 48,830 in 2021, a 45% increase. 
• Analyses showed significant associations between a change to permitless open carry laws and total rates of firearm fatalities and suicides. 
• Among states that changed to permitless open carry laws, causal analysis found an approximately 57% increase in total suicide rates and an 18% increase in suicides by firearm during the study period. 

The causal analysis found no association between permitless open carry laws and firearm-related homicides. 

Caution in Interpreting Results 

“Because the study was retrospective, meaning it used past data, we cannot say that changing to more permissive open carry laws was a definitive cause of increased rates of suicide by firearm,” Dr. Diaz said. 

Additionally, Dr. Diaz noted that the COVID-19 pandemic may have influenced their findings. He cited the widely reported social isolation and poorer mental health observed during and after the pandemic.2  

However, past studies support their results by showing an association between ease of access to firearms and increased risk of firearm-related suicide,3 according to the article. 

The bottom line, Dr. Diaz said, is that “changes in firearm laws have potential repercussions that we do not anticipate.” 

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Committee on Trauma supports firearm injury prevention initiatives, including legislation that increases mandatory background checks for firearm ownership and that increases federal funding for research to prevent firearm injuries. The ACS also has information on safe firearm use and storage. 

Study coauthors are Emily A. Grimsley, MD; Johnathan V. Torikashvili, MD; Haroon M. Janjua, MS; Meagan D. Read, MD; and Paul C. Kuo, MD, MS, MBA, FACS. Mr. Janjua is now with Brown University. 

The study authors have no disclosures. 

This study is published as an article in press on the JACS website. 

Citation: Grimsley EA, Torikashvili JV, Janjua HM. Transition to Permitless Open Carry and Association With Firearm-Related Suicide. Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 2024. DOI: 10.1097/XCS.0000000000000959 

Presented at the Southern Surgical Association 135th Annual Meeting, Hot Springs, Va., December 3-6, 2023. 

References 

1. References 7 and 11 cited in the study.
2. Xiong J, Lipsitz O, Nasri F, et al. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in the general population: a systematic review. J Affect Disord. 2020 Dec 1;277:55-64. DOI:10.1016/j.jad.2020.08.001
3. References 36 and 37 cited in the study.

# # # 

About the American College of Surgeons 

The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 90,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. "FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. 

The Journal of the American College of Surgeons (JACS) is the official scientific journal of ACS. Each month, JACS publishes peer-reviewed original contributions on all aspects of surgery, with the goal of providing its readership the highest quality rapid retrieval of information relevant to surgeons.  

Follow the ACS on social media: X | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn | Facebook  

---

JOURNAL

Journal of the American College of Surgeons

DOI

10.1097/XCS.0000000000000959 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Transition to Permitless Open Carry and Association With Firearm-Related Suicide.

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

11-Mar-2024

PLAGUE PROFITEERS

Q&A: How Instagram influencers profit from anti-vaccine misinformation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

While Instagram might have a reputation for superficiality — a realm of exquisitely filtered images — it is now eclipsing other social media as a news source. The platform is increasingly filled with information, some of it pernicious and distributed via influencers.

Researchers at the University of Washington studied three prominent Instagram influencers spreading anti-vaccine misinformation as a route to profit. Each account occupies what lead author Rachel E. Moran, a UW senior research scientist at the Center for an Informed Public (CIP) and staff researcher in the Information School, calls a “slightly different corner of Instagram.”

To protect the accounts’ anonymity, the team gave each a pseudonym, substituting the account’s actual name with a generic descriptor: the Wellness Homesteader (focused on things like homeschooling and farming), the Conspiratorial Fashionista (focused on fashion) and the Evangelical Mother (focused on Christianity). What unified the three U.S.-based accounts was that, amid their varied content, each dispersed overtly conspiratorial anti-vaccine messaging and used it to sell products and services they profited from either directly or indirectly.

The team recently published its findings in the International Journal of Communication.

UW News spoke with Moran about the paper, the particular methods of Instagram influencers, and the ways “misinformation is an immensely profitable endeavor.”

What made you interested in researching this?

Rachel Moran: A lot of my research at the CIP has been in the vein of health-related claims, particularly in the anti-vaccine movement. We've done a couple of research studies where we looked at how influencers on Instagram share information about vaccines, how they validate whether it's true or not. And we noticed this pattern of influencers directing people to buy things. It's something we see in our everyday lives all the time now. Everyone is selling something online. So we're interested in what happens when people use misinformation and leverage it to make profit.

Can you describe the patterns you found in the three accounts?

RM: They were all female and kind of catering to female audiences, and they leverage gender in a really interesting way. They're kind of homing in on mothers’ responsibilities so they can, for want of a better word, “guilt trip” people into buying specific products. They’re eschewing traditional vaccines or medicine in favor of more “natural wellness” products, for example.

We also saw the use of multilevel marketing companies. During the pandemic, the Food and Drug Administration tried to put a handle on some of these wellness-related multilevel marketing companies that were leveraging the pandemic as a way of advertising their products. The FDA came out and said, “You're not allowed to say that your product will cure COVID,” for example. There's a bit of a loophole, where you can sell a multilevel marketing product if you're not employed by that company. Then, the policies aren’t really enforceable. This allows individuals with these Instagram accounts to advertise the product and make money off of it by leveraging misinformation without any consequence.

In the paper, you discuss how the ‘parasocial relationships’ that develop through these kinds of accounts can help the anti-vaccine messaging gain users’ trust. Could you talk about that?

RM: It’s a through line to a lot of our work within misinformation spaces — the importance of these parasocial relationships, which are sort of one-sided relationships we build with the people that we follow online, celebrities and so on. But with Instagram, you get this look into someone's everyday life that sometimes can be very mundane, and you kind of build a rapport through that. They're showing content that feels relatable. Maybe you've bought the leggings that they've advertised, and they work well for you. You build up that incremental trust, so that if they then share something that isn't within their wheelhouse — maybe they're not medical experts, but they're sharing medical advice — you may be less likely to question it.

And it's not quite as one-sided anymore. On Instagram, we can reply to an influencer’s story, and they sometimes respond and provide a little semblance of a two-way relationship. This also means that they know that parasocial relationships are really important. It really shapes the content that we see and all kinds of influencers online. They know that their job is to build trust, and they can then use that trust to get people to buy things.

Could you give examples of ways you saw these influencers leveraging those sorts of relationships for profit?

RM: Often they would share throughout the day using Instagram Stories, which is this ephemeral content that disappears after 24 hours. Maybe it's just them getting up and getting their kids ready for school, or maybe their child is sick, and they say, “Okay, I'm not going to treat it with medicine, I'm going to treat it with this essential oil.” And then they would direct their followers to the link in their bio, or to swipe up on the story. And it would take the followers to a multilevel marketing campaign, or maybe an Amazon affiliate link, where they can purchase the product. Maybe it's very genuine, maybe they actually are using this product, and it's a safe product. But often, it would come with some sort of anti-vaccine rhetoric — this is what they’re choosing instead of a vaccine, which contains these free radicals or metals or whatever they’re claiming.

Instagram videos and images can convey a lot more information than more text-based social media. Just as much as that visual richness is a great tool for spreading good information, it's also a great tool for people who want to spread bad information. Because people often go to Instagram for entertainment, they’re not necessarily thinking as critically about the information that they’re seeing as they might be on a platform like X, where they anticipate encountering news. They aren’t thinking: “I have to question everything.” So they’re probably more vulnerable to misinformation.

A lot of attention has been paid to misinformation as a social and political tool. Why is it important for people to also pay attention to it as an economic phenomenon?

RM: I think it's important because it's an avenue that we've kind of forgotten about. In a way, I think we're all attuned to the fact that scams exist online and offline. But we think about the big stories: someone losing their life savings. Yet we're all kind of being scammed on a daily basis by being told that some products work when they don't or, on a more dangerous level, being told to choose certain products over those backed by proven scientific medical knowledge. Looking at those economic mechanisms helps us consider why we’re so attracted to misinformation.

In terms of intervention, we need to think about media literacy — how do we give people the skills to recognize when they're being scammed? And we need to think about what intervention looks like for these companies like Facebook and Instagram and Twitter. Or what it looks like for government. A lot of these tools are quite benign, like the fact that you can direct people off-platform to do certain things — that's all well and good, and it affords a richer conversation online. But these are the mechanisms that get taken advantage of. So what are ways that we can potentially curtail this problem?

Anything else you want to add?

RM: One thing that I think a lot about is that you now see things on Instagram that are fairly politically extreme, but feel quite normalized, because you're not always consuming the content in a really engaged way. So with these three influencers, the amount of content that is anti-vaccine is fairly small compared to the whole gamut of what they're sharing every day. But the nature of the content is extreme. It’s not hidden. It's not suggesting that you maybe should question getting a vaccine or talk to your doctor about getting a vaccine. It's often straight conspiracy theories about vaccines. It's quite jarring to see that a lot of this really hardcore anti-vaccine rhetoric comes from everyday people who get sucked in and make it their cause and share it alongside all of the other stuff that they do daily. We need to be attentive and discerning when we’re scrolling through TikTok or Instagram. We’re consuming so much on so many different topics so quickly, that if we step back and reflect on some of the things we’ve seen, they can often be quite extreme and extremely misinformed.

Co-authors include Anna L. Swan, who completed this research as a UW post-doctoral scholar with the CIP and is now at AnitaB.org, and Taylor Agajanian, who completed this research as a UW researcher with the CIP. This work was funded by the CIP and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

For more information, contact Moran at remoran@uw.edu.

---

ARTICLE TITLE

Vaccine Misinformation for Profit: Conspiratorial Wellness Influencers and the Monetization of Alternative Health

 

India's water problems set to get worse as the world warms

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF READING

Winter storms that provide crucial snow and rainfall to northern India are arriving significantly later in the year compared to 70 years ago, a new study has found, exacerbating the risk of catastrophic flooding while also reducing vital water supplies for millions of Indians.

The cyclonic storms, known as western disturbances, typically bring heavy snow to the Himalayas from December to March. This snowpack slowly melts in spring, providing a steady supply of irrigation water for wheat and other crops downstream.

The study, published today (Tuesday, 12 March 2024), in the journal Weather and Climate Dynamics, reveals western disturbances are occurring more often during India’s summer. Over the past 70 years, the storms have increased in frequency by 60% from April to July, reducing snowfall and increasing the risk of heavy flooding.

Author Dr Kieran Hunt, of the University of Reading, said: "Strong storms are now twice as likely to occur in the north of India in June compared to 70 years ago. With warmer and moister air at this time of year, these late storms are dumping heavy rainfall instead of snow. This raises the risk of deadly flooding like we saw in Uttarakhand in 2013 and around Delhi in 2023.

"Some areas of Kashmir saw no snow at all in December or January. This is a serious concern for the 750 million people in the Indus and upper Ganges basins who rely on these winter snows for water supplies.

"The loss of winter snow and the increasing late-season storms that heighten flood risks is a one-two suckerpunch that underscores the urgent need to respond to the far-reaching impacts of climate change in this sensitive region."

Warming the Tibetan Plateau

The research team attributes this seasonal shift to changes in the subtropical jet stream, a high-altitude air current that steers western disturbances. The rapid warming of the Tibetan Plateau - which is a long stretch of level high ground at the intersection of Central, South, and East Asia - is creating a larger temperature contrast with surrounding areas, fueling a stronger jet stream that powers more frequent and intense storms.

At the same time, global warming is weakening the temperature difference between the equator and poles that normally draws the jet stream northward in summer. As a result, the jet stream is increasingly lingering at southerly latitudes later into spring and summer, allowing more storms to strike North India after the winter snow season.

Arriving in the pre-monsoon heat, these increasingly frequent late-season storms unleash heavy rainfall instead of snow, raising risks of devastating flooding. Meanwhile, winter snowfall is declining as the region warms, threatening spring water supplies.

---

JOURNAL

Weather and Climate Dynamics

DOI

10.5194/wcd-5-345-2024 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Increasing frequency and lengthening season of western disturbances are linked to increasing strength and delayed northward migration of the subtropical jet

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Mar-2024

 

New study reveals transgenerational effects of pesticide linuron on frogs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: 

OSKAR KARLSSON. PHOTO: JENS OLOF LASTHEIN

view more 

CREDIT: JENS OLOF LASTHEIN

Grand-offspring of male frogs exposed to the pesticide linuron exhibited changes in their DNA that was linked to significant physiological impacts, a study from Stockholm University reveals. The research highlights the profound transgenerational consequences of environmental pollution on amphibian populations, which are already under threat of extinction. The study is published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Amphibians, particularly frogs, play a crucial role in our ecosystem. However, nearly half of all amphibian species are facing the risk of extinction, with synthetic chemicals in the environment being a significant contributing factor. Among these chemicals, endocrine-disrupting pesticides like linuron pose serious threats to amphibian growth, metabolism, and reproductive systems. This study sheds light on the extensive and heritable changes induced by such pesticides, revealing that the effects of linuron exposure can span generations, through epigenetic inheritance.

Associate Professor Oskar Karlsson from the Department of Environmental Science at Stockholm University, who is also a researcher at the Science for Life Laboratory, stated, "This is the first study to demonstrate that pesticides can cause transgenerational epigenetic effects in frogs. Our findings underline the complex interactions between environmental chemicals and species extinction, particularly frogs."

Linuron exposure triggers DNA changes across generations

The study's results are alarming, with the linuron-exposed frogs' male offspring exhibiting altered spermatogenesis, increased body weight, and modifications in fat and carbohydrate metabolism. By employing advanced sequencing techniques, the researchers identified significant differences in DNA methylation across thousands of regions in both the brain and testis of the affected frogs. These epigenetic changes impact crucial genes involved in hormone signaling and germ cell development, as well as regulation of the epigenetic landscape, suggesting that environmental exposure can have lasting and hereditary effects on gene regulation.

Associate Professor Cecilia Berg, an ecotoxicologist involved in the study, and at the time of the study working at the Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, added, "The findings confirm our hypothesis that linuron exposure can lead to transgenerational changes in the epigenome, particularly affecting genes related to hormonal systems and germ cell development."

How linuron's effects move from parents to offspring

The transgenerational effects of pesticides like linuron are likely transmitted during fertilization via sperm, carrying not only genetic material but also epigenetic information reflecting the environmental exposures of previous generations. "A likely explanation is that the pesticide disrupts testosterone and thyroid hormone functions in the body, and that these effects are passed on to subsequent generations through sperm and epigenetic processes. This results in hereditary changes in the offspring's gene regulation," Karlsson explained.

According to Karlsson, the research not only provides new insights into the mechanisms of pesticide toxicity but also emphasizes the urgent need for incorporating transgenerational studies into chemical risk assessments to better protect future biodiversity.

---

JOURNAL

Science of The Total Environment

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animal tissue samples

ARTICLE TITLE

Male-transmitted transgenerational effects of the herbicide linuron on DNA methylation profiles in Xenopus tropicalis brain and testis

Files.libcom.org

https://files.libcom.org/files/Bookchin%20M.%20Our%20Synthetic%20Environment.pdf

Our Synthetic Environment - Libcom.org 

Our Synthetic Environment. Murray Bookchin. 1962. Table of contents. Chapter 1: THE PROBLEM. Chapter 2: AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH. Chapter 3: URBAN LIFE AND HEALTH.

Sweden and Canada resume funding UN agency for Palestinian refugees

By Euronews with AP

Published on 10/03/2024 - 

Sweden and Canada will resume aid payments to UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

Another top donor to the UN agency aiding Palestinians, UNRWA, said on Saturday that it would resume funding, weeks after more than a dozen countries halted hundreds of millions of dollars of support in response to Israeli allegations against the organisation.

Sweden's reversal came as a ship bearing tons of humanitarian aid was preparing to leave Cyprus for Gaza after international donors launched a sea corridor to supply the besieged territory facing widespread hunger after five months of war.

Sweden's funding decision followed similar ones by the European Union and Canada as the UN agency known as UNRWA warns that it could collapse and leave Gaza's already desperate population of more than 2 million people with even less medical and other assistance.

“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is devastating and the needs are acute,” Swedish development minister Johan Forssell said, adding that UNRWA had agreed to increased transparency and stricter controls.

Sweden will give UNRWA half of the €34.7 million funding it promised for this year, with more to come.

Canada also said on Friday that it would re-start funding for UNRWA while investigations into the agency's staff continue.

Israel had accused 12 of UNRWA's thousands of employees of participating in the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people and took about 250 others hostage. Countries including the United States quickly suspended funding to UNRWA worth about €411 million, almost half its budget for the year. The UN has launched investigations, and UNRWA has been agreeing to outside audits to win back donor support.

The daily number of aid trucks entering Gaza since the war has been far below the 500 that entered before 7 October because of Israeli restrictions and security issues. The recent opening of a new sea corridor from Cyprus to Gaza showed increasing frustration with Gaza's humanitarian crisis and a new willingness to work around Israeli restrictions.

Overall, the ministry said at least 30,878 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. The toll does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tallies but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and its figures from previous wars have largely matched those of the UN and independent experts.



Canada lifting freeze on UNRWA funding after weeks of protests, criticism

Rights advocates welcome ‘much-needed decision’ as Palestinians in Gaza face humanitarian crisis amid Israeli attacks.

Canada's decision to restore funding was made in recognition of 'the critical role that UNRWA plays', according to Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen

 [File: Blair Gable/Reuters]

By Al Jazeera Staff
Published On 8 Mar 2024

Montreal, Canada – Canada has announced it is lifting a freeze on funding for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), after facing fierce criticism for cutting assistance during Israel’s war in Gaza.

In a statement on Friday, Canadian Minister of International Development Ahmed Hussen said the government is “resuming its funding to UNRWA so more can be done to respond to the urgent needs of Palestinian civilians”.

Canada had joined the United States and several other countries in cutting funding to UNRWA in late January, after Israel accused about a dozen of the agency’s more than 13,000 employees in Gaza of taking part in a Hamas attack on October 7.

UNRWA immediately sacked the employees in question and announced that it was opening a probe into the allegations, which it described as “shocking” and “serious”. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also appointed an independent panel to investigate.

Israel, however, did not provide concrete evidence to back up its allegations. Canadian broadcaster CBC News also reported in early February that Canada had not seen any intelligence backing the claim before it decided to cut the funding.

The decision to cut funding for UNRWA — which relies on government contributions to fund its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon — drew immediate concern and calls from rights advocates to reconsider.

UNRWA also is the key agency providing critical humanitarian supplies to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s continued bombardment and siege have killed more than 30,000 people and led to widespread hunger and disease.

Humanitarian groups had warned that cutting UNRWA funding would have dire repercussions for Palestinians in Gaza and urged donor countries to reverse their decisions.

Since then, the situation in the Strip has deteriorated further, as Israeli military attacks continue. About a dozen Palestinian children have died in recent weeks due to a lack of food and water in Gaza, according to health authorities in the coastal enclave.

Palestinians gather to inspect a destroyed building following an Israeli attack on Deir el-Balah on March 8 

[Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency]

‘Reckless political decision’

On Friday afternoon, Canadian human rights advocates welcomed the government’s decision to lift the freeze on UNRWA funding but stressed that the money should not have been cut to begin with.

“Resuming aid to UNRWA is a much-needed decision, and it would not have been possible without the important advocacy from across civil society,” said Thomas Woodley, president of the advocacy group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.

“Minister Hussen’s cancellation of funding was a reckless political decision that never should have been made. Canada’s irresponsible actions threatened to collapse the aid infrastructure in Gaza, putting the lives of millions of people at risk,” Woodley said in a statement.

“Canada must significantly increase funding to UNRWA to compensate for the harm its actions have caused to the people of Gaza.”

The government contributed $66.5m ($90m Canadian) to UNRWA from 2019 though mid-2023. Last June, Ottawa also announced that it would provide as much as $74m ($100m Canadian) to the agency over four years to help fund education, health care and other services.

Canadian media outlets have reported that the next installment of that funding — about $18m ($25m Canadian) — is due in April.

Meanwhile, the head of the National Council of Canadian Muslims also noted on Friday that “there are no other agencies that can replicate UNRWA’s central role in the humanitarian response in Gaza”.

“While funding should not have been paused in the first place, the government made the right decision today by renewing and increasing funding,” the group’s CEO, Stephen Brown, said in a statement.

Pressure on Trudeau

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government had faced pressure from pro-Israel lobby groups to maintain its freeze on funding for UNRWA. Members of Trudeau’s own Liberal Party also had urged him to withhold the funds.

Pro-Israel Liberal legislators Anthony Housefather and Marco Mendicino said in a letter on Thursday that they had recommended “that Canada work in lockstep with the United States and other allies”

They urged the government “to leverage alternate partners and to create new vehicles of humanitarian aid that will meaningfully reach the civilians of Gaza in the short term”.

But experts and humanitarian groups have said UNRWA is best suited to provide much-needed assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.

In a news conference on Friday afternoon, Hussen said the decision to resume funding was “in recognition of the significant and serious processes that the United Nations has undertaken to address the issues in UNRWA”.

It also comes in recognition of “the critical role that UNRWA plays in providing much-needed support to over two million Palestinians in Gaza, as well as … millions more in the broader region”, Hussen told reporters.

KEEP READING

Israel, Palestine and Canada’s ‘schizophrenic foreign policy’

Why is Canada asking Palestinians to list scars on Gaza visa applications?

Demands for Canada to stop supplying weapons to Israel grow louder

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA