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Ukrainian presidential adviser says deaths of civilians ‘the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego’

A senior Ukrainian official has accused Elon Musk of “committing evil” after a new biography revealed details about how the business magnate ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off near the Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships.

In a statement on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk owns, the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote that Musk’s interference led to the deaths of civilians, calling them “the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego”.

“By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian fleet via Starlink interference, @elonmusk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, and children are being killed,” Podolyak wrote.

“Why do some people so desperately want to defend war criminals and their desire to commit murder? And do they now realise that they are committing evil and encouraging evil?”

Musk defended his decision, saying he did not want his SpaceX company to be “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation”.

CNN on Thursday quoted an excerpt from the biography Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, which described how armed submarine drones were approaching a Russian fleet near the Crimean coast when they “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly”.

The biography, due out on Tuesday, alleges Musk ordered Starlink engineers to turn off the service in the area of the attack because of his concern that Vladimir Putin would respond with nuclear weapons to a Ukrainian attack on Russian-occupied Crimea.

Musk, who is also the CEO of the Tesla electric car company and SpaceX rocket and spacecraft manufacturer, initially agreed to supply Starlink hardware to Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion disrupted Ukrainian communications. But he reportedly had second thoughts after Kyiv succeeded in repelling the initial Russian assault and began to counterattack.

Musk has previously been embroiled in a social media spat with Ukrainian officials including the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, over his ideas for ending Russia’s invasion.

In October last year, Musk proposed a peace deal involving re-running under UN supervision annexation referendums in Moscow-occupied Ukrainian regions, acknowledging Russian sovereignty over the Crimean peninsula and giving Ukraine a neutral status.

“Preliminary analysis suggests that the reach and influence of Kremlin-backed accounts has grown further in the first half of 2023, driven in particular by the dismantling of Twitter’s safety standards.

The EU has also accused Musk’s X of allowing Russian propaganda about Ukraine to spread on its website.

A study released last week by the European Commission, the governing body of the European Union, found that “the reach and influence of Kremlin-backed accounts has grown further in the first half of 2023.”

The study said that the increased reach of Russian propaganda online was “largely driven by Twitter, where engagement grew by 36% after CEO Elon Musk decided to lift mitigation measures on Kremlin-backed accounts”.

Musk on Friday attempted to refute the EU study, writing on his social media platform: “Where is all this pro-Russian propaganda? We don’t see it.”

archive: https://archive.ph/wip/ENe3P

Spanish research centre achieves first tank-bred Atlantic bluefin as NGOs warn of poor welfare, more antibiotic use and water pollution

The first successful breeding of Atlantic bluefin tuna at a Spanish research centre has spurred at least two companies to ramp up plans for the industrial farming of land-bred tuna.

The companies would be the first to use only tank-bred Atlantic bluefin stocks of fertilised eggs or young tuna. Up to now, farming of Atlantic bluefin has relied on catching young wild fish and fattening them in open-sea cages.

After the breakthrough in July at the government-run Mazarrón aquaculture plant in Murcia, the company Next Tuna said it plans to begin building a tuna farm north of Valencia. Nortuna, a Norwegian company, has also signed a deal with Mazarrón for the firm’s pilot site in Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa.

Commercial aquaculture companies argue that as more fish are farmed from stocks in closed tanks, fewer wild Atlantic bluefins will be caught for fattening or immediate consumption, reducing pressure on sea stocks. However, many NGOs note that an increase in farmed tuna would mean more fish taken from oceans to feed them. They have also raised concerns about animal welfare, antibiotic use and water pollution.

Two other species, the Pacific and southern bluefin, have been successfully bred on land before, but until July no one had successfully reproduced Atlantic bluefin (Thunnus thynnus) from tank-based adults. Atlantic bluefin are highly prized for sushi, but their commercial importance has attracted overfishing and populations have plummeted by as much as 80% in some areas of the Atlantic Ocean.

Aurelio Ortega, who leads the research team at the Mazarrón centre, said: “We have about 2,000 or 3,000 tuna fish now. They weigh about 5g to 10g each, and they will take two to three years to reach a size of about 30kg to 40kg.”

Under the plans, the plant will supply fertilised eggs and juvenile tuna to the newly created commercial firms, which will either continue the breeding cycle on land, or use a combination of land-based tanks and sea cages.

NGOs said this will pitch companies into unknown territory, given how little is known about the bluefin species. Catalina López, a veterinarian and director of the Aquatic Animal Alliance at the Aquatic Life Institute, said: “Very little is known about [tuna] requirements for adequate welfare, as it is a highly migratory species with complex hunting behaviours and migration patterns.

“Without extensive scientific research on the welfare of tuna, it is irresponsible to farm them intensively, and could lead to many welfare issues [including] stress, frustration and, ultimately, poor immunity.”

Environmentalists have also noted that more tuna in captivity will mean diverting fish supplies that could be eaten by humans. Tuna, said López, are “a very unsustainable species to farm, since 90% of the species used for fish meal and fish oil are food grade, meaning it could feed humans directly”.

More tuna farming would also mean increased use of antibiotics, which intensive farmers typically employ to avoid diseases spreading, given the relatively poor immunity of farmed animals.

Nortuna and Next Tuna have signed contracts with the Mazarrón research centre, Ortega said. Both companies claim to have plentiful space, which would allow low densities of tuna in the tanks. However, according to Claudia Millán, a fish welfare specialist with the NGO Equalia, even spacious captivity may be incompatible with the needs of a migratory species that crosses oceans to find food and reproduce.

Inefficient feeding practices can also produce toxic wastewater, said Salazar. “Left untreated, [this wastewater] can deplete surrounding waters of oxygen, causing algal blooms [or] dead zones, and public health issues,” she said.

The new breeding successes mean the supply of fertilised eggs could expand outside the species’ natural reproductive season, normally limited to about 45 days in June and July. By controlling the natural spawning triggers of water temperature and lighting, the researchers said they hope the reproduction period could last for 60 or more days.

Other tools to induce breeding include implanting female fish with a synthetic version of a hormone that causes them to release eggs for fertilisation.

Paul Sindilariu, a co-founder of Next Tuna, said the company’s farming plan involved “a closed system that will bring in seawater, but there will be no outflow, so no environmental impacts”. He said the firm’s model, known as a recirculating aquaculture system, would use floating cages that are on, but not in, the sea, and this would allow the company to control the water quality and temperature conditions in a similar way to a laboratory.

“The system has to be tuna-friendly,” said Andrew Eckhardt, who manages site selection and financing for Next Tuna. “They have to be comfortable. Our stocking density will be very low, less than 10kg [of fish weight] per cubic metre.”

The company said it plans to establish its own breeding programme and sell young fish to “grow-out” farms for fattening and sale. It aims to bring its first stocks from the research centre tanks to the new site at the port of Castellón de la Plana next year, with the goal of selling about 45 tonnes of juvenile Atlantic bluefin tuna by 2025, and 1,200 tonnes by 2028.

Nortuna also said it would keep stocking densities low. The company’s chairman, Anders Attramadal, said one of the attractions of the pilot site in Cape Verde was space. He said the company aims to get fertilised eggs from the Mazarrón research centre this year in order to produce saleable fish weighing between 12kg and 30kg by late 2024.

“We would buy eggs every week if we could. Right now, we can only get a six-to-eight-week supply,” he said.

Attramadal dismissed concerns about food supply, saying farmed tuna ate less than wild ones. “With formulated food we expect to be getting down to 3kg to 4kg of feed per kilo of [farmed fish] muscle mass,” compared with about 30kg per kilo of muscle for wild Atlantic bluefin, he said.

Eckhardt said that although the main food for the tuna would be fishmeal and fish oil, Next Tuna would be “working with our feed partners to add other ingredients, maybe plant proteins, algae, insects or krill”.

Nortuna said antibiotic usage would be minimal, only for brief periods if fish are sick, while Next Tuna said it would not use any antibiotics at all because they are incompatible with its recirculating aquaculture model.

Welfare experts said another problem with captive tuna was how to kill large, strong fish in a humane way. Recommended tuna-killing methods include shooting or stabbing heads with a metal spike, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health.

Next Tuna said it would sell young fish before slaughter, while Attramadal said Nortuna would “use the best humane approved methods that apply at the time”, adding that a “stressed, uncomfortable fish tastes less delicious”. According to a 2009 European Food Safety Authority report, when “Atlantic bluefin tuna struggle to escape before dying, they produce considerable amounts of lactic acid … resulting in severe degradation of the flesh, [making them] unsuitable for the sushi and sashimi market”.

archive: https://archive.ph/BAE0i

A striking purple species is one piece of the fungal kingdom’s uncharted diversity

Deep in eastern Brazil's Atlantic Forest, a team of biologists spotted a fuzzy purple stalk protruding from the leaf litter on the ground. Following the spore-covered body down into the soil, they found a mummified spider swaddled in fungal filaments called hyphae.

One of the mycologists, João Araújo, immediately recognized the purple protrusion as a new, undocumented species of predatory fungus belonging to the genus Purpureocillium. Spores from these fungi latch onto and kill their insect or arachnid prey—and then a fruiting body bursts from the corpse to spread more spores.

Purpureocillium species share many similarities with those of their sister genus Ophiocordyceps, which includes the “zombifying” fungi that hijack the bodies of their insect prey and are featured in the apocalyptic television show and video game The Last of Us. Araújo, who works for the New York Botanical Garden, has dedicated his career to discovering new species in this intriguing evolutionary group. “Many of these specimens we collect are new species,” he says. “We know so little about them.”

The “beautiful, velvety” purple specimen would be only the seventh species of Purpureocillium discovered, says Jennifer Luangsa-ard, a mycologist at Thailand's National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. These fungi are found across the world and include one species that causes eye and skin infections in immunocompromised people. Scientists know surprisingly little about the fungal kingdom despite its importance for our health, food and environment; according to conservative estimates, only 10 percent of species have been identified, Luangsa-ard says. “We need more people looking for the missing taxa,” she adds. There's “still a lot to be discovered.”

The wild popularity of The Last of Us may lead people to spot new species, which are often hiding in plain sight, Araújo says. He adds that a naturalist recently spotted two potential species of Ophiocordyceps infecting ants at a nature preserve in Pennsylvania, a short drive from Araújo's laboratory. This discovery may allow his team to closely study the still mysterious ways these fungi manipulate and kill their prey.

archive link: https://archive.ph/ytEKh

A US B-2 Spirit bomber recently carried out a historic hot pit refueling at Orland Air Base, Norway, marking the first landing of the stealth bomber in the Scandinavian nation.

As per the US Air Force statement, the event occurred on August 29 and serves as a symbol of the joint commitment between the United States and Norway to deter potential threats and enhance the NATO Alliance.

Hot-pit refueling is an efficient technique employed to minimize aircraft downtime and enhance overall reliability. Instead of shutting down the aircraft’s engines after landing and parking, the aircrew keeps an engine operational while refueling takes place. This method ensures a continuous and streamlined refueling process.

The service said that the practice of hot pit refueling within NATO nations enables the B-2 to expand its fuel range while minimizing its downtime on the ground, ultimately enhancing the capacity to bolster combat airpower across the European theater for the United States and its allied partners.

According to Gen. James Hecker, who leads US Air Forces in Europe & Africa and NATO Allied Air Command, hot-pit refueling is evolving as a transformative tactic in bomber operations, offering increased adaptability.

This clever technique expands USAF’s operational reach, establishing temporary hubs at strategically selected and sometimes unexpected locations. These flexible capabilities form the cornerstone of modern airpower projection.

The B-2, one of three Spirit bombers stationed at Whiteman Air Base in Missouri, has been deployed to Iceland’s Keflavik Air Base. Simultaneously, a contingent of roughly 150 skilled airmen from the 509th Bomb Wing was dispatched on August 13 to lend invaluable support to this vital overseas mission.

This mission holds special significance as it marks the first return of the aircraft to the European theater following their last deployment to the continent in 2021.

These aircraft were temporarily grounded for five months starting in December due to safety concerns triggered by a fire incident involving one of the bombers.

In their current European assignment, the B-2 bombers are engaging in extensive training exercises alongside NATO and US Air Force units, although the precise duration of their stay remains unknown.

US Bomber Missions In Europe
In recent years, the strategic importance of operations in the High North has surged, exemplified by the deployment of B-2 stealth bombers to this region.

This heightened significance is linked to the evolving landscape of climate change, which potentially foresees the opening of an Arctic passage during the summer months in the not-so-distant future.

Simultaneously, uncertainties have arisen concerning the security of Northern Europe due to the profound impact of events in the Ukraine conflict and the incorporation of Finland and Sweden into NATO.

Considering this perspective, the US Air Force highlighted the paramount importance of US forces and equipment seamlessly operating alongside its Allies and Partners, recognizing that this synergy is essential for strengthening an expansive network of alliances and partnerships capable of effectively addressing both current and future challenges.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Andrew Kousgaard, 393rd Expeditionary Bomb Squadron commander, said, “The long-range, penetrating strike the B-2 provides is a truly unique capability in the world, but long-range requires a lot of gas.”

“Honing our ability to interoperate with our allies and utilize partner-nation equipment and infrastructure to refuel can significantly reduce what we often call our ‘tanker bill;’ in some cases, it could be the difference between mission success and failure,” Kousgaard said.

The brief mission to Norway also aligns with the US Air Force’s ongoing commitment to exercise its agile combat employment concept, which aims to strategically reposition aircraft and airmen across various airfields to prevent them from becoming static targets in the event of a large-scale conflict.

In June, a pair of B-1B Lancer bombers from Texas made history by landing at Sweden’s Lulea Kallax Air Base during their deployment at RAF Fairford in England.

Since 2018, the United States has been conducting strategic bomber missions in Europe with the primary objective of acquainting their crews with the region, as well as nurturing relationships with NATO allies and partners.

Overall, the service believes that the greater their ability to seamlessly integrate forces and equipment for strategic maneuvering across Europe, the better prepared they become to effectively confront security challenges, both in the present and in the years ahead.

archive link: https://archive.ph/vzNsY

Satellite imagery and firsthand accounts show the damage wrought when Chinese authorities opened floodgates and dams this month, sacrificing whole villages to spare politically important cities.

When the remnants of Typhoon Doksuri battered northern China this month, dumping the most rain on Beijing since records began in 1883, it wasn’t only the capital that was threatened. The extreme weather also posed a severe risk to Xiong’an New Area, a sprawling development more than twice the size of New York City.

Xiong’an is a pet project of Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader in decades, who declared that it would be a “city of the future” — a “socialist modern metropolis” far beyond the imagination of Western capitals.

Officials jumped into action, pledging to protect the capital and Xiong’an — under construction for the past six years — at all costs. Authorities began using a network of dams and reservoirs starting July 30 to discharge water from overflowing rivers into seven designated flood zones in Hebei, the province surrounding Beijing. It was the region’s largest effort to control flooding in 60 years.

Hebei’s Communist Party secretary said the province would “resolutely serve as the moat” for the capital. Officials also pledged to protect the port city of Tianjin, population 15 million, to the east and the new Daxing international airport to the south.

Visual evidence and firsthand accounts gathered by The Washington Post show that, while the effort diverted water away from Xiong’an and other urban areas, it directly contributed to the devastation of rural villages in Hebei, destroying homes and livelihoods. Satellite images reveal that authorities’ actions led to a dramatic increase of water across those areas, covering at least 95 square miles — almost 46,000 football fields. In one of the clearest examples, more than 20 square miles of farmland near Xiong’an’s high-speed railway station were still underwater on Aug. 5.

The idea that rural areas are better suited to take the brunt of flooding dates to as early as the 1950s and 1960s, when most of the country’s flood zones — areas that are deliberately flooded to absorb excess water — were built. But such areas are no longer as sparsely populated as they once were. Local governments have allowed towns in designated flood zones to grow, despite regulations meant to control the number of residents living there.

“Is it the government’s fault or is it the people’s fault for moving back to these places?” said Wang Weiluo, an engineer and expert on China’s water system who is based in Germany. “It’s the government’s. All those people were given approvals to build their homes there. They’re the government’s rules and they didn’t enforce them.”

These areas would have experienced some degree of flooding, given the historic amounts of rainfall last month. But experts believe it was made worse by the authorities who opened floodgates on dams, releasing more than 1 trillion gallons of water — equivalent to 1.6 million Olympic swimming pools — into nearby villages and farmland.

“They chose to protect some so-called important areas and abandon some so-called not important areas. It’s a political decision,” Wang said.

Some residents in these areas interviewed by The Post said they weren’t aware that they lived in flood storage zones. Others said government flood control staff didn’t notify them before their homes were inundated and all their belongings destroyed.

It may never be known how many people died or were displaced as a result of these decisions, but at least 29 people in Hebei perished during the flooding. About 1.75 million people were relocated, including more than 900,000 from zones where houses were flooded. The economic damage totaled $13 billion in a province where rural incomes are less than a quarter of incomes in Beijing.

China’s Ministry of Water Resources and the Hebei Water Resources Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Authorities knew of risks to villages
As the rain hammered China’s northeast at the end of July, waters surged down the Baigou and South Juma rivers toward Xiong’an. Hebei flood control authorities quickly shut the Baigouyin Gate, stopping the deluge from reaching a lake in Xiong’an. Hundreds of workers, toiling in the rain to reinforce levees and dams, vowed not to let “a drop of water” enter the development.

Other dams were opened to push floodwaters east toward farmland and villages in the county of Bazhou — the “vegetable basket” of the region. They were soon submerged.

“My home is gone. My factory equipment is destroyed. Many people still need to pay mortgages and car loans, and their children’s tuition fees,” said a factory manager in Renzhuangzi village in Bazhou county, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution from local authorities. “Of course I’m angry.”

A wider analysis of the Bazhou area showed approximately 55 square miles of additional surface water remained in the area near Bazhou on Aug. 5, according to imagery analyzed by Samira Daneshgar Asl, a remote sensing scientist with the geospatial research firm ESRI.

The following week, Hebei’s party secretary, Ni Yuefeng — the same one who pledged to use his province as a moat for Beijing — visited the diversion system by the Baigouyin dam and held a meeting on the flood efforts. Applauding the cadres who protected Xiong’an, he said that “under the strong leadership” of Xi, they had protected the “project of the millennium,” he said.

Public documents reviewed by The Post showed that central and local government water officials should have been well aware of long-standing problems in Hebei’s flood management system that may have added to the damage.

As many as 70 percent of the dikes in the Hai River Basin, which encompasses Hebei, are prone to collapse, according to a report released in April from the Haihe Water Conservancy, part of the central government’s Ministry of Water Resources.

A 2021 Hebei government document said the “slow progress” building emergency safety structures like flood barriers, shelters and elevated platforms would cause “serious losses” if the flood zones were to be used.

Residents have made their anger as clear. Dozens of people gathered outside Bazhou government offices on Aug. 5 in a rare protest. They unfurled a long red banner with white writing that read: “Give back our homes. It was clearly water being discharged yet you still said it was the rain.”

Sacrificing part for the whole
Upstream from Xiong’an, in the village of Dongmaying, which was suddenly flooded on Aug. 3, residents were confused — and later angry — about why their homes were suddenly drenched when it had stopped raining two days before in that area.

“This wasn’t normal waterlogging. It was water being discharged. We live in a flood storage zone so we are expendable if it means protecting Beijing and Xiong’an,” said Zhang, a resident, who spoke on the condition that her full name not be used.

“There used to be no Xiong’an New Area. Now, we could be flooded at any time,” she said.

About 31 square miles of additional surface water remained in Dongmaying on Aug. 5, according to SAR imagery analyzed by Daneshgar Asl. At least 113,000 people had to be evacuated from the wider area.

Others, unaware their villages could be intentionally flooded, said they weren’t given any advance warning. One 70-year-old resident and his 64-year-old wife living in Zhuozhou, in another flood zone, had no time to prepare when floodwaters reached the second floor of their house on Aug. 2. The couple escaped to the roof and waited six hours until a neighbor passing by in a fishing boat rescued them.

“Even as the water was coming into our home, we didn’t hear a word. The government here isn’t doing anything,” said the resident, who spoke on the condition that his full name not be used out of concern for his security for criticizing authorities.

The Chinese Communist Party has set out a clear pecking order in the case of flooding. During floods in Hebei in 1996, the provincial party secretary said Beijing and Tianjin were top priority, then came railroads and oil fields. Last were the people, who would “absorb the danger and losses” for their country.

It seems little has changed. As these areas flooded on Aug. 1, a newspaper operated by China’s Ministry of Water Resources said, “It’s inevitable that you sacrifice one part for the sake of the whole.”

“The principle of flood control is to minimize losses,” Zhang Jianyun, director of the Climate Change Research Center of the Ministry of Water Resources, told a state-affiliated outlet this month. “It’s necessary to protect big cities because the cost of flooding is very high. After the flood recedes, farmland can be replanted and the loss is relatively small.”

But the losses are no longer small. Both Bazhou and Zhuozhou are home to more than half a million people, and they have been allowed to expand despite regulations stipulating growth be controlled and residents from frequently used flood zones be relocated. The population of Bazhou is now 45 percent higher than in 1996, while in Zhuozhou, it’s up one-quarter.

The episode has created a challenge for the Chinese leadership as it faces the country’s worst economic prospects in four decades, with residents demanding to know why they were deemed less important.

Weeks after the floods, protesters were still gathering in Bazhou, demanding compensation from the government. Online, people continue to vent: “To protect the big cities, you sacrifice the towns. To protect the cities, you sacrifice the countryside,” one user wrote recently on the microblog Weibo. “This is privilege manifested.”

archive link: https://archive.ph/vibbO

Bill Gates discussed the importance of plant-based meat alternatives with Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson on the latest episode of his podcast, "Unconfuse Me."

Bill Gates has spent years, and billions of dollars, working to combat climate change.

The billionaire’s foundation has invested vast sums in various climate tech solutions while regularly raising the alarm about the leading contributors to climate change, like the greenhouse gas emissions stemming from major energy and manufacturing companies burning fossil fuels at prodigious rates.

But, according to Gates, most people are still unaware of the role played by one of the biggest contributors to climate change: agriculture, specifically methane emissions from livestock and fertilizers.

“Of all the climate areas, the one that people are probably least aware of is all the fertilizer and cows, and that’s a challenge,” Gates recently said on the latest episode of his podcast, “Unconfuse Me.”

The topic came up because Gates was in conversation with musician and director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, who, like Gates, also happens to be an early investor in several plant-based food startups, such as Impossible, NotCo and Neutral Foods.

Thompson, who is from Philadelphia, even recently partnered with Impossible to create a plant-based cheesesteak that counts former president Barack Obama as a fan, he told Gates.

Thompson told Gates he was won over by plant-based foods’ ability to mimic the taste of real meat, among other products: “Something told me plant-based is going to be the future … and I want to be the person that plants the seed,” he said.

While plant-based foods have won support from those looking for alternatives to products made from animals, Gates said that he started backing plant-based food ventures because of their potential to combat climate change.

“I came to it more from that climate angle,” he said.

Gates has pointed out in the past that the agricultural industry contributes roughly 24% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, with much of that stemming from methane emissions from livestock and fertilizer used to cultivate crops, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In fact, if cattle “were a country,” Gates wrote in 2018, “they would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases [in the world].”

In his 2021 book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” Gates wrote that effectively combating climate change will take people being willing to commit to new ideas, like switching to electric cars and synthetic meats.

That same year, Gates argued that wealthy countries that have the resources to do so “should move to 100% synthetic beef” in order to meaningfully reduce global emissions from livestock, he told the MIT Technology Review.

“You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time,” he said at the time. “Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.”

Plant-based meat sales still represent just a small percentage of the total meat market, and even Gates admits it will be difficult to convince enough people to stop eating real meat to make a significant difference.

One issue is that the still relatively new products are currently more expensive than real meats. Still, Gates has a positive outlook that plant-based meat companies will continue to improve their products, and reduce their costs, helping them to eventually become more popular.

That’s why Gates and his foundation have financially backed plant-based and lab-grown meat startups such as Impossible, Beyond Meat, Neutral Foods and Upside Foods. Speaking to Thompson about the plant-based meat startups, like Impossible, Gates said that “they’re doing well, but a lot of people want him to make [the product] even slightly better.”

“They have a good roadmap, so I’m optimistic,” he said.

archive link: https://archive.is/wip/F9QpM

A recent study argues that scientists overly reliant on remote sensing and models miss important details about wet weather events, potentially affecting Earth systems models and scientific understanding. They advocate for direct, on-the-ground observations to improve data accuracy, inspire creativity, and enrich environmental education.

To be outstanding in one’s field, one may need to be out standing in one’s field.

An interdisciplinary research team led by John T. Van Stan from Cleveland State University argues that scientists should venture beyond the laboratory to directly observe weather phenomena like rain, snow, or occult deposition. In a paper published in the journal BioScience, the researchers contend that hands-on observation of storm events is crucial for comprehending the complexities of wet weather and its diverse impacts on the environment.

Recently, Van Stan and colleagues noted a trend in the scientific community towards relying on remote sensing to study storms and their consequences: “Natural scientists seem increasingly content to stay dry and rely on remote sensors and samplers, models, and virtual experiments to understand natural systems. Consequently, we can miss important stormy phenomena, imaginative inspirations, and opportunities to build intuition—all of which are critical to scientific progress.”

This type of “umbrella science,” they warn, can miss important localized events. For instance, in describing rainwater’s flow from the forest canopy to the soils, the authors note that “if several branches efficiently capture and drain stormwaters to the stem, rainwater inputs to near-stem soils can be more than 100 times greater.”

The authors also point out that important phenomena like low-lying fog events, vapor trapped beneath forest canopies, and condensate plumes may escape remote detection, yet be sensible to scientists on the ground. At the broader scale, these oversights can affect Earth systems models, which often underestimate canopy water storage. They argue that these errors may represent a “large potential bias in surface temperatures simulated by Earth systems models.”

Direct observation, however, has merits beyond remedying the shortcomings of “umbrella science.” Van Stan and colleagues see intrinsic value in firsthand storm experiences – not only for natural scientists, but also students studying climate change impacts on ecosystems. They claim that this immersive method enhances understanding, incites curiosity, and strengthens bonds with nature, thereby enriching environmental education, inspiring research, and preparing the future scientific community.

archive link: https://archive.is/dMyrZ

After a live roundworm was found in the brain of an Australian woman, we take a look at other unusual cases of parasites turning up unexpectedly and explore how worried we should be.

Beetles
A tune by the homophonous band might give you an earworm, but an infestation of beetle larvae can cause a disease known as canthariasis.

Researchers in China reported such a case in 2016 in an eight-month-old girl with an underdeveloped immune system who had an irritable feeling. She was initially described as having worms in her stool, but further investigation revealed the creatures to be larvae of Lasioderma serricorne, commonly known as the cigar beetle.

The team say the beetle’s eggs could have been swallowed when the girl had contact with mud or ate oranges, which she had recently consumed.

While rare – the authors say their report is the first such case – they note such an infestation could be serious.

“This report implicates that L serricorne can infest human accidentally and cause canthariasis that may lead to severe damage to infant and older patient upon involvement of important organs of the body,” the team wrote.

Eye worms
In another stomach-turning first, a woman in Oregon was discovered to have a type of eye worm previously only seen in cattle in 2018. The worm larvae are picked up and spread by flies that feed on cow tears.

After horse riding in Gold Beach in an area where cattle are farmed, the woman, 26, experienced a week of eye irritation. The cause was discovered when she pulled a small worm from her left eye. She sought medical help, and 14 worms were subsequently removed, most of them by the patient herself.

The tiny worms, each less than a centimetre (half an inch) long, were found to be of a species called Thelazia gulosa.

Dr Richard Bradbury, the lead author of the study that reported the case and who works with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of parasitic diseases and malaria, said at the time that the infection was rare.

“Infections from Thelazia worms mostly happen in animals and humans are just incidental hosts,” he said. “This is incredibly interesting and I’m sure it might make some people squeamish, but it’s not something people should worry about.”

Rat lungworm
Graham McCumber, 24, ended up in hospital in Hawaii experiencing joint stiffness, fatigue and nausea after eating kale from his garden. The cause, it turned out, was rat lungworm, a parasite prevalent in south-east Asia and tropical Pacific islands.

The adult worm lives only in rodents, but its larvae can infect creatures including slugs, snails and freshwater shrimp. Should these intermediate hosts be eaten by humans, the larvae can cause angiostrongyliasis, a disease that affects the brain and spinal cord.

McCumber survived, but he was not alone. There have also been reports of people becoming infected with rat lungworm after swallowing snails for a dare. Some cases are mild but others can be fatal.

Experts say the disease can be prevented by washing and cooking vegetables, snails, crabs or shrimp thoroughly, checking vegetables for snails and slugs and avoiding eating raw vegetables where the parasite is prevalent.

Maggots
Infestation with maggots, known as myiasis, is rare in the UK and US, but it has been found in people who had travelled to tropical and subtropical areas.

In one case, doctors removed three live botflies, each two centimetres in size, from a woman’s eye, arm and neck. The 32-year-old American had experienced a swollen eye for four weeks after visiting the Amazon rainforest.

Tapeworms
Parasites can be a real headache, as a 50-year-old man in Britain discovered when doctors found a tapeworm in his brain.

The patient had been experiencing headaches, seizures, memory flashbacks and strange smells for four years before doctors removed the worm in 2012, revealing it had burrowed from one side of his brain to the other.

The worm was discovered after MRI scans revealed an unusual cluster of rings that were found to be moving through his brain. Scientists subsequently revealed it to be a type of tapeworm known as Spirometra erinaceieuropaei, which is typically found in amphibians and crustaceans in China.

Doctors behind the discovery said the man had probably picked up the parasite when visiting China, possibly through contaminated meat or water.

Dr Hayley Bennett, who worked on the case, said at the time: “Humans are a rare and accidental host for this particular worm.”

Even more bizarre is the discovery by experts in 2015 that when tapeworms get what looks like cancer, their human host can develop tumours.

The discovery was made after scientists in the US were asked to investigate biopsies from lung tumours and lymph nodes taken from a 41-year-old man who had HIV. The team found cancer-like cells, but revealed they were not human. Instead they were from a common type of tapeworm called Hymenolepis nana.

Dr Peter Olson of the Natural History Museum in London, who worked on the case, said such situations were very rare and only found in patients who are heavily immunocompromised.

archive link: https://archive.is/Sg2eV

Without proven treatments, many people are still sick.

Since August 2020, David Putrino, director of rehabilitation innovation at New York’s Mount Sinai Health System, has helped treat more than 3,000 people with Long COVID. These patients, in his experience, fit into one of three groups.

A small number, no more than 10%, have stubborn symptoms that don’t get better, no matter what Putrino and his team try. A big chunk see some improvement, but remain sick. And about 15% to 20% report full recovery—an elusive benchmark that Putrino greets with cautious optimism.

“I call it ‘fully recovered for now,’” Putrino says, since lots of people’s symptoms eventually come back, sometimes if they catch COVID-19 again, which can land them back at square one.

Putrino’s outlook isn’t purposely gloomy; it’s one informed by the difficult realities of treating Long COVID, a condition with no known cure and is defined by long-lasting symptoms following a case of COVID-19. More than 200 symptoms are associated with Long COVID, commonly including fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, intolerance to exercise, chronic pain, and more. Millions of people around the world have developed Long COVID, and an uncertain number have completely recovered.

“It’s really hard to tell” exactly how many people get over their symptoms entirely, says Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis who researches Long COVID. “But anecdotally, from clinical experience, the majority unfortunately don’t.”

Who gets better?
Zeroing in on the Long COVID recovery rate is a work in progress, but two recent reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest remission is possible.

One, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, found that roughly 6% of U.S. adults currently have Long COVID, down from about 7.5% in the summer of 2022. The other found that many people’s symptoms disappear over time. A year post-infection, people who’d had COVID-19 were roughly as likely to have lingering symptoms as people who’d had other respiratory illnesses, the researchers found. That tracks with a January 2023 study in the BMJ, which found people who develop Long COVID after mild initial illnesses can expect most symptoms to improve within a year.

Other researchers, however, have come to less optimistic conclusions. In an August study published in Nature Medicine, Al-Aly and his team found people who’d had mild COVID-19 remained at increased risk of more than 20 Long COVID symptoms—including fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, and pulmonary issues—two years later. People whose COVID-19 was severe enough that they were hospitalized were at increased risk of more than 50 health problems two years later.

The findings reflect “the arduous, protracted road to recovery" for some people who catch COVID-19, Al-Aly says—a road that many people with Long COVID are still on, according to research posted online in July as a not-yet-peer-reviewed preprint. In a group of 341 people with Long COVID, only about 8% had fully recovered after two years of follow-up, co-author Dr. Lourdes Mateu and her colleagues found.

How can multiple studies on the same topic reach such different conclusions? The way they’re designed can make a difference, Putrino says. Some Long COVID research uses data drawn from patients’ health records. In these studies, Putrino says, researchers sometimes assume symptoms have resolved if someone stops coming in for care. But there are lots of other reasons someone might stop seeing their doctor: financial constraints, frustration that treatments aren’t working, health declining to the point that leaving home becomes difficult, and so on.

“Recovery” can also be defined differently. Is it a complete resolution of symptoms, or improving enough that someone can function despite their ill health? Once researchers start splitting those hairs, Al-Aly says, they often find that someone “didn’t really recover; they adjusted to a new baseline.”

For that reason, research that takes into account patients’ own perceptions of their symptoms and recovery is important. That’s what Mateu and her team did. For two years, they tracked Long COVID patients who’d sought care at a hospital in Badalona, Spain, periodically asking about their symptoms during face-to-face visits and performing secondary diagnostic tests when necessary. With that level of scrutiny, Mateu says, the vast majority of patients did not meet their definition of recovery: the resolution of all persistent symptoms for at least three consecutive months.

Granted, the patients in Mateu’s study were a specific group. Most were infected before vaccines (which have been shown to be somewhat, though not entirely, protective against Long COVID) were available and they were all sick enough to seek care at a hospital-based Long COVID clinic. Counterintuitively, however, the people in the study who were originally sickest—those who were admitted to the ICU when they had acute COVID-19—were more likely to recover within two years than people with milder initial illnesses, Mateu says.

In some cases, Mateu says, people with severe COVID-19 are left with issues that are significant but have better prognoses than Long COVID, such as post-intensive care syndrome. People who develop Long COVID after mild illnesses, by contrast, can be more vexing. Their test results may come back pristine yet their health remains poor, making it difficult for doctors to determine what to treat and how.

NIH is studying possible treatments
The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently launched clinical trials focused on potential treatments, but it’s not yet clear if any will succeed and less likely any will work for all Long COVID patients, since the condition’s symptoms can look different from person to person. The NIH will test various therapies in patients with specific symptom clusters—offering brain training for those with cognitive dysfunction, for example, and wakefulness drugs for those with sleep issues—rather than across the board.

As of now, there is no one-size-fits-all treatment for Long COVID, nor any treatment guaranteed to work at all. Each time a new patient enters their clinic, Putrino and his team start from the ground up, doing a comprehensive analysis of the individual's health in hopes of finding a problem that may respond to drugs, supplements, nerve stimulation, or other tools.

Sometimes this approach works better than others; sometimes it doesn’t work at all. The rarity of complete recovery, Putrino says, underscores how desperately Long COVID sufferers need more extensive treatment trials, and fast.

“I feel time pressure with these patients,” Putrino says. “Every second that we’re not testing something new or trying something that’s a moonshot for these patients, they’re getting worse.”

archive link: https://archive.is/EKcy0

Soft landing achieved.