Headlines and news that isn't circulating as much because of media attention on COVID-19

[Yoruka]

I'll start: There's been a discovery of a dinosaur the size of  a hummingbird.

[Guest]

Nintendo Online (Switch) is currently down.

[Guest]

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden argued in a room. Alone. 

 

 

A l o n e. 

[Yui-Drakon]

Vladimir Putin is almost officially becoming a dictator. Laws are being changed so he can stay in power.

[Andrea KF]

Ancient Rock Carvings were discovered in Corona-struck Iran.

[DuskFire]

3 hours ago, Phoenix the II said:

Nintendo Online (Switch) is currently down.

Wait what?

Why?

[kiaroskuro]

17 new planets have been discovered, including an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star (1000 light years away). It's three-weeks-old news though, so I don't know if it counts.

Man, I just realised how much I need to read non-viral news for once. Especially astronomy-related ones

[Zagadka]

We're still getting closer to a war with Iran (which is still suffering under medical sanctions btw). I lost the page with the actual headline, sorry.

[Rare Aztec Whstling Chickn]

9 hours ago, kiaroskuro said:

17 new planets have been discovered, including an Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of its star (1000 light years away). It's three-weeks-old news though, so I don't know if it counts.

Man, I just realised how much I need to read non-viral news for once. Especially astronomy-related ones

I saw an article the other day about a handful of minor planets lurking in the outer dark corners of the solar system by accident.

[Skycaptain]

The plunge in share prices, oil and commodities recently would normally be the banner headline 

[Zagadka]

They are passing a surveillance bill that watchdogs are screaming about but no one is covering. I'll try to find a link.

[Yoruka]

On 3/17/2020 at 4:06 PM, Yui-Drakon said:

Vladimir Putin is almost officially becoming a dictator. Laws are being changed so he can stay in power.

Post 2024 and I was really getting excited, huh.

[Zagadka]

The news on that privacy thing is that they want to ban end to end encryption via the EARN IT Act, which is bullshit.

[Unleash the Echidnas]

There's been a usual article string on ~25 ka radiocarbon dates obtained from the Kostenki 11 mammoth bone structure.

 

Quote

Kostenki 11 is therefore the second site with circular mammoth-bone features at which habitual wood burning has been identified using flotation, and in a context some 5000 years older. The charcoal data also add to a growing corpus of macrofossil evidence that indicates the survival of trees in mammoth steppe environments on the Central Russian Plain throughout the last glacial cycle (Tzedakis et al. 2013). The availability of deadwood fuel supplies is a prerequisite for many modern hunter-gatherers in high-latitude cold climates (Pryor et al. 2016). The presence of conifer trees near Kostenki—perhaps located in low-lying, moist and sheltered areas in the ravines near to the site—would have been an important resource that attracted hunter-gatherers to the area during the glacial period. These trees were perhaps critical to human persistence in this region, while other such areas of Northern Europe were abandoned.

 

[Andrea KF]

Colorado abolishes the death penalty:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/colorado-death-penalty-repeal.html

[Unleash the Echidnas]

Black eclipses, medieval manuscripts, ice cores, and tree rings. Awesome paper.

 

Climatic and societal impacts of a “forgotten” cluster of volcanic eruptions in 1108-1110 CE

Quote

Recently revised ice core chronologies for Greenland have newly identified one of the largest sulfate deposition signals of the last millennium as occurring between 1108 and 1113 CE. Long considered the product of the 1104 CE Hekla (Iceland) eruption, this event can now be associated with substantial deposition seen in Antarctica under a similarly revised chronology. This newly recognized bipolar deposition episode has consequently been deemed to reveal a previously unknown major tropical eruption in 1108 CE. Here we show that a unique medieval observation of a “dark” total lunar eclipse attests to a dust veil over Europe in May 1110 CE, corroborating the revised ice-core chronologies. Furthermore, careful evaluation of ice core records points to the occurrence of several closely spaced volcanic eruptions between 1108 and 1110 CE. The sources of these eruptions remain unknown, but we propose that Mt. Asama, whose largest Holocene eruption occurred in August 1108 CE and is credibly documented by a contemporary Japanese observer, is a plausible contributor to the elevated sulfate in Greenland. Dendroclimatology and historical documentation both attest, moreover, to severe climatic anomalies following the proposed eruptions, likely providing the environmental preconditions for subsistence crises experienced in Western Europe between 1109 and 1111 CE.

 

[Guest]

Little Richard has passed away. Oh, and Kim Jong Un is still alive. I think.

[Unleash the Echidnas]

Humboldt Penguins visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum

Quote

While we've been closed, we've still been actively caring for our animals, including adding enrichment experiences to stimulate their minds. Our friends at the The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art invited our Humboldt penguins for a morning of fine art and culture.

Spoiler

 

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

Graduate Student Solves Decades-Old Conway Knot Problem

Quote

It took Lisa Piccirillo less than a week to answer a long-standing question about a strange knot discovered over half a century ago by the legendary John Conway.

 

The question asked whether the Conway knot — a snarl discovered more than half a century ago by the legendary mathematician John Horton Conway — is a slice of a higher-dimensional knot. “Sliceness” is one of the first natural questions knot theorists ask about knots in higher-dimensional spaces, and mathematicians had been able to answer it for all of the thousands of knots with 12 or fewer crossings — except one. The Conway knot, which has 11 crossings, had thumbed its nose at mathematicians for decades.

 

Before the week was out, Piccirillo had an answer: The Conway knot is not “slice.” A few days later, she met with Cameron Gordon, a professor at UT Austin, and casually mentioned her solution.

 

“I said, ‘What?? That’s going to the Annals right now!’” Gordon said, referring to Annals of Mathematics, one of the discipline’s top journals.

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

Orange You Glad It’s Spring?

Quote

Near the western tip of the Mojave Desert and a few miles west of NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, fields of poppies colored the landscape a bright orange this spring. On April 14, 2020, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite acquired these images of vast blooms in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. These images were acquired when poppy flowers in the valley were thought to be at or near their peak.

 

[daveb]

I've been there (was several years ago, during poppy season). It is very pretty from the ground.

[Unleash the Echidnas]

New [Democratic Republic of the Congo] Ebola outbreak grows to 9 cases, 5 deaths

Quote

Three more cases have been reported in a new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC's) Equateur, and health officials have fleshed out more details about the cluster of cases.

 

The new outbreak is the DRC's 11th since 1976. In 2018, an 11-week outbreak in Equateur province sickened 54 people and led to 33 deaths. The VSV-EBOV vaccine was deployed, and the event was declared over on Jul 24, 2018. The outbreak in the eastern DRC started just 1 week later and has totaled 3,463 cases and 2,252 deaths.

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

Drones, ducks and loud music used in fight against locusts

Quote

Millions of desert locusts crossed into the state of Rajasthan in India from Pakistan at the beginning of May, continuing into Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

 

As field crops had recently been harvested, the locust swarms invaded urban areas, feeding on bushes and trees.

“Eight to 10 swarms, each measuring around one square kilometre, are active in parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh,” KL Gurjar, the deputy director of India’s Locust Warning Organization, told news agency AFP.

[...]

Early this year, Pakistan declared an emergency saying locust numbers were the worst in more than two decades.

 

FAO Desert Locust Bulletin: General Situation During May 2020 and Forecast Until mid-June 2020

Quote

The unprecedented Desert Locust threat to food security and livelihoods continues in the Horn of Africa and is likely to spread to southwest Asia and perhaps West Africa. Early migration of spring-bred warms from southwest Pakistan to Rajasthan, India occurred in May before the monsoon and some swarms continued to northern states for the first time since 1962. The swarms will oscillate east and westwards before returning to lay eggs with the onset of the monsoon in Rajasthan where successive waves of swarms will arrive from southern Iran in June and the Horn of Africa in July. Second-generation breeding is underway in northwest Kenya and numerous hopper bands have formed that will give rise to immature swarms from the second week of June until at least mid-July. A similar situation is underway in Somalia and Ethiopia. Most of the new swarms will migrate northwards from Kenya to Ethiopia and travers South Sudan to Sudan after mid-June while other swarms will move to northern Ethiopia. Swarms that reach northeast Somalia are likely to migrate across the northern Inidan Ocean to the Indo-Pakistan border area. Breeding is in progress in Yemen where swarms are likely to form, some of which could migrate to northern Somalia and northeast Ethiopia. Although summer rains have commenced in the south of Sudan, there is a risk that some swarms from Kenya and Ethiopia that arrive in Sudan could continue to eastern Chad and move further west.

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

A bit of legal backstory: the Haida never signed a treaty with Canada and haven't been shy about it.

 

Upholding Haida Law Amid COVID-19

Quote

Respecting Haida authority and jurisdiction, many local and off-Island businesses and operations are abiding by the Haida Gwaii SOE. As the COVID-19 global pandemic emerged, several sport fishing lodges made the choice to cease operations this year. The Council of the Haida Nation commends this respectful act made by Langara Island Lodge, Peregrine Lodge, Naden Lodge, Escott Sportfishing Lodge and Queen Charlotte Safaris.

 

There are, though, a select few sport fishing lodges planning to resume service this year. The Haida Nation’s current state of emergency does not permit any non-essential travel to Haida Gwaii, including the operation of fishing lodges, at this time.

 

Haida matriarchs occupy ancient villages in a message to fishing lodges that have reopened

Quote

“We’ve been very clear that this is not a protest, we’re exercising out traditional right to harvest.” Fourteen fishing boats went out on Friday, Young said.

 

The Haida Nation, like Indigenous peoples across the Americas, were decimated by smallpox and other diseases after Contact, so there is added sensitivity about non-residents coming onto their land during a pandemic. “We know in our history that was an introduction to rid the Haida Nation, rid the Haida Tribe,” Young said. “COVID-19, we know, is not an introduction to rid people, it’s a virus that happened and has detrimental effects for people.”

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

Prosecute the tourists who beat a seal unconscious in Kuryk, just to take a photo with it

Quote

"The Police Department has identified them. Respective Pre-trial investigation is currently underway against suspects under Article 316, Part 2 of the Criminal Code (animal cruelty)."

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

Ooo, pretty backburn.

 

Photos from the Cedar Fire, 15 miles south of Elko, Nevada

Quote

Firefighters hold a road on the Cedar Fire in Nevada, July 19, 2020. Photo: Mike McMillan/BLM Elko District.

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

Anatomy of a ‘mega-blaze’: As the first Black Summer inquiry prepares to report, we reveal the inside story of Australia’s biggest bushfire.

Quote

One of the untold stories of Gospers Mountain is how close the fire came to going out.

[...]

The Gospers Mountain fire alone was the biggest bushfire from a single ignition point in Australian history.

The mega-blaze is among the world’s 10 largest bushfires on record.

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

As Record Arctic Heat Continues, Canada’s Last Intact Ice Shelf Collapses

Quote

Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf in the Arctic has collapsed, shrinking by about 80 square kilometers, or 40 percent of its area, over just two days at the end of July, according to scientists at the Canadian Ice Service. The breakup of the ice was driven by record-setting temperatures in the region, which have measured 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 30-year average this summer.

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

Delightfully scathing, like reading a rippling broadside.

 

How a Popular Medical Device Encodes Racial Bias: Pulse oximeters give biased results for people with darker skin.

Quote

These concerns don’t end with clinical practice, either. Medicare reimbursement also uses pulse ox measures as key thresholds, with much less nuance than a nurse or doctor. At a reading of 88 or 89, Medicare will reimburse for oxygen at home, but at 90 it won’t. In effect, this means people with darker skin may have to be sicker in order to qualify for the same treatment as people white skin. This could lead to delays in recovery, worse outcomes, and greater likelihoods of future comorbidities as patients wait for the meter to catch up to bodily realities.

[...]

The UCSF studies provided an illuminating alternative model to correct such issues: by collecting data for equal-sized subgroups, they broke the numbers down to check whether it was equally safe for each group. This showed something the FDA study designs had worryingly missed: the most common oximeters in U.S. hospitals at the time did not meet FDA thresholds of safety for people with darker skin. When those data points get blended into mostly white statistics, the data may look fine. In this, the pulse ox is also a microcosm for the problems facing our democracy. Equal safety does not mean majority-fits-all.

 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

When you find a nice comfy rock to live under.

 

Life under quartz: Hypolithic mosses in the Mojave Desert

Quote

This study demonstrates that the desert hypolithic microenvironment provides conditions that support a different moss species composition and different growth patterns than the prevailing surface conditions. Our findings parallel those of prior work on microbial hypoliths that has also shown a community composition distinct from surrounding soils in terms of taxonomic abundance, but filtered from the regional pool of soil taxa by conditions unique to the hypolithic niche. Furthermore, this work expands upon our understanding of habitat partitioning and drivers of moss species diversity in desert environments. Our data suggest that in the western high elevation Mojave Desert, lower light, thermal buffering, and longer hydroperiods contribute to a higher representation of Tortula inermis and increased growth for the dominant moss Syntrichia caninervis in hypolithic microhabitats than on the soil surface.