The environmental advocacy group Conservation Law Foundation has made good on its threat to sue Exxon Mobil Corp., filing what it says is the first U.S. legal action aimed at holding the oil giant accountable for its well-documented climate change cover-up.
The 70-page suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Boston, alleges Exxon Mobil’s bulk storage and distribution terminal in Everett, Massachusetts, near Boston Harbor, continues to pollute the Island End and Mystic rivers and threatens nearby communities. The complaint also accuses the company of failing to fortify the facility to withstand climate change, including extreme weather events and rising sea levels.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified civil penalties and injunctive relief, comes as Exxon Mobil faces numerous investigations into whether the company lied to investors and committed fraud by covering up the risks of climate change for decades. The attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts are probing the company, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an investigation into how Exxon Mobil values future projects amid climate change and plunging oil prices.
“Communities were put in danger and remain in danger, all to cut costs for one of the most profitable corporations in the world,” Bradley Campbell, president of Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, said in a statement. “It’s time to make Exxon answer for decades of false statements to the public and to regulators and ensure __that its Everett facility meets its legal obligation to protect thousands of people and the Boston Harbor estuary from toxic water pollution.”
In 2009, a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil was ordered to pay more than $6.1 million for allowing 15,000 gallons of diesel fuel to spill into the Mystic River. The lawsuit alleges the company continues to violate the Clean Water Act and other federal laws by discharging toxic pollutants.
Boston Globe via Getty Images
Exxon Mobil spokesman Todd Spitler said the lawsuit is “yet another attempt to use the courts to promote a political agenda.” He said the company will vigorously fight it.
“This lawsuit is based on discredited and inaccurate claims by activists about Exxon Mobil’s nearly 40-year history of support for climate research __that was conducted publicly in conjunction with the Department of Energy, academics and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,” Spitler told The Huffington Post in an email. “To suggest that we had reached definitive conclusions, decades before the world’s experts and while climate science was in an early stage of development, is not credible.”
Reports last year by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times found Exxon executives were aware of the climate risks associated with carbon dioxide emissions in the 1980s, but funded research to cover up those risks and block solutions. In a more recent investigation, the Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law uncovered documents that show the oil industry, including Humble Oil (now Exxon Mobil), was on notice about the potential role of fossil fuels in CO2 emissions no later than 1957 and was “shaping science to shape public opinion” even earlier, in the 1940s.
Though the lawsuit accuses Exxon Mobil of failing to fortify its facility in Everett, oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, have redesigned oil and gas rigs in the face of climate change.
As early as the 1980s, oil companies were beginning to invest in taller oil rigs that could withstand rising sea levels and the impacts of hurricanes, documents uncovered in the Center for International Environmental Law investigation show. Carroll Muffett, the center’s president, called it “an example of the profound distinction of how these companies were protecting their own interests” and not the public’s.
The Conservation Law Foundation lawsuit says Exxon Mobil has been well aware of the impacts and risks of climate change.
“Despite knowing of the certainty of rising temperatures and rising sea levels since as early as the 1970s, Exxon Mobil did not use its findings to prepare its Everett Terminal for such risks,” the complaint says.
The lawsuit includes projections showing the Everett facility would be inundated with water in the event of a hurricane or climate-driven sea level rise. Either scenario, the suit says, could result in oil and other pollutants being discharged.
Conservation Law Foundation’s trial team will include attorney Allan Kanner, whose firm represented plaintiffs in BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010.
BERLIN, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The Rosetta spacecraft ended its historic mission on Friday, crashing on the surface of the dusty, icy comet it has spent 12 years chasing in a hunt __that has provided insight into the early days of the solar system and captured the public’s imagination.
The spacecraft has stalked comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko across more than 6 billion km (3.7 billion miles) of space, collecting a treasure trove of information on comets __that will keep scientists busy for the next decade.
Scientists in the European Space Agency control center in Darmstadt, Germany, clapped and hugged as confirmation of the end of the mission came at 1119 GMT.
Rosetta completed its free-fall descent at the speed of a sedate walk, joining the probe Philae, which landed on the comet in November 2014 in what was considered a remarkable feat of precision space travel.
“Thank you Rosetta,” ESA director general Jan Woerner said on Twitter.
He was among some 300 people who had also gathered before dawn at a conference room at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, to watch a live webcast as Rosetta’s signal disappeared from monitors, simultaneously with the team in Germany.
“It was a good ending,” Klaus Schiling, who worked on mission planning for Rosetta 27 years ago with prime contractor Airbus , told Reuters at the Mexico space conference. “There were so many ups and downs with this mission.”
Handout . / Reuters
PLANET FORMATION
The mission managed several historic firsts, such as getting a spacecraft into orbit around a comet and the unprecedented landing of a probe on the surface. A handful of previous spacecraft had snapped pictures and collected data as they flew past their targets.
But, dashing hopes for more discoveries, Philae, the 100 kg (220 lb) probe, bounced several times on landing before getting stuck against a cliff wall, leaving it unable to perform any more experiments beyond its first three days on the comet after its solar-powered batteries ran out.
Rosetta’s cameras located Philae’s resting place just a few weeks ago.
The ESA is ending the mission because 67P is racing toward the outer solar system, out of range for the solar-powered spacecraft.
Rosetta also has been subjected to the harsh radiation and extreme temperatures of space since launching in March 2004 and so was unlikely to last too much longer.
Before reaching the surface and shutting down, Rosetta’s instruments and camera relayed back data and images, giving scientists insight into the structure of the comet.
That data will reveal information on the side walls of the comet, crucial to understanding how they are formed, plus on large 100-meter (300 foot) wide pits, which scientists believe are key to how the comet releases gas and dust as it is warmed by the sun.
Daniel Brown, an astronomy expert at Nottingham Trent University, said the images sent back from the Rosetta mission were “as powerful as Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon.”
Data collected by Rosetta and Philae is already helping scientists better understand how the Earth and other planets formed.
For example, scientists now believe that asteroids, not comets were primarily responsible for delivering water to Earth and other planets in the inner solar system, possibly setting the stage for life.
“We’ve just scratched the surface of the science. We’re ending the mission, but the science will continue for many years,” project scientist Matt Taylor said ahead of the end of mission.
(Additional reporting by Irene Klotz in Guadalajara, Mexico and Tilman Blasshofer in Frankfurt; Editing by Alison Williams)
The 2.6 Trillion Dollar Rock You know Titanic was big, but how does the iconic ship compare in size to a modern aircraft carrier? And __that scary Death Star: if it were real instead of only make-believe, how big would it look in comparison to, say, Florida?
Maybe you’re the kind of person who is kept awake at night by odd questions like these. But even if you’re not, you’ll probably love a new series of mashup images created by Kevin Wisbith, a college student and entrepreneur who lives near Cincinnati.
The aim of the series, Wisbith told The Huffington Post in an email, is to help people “continue learning about the world they live in, in a comprehensible fashion __that is also entertaining and not a huge time burden.”
He continued:
“A lot of times scale is mentioned as 10 times larger or 100 times larger, but due to the fact that we perceive most of our world through sight, it’s really hard to understand how big 10 times or 100 times larger is without being able to see it with our own eyes. While scale is still one of the main focus points of the series, I am slowly branching out into other forms of measurement such as weight, value, and distance, to name a few.”
How does Wisbith portray the objects at the correct relative sizes? He researches the height, width and length of the objects and environments, and then converts those numbers into pixel measurements that he uses to scale the objects down to the right size.
“It’s not always an exact scale,” he said of his approach, “but I try to get as close as possible with the information I have available to me.”
One thing’s for sure: the images are hugely cool. Just have a look.
Europe's Rosetta mission has come to an end, with the spacecraft being commanded to collide with Comet 67P.
But as the probe made its slow 19km descent to the comet's "head", it snapped some spectacular pictures of the surface.
16km
8.9km
5.8km
5.7km
1.2km
23 metres
Image copyright ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team Europe's Rosetta probe has ended its mission to Comet 67P by crash-landing on to the icy object's surface.
Mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, was able to confirm the impact had occurred when radio contact to the ageing spacecraft was lost abruptly.
The assumption is __that the probe would have been damaged beyond use.
In the hours before the planned collision, Rosetta sent back a host of high-resolution pictures and other measurements of the icy dirt-ball.
"I can announce full success of this historic descent of Rosetta towards Comet 67P," said European Space Agency mission manager Patrick Martin.
"Farewell Rosetta; you've done the job. That was space science at its best."
Researchers expect all the data gathered at 67P in the past two years to keep them busy for decades to come.
How Rosetta ended its mission
In pictures: Rosetta's final descent
Social media reaction
The loss of signal, which happened at 11:19 GMT (12:19 BST; 13:19 CEST), was greeted by muted cheers and handshakes - not so surprising given the bittersweet nature of the occasion.
Some of the scientists watching on here in Darmstadt have spent the better part of 30 years on this project.
"People are very sad today but I think they really understand how proud we are and how proud they should be __that we've pulled this mission off," said Esa's senior science advisor, Mark McCaughrean.
Throughout Friday morning, the instrument teams had followed every twist and turn as the probe aimed for a touchdown spot on the head of the 4km-wide, duck-shaped comet.
The researchers had wanted the descending probe to get a look inside one of the many pits that pockmark the surface.
These sinkholes are often the places where 67P ejects gas and dust into space. But they also afford an opportunity to look at the object's interior, to see the lumpy ice blocks that may have come together to build the comet billions of years ago.
Some of the images that came back were acquired just seconds before the collision. These pictures will have resolutions that can be measured in millimetres. "They're super-duper," enthused Holger Sierks, the head of the Osiris camera team. "I've got goosebumbs just thinking about all this," he told BBC News.
Goodbye Rosetta: Watch the Sky at Night special this coming Sunday, BBC Four at 2200 BST
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko - to give the object its full name - is currently heading away from the Sun, limiting the solar energy available to Rosetta to operate its systems.
Rather than put the probe into hibernation or simply let it slowly fade into inactivity, the mission team determined that the venture should try to go out with a bang.
European Space Agency project scientist Matt Taylor said that even if Rosetta was sent to sleep with the intention of waking it up again when 67P next visited the brighter environs of the inner Solar System - there was no guarantee the technology would still be working properly.
"It's like one of those 60s rock bands; we don't want to have a rubbish comeback tour. We'd rather go out now in true rock'n'roll style," he said just before the impact.
Because Rosetta was not designed to land, some of its structures very likely broke on contact with the comet. Controllers left no room for doubt in any case by pre-loading a software sequence that would jump the computers into a shutdown when the probe felt a big jolt.
Rosetta arrived at 67P in August 2014, after a 10-year journey from Earth.
In the time it has lived alongside the mountainous object, it has unlocked the secrets about its behaviour, its structure and chemistry.
Rosetta even dropped a small robot called Philae on to the surface in November 2014 to gather additional information - a historic first in space exploration.
The European Space Agency says the mission has been an outstanding success and will transform our understanding of the huge icy dirt-balls that wander among the planets.
The American scientist Alan Stern, whose Alice instrument has made far-ultraviolet observations of the comet to study composition and activity, said all the science teams involved still had much work to do: "We've got 70,000 spectra; we've barely scratched the surface in terms of looking at the data."
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos
JEKESAI NJIKIZANA via Getty Images
Pangolins ― bizarre, scaly creatures __that are the world’s most poached and illegally trafficked mammals ― will finally receive the legal protection they so desperately need to avoid extinction.
On Wednesday, member parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, overwhelmingly voted to give all eight species of Asian and African pangolins the treaty’s highest level of protection. The move, supported by more than 180 countries, bans the international commercial trade of these unique, adorable and harmless critters.
The stronger protections will “give the world’s most-trafficked mammal a fighting chance at survival,” Elly Pepper, deputy director of the Natural Resource Defense Council’s wildlife trade initiative, said in a statement following Wednesday’s vote.
Ginette Hemley, head of the World Wildlife Fund delegation at CITES, said it “will eliminate any question about legality of trade, making it harder for criminals to traffic them and increasing the consequences for those who do.”
Covered in armored scales and equipped with a long tongue to slurp up ants and termites, the reclusive pangolin ― inspiration for the popular Pokemon character Sandslash ― is among the lesser-known endangered species. And for __that reason, it has suffered tremendously.
Experts estimate that more than a million pangolins have been trafficked over the last decade. In Asia, particularly China and Vietnam, their meat is considered a delicacy. They also are sought for their scales and the unfounded belief that they have medicinal value. In China, dried scales are “roasted, ashed, cooked in oil, butter, vinegar, boy’s urine, or roasted with earth or oyster shells, to cure a variety of ills,” according to a 1938 report in the scientific journal Nature.
In addition to poaching, pangolins are threatened by a rapid loss of habitat.
The trafficking ban was approved during the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES, which runs through Oct. 5 in Johannesburg. It comes less than a month after conservation leaders gathered at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress in Hawaii passed a motion calling for increased protections for all eight species of pangolin.
“The world is standing up for the little guy with this pivotal decision for greater protection of the pangolin,” Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy for the Wildlife Conservation Society, said in a statement.
For the ban to take effect, it must be adopted during a plenary that will be held on the final day of the conference, Lieberman added.
Mark Hofberg, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, called the CITES decision a perfect example of what can happen when the international community comes together on behalf of a species in need of help.
“This decision gives real hope that extinction of pangolins may be prevented,” Hofberg said in a statement. “The rate at which they are being killed is completely unsustainable and cruel. If nothing was done, we could see these amazing creatures disappear within a generation.”
Michael Blann via Getty Images
This article is part of HuffPost’s “Reclaim” campaign, an ongoing project spotlighting the world’s waste crisis and how we can begin to solve it.
My first job in Manhattan was on Fifth Avenue. How lucky I was, I thought, to be in the center of this dream city. Most of all, though, I loved the clothing shops. All I had to do was wrap up the day’s work and step outside, and everything was there. J. Crew, Anthropologie, Loft, Banana Republic ...
It’s hard to resist those glitzy displays showing off an array of drapey wool coats perfect for midfall, dresses to match any personality you’re in the mood to show, and cute socks with fox faces printed on them ― especially when the clothes are super affordable, as they are at so many hip retailers these days. I found myself buying too many clothes all at once, and I wasn’t the only one: Americans as a whole tend to overshop.
There are many reasons why we buy too much clothing, and affordable pricing is one. But new research also points to other factors __that can sneakily influence our shopping behaviors ― and we actually have more control over those causes.
Neuroscience research shows __that being mentally fatigued can make you an impulsive shopper. Just a day at work can burn out our limited resources of self-control, and nearly turn off the brain areas in charge of evaluating decisions.
In other words, the person who walks out of the office and into the shops downstairs is simply not your best version of yourself, and probably shouldn’t be making decisions involving money and future planning.
A team of researchers recently set up a situation in the lab resembling the everyday experience of consumers, in order to examine the effects of normal daily fatigue on making decisions that require some degree of self-control. The researchers wanted to see what fatigue does to the decision-evaluating part of the brain, that wise judge inside your head that says no to beer with friends so you can save money for a bike.
“The neural bases of how we make the decision between consuming and saving are somewhat known,” said neuroscientist Bastien Blain, author of the study published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences in June. “For example, to make a decision between an immediate monetary reward, say, $10 now, and a bigger but delayed one, say, $100 in one year, requires the brain to attribute a value to each option. If we temporarily inhibit a particular brain area, people become more likely to choose the immediate reward option.”
When this brain area ― called the lateral prefrontal cortex or LPFC ― isn’t working at full speed, we become more irrational with our choices. Blain and his colleagues had 35 study volunteers carry out assignments involving working memory and task switching, both of which heavily engage the LPFC. The team then measured whether tiring the LPFC like that would make the participants more impulsive right after.
There’s an idea in psychology, which you might have experienced firsthand in daily life, that willpower is limited (if you are even lucky to have any at all, that is). In the lab, psychologists have shown the limits of self-control: people who resist the temptation of fresh-baked cookies later give up prematurely on solving difficult puzzles. Those who are made to think hard or make too many decisions in a short time are not able to hold their hands in a bucket of ice water for as long as their peers with fresh minds. The idea is that the effects of using self-control in one task carries over to other tasks and leads to what psychologists call ego depletion.
In Blain’s study, people didn’t show ego depletion after 15 minutes of heavy cognitive work, so the team decided to go beyond the usual short time frame used in similar studies and instead mimic a typical workday. The participants who performed the difficult version of the tasks became more impulsive by the end of the day. The group that performed easy versions of the tasks or enjoyed some breaks during the six-hour episode didn’t show increased impulsivity.
Six hours, by the way, was considered a typical workday because the study was done in France. The consequences could be even worse for people in the U.S., where typical work hours are 8 hours a day or more.
Using fMRI scans that measured the activity of brain regions, the researchers found the participants’ impulsivity was linked with decreased activity in the LPFC.
“Our findings demonstrate a concept of focused neural fatigue that might be naturally induced in real-life situations and have important repercussions on economic decisions,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
Back at my first job, situated strategically in the center of a shoppers’ haven, I was exposed to the lure of beautiful pieces of clothing every single day. Even on a shoestring budget of an intern, I was always able to afford a cute top or a stylish pair of shoes — and that was thanks to the glut of cheap, trendy clothes that retailers churn out at a breakneck pace.
This so-called fast fashion trend has made clothes seem more disposable. As a result, the fashion industry has become one of the most polluting forces in the environment, and our millions of tons of textile waste have already become a significant chunk of landfills covering the world.
I asked Blain whether his findings have made him change his own behaviors. “Yes, definitely,” he said. “Now I always wait for the morning or the weekend to make purchasing decisions. I also try to resist an impulse after a day of work, thinking that my desire is purely transient and will be different after a night of rest.”
There is some relief in learning that some of our regretful purchasing decisions may have been caused by unavoidable mental fatigue, and not a fundamental personality flaw.
And the solution seems pretty simple. Take breaks during the workday to avoid the accumulation of fatigue. Or, like Blain, just don’t shop right after work and wait for the weekend or mornings instead. Always try to wait a few days to check whether the desire to buy something is fleeting ― is your decision based on your particular state of mind or is it objectively a good idea? When feeling an impulse to buy something, remember that you ― and your brain ― really may need to sleep on it.
Mental fatigue is still only one factor behind a mindless shopping episode. Blain’s study showed that after a six-hour task, people became just 10 percent more impulsive. Obviously there are many more variables constantly influencing how we decide to buy.
Mood is one. It’s been shown that listening to pleasant music increases the normal activity of the brain areas involved in valuation, and therefore makes the brain more likely to like what it subsequently sees. So maybe take your headphones out at the store.
More stories like this:
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This Family Went A Whole Year Without Buying New Clothes
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These African Countries Don’t Want Your Used Clothing Anymore
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The ‘Chilling’ Moment This Father Realized Where His Kids’ Clothes Come From
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Before Buying More Clothes At H&M, Read This
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Something To Think About Before Donating Your Clothes
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This Company Is Basically A Hospital For Sad, Damaged Clothes
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Why This Company Wants You To Fall In Love With People’s Old Jeans
Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew from the Amazon consumed in religious ceremonies for centuries, has been gaining popularity in Europe and North America as a mind-altering trick to condense years of psychotherapy into a psychedelic trip just a few hours long. Drinking the plant brew, users report, helps gain psychological insight and produce new ideas, among other things.
To those users, it’s not exactly news __that a psychedelic can enhance creativity. But in recent years, science has been catching up to oral literature, trying to use more objective methods to double-check people’s anecdotes about the effects of the muddy, foul-tasting brew. In one study published in Psychopharmacology in July, researchers in Spain and the Netherlands report __that ayahuasca seems to help people apply more creative and “divergent” thinking to solving puzzles.
Normally in our attempt to solve problems, we employ convergent thinking, in which we narrow down potential solutions to find the correct answer we’re looking for. Sometimes, however, that correct answer just happens to fall somewhere outside the box, requiring a more open-minded, or divergent, thinking style to find it.
That’s why the mental flexibility people on ayahuasca had when they approached their puzzles may prove useful in psychotherapy: It might help patients break out of habitual and problematic thought patterns.
“We think if you have depression and are stuck in negative thinking patterns, for example, it might be good to be able to think a bit more flexibly and come up with new or positive ideas, which you then can use to improve the quality of your life,” study co-author Kim Kuypers, an assistant professor at the department of psychology and neuroscience at Maastricht University in The Netherlands, told The Huffington Post.
The possibility that ayahuasca and other psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin mushrooms could help in the treatment of mental illnesses has helped revive a new wave of research into the drugs, which were rendered illegal in the 1970s. But how these drugs affect the brain remains unclear. The handful of studies that have started to look into this question suggest they work by altering the patterns of communication among several brain networks, thus opening new ways of thinking and perception.
Kuypers, who has studied both the negative effects and potential medical uses of the drug MDMA, was approached by Jordi Riba, a researcher at Sant Pau hospital in Barcelona and a longtime researcher of ayahuasca. Riba was interested in a creativity test that Kuypers and her colleagues had previously set up and wanted to have ayahuasca users take a stab at it.
The team visited two spiritual ayahuasca-using groups and invited members to enter the study. Twenty-six healthy people participated in the study. They were experienced in taking the brew; many of them had taken it dozens of times. Their interest in psychoactive drugs, they told researchers, stemmed from a desire for personal experimentation and enhancing introspection, self-knowledge and personal growth.
One of the tests used in the study was the “picture concept test,” which has been traditionally used as part of intelligence tests in children. In its simplest form, the test involves four pictures in two rows, and the test taker has to find an association between one of the pictures in each row. The number of pictures can go up to 16, divided in four rows, making the test more sophisticated.
Here’s an example of what a simple form of the picture-concept test might look like:
Getty
The participants took the test once before and once during the ayahuasca trip (interestingly, the people reported liking the test, saying the colorful images spurred their imagination).
When on ayahuasca, they actually became worse at pointing out the correct solutions, suggesting their convergent thinking was impaired. But instead, they offered many alternative and original solutions, finding associations that weren’t readily visible, pointing to a more divergent way of thinking.
For example, the correct answer above would be to pick the sun and the moon — both belong to the category of celestial objects. But you could also pick the mushroom and unicorn, arguing that being on shrooms could make you see unicorns. There are many such out-of-the-box reasonings possible, and you can imagine how things can escalate quickly once the number of pictures goes from four to 16.
It’s not clear whether the alternative solutions that people came up with were always actually good ideas — we still don’t know if taking ayahuasca can give you the idea for your next book or startup. But it was the flexible way of thinking and tackling a problem that was the most interesting and potentially useful, Kuypers said.
How long this spike in divergent thinking and creativity lasts is another question, Kuypers said. Future studies should test people a day later or so to examine the long-term effects, she said.
“It would interesting to see if they were still different in divergent and convergent thinking after their trip,” Kuypers said. “It would be useful to see the long-term effects of the drink, especially if you want to use it in psychotherapy.”
Noam Galai/Getty Images
Bill Nye likes Mars as much as the next guy ― more, probably, since the Science Guy also heads up The Planetary Society, a Pasadena, California-based nonprofit __that pushes exploration of the solar system.
But Nye isn’t totally sold on SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s bold new plan to colonize Mars.
Under the plan, which Musk detailed Tuesday at a major astronautics conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, SpaceX will build a fleet of vast spaceships and use them to ferry wave upon wave of humans to the red planet. The company aims to send the first humans to Mars in 2025.
“I’m open-minded but skeptical __that anyone actually wants to live out his or her life on Mars any more than anyone wants to colonize Antarctica,” Nye told The Huffington Post in an email. “Mars is an exotic place and in some ways very romantic. But it’s cold, barren and you can’t even breathe.”
And the cost for getting to Mars will be astronomical. Musk anticipates charging folks about $200,000 apiece for a trip to the red planet ― and that’s after the price comes down.
Musk has long considered the colonization of other planets a life-or-death imperative, given the existential threats to life on Earth posed by runaway climate change, killer asteroids and the like.
“Ultimately, the thing that is super-important in the grand scale of history is, are we on a path to becoming a multi-planet species or not?” Musk said in 2011 (and has been saying ever since). “If we’re not, that’s not a very bright future. We’ll just be hanging out on Earth until some eventual calamity claims us.”
Nye, who was on hand in Guadalajara for Musk’s well-attended presentation, is known for climate activism as well as for his enthusiasm for space exploration.
But establishing a Mars colony clearly isn’t his first priority.
“I very much hope we conduct a thorough, careful search for life on Mars before we consider landing dozens of tons of people and cargo,” he told HuffPost.
That search is already underway, of course. For decades now, NASA has been sending landers and rovers to Mars ― and the space agency has its own plan to send astronauts there sometime in the 2030s. By then, Musk’s colonists might have been living on Mars for years.
In any case, Nye praised SpaceX for changing how the world thinks about spaceflight. “Watching the crowd go absolutely wild today,” he added, “tells me that the best is yet ahead for space exploration.”
Image copyright Getty Images A new database suggests say there has been a dramatic under-reporting of the live, illegal trade in great apes.
Around 1,800 orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas were seized in 23 different countries since 2005, the figures show.
Since 90% of the cases were within national borders they didn't appear in major data records, which only contain international seizures.
The new database has been published at the Cites meeting here in Johannesburg.
Records incomplete
Comprehensive data on the illicit trade in great apes is rare.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) only keeps records of international seizures, which experts in the field have long believed was giving a misleading impression.
The new Apes Seizures Database paints a more detailed picture, compiling figures for any seizure of a great ape in an unlawful situation dating back to 2005.
"It's definitely a staggering number, it's larger than we expected," said Doug Cress from the Great Ape Survival Partnership, who have put together the new database.
"We're finding __that it's really averaging about two seizures a week around the world. That may seem small but the usual ratio for a chimpanzee is __that to get one alive you've had to kill five or 10, for gorillas it's like four to one.
"That extrapolates quickly to a lot of dead in the wild."
Orang-utans were by far the most commonly captured animals, accounting for 67% of seizures by the authorities.
It's believed that habitat destruction in Borneo and Sumatra has seen large numbers flushed out of the forests.
The conversion of their natural homes into palm oil plantations or for pulp and paper has made the orangutans easy prey for those who want to trade them illegally.
Chimpanzees represented about a quarter of all seizures while gorillas represented six percent and bonobos around 3%.
"This is a live trade, mostly infants that have to be moved quickly," said Doug Cress.
"They are trafficked on fast routes - that usually means hand luggage, the overhead bin in your airplane."
Cash rewards
While Indonesia and Malaysia are high on the list of countries with seizures thanks to the orangutans, West Africa also emerges as a hub, specifically countries such as Sierra Leone, Guinea and Cameroon.
What's feeding the trade is money - a chimpanzee in Asia can sell for between $25-30,000. A gorilla can command up to $45,000.
As well as the animal welfare worries, and the impact on wild populations, there are also concerns about the potential to spread disease. HIV is believed to have originated in apes before being transmitted to humans.
Doug Cress believes that the new method of collecting and monitoring the data will help the fight against the live trafficking of these animals.
"Most databases have up to three years for countries to file information, but by then the trail is cold.
"We are talking about live time with this new database, when we see trends we will inform Interpol and Cites immediately."
The Apes Seizures Database has been built by the GRASP Partnership, in conjunction with the UN Environment's World Conservation Monitoring Centre.
Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathBBC and on Facebook.
Image copyright PA, Getty Images EU funding for farmers, scientists and other projects will be replaced by the Treasury after Brexit, Chancellor Philip Hammond has said.
In a move which could cost up to £6bn a year, the Treasury will guarantee to back EU-funded projects signed before this year's Autumn Statement.
Agricultural funding now provided by the EU will also continue until 2020.
But critics said the guarantee does not go far enough and there was "continued uncertainty".
Voters backed leaving the EU in the 23 June referendum but Prime Minister Theresa May has indicated the UK government will not trigger Article 50, which would begin a two-year process to leave, during 2016.
- Brexit Watch: At-a-glance day-by-day summer briefing
Mr Hammond said EU structural and investment fund projects signed before the Autumn Statement later this year, and Horizon research funding granted before leaving the EU, will be guaranteed by the Treasury after the UK leaves.
The EU's 80bn euro (£69bn) Horizon 2020 programme awards funding for research and innovation and is open to UK institutions while the country remains a member.
'Stability and certainty'
The chancellor said the government was "determined to ensure __that people have stability and certainty in the period leading up to our departure from the EU".
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said: "We welcome Phillip Hammond's decision to agree with Labour's calls for EU structural funds to be protected post-Brexit. This will help to give some reassurance to communities and businesses right the way across the UK".
But he added __that Labour "urgently" want to hear the chancellor "speak up on the importance of keeping Britain's membership of the European Investment Bank".
The Treasury said it would assess whether to guarantee funding for certain other projects "that might be signed after the Autumn Statement, but while we remain a member of the EU".
Organisations such as universities bidding for EU funding before the UK leaves would have that money underwritten by the government.
At present, farmers receive subsidies and other payments under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
They get about £3bn a year in subsidies, with the biggest farmers pocketing cheques of £1m. The grants are given for owning land and also taking care of wildlife.
The National Farmers' Union (NFU) said the Treasury's announcement was "positive" for farming.
Its president Meurig Raymond said: "I hope that this short-term certainty will help to deliver longer-term confidence and this is exactly what farm businesses need now."
The Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which represents more than 32,000 farmers, landowners and other rural businesses, said the move was "vitally important" but called for a "world-leading" domestic funding policy to be drawn up and ready for 2021.
The structural and investment funds that will be guaranteed include CAP pillar two, the European Social Fund, the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund and the European Regional Development Fund, including European Territorial Cooperation.
Examples of projects that have received or are due to receive regional development fund money include:
- £5m for the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre at the University of Manchester
- £9m for the manufacturing growth programme to support areas in the Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber and the East of England
- £3m for a new life sciences incubation and innovation centre at Porton Down in Wiltshire
'Welcome news'
President of the Royal Society - a fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists - and Nobel laureate, Sir Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, also welcomed the funding announcement.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme it was something "we have been arguing consistently for" since the referendum result.
But Sir Venkatraman added: "Our hope is that any grants that are awarded while we are still in the EU should be allowed to complete."
'No long-term certainty'
Scotland's Finance Secretary Derek Mackay said the announcement "falls far short" of what is needed, saying: "A limited guarantee for some schemes for a few short years leaves Scotland hundreds of millions of pounds short of what we would receive as members of the EU."
Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones said: "This guarantee only covers about half of the regional funding due to Wales and does not provide the long-term certainty needed and which was promised ahead of the referendum."
And Northern Ireland Finance Minister Mairtin O Muilleoir said that while some applicants for EU funds will be helped, it left a "question mark over scores of other vital projects".
Lord Porter, chairman of the Local Government Association, said the funding commitment "falls well short" and stressed that "local areas need certainty around the future of all of the £5.3bn in EU regeneration funding promised to them by 2020".
"The continued uncertainty risks damaging local regeneration plans and stalling flagship infrastructure projects, employment and skills schemes and local growth," he said.
The National Trust said that there was "continued uncertainty should new applications be restricted beyond this autumn".
British Chambers of Commerce acting director general Adam Marshall called for "the delays that many worthwhile projects face in the approval process" to be "cleared away - especially given the fact that the Treasury guarantee only covers projects signed by this year's Autumn Statement".
The UK currently pays money into the EU budget, which will stop once it formally leaves.
In 2015 the UK Government paid in £13bn; EU spending on the UK was £4.5bn, meaning the UK's net contribution was estimated at about £8.5bn, or £161m a week.
The UK private sector receives a further £1-1.5bn annually in EU funding.
Image copyright Reuters The Campaign to Protect Rural England has called for a post-Brexit "revolution" in the way farming subsidies are handed out in England.
It argues too much money goes to large-scale farms and says assisting smaller, more diverse farms would help the countryside and rural communities.
At present, farmers get about £3bn a year in subsidies, with the biggest farmers receiving as much as £1m.
The National Farmers' Union said it was wrong to say all big farms were "bad".
The CPRE has set out its vision for the future of agriculture after the UK leaves the European Union in a paper titled New Model Farming.
Farmers currently receive subsidies and other payments under the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) - but will cease to get EU funding once the UK leaves the EU.
Ministers have promised to maintain EU levels of funding until at least 2020.
What could Brexit mean for farmers?
'Industrial farms'
The grants, which are given for owning land and also taking care of wildlife, can amount to up to 60% of some farmers' income.
Existing level of state aid needed to be justified, and there should be a shift away from giving money to "industrial farms", the CPRE report said.
Such large-scale farms damaged the environment and put smaller farmers out of business, it claimed.
Subsidies should instead be directed towards smaller farms, and land should be made available for new farmers to enter the market, it said.
The charity argued this would benefit the countryside, and help rural communities reconnect with farming.
The National Farmers' Union has welcomed the Treasury's promise to maintain EU levels of farming subsidies until 2020, saying it would give "longer-term confidence" for farming businesses.
Cate Le Grice Mack, from the CPRE, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there had been "a huge decline" in biodiversity in the UK.
She said authorities needed to make sure we are "maximising the potential for our landscape - for food, but also for wildlife and biodiversity".
"What we are saying is __that farmers need encouraging and supporting and helping to actually improve the natural landscape.
"They are the people who can do it, they are the people with the skills, this is about encouragement and help."
Minette Batters, deputy president of the NFU - which has launched a month-long consultation of its members on post-Brexit farming policy - said the UK had "incredibly diverse farmers".
"What we cannot say is __that big is bad, or small is good", she said.
"The point is we have a very diverse food and farming landscape in this country that the consumer benefits from."
She added: "Farms doors are open, the public can see what is going on and I really do not think we have industrial farming."
Taxpayers are paying more than £400,000 a year to subsidise a farm where a billionaire Saudi prince breeds racehorses.
The Newmarket farm of Khalid Abdullah al Saud - owner of the legendary horse Frankel - is among the top 100 recipients of EU farm grants in the UK.
The system's critics say Brexit will let the UK redirect £3bn in subsidies towards protecting the environment.
A spokesman for the prince declined to comment.
Farm subsidies swallow a huge chunk of the EU's budget. They were started after World War Two to stimulate production, but led to food mountains __that had to be dumped.
A compromised reform process - the so-called "greening" of the Common Agricultural Policy - resulted in farmers mostly being paid depending on how much land they own.
The UK's top beneficiaries include estates owned partly or wholly by the Queen (£557,706.52); Lord Iveagh (£915,709.97); the Duke of Westminster (£427,433.96), the Duke of Northumberland (£475,030.70 ) the Mormons (£785,058.94) - and many wealthy business people.
Asked if the Queen thought it appropriate to receive taxpayers' subsidy based on the size of her land holding, a spokesman for the Palace said: "Subsidies are open to all farmers, and are received on the Queen's private estate. We would not comment beyond the detail __that is already in the public domain."
A spokesman for the Duke of Westminster also declined the question, but said the farm produced quality food while taking the environment very seriously.
In EU-wide rankings, the UK scores highly on the transparency of information about who receives what, although the identity of some landowners on the list is concealed through offshore trusts.
The big conservation organisations Natural England (£970,580.50), the National Trust (£2,666,880.26) and the RSPB (£2,002,859.51) are among the top recipients.
| Farms and other organisations in the UK receiving the most from the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) in 2015 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Beneficiary | EAGF payments | Total CAP payments | |
| 1 | Frank A Smart & Son Ltd | £2,963,733 | £2,986,506 |
| 2 | National Trust | £2,666,880 | £8,056,505 |
| 3 | RSPB | £2,002,860 | £3,584,032 |
| 4 | Farmcare Trading Ltd | £1,705,795 | £1,784,647 |
| 5 | Beeswax Farming (Rainbow) Ltd | £1,437,706 | £1,546,462 |
| 6 | RJ & TJ & MT Feakins | £1,235,167 | £1,270,282 |
| 7 | Blankney Estates Ltd | £1,130,101 | £1,690,411 |
| 8 | Strutt & Parker (Farms) Ltd | £1,105,969 | £1,227,909 |
| 9 | Waldersey Farms Ltd | £1,009,802 | £1,079,787 |
| 10 | Sir Richard Sutton Estates Limited | £994,244 | £1,149,566 |
Source: Defra
They also get extra public money under a parallel grant designed to encourage wildlife. The latter two argue for reform of the subsidies.
A campaign for reform is being launched by Greenpeace, which does not normally focus on farming, but says Brexit demands a re-examination of many policies.
The group said it was an "outrage" that subsidies were given to those such as Khalid Abdullah al Saud, who owns Juddmonte Limited farms. His stallion Frankel is said to be worth over £100m for breeding.
Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr told BBC News: "The subsidy system is utterly broken. We need public money spent on farming to be offering demonstrable public benefits."
The Taxpayers' Alliance added: "Farmers should be put on notice. Taxpayers shouldn't be handing out what are effectively land subsidies, often to extremely wealthy individuals."
Top of Defra's 2015 payments list is Aberdeenshire farmer Frank Smart, whose business netted grants of £2,963,732.77.
He told BBC News: "I don't want to discuss any part of my business with the media, thank you."
Mr Smart would not comment on complaints that he has been "slipper farming" - a technique in which farmers buy up land principally for the grants attached to it. The practice is not illegal but it has been heavily criticised.
One MP, the Conservative Richard Drax, is in the top 100 beneficiaries. His jointly-owned farm received £351,752.29.
Past EU attempts to radically reform the subsidies have been blocked by Europe's farmers.
Two ministers in the government's environment department, Defra, receive farm subsidies.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble declares an interest as a partner in CM Robarts & Son, (SIC) which nets £45,479.19 in direct payments.
George Eustice is a director of a Cornish farm receiving £2,313.
A Defra spokesman said Mr Eustice and Lord Gardiner had properly declared potential conflicts of interest and both had been cleared for discussions on the future of farm grants.
The spokesman said that in the context of Brexit, all policies were being re-examined, adding: "The secretary of state has underlined the need for continuity for farmers and is looking forward to working with industry, rural communities and the wider public to shape our plans for food, farming and the environment outside the EU."
In the Tory leadership contest, Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom promised farmers that she would continue farm subsidies.
The Treasury has already guaranteed direct payments for land ownership until 2020, although to the dismay of conservation groups has not committed to continue funding wildlife protection on farms.
The Tenant Farmers' Association wants to keep the £3bn total subsidies but split the cash between enhancing the environment, creating infrastructure to develop farm businesses, and public funding to promote British food.
The Country Landowners Association seems to think reform is inevitable.
"Brexit has given us the opportunity to develop a new food, farming and environmental policy which can deliver even greater benefits for the natural world," its spokesman Christopher Price said.
The farmers' union, the NFU, did not comment when asked if it accepted reform of the grants system was now inevitable.
Many environment groups believe reform of the labyrinthine grants system is beyond the capacity of Defra, which has lost many staff in recent savings. They want a broadly based commission to outline how much the government needs to spend on farming to meet the objectives of its 25-year plan to protect the environment.
Follow Roger on Twitter @rharrabin
The world has hit a global warming milestone it may never recover from.
Scientists at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii announced in 2013 __that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide reached a daily average above 400 parts per million for the first time in history. CO2 concentrations “haven’t been this high in millions of years,” said scientist Erika Podest at the time. “This milestone is a wake-up call.”
But the situation has only gotten worse. Worldwide, 400 ppm, which indicates the ratio of carbon dioxide to other gases in the atmosphere, started to be read more consistently and in more locations. Last March, global CO2 levels topped the symbolic benchmark for an entire month — a first since record-keeping began. Antarctica, the last place on Earth without a 400 ppm reading, finally reached it in May.
Now scientists say we’ve arrived at yet another critical climate change juncture: CO2 levels surpassed 400 ppm this month— and it may not fall below __that mark ever again.
“I think we’re essentially over for good,” said Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography’s carbon dioxide monitoring program in May.
Keeling explained in a Friday blog post how CO2 levels had consistently topped 400 ppm for the month of September ― typically the time of year when atmospheric carbon dioxide is at its lowest. The Scripps Institute monitors CO2 levels at the Mauna Loa Observatory, the world’s marquee site for carbon dioxide monitoring.
“The low point reflects the transition between summer and fall, when the uptake of CO2 by vegetation weakens and is overtaken by the release of CO2 from soils,” he wrote. “Is it possible that October 2016 will yield a lower monthly value than September and dip below 400 ppm? Almost impossible.”
Though one-off lower measurements could still be read in the coming weeks, Keeling said “it already seems safe to conclude that we won’t be seeing a monthly value below 400 ppm this year ― or ever again for the indefinite future.”
And since carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, even the most rigorous climate action won’t dampen this figure. Not this century, anyway.
If CO2 emissions, for example, somehow plummeted to zero tomorrow, carbon dioxide levels “probably wouldn’t change much ... but would start to fall off in a decade or so,” Gavin Schmidt, NASA’s chief climate scientist, told Climate Central. “In my opinion, we won’t ever see a month below 400 ppm.”
Reuters
The 400 ppm level is more a symbolic number than a “tipping point,” as some have suggested. There isn’t, for instance, a marked difference between the climate impacts of 390 ppm and 405 ppm. But scientists say the psychological effect of the figure is significant.
“When you focus on the fact that it’s moving through thresholds like that, you get an appreciation for how it’s actually changing,” Keeling told The Hufington Post in an earlier interview. “I think people accept the reality that CO2 is rising, but they don’t have a grasp of what it means quantitatively. I hope people remember this moment so that when the hear the carbon dioxide levels are 420 parts per million in a matter of years, they’ll say, ‘I remember when it was 400.’”
Scientists say 420 ppm is in our near future, based on current trends. Carbon dioxide levels are increasing by more than 2 parts per million per year.
“The momentum we’re seeing right now, going upwards, I think is going to easily carry us through 450 parts per million,” Keeling said. “And then I would say even stabilizing before 500 parts per million is probably not going to be very easy.”
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Carbon dioxide has been the primary driver of climate change since the industrial revolution. CO2 has caused the Earth to warm about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since then ― a shift that’s led to record temperatures, melting ice sheets, extreme weather events and other significant impacts.
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Image copyright Wendy Panaino A little known species driven to the edge of extinction by poaching has gained extra protection at the Cites meeting in South Africa.
Pangolins are slow moving, nocturnal creatures found across Asia and Africa but over a million have been taken from the wild in the last decade.
The trade is being driven principally by demand for their scales, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Now the Cites meeting has agreed to ban all trade in eight species of Pangolin.
Scales of destruction
As the world's only mammal covered in scales, these species are sometimes known as scaly anteaters. The creatures have very long, sticky tongues. These come in very handy when searching for ants, their favourite food
However these scales, which the animal uses for protection, are one of the key reasons for their demise.
In traditional Chinese medicine they are dried and roasted and used for a variety of ailments including excessive nervousness, hysterical crying, palsy and to aid lactation.
As well as the scales, the meat of the Pangolin is eaten as bush meat in many parts of Africa and in China it has become something of a delicacy.
The level of illegal trade is astonishing. Between January and September this year, authorities seized more than 18,000 tonnes of Pangolin scales across 19 countries.
The majority of these scales came from African pangolins in Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana. Experts estimate __that each kilogramme of scales requires the killing of three or four animals. It is believed __that pangolins make up around 20% of all illegal trade in species.
Zero quotas
All pangolins are already listed on Appendix II but with a zero quota for Asian species. This has caused major problems say conservationists.
"When pangolins are just in their product forms as scales or meat it's impossible to tell the Asian ones from the African ones," said Jeff Flocken from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
"Up to now all Pangolins were on Appendix II with zero quota trade in the Asian species, but what that allowed was a massive trade in African species and also enabled a whole mechanism for laundering Asian ones as African ones which are legal."
Here at the Cites meeting, range state countries proposed that four species of African pangolins and four Asian varieties be up-listed to Appendix I meaning that all commercial trade would be stopped and greater protection demanded from law enforcement.
There was widespread support for the move, with few dissenting voices. All over the large hall, stuffed toy pangolins could be seen on desks, indicating sympathy for the plight of this little known species.
Indonesia objected to the up-listing of two Asian species, the Sunda and Chinese pangolins but the conference voted overwhelmingly to include them.
"This is a huge win and rare piece of good news for some of the world's most trafficked and endangered animals," said Ginette Hemley from WWF.
"Giving Pangolins full protection under Cites will eliminate any question about legality of trade, making it harder for criminals to traffic them and increasing the consequences for those who do."
Some objections had been expected about the African species but none materialized and the Conference of the Parties accepted the extra safeguards without a vote.
"Everyone wants this, law enforcement wants this," said Jeff Flocken from IFAW.
"When they are listed as Appendix I there will be no mistake as to what's legal or illegal, because they will all be illegal.
"This is a clear message from the world that the pangolins are in dire need of protection and we are going to try and make it happen."
Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathBBC and on Facebook.
This September ends with the eerily named black moon rising.
On Friday night, watch for this relatively rare lunar event ― something __that hasn’t happened since March 2014, according to AccuWeather.
So you’re probably wondering what a black moon is. It actually has a few definitions. The one we’re using here is a second new moon in a calendar month ― not to be confused with a blue moon, which is the second full moon in a calendar month.
Jeff Foott/Getty Images
Like other new moons, a black moon isn’t usually visible ― the name is a giveaway. But with the moonlight gone, it’s a prime time for stargazing.
The new moon will officially occur at 8:11 p.m. EDT (5:11 p.m. PDT) on Friday in the Western Hemisphere. And it’ll take a few more nights before the moon in crescent form really starts to show, according to ScienceAlert.
Because __that same new moon will hit on Oct. 1 in the Eastern Hemisphere, it’s not a black moon for people there. But the Eastern Hemisphere will get its own black moon at the end of October, according to AccuWeather.
Otherwise busy this Friday? The next time two new moons will fall in the same month for the Western Hemisphere is July 2019.
Language has been updated to better explain what a black moon is.
In the 25 years since hikers stumbled upon his mummified remains high in the Italian Alps, Otzi the Iceman has given up many of his secrets.
In addition to the clothing he wore and the tools he used, research has detailed the germs he carried, the illnesses he suffered from and even the tattooes he had. We also know how he died and what he had for his last meal (wild goat).
Now we know the sound of his voice.
Otzi has been dead for more than 5,000 years, so how can we tell what he sounded like? Researchers working in Italy recently reconstructed his voice with the help of computer software and a 3D model of the Iceman’s vocal tract based upon CT scans of his mummified body.
Paul HANNY via Getty Images
AFP via Getty Images
“We made obviously some approximations of the real Otzi, because we lacked the exact dimensions of the vocal chords and the thickness and compositions of his tissues,” Dr. Francesco Avanzini, the physician who led the research team, told The Huffington Post in an email.
Avanzini, who presented the research earlier this month at the third Bolzano Mummy Congress, acknowledged __that the gravelly voice heard in the brief recording is only an approximation.
But it sounds eerily lifelike. And unless someone figures out how to bring Otzi back to life, he’s not about to raise his voice in objection.
3D printed implants can prompt new bone to grow in animals, scientists reported today in the journal Science Translational Medicine. Called hyperelastic “bone,” their new bioengineered material could also be cheap, versatile and easy to print and use for repairing or regenerating bones in people.
The grafts, which helped mend bone injuries in rats and monkeys, are made from hydroxyapatite, a mineral found in bones and teeth, and a biodegradable polymer. “Despite the fact __that is majority ceramic, which is usually very brittle, it possesses very unique…properties __that makes it highly elastic,” coauthor Ramille Shah, of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said in a press conference on Tuesday. “When we squeezed or deformed it, it bounced right back to its original shape.”
When Shah and her colleagues placed human stem cells taken from bone marrow on a sample of hyperelastic “bone,” its mere presence was enough to prompt them to mature into bone cells (this type of stem cell can also make fat or cartilage). The “bone” scaffold served as a source for the cells to create their own natural materials, fellow team member Adam Jakus, also of Northwestern University, said in the press conference.
To test whether the grafts are safe to implant, the team placed hyperelastic “bone” under the skin of mice. The biomaterial is porous, which allowed the rodents’ blood vessels to quickly infiltrate the graft and incorporate it into the body without prompting a response from the immune system.
And when implanted into the spines of rats, the 3D printed grafts helped generate bone to help fuse and heal the animals’ vertebrae. It performed as well as treated tissue from a fellow rat, which is commonly used for bone grafting. It was also absorbent, meaning it could be laced with antibiotics or proteins that encourage bone to grow.
Finally, the team used hyperelastic “bone” to replace a weak, unhealthy piece of skull in a rhesus macaque. The surgeons weren’t sure how extensive the damage was, so the researchers printed a large graft for them to trim down to size in the operating room. This means that an implant could easily be tweaked at the last minute in people, too. After four weeks, the monkey’s skull had mended and filled the graft with blood vessels.
Other materials currently used in bone repair tend to be brittle and difficult for surgeons to manipulate. “Hyperelastic ‘bone,’ on the other hand, can be easily cut, rolled, folded, and sutured to tissue,” Shah said. “And since it is elastic, it can be pressed, fit into a defect, and expand to mechanically fix itself into a space without glue or sutures.” The biomaterial is also sturdy; when the team printed a segment of human femur, it could support loads up to 150 pounds before it buckled.
It’s not clear why these materials are so effective when printed this way. One possibility is that the grafts emulate natural bone, but not perfectly. “Cells might actually see it as maybe incomplete bone,” Jakus said. “So it spurs them even further to remodel it and make it into natural bone.”
He and his colleagues envision their new inks being useful for reconstructive and plastic surgery. The material could also prevent children from having to have later surgeries to replace ill-fitting grafts. “It is designed to degrade and remodel into natural bone, and therefore, it can grow with the patient,” Shah said.
The inks can be stored and then used to quickly print scaffolds at room temperature. “I think ideally it would be great if we could have these printers in a hospital setting where we can provide them the hyperelastic ‘bone’ ink and then they can then make patient specific implants that day—within 24 hours,” Shah said. She and her team hope to start clinical trials within five years.
Image copyright Getty Images Europe's only non-human primate, the Barbary Macaque, is expected to gain the highest level of species protection at the Cites meeting in Johannesburg.
While about 200 live safely on the Rock of Gibraltar, they are experiencing rapid decline in their natural habitats in North Africa.
Hundreds of infants are illegally taken from the wild each year for European pet markets.
It's believed __that countries will ban any form of trade in the species.
The Barbary Macaque seems to specialise in isolation. It's the only African primate species north of the Sahara and the only macaque species in Africa.
Experts estimate __that there are between 6,500 and 9,100 Barbary Macaques in fragmented populations strung across Morocco and Algeria. They were categorised as endangered in 2008 as their numbers plummeted by 50% in 24 years.
While destruction of habitat is a significant cause of their decline, another important factor is illegal trade.
About 200 infants are taken from the wild in Morocco each year. Some are used as photo props for tourists in North Africa. Most are bought by Europeans wanting to raise them as pets.
In Morocco, the animals sell for up to 450 euros each. In Europe they can fetch 2,000 euros.
"People actually think it will be a suitable pet, it isn't, it's horrible," said Rikkert Reijnen of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).
"They need a lot of attention, they basically wreck your house and as they grow older they start to follow their natural behaviour, which is sometimes aggressive."
Most end up in animal sanctuaries. Between 2001 and 2015, there were 545 reports of Barbary Macaques being rescued and sent to sanctuaries, mostly in France, Belgium and Spain. It's ironic that while the numbers in the wild are going down fast, the Macaque sanctuaries are over stocked.
So great is the concern about the impact of this pet trade on their survival that Morocco, supported by the EU, is asking the Cites meeting here to put the animals on Appendix I. It will be the first time in 30 years that Cites will consider increasing the level of protection for a monkey species.
"This Appendix I listing means that the animal gets more attention from the authorities," said Rikkert Reijnen.
"When an Appendix I-listed species starts coming in to your country illegally, the authorities start thinking twice. There are a lot of tortoises coming into Europe but it doesn't have that priority with law enforcement, so that Appendix I listing is critical in getting that priority."
With an estimated 3,000 Barbary Macaques kept as pets in Europe, the EU is keen to be seen to doing what it can to stamp out the trade.
MEP Gerben Jan Gerbrandy, is leading the European Parliament delegation to the Cites meeting and says that this is an important moment for the survival of the species.
"The adoption of the joint proposal from the EU and Morocco would be a key next step in protecting a species for which the EU is unfortunately a key destination market. Now we have to make sure that any agreement is properly and coherently enforced to the fullest effect. That is where the real difference will be made."
If the macaques are given increased protection, it may have some implications for Gibraltar. The population on the Rock has been kept around 200 through culling, something that has proved controversial in the past.
If the species is elevated to Appendix I it's likely that the populations would have to be controlled through contraception and other humane methods.
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Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016/© Yu Jun (China)
A dramatic photo of the total solar eclipse on March 9, 2016, has earned top honors in the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition this year.
Scroll down to see a gallery of winning photos.
The composite image spotlights a phenomenon known as Baily’s beads, in which “beads” of sunlight peek around the dark disc of the moon during a total solar eclipse. The picture beat out submissions from thousands of amateur and professional photographers from more than 80 countries ― and earned Chinese photographer Yu Jun a 10,000-pound ($13,000) prize.
“This is such a visually striking image, with its succession of fiery arcs all perfectly balanced around the pitch black circle of totality,” Dr. Marek Kukula, the public astronomer at the Greenwich Royal Observatory in England and one of the judges of the competition, said in a news release. “It’s even more impressive when you realize what it shows: the progress of a solar eclipse, all compressed into a single frame with consummate skill and precision.”
Now in its eighth year, the photo competition is run by the observatory in association with the London-based asset management firm Insight Investment and BBC’s Sky at Night magazine.
Other top images in the contest include a colorful composite of the star Sirius and a picture of the moon __that shows its rugged terrain in detail not seen in many conventional photos of our natural satellite.
The photos will be on display at the observatory’s Astronomy Centre from Sept. 17, 2016, through June 28, 2017 ― but you can just scroll down here to see some of the best.
- From Maurolycus to MoretusInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016A close-up view of the lunar landscape littered with craters and craterlets largely forged by the impact of meteors and asteroids. © Jordi Delpeix Borrell (Spain)
- City LightsInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016Star trails highlighting the movement of the Earth gently arc over the towering buildings in the bustling Quarry Bay neighborhood of Hong Kong. The light pollution in Hong Kong means __that only a few stars are generally visible in the night sky, but this photo shows you can still engage in some stargazing wherever you are in the world. © Wing Ka Ho (Hong Kong)
- Binary HazeInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016A misty morning in October on the Isle of Wight resembles an eerie scene from a science fiction film. The weather accentuates the brightness of Venus and the crescent moon. © Ainsley Bennett (UK)
- IridisInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016This composite image compares spectroscopy of two planetary nebulae – the Cat’s Eye Nebula above and the Ring Nebula below. Spectroscopy is used to analyze objects like stars and nebulae. It involves splitting the light from an object into individual colors, like when white light passes through a prism to form a rainbow. This image shows that different parts of the two nebulae give off different types of light. © Robert Smith (UK)
- Large Magellanic CloudInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016The Milky Way’s close neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud, showcases stars of all ages within its 14,000-light-year diameter. The Large Magellanic Cloud can sometimes be seen with the naked eye from the southern hemisphere, but it looks like a faint cloud rather than a huge galaxy. © Carlos Fairbairn (Brazil)
- Lunar ReversalInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016This innovative image of the moon has been inverted to bring out the intricate details of the rugged lunar landscape that we often miss in more traditional shots of our natural satellite. Veins and “splash marks” from the impacts of asteroids and meteorites are easily observed around the crater Copernicus. © Brendan Devine (USA, age 15)
- M94 Deep Space HaloInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016Discovered in 1781, Messier 94, or M94, is a distant spiral galaxy lying approximately 16 million light-years from Earth. It’s notable for its two-ringed structure. The shimmering pinks of the inner ring show star-forming activity. The photo also captures the often unseen galactic halo of M94, which is made up of stars, hot gases and dark matter. © Nicolas Outters (France)
- Serene SaturnInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016Saturn, the second largest planet in our solar system, appears with its famed rings. Storms are visible across the gas giant’s face, as is the mysterious “hexagon” at its north pole. © Damian Peach (UK)
- The Rainbow StarInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016The brightest star in our sky, Sirius, is often seen as a shining white star. But it can also flash with numerous colors as a result of turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere. The photographer, who had been searching for the best way to display these hues, finally hit upon the idea of videoing the star and then picking out the frames with the most striking colors. © Steve Brown (UK)
- Twilight AuroraInsight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016On the evening of the total solar eclipse of March 20, 2015, the people of Spitsbergen, Norway, were treated to a second natural light show in the form of the Aurora Borealis. At the time the photo was taken, the sun was shining 9 degrees below the horizon, meaning it was evening nautical twilight on the shore of the Greenland Sea. The Adventtoppen Mountain, standing 2,579 feet tall, towers in the background, as the Northern Lights spread across the night sky. © György Soponyai (Hungary)
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