Category: Science and Stuff,

How this mysterious structure buried in the sand is now shedding light on Nova Scotia’s history

On By peanutgallerynhIn Science and Stuff,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Campbell said initial results indicate a fishing stage or wharf, built sometime in the 17th to 18th century, suggesting either early Acadian settlers or fishers from Massachusetts.

…Digs at the site also yielded red roofing tiles, similar to those found off the Iberian Peninsula of southern Europe, as well as along the North Atlantic coast.

“That could be pointing toward an earlier occupation than the 17th century … but the cultures associated would most likely be Portuguese, Basque or Spanish.”

“To me, we’ve already changed the understanding of the area,” she said. “I walk on the Hawk now and I think, ‘Who has walked here before?

…I share this connection of this land with somebody and I’d like to know who.”

How this mysterious structure buried in the sand is now shedding light on Nova Scotia’s history | CBC News

hmmm

Sanders’s Climate Ambitions Thrill Supporters. Experts Aren’t Impressed.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Bernie Sanders’s $16 trillion vision for arresting global warming would put the government in charge of the power sector and promise that, by 2030, the country’s electricity and transportation systems would run entirely on wind, solar, hydropower or geothermal energy.

…The federal government to build and generate renewable energy, and sell it to publicly owned distribution systems, with preferential prices for utilities that pledge to break themselves of fossil fuels.

….Mr. Sander’s plan envisions expanding the four existing federal agencies that market electric power …[and] create a fifth such agency that would spend $1.52 trillion on developing renewable energy and another $852 billion on technology like advanced batteries to store energy for days when the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow.

…Congress would have to create and fund these new entities, a heavy lift even with a Congress in Democratic control.

…Economists said, his climate plan fails to consider his larger agenda, such as the new infrastructure projects in his economic plan that would create a burst of new emissions. High-speed rail, wind turbines and mass transit need steel and concrete, the production of which requires energy.

…[Oppenheimer] said he was disappointed that Mr. Sanders no longer supported a carbon tax, a position he embraced in 2016. Economists say a fee on the burning of fossil fuels is the most efficient way to drive down global warming, but Mr. Sanders says that would not work quickly enough.

…Other analysts criticized Mr. Sanders’s rejection of nuclear energy and technology to capture and store carbon emissions. His plan calls both of those “false solutions” to climate change and calls for a moratorium on the renewal of nuclear power plant licenses.

Yet nuclear power currently accounts for 20 percent of the nation’s energy mix and more than half of its carbon-free power. Allowing aging plants to close would likely mean that natural gas, a fossil fuel, would fill the void and emissions would rise.

…Mr. Sanders is not a newcomer to the climate issue; he has spent decades fighting, largely unsuccessfully, for ambitious legislation to increase clean energy, reduce carbon emissions, and end fossil fuel subsidies. He distinguished himself in the 2016 Democratic primaries by calling for a tax on carbon emissions and declaring global warming a national emergency.

…Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist, said Mr. Sanders was more focused on signaling his ambitions to the party’s liberal wing than sweating policy details.

“People who care about these issues want a warrior,” Mr. Payne said. “Whether or not the battle plans they draw up exactly check out is kind of beside the point.” [emphasis: Peanut Gallery]

Sanders’s Climate Ambitions Thrill Supporters. Experts Aren’t Impressed. – The New York Times

hmmm

Leaked Trump Administration Memo: Keep Public in Dark About How Endangered Species Decisions Are Made

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Environment,Leave a comment

In a Trump administration memorandum leaked to the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is directing its staff to withhold, or delay releasing, certain public records about how the Endangered Species Act is carried out. That includes records where the advice of career wildlife scientists may be overridden by political appointees in the Trump administration.

…The memo recommends that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service limit the information released to the public for decisions regarding species protected under the Endangered Species Act. It provides a list of types of records for agency staff to withhold, including drafts of policies and rules, briefing documents and decision meeting notes and summaries.

The agency has already implemented aspects of this guidance in actions like the Keystone XL pipeline construction lawsuit, and in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision last year to prematurely remove endangered species protection from Yellowstone grizzly bears, as the memo confirms.

Leaked Trump Administration Memo: Keep Public in Dark About How Endangered Species Decisions Are Made – EcoWatch

Agggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh

When did societies become modern? ‘Big history’ dashes popular idea of Axial Age

On By peanutgallerynhIn Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Around the middle of the first millennium BC, humanity passed through a psychological watershed and became modern. This ‘Axial Age’ transformed an archaic world of divine rulers, slavery and human sacrifice into a more enlightened era that valued social justice, family values and the rule of law. The appeal of the general concept is such that some have claimed humanity is now experiencing a second Axial Age driven by rapid population growth and technological change. Yet according to the largest ever cross-cultural survey of historical and archaeological data, the first of these ages never happened — or at least unfolded differently from the originally proposed narrative.

When did societies become modern? ‘Big history’ dashes popular idea of Axial Age

hmmm

Farmers Are Using Food Waste To Make Electricity

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Dairy farmers in Massachusetts are using food waste to create electricity. They feed waste into anaerobic digesters, built and operated by Vanguard Renewables, which capture the methane emissions and make renewable energy.

…The machine will grind up all kinds of food waste — “everything from bones, we put whole fish in here, to vegetables to dry items like rice or grains,” Franczyk says as the grinder is loaded. It also takes frying fats and greases.

…While Whole Foods donates a lot of surplus food to food banks, there’s a lot waste left over. Much of it is generated from prepping prepared foods. Just as when you cook in your own kitchen, there are lots of bits that remain, such as onion or carrot peel, rinds, stalks or meat scraps. 

…In the digester, he combines all of this waste with manure from his cows. The mixture cooks at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit. As the methane is released, it rises to the top of a large red tank with a black bubble-shaped dome.

“We capture the gas in that bubble. Then we suck it into a big motor,” Melnik explains. Unlike other engines that run on diesel or gasoline, this engine runs on methane.

“This turns a big generator, which is creating one megawatt of electricity” continuously, Melnik says — enough to power more than just his farm. “We only use about 10 percent of what we make, and the rest is fed onto the [electricity] grid,” Melnik explains. It’s enough to power about 1,500 homes.

He says times are tough for dairy farmers, so this gives him a new stream of revenue. Vanguard pays him rental fees for having the anaerobic digester on his farm. In addition, he’s able to use the liquids left over from the process as fertilizer on his fields.

Chew On This: Farmers Are Using Food Waste To Make Electricity : The Salt : NPR

cool!

Economists and climate change: Building castles in the sky

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

The problem with Nordhaus’ thinking (and that of many others like him) is that he cannot conceive of abrupt discontinuities in the workings of the planet or the workings of human society. In short, he cannot conceive that climate change could alter our environment so thoroughly and disrupt our agriculture so completely that it would lead to catastrophic results.

It is for this failure of imagination that economist Steven Keen recently took Nordhaus to task, showing through a careful critique of Nordhaus’ equations, that even those equations demonstrate catastrophe ahead when provisioned with the proper numbers and understanding. When Keen adds in what we know about tipping points in the climate system, he finds that Nordhaus’ own equations reveal that “[a]t 3 degrees, damages are 8 times as high. At 4 degrees, the ratio doesn’t matter, because the tipping point function says there would be no economy.” What a difference understanding the nonlinearity of the climate system makes!

Economists and climate change: Building castles in the sky – Resilience

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Monsanto pleads guilty to illegally spraying banned pesticide on Maui

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Hawaii,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

[Monsanto] plead guilty to spraying a banned pesticide on research crops in Maui, Hawaii, the US Department of Justice said.

Monsanto Co., also the maker of weedkiller Roundup, will pay the fines for storing the pesticide Penncap-M, an “acute hazardous waste” at sites [on] Maui and Molokai.

…The company knew that its use was prohibited after 2013. Penncap-M is considered an “acute hazardous waste.” The company also told employees to reenter the area only seven days after the spraying, when it knew that years earlier, 31 days was set as the required amount of time. 

Monsanto pleads guilty to illegally spraying banned pesticide in Maui – CNN

Consequences for willful and flagrant endangerment of employees, locals, and the environment should include criminal prosecution for the decision makers involved.

Carnival to pay $20 million after admitting to violating settlement

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

Princess Cruises, a Carnival subsidiary, admitted to violating the terms of its probation from a 2017 conviction for improper waste disposal.

…In 2017, Princess Cruises pleaded guilty to illegally releasing oil into the ocean and deliberately hiding the practice

…Carnival released food waste and plastic into the ocean, failed to accurately record waste disposals, created false training records, and secretly examined ships to fix environmental-compliance issues before third-party inspections without reporting its findings to the inspectors.

Carnival to pay $20 million after admitting to violating settlement – Business Insider

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Experts: Samoa’s measles outbreak is caused by underimmunisation — not the vaccine itself

On By peanutgallerynhIn Pacific Basin,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Multiple Facebook and Twitter posts claim that the measles vaccine is causing a deadly outbreak of the highly infectious disease in Samoa. People are being “killed off by the vaccine,” claims one post, which were shared by a US-based anti-vaccination activist. The claims are false; it is not biologically possible for the measles vaccine to cause an outbreak of the disease; experts say the Samoa measles outbreak, which has killed more than 70 people according to official statistics, was caused by underimmunisation.

Experts: Samoa’s measles outbreak is caused by underimmunisation — not the vaccine itself | AFP Fact Check

Stop listening to the trolls sheeple!

Thousands of artifacts discovered at a 12,500-year-old site in Connecticut

On By peanutgallerynhIn Local Interest,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

An ancient settlement that dates back 12,500 years has been uncovered in Connecticut  that was once home to southern New England’s earliest inhabitants.

…The artifacts discovered in Connecticut coincide with a study from 2015 that concluded the North American hunters used spear-throwers to hurl their weapons over longer distances and bring down large prey.

Anthropologists have studied tiny fractures in the stone spear points used by the Paleo-Indian hunters that began appearing in North America between 13,000 and 11,000 years ago.

He found they contained distinctive chips and fractures that match those created in stone tools that have been thrown using a spear-thrower or atlatl.

These are essentially levers that are attached to the end of the spear or dart, allowing it to be thrown far faster and further than if thrown by hand like a javelin.

The technology is widely thought to be a predecessor of the bow and arrow that later became common among the Native cultures in North America.

…In addition to providing Paleoindian hunters increased lethality and safety, the portability and range of the spear-thrower may have meant that Paleoindian hunters were not tethered to trapping areas and knick points, thereby facilitating greater mobility and reduced hunting-group sizes.’

Thousands of artifacts discovered at a 12,500-year-old site in Connecticut | Daily Mail Online

wild

Flint weighs school closures as it grapples with special ed costs

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Local Interest,, Modern Parenting,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Schools,Leave a comment

Fueling the district’s economic problems is the fact that 24% of the 3,750 students in Flint Community Schools are designated as special education, a number that is nearly twice as high as the 13.2% statewide average.

…Flint’s water was contaminated with lead when officials used corrosive river water from April 2014 to October 2015 that wasn’t properly treated. In children, lead exposure can result in serious effects on IQ, ability to pay attention and academic achievement. 

Flint weighs school closures as it grapples with special ed costs

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Flint’s Children Suffer in Class After Years of Drinking the Lead-Poisoned Water

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Local Interest,, Modern Parenting,, Schools,Leave a comment

The contamination of this long-struggling city’s water exposed nearly 30,000 schoolchildren to a neurotoxin known to have detrimental effects on children’s developing brains and nervous systems. Requests for special education or behavioral interventions began rising four years ago, when the water contamination became public, bolstering a class-action lawsuit that demanded more resources for Flint’s children.

…The percentage of the city’s students who qualify for special education services has nearly doubled, to 28 percent, from 15 percent the year the lead crisis began, and the city’s screening center has received more than 1,300 referrals since December 2018. The results: About 70 percent of the students evaluated have required school accommodations for issues like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as A.D.H.D.; dyslexia; or mild intellectual impairment.

…Pediatricians here caution against overdiagnosing children as irreparably brain damaged, if only to avoid stigmatizing an entire city. 

…The suit accuses the school systems of violating federal and state laws, including the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, by failing to identify students who could qualify for special education services, by failing to provide the mandated instructional services to those who do qualify and by punishing children for disability-related behavior.

Students were denied assessments for education plans or behavioral intervention plans, and then were segregated from their peers, secluded and restrained, repeatedly sent home from school, expelled or arrested, the lawsuit said.

…The district ignored her pleas to accommodate his A.D.H.D., which his pediatrician said was exacerbated by elevated lead levels.

…Bethany Dumanois, who has taught in Flint for 25 years, works two jobs to keep teaching because she said she cannot abandon children whose discolored, rash-covered skin and chunks of exposed scalp haunt her. In the earlier days of the crisis, she spent class time addressing questions from her students about whether they would die from the water like their class lizard, a bearded dragon, did.

…Instead of investing in more teachers, social workers and special education aides, she said the district had pushed laptop computers and iPads, “just jumping on any bandwagon, trying to sugarcoat what’s happening with these kids.”

On a recent night at a local restaurant, Ms. Pascal, the 23-year Flint teaching veteran, vented over the “injustices everywhere.” The district adopted a new reading program with no money to buy the instructional materials. She had been asked to identify a handful of her students for a new behavior support program, but wants to include all 21.

She thinks about quitting, but said she refuses to leave another vacancy for the district to fill.

Flint’s Children Suffer in Class After Years of Drinking the Lead-Poisoned Water – The New York Times

sigh…

When a DNA Test Says You’re a Younger Man, Who Lives 5,000 Miles Away

On By peanutgallerynhIn Science and Stuff,1 Comment

 In 2004, investigators in Alaska uploaded a DNA profile extracted from semen to a criminal DNA database. It matched a potential suspect. But there was a problem: The man had been in prison at the time of the assault. It turned out that he had received a bone marrow transplant. The donor, his brother, was eventually convicted.

…The specifics of Mr. Long’s situation raise an inevitable question: What happens if he has a baby? Would he pass on the genes of his German donor or his own to future offspring?

When a DNA Test Says You’re a Younger Man, Who Lives 5,000 Miles Away – The New York Times

wild!

To Make Sense of Lebanon’s Protests, Follow the Garbage

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Middle East,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Religion,Leave a comment

The government’s inability to provide basic services, including 24-hour electricity and garbage collection, is rooted in an agreement that ended Lebanon’s civil war nearly 30 years ago. The deal divided power between the nation’s 18 recognized religious sects, effectively institutionalizing corruption, with each group able to dole out government jobs, contracts, favors and social services to its followers.

…The perpetual garbage crisis is only the most pungent example. It last exploded into public view in 2015, when the country’s political elite squabbled over a lucrative waste-management contract as mountains of uncollected trash fouled the streets of Beirut. A wave of protests ensued.

The stopgap solution was to build two new landfills. Three years after they opened, the landfills have only relocated the garbage crisis to the coast, and they are fast threatening to hit capacity.

…Employees dumped trash and toxic waste directly into the Mediterranean.

…Mr. Khoury’s company was dumping trash into the landfill without sorting it, despite a contractual requirement that recyclables be separated and hazardous material be removed.

Moreover, she found, the landfill’s breakwaters in the Mediterranean were not keeping the trash out of the water. Garbage and the toxic liquid oozing from it were going straight into the sea.

…For several years, the government has promoted incineration as a long-term solution, despite objections from environmentalists and scientists.

In June, the environment minister, Fadi Jreissati, told The Daily Star, a local newspaper, that he did not think Lebanon was “qualified” to regulate the incinerators.

…A major reason that Lebanon does not produce enough electricity for its four million people, experts say, is the powerful lobby of generator owners, whose machines provide power during daily blackouts, as well as the $1.2 billion-a-year diesel industry that fuels them.

..Hospitals, roads, schools and other projects are distributed to favored contractors according to sectarian quotas that ensure every group benefits, regardless of necessity.

To Make Sense of Lebanon’s Protests, Follow the Garbage – The New York Times

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Hoard of golden treasure stumbled upon by metal detectorist revealed to be most important Anglo-Saxon find in history

On By peanutgallerynhIn Europe,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Britain’s most spectacular Anglo-Saxon treasures may well have been captured on a series of Dark Age battlefields – during bitter conflicts between rival English kingdoms.

…The hoard was made up of golden fittings from up to 150 swords, gold and garnet elements of a very high status seax (fighting knife), a spectacular gilded silver helmet, an impressive 30cm-long golden cross, a beautiful gold and garnet pectoral cross, a probable bishop’s headdress – and parts of what is likely to have been a portable battlefield shrine or reliquary.

…The ecclesiastical treasures and secular/military items appear to have been treated in a potentially disrespectful way before they were buried. They had been broken and/or folded and deliberately bent out of shape. 

…Given the probable mid-seventh century date of the burial of the treasure, it is therefore possible that it was war booty captured by the pagan Mercian king, Penda, from armies led by Christians, such as the East Anglians. 

One possible explanation is that the treasure was ritually buried as a Mercian pagan war trophy – perhaps even as a thanks offering to a pagan deity for delivering victory.

Hoard of golden treasure stumbled upon by metal detectorist revealed to be most important Anglo-Saxon find in history | The Independent

Wild.