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Tag: Science

  • Some officials now say monkeypox elimination unlikely in US

    Some officials now say monkeypox elimination unlikely in US

    NEW YORK — Some U.S. health officials are conceding that monkeypox is probably not going away anytime soon.

    The disease’s spread is slowing but the virus is so widespread that elimination is unlikely, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That conclusion was in a recent CDC report, and echoed Friday by Marc Lipsitch, director of science in the agency’s disease-forecasting center.

    Lipsitch hesitated to say monkeypox is permanently here to stay, but he said it stands to be a continuing threat for the next few years.

    “It’s in many geographic locations within the country” as well as in other countries, Lipsitch told The Associated Press. “There’s no clear path in our mind to complete elimination domestically.”

    The virus has mainly spread among gay and bisexual men, though health officials continue to stress that anyone can be infected. It’s important that people at risk take steps to prevent spread and that vaccination efforts continue, Lipsitch said.

    The CDC report contained some good news: The U.S. outbreak seems to have peaked in early August. The average number of daily cases being reported — fewer than 150 — is about a third what it was reported in the middle of the summer, and officials expect the decline will continue for at least the next several weeks.

    Lipsitch attributed the good news to increasing vaccinations, cautious behavior by people at risk and infection-derived immunity in the highest risk populations.

    Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, agreed that it’s unlikely that spread of monkeypox will stop in the U.S. anytime soon, but he said it’s still possible in the long term.

    If domestic transmission were stopped, infections may still continue if people catch the virus while traveling internationally, he said. But the declining cases makes it seem like “we’ve turned a real corner.”

    “The efforts underway are succeeding, and should be continued, if not intensified,” he said.

    With case numbers going down, this is a good time for local health departments to take a new stab at doing intensive contact tracing to try to stop chains of transmission, he said.

    Monkeypox is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals, but it wasn’t considered a disease that spreads easily among people until May, when infections emerged in Europe and the U.S.

    There have been more than 67,000 cases reported in countries that have not historically seen monkeypox. The U.S. has the most infections of any country — more than 25,600. One U.S. death has been attributed to monkeypox.

    More than 97% of U.S. cases are men. The vast majority have been men who reported recent sexual contact with other men.

    Though cases have been declining, the proportion of new cases that have information about recent sexual contact is also down, officials said. That’s causing a growing blind spot about how the virus may be spreading, Lipsitch noted.

    ———

    The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Nobel Prize season arrives amid war, nuclear fears, hunger

    Nobel Prize season arrives amid war, nuclear fears, hunger

    This year’s Nobel Prize season approaches as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shattered decades of almost uninterrupted peace in Europe and raised the risks of a nuclear disaster.

    The secretive Nobel committees never hint who will win the prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, economics or peace. It’s anyone’s guess who might win the awards being announced starting Monday.

    Yet there’s no lack of urgent causes deserving the attention that comes with winning the world’s most prestigious prize: Wars in Ukraine and Ethiopia, disruptions to supplies of energy and food, rising inequality, the climate crisis, the ongoing fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The science prizes reward complex achievements beyond the understanding of most. But the recipients of the prizes in peace and literature are often known by a global audience and the choices — or perceived omissions — have sometimes stirred emotional reactions.

    Members of the European Parliament have called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine to be recognized this year by the Nobel Peace Prize committee for their resistance to the Russian invasion.

    While that desire is understandable, that choice is unlikely because the Nobel committee has a history of honoring figures who end conflicts, not wartime leaders, said Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

    Smith believes more likely peace prize candidates would be groups or individuals fighting climate change or the International Atomic Energy Agency, a past recipient.

    Honoring the IAEA again would recognize its efforts to prevent a radioactive catastrophe at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant at the heart of fighting in Ukraine, and its work in fighting nuclear proliferation, Smith said.

    “This is really difficult period in world history and there is not a lot of peace being made,” he said.

    Promoting peace isn’t always rewarded with a Nobel. India’s Mohandas Gandhi, a prominent symbol of non-violence in the 20th century, was never so honored.

    But former President Barack Obama was in 2009, sparking criticism from those who said he had not been president long enough to have an impact worthy of the Nobel.

    In some cases, the winners have not lived out the values enshrined in the peace prize.

    Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won in 2019 for making peace with neighboring Eritrea. A year later a largely ethnic conflict erupted in the country’s Tigray region. Some accuse Abiy of stoking the tensions, which have resulted in widespread atrocities. Critics have called for his Nobel to be revoked.

    The Myanmar activist Aung San Suu Kyi won the peace prize in 1991 while being under house arrest for her opposition to military rule. Decades later, she was seen as failing in a leadership role to stop atrocities committed by the military against the country’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.

    The Nobel committee has sometimes not awarded a peace prize at all. It paused them during World War I, except to honor the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1917. It didn’t hand out any from 1939 to 1943 due to World War II. In 1948, the year Gandhi died, the Norwegian Nobel Committee made no award, citing a lack of a suitable living candidate.

    The peace prize also does not always confer protection.

    Last year journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia were awarded “for their courageous fight for freedom of expression” in the face of authoritarian governments.

    Following the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has cracked down even harder on independent media, including Muratov’s Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s most renowned independent newspaper. Muratov himself was attacked on a Russian train by an assailant who poured red paint over him, injuring his eyes.

    The Philippines government this year ordered the shutdown of Ressa’s news organization, Rappler.

    The literature prize, meanwhile, has been notoriously unpredictable.

    Few had bet on last year’s winner, Zanzibar-born, U.K.-based writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose books explore the personal and societal impacts of colonialism and migration.

    Gurnah was only the sixth Nobel literature laureate born in Africa, and the prize has long faced criticism that it is too focused on European and North American writers. It is also male-dominated, with just 16 women among its 118 laureates.

    The list of possible winners includes literary giants from around the world: Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Japan’s Haruki Murakami, Norway’s Jon Fosse, Antigua-born Jamaica Kincaid and France’s Annie Ernaux.

    A clear contender is Salman Rushdie, the India-born writer and free-speech advocate who spent years in hiding after Iran’s clerical rulers called for his death over his 1988 novel “The Satanic Verses.” Rushdie, 75, was stabbed and seriously injured at a festival in New York state on Aug. 12.

    The prizes to Gurnah in 2021 and U.S. poet Louise Glück in 2020 have helped the literature prize move on from years of controversy and scandal.

    In 2018, the award was postponed after sex abuse allegations rocked the Swedish Academy, which names the Nobel literature committee, and sparked an exodus of members. The academy revamped itself but faced more criticism for giving the 2019 literature award to Austria’s Peter Handke, who has been called an apologist for Serbian war crimes.

    Some scientists hope the award for physiology or medicine honors colleagues instrumental in the development of the mRNA technology that went into COVID-19 vaccines, which saved millions of lives across the world.

    “When we think of Nobel prizes, we think of things that are paradigm shifting, and in a way I see mRNA vaccines and their success with COVID-19 as a turning point for us,” said Deborah Fuller, a microbiology professor at the University of Washington.

    The Nobel Prize announcements this year kick off Monday with the prize in physiology or medicine, followed by physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and probably, though the date has not been confirmed, literature on Thursday. The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Oct. 7 and the economics award on Oct. 10.

    The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor ($880,000) and will be handed out on Dec. 10.

    ———

    Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, Jill Lawless in London and Laura Ungar in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed.

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  • Scientists study Ian with new hurricane-hunting drone

    Scientists study Ian with new hurricane-hunting drone

    Scientists study Ian with new hurricane-hunting drone – CBS News


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    A new hurricane-hunting drone shows what it’s like to fly straight into the eye of Hurricane Ian, going where no other aircraft or scientist can go. Ben Tracy has the details.

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  • Hurricane Ian ‘street shark’ video defies belief

    Hurricane Ian ‘street shark’ video defies belief

    Photos and videos of sharks and other marine life swimming in suburban floodwaters make for popular hoaxes during massive storms. But a cellphone video filmed during Hurricane Ian’s assault on southwest Florida isn’t just another fish story.

    The eye-popping video, which showed a large, dark fish with sharp dorsal fins thrashing around an inundated Fort Myers backyard, racked up more than 12 million views on Twitter within a day, as users responded with disbelief and comparisons to the “Sharknado” film series.

    Dominic Cameratta, a local real estate developer, confirmed he filmed the clip from his back patio Wednesday morning when he saw something “flopping around” in his neighbor’s flooded yard.

    “I didn’t know what it was — it just looked like a fish or something,” he told The Associated Press. “I zoomed in, and all my friends are like, ‘It’s like a shark, man!’ ”

    He guessed the fish was about 4 feet in length.

    Experts were of mixed opinion on whether the clip showed a shark or another large fish. George Burgess, former director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark program, said in an email that it “appears to be a juvenile shark,” while Dr. Neil Hammerschlag, director of the University of Miami’s shark conservation program, wrote that “it’s pretty hard to tell.”

    Nevertheless, some Twitter users dubbed the hapless fish the “street shark.”

    The surge worsened in Fort Myers as the day went on. Cameratta said the flooding had only just begun when the clip was taken, but that the waters were “all the way up to our house” by the time the AP reached him by phone Wednesday evening.

    He said the fish may have made its way up from nearby Hendry Creek into a retention pond, which then overflowed, spilling the creature into his neighbor’s backyard. A visual analysis of nearby property confirmed it matches the physical landmarks in the video.

    Leslie Guelcher, a professor of intelligence studies at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania, was among the online sleuths who initially thought the video was fake.

    “Don’t think this is real. According to the index on the video it was created in June 2010. Someone else posted it at 10 AM as in Fort Myers, but the storm surge wasn’t like that at 10 AM,” she tweeted Wednesday.

    Guelcher acknowledged later, though, that online tools she and others were using to establish the video’s origins didn’t actually show when the video itself was created, merely when the social media profile of the user was created.

    The AP confirmed through the original clip’s metadata that it was captured Wednesday morning.

    “It makes a bit more sense from a flooding standpoint,” she said by email, when informed the fish was spotted near an overflowing pond. “But how on earth would a shark go from the Gulf of Mexico to a retention pond?”

    Yannis Papastamatiou, a marine biologist who studies shark behavior at Florida International University, said that most sharks flee shallow bays ahead of hurricanes, possibly tipped off to their arrival by a change in barometric pressure. A shark could have accidentally swum up into the creek, he said, or been washed into it.

    “Young bull sharks are common inhabitants of low salinity waters — rivers, estuaries, subtropical embayments — and often appear in similar videos in FL water bodies connected to the sea such as coastal canals and ponds,” Burgess said. “Assuming the location and date attributes are correct, it is likely this shark was swept shoreward with the rising seas.”

    Cameratta sent the video to a group chat on WhatsApp on Wednesday morning, according to his friend John Paul Murray, who sent the AP a timestamped screenshot.

    “Amazing content,” Murray wrote in reply.

    ———

    Associated Press writers Philip Marcelo and Arijeta Lajka in New York contributed to this report.

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  • Baltic Sea pipeline leak will have

    Baltic Sea pipeline leak will have

    Methane escaping from the damaged Nord Stream pipelines that run between Russia and Europe is likely to result in the biggest known gas leak to take place over a short period of time, and highlights the problem of large methane escapes elsewhere around the world, scientists say.

    There is still uncertainty in estimating total damage, but researchers say vast plumes of this potent greenhouse gas will have significant detrimental impacts on the climate.

    Immediate harm to marine life and fisheries in the Baltic Sea, and to human health, will also result because benzene and other trace chemicals are typically present in natural gas, researchers say.

    “This will probably be the biggest gas leak ever, in terms of its rate,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson.

    Denmark reports leak in Russian Nord Stream 2 offshore gas pipeline
    Danish Defense shows the gas leaking at Nord Stream 2, seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor, off Bornholm, Denmark on Sept. 27, 2022.

    Danish Defence/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images


    The velocity of the gas erupting from four documented leaks in the pipelines — which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has attributed to sabotage — is part of what makes the impacts severe.

    When methane naturally leaks from vents on the ocean floor, the quantities are usually small and the gas is mostly absorbed by seawater. 

    “But this is not a normal situation for gas release,” said Jackson. “We’re not talking about methane bubbling up to the surface like seltzer water, but a plume of rushing gas,” he said.

    Nord Stream 2 - Pressure drop in gas pipeline
    Unused pipes for the Nord Stream 2 Baltic gas pipeline are stored on the site of the Port of Mukran. 

    Stefan Sauer/dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images


    Jackson and other scientists estimate that between 50% and nearly 100% of total methane emitted from the pipeline will reach the atmosphere.

    The Danish government issued a worst case scenario that assumed all the gas reached the air, and German officials Thursday issued a somewhat lower one.

    In the meantime, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to approach the highly flammable plume to attempt to curb the release of gas, which energy experts estimate may continue until Sunday.

    “Methane is very flammable — if you go in there, you’d have a good chance of it being a funeral pyre,” said Ira Leifer, an atmospheric scientist. If the gas-air mix was within a certain range, an airplane could easily ignite travelling into the plume, for example.

    Methane isn’t the only risk. “Natural gas isn’t refined to be super clean — there are trace elements of other compounds, like benzene,” a carcinogen, said Leifer.

    “The amount of these trace elements cumulatively entering the environment is significant right now — this will cause issues for fisheries and marine ecosystems and people who potentially eat those fish,” he said.

    David Archer, a professor in the geophysical sciences department at University of Chicago who focuses on the global carbon cycle, said that escape of methane in the Baltic Sea is part of the much larger worldwide problem of methane emissions.

    The gas is a major contributor to climate change, responsible for a significant share of the climate disruption people are already experiencing. That is because it is 82.5 times more potent than carbon dioxide at absorbing the sun’s heat and warming the Earth, over the short term.

    Climate scientist have found that methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are far worse than what companies are reporting, despite claims by major companies that they’ve reduced their emissions.

    Scientists measuring methane from satellites in space have found that emissions from oil and gas operations are usually at least twice as high as what the companies reported, said Thomas Lauvaux, climate scientist at University of Reims in France.

    Many of those so-called leaks are not accidental. Companies release the gas during routine maintenance. Lauvaux and other scientists observed more than 1,500 major methane leaks globally, and potentially tens of thousands of smaller leaks, using satellites, he said.

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  • Baltic Sea pipeline leak damages marine life and climate

    Baltic Sea pipeline leak damages marine life and climate

    WASHINGTON — Methane escaping from the damaged Nord Stream pipelines that run between Russia and Europe is likely to result in the biggest known gas leak to take place over a short period of time and highlights the problem of large methane escapes elsewhere around the world, scientists say.

    There is still uncertainty in estimating total damage, but researchers say vast plumes of this potent greenhouse gas will have significant detrimental impacts on the climate.

    Immediate harm to marine life and fisheries in the Baltic Sea and to human health will also result because benzene and other trace chemicals are typically present in natural gas, researchers say.

    “This will probably be the biggest gas leak ever, in terms of its rate,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson.

    The velocity of the gas erupting from four documented leaks in the pipelines — which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has attributed to sabotage — is part of what makes the impacts severe.

    When methane leaks naturally leaks from vents on the ocean floor, the quantities are usually small and the gas is mostly absorbed by seawater. “But this is not a normal situation for gas release,” said Jackson. “We’re not talking about methane bubbling up to the surface like seltzer water, but a plume of rushing gas,” he said.

    Jackson and other scientists estimate that between 50% and nearly 100% of total methane emitted from the pipeline will reach the atmosphere.

    The Danish government issued a worst case scenario that assumed all the gas reached the air, and German officials Thursday issued a somewhat lower one.

    In the meantime, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to approach the highly flammable plume to attempt to curb the release of gas, which energy experts estimate may continue until Sunday.

    “Methane is very flammable — if you go in there, you’d have a good chance of it being a funeral pyre,” said Ira Leifer, an atmospheric scientist. If the gas-air mix was within a certain range, an airplane could easily ignite travelling into the plume, for example.

    Methane isn’t the only risk. “Natural gas isn’t refined to be super clean — there are trace elements of other compounds, like benzene,” a carcinogen, said Leifer.

    “The amount of these trace elements cumulatively entering the environment is significant right now — this will cause issues for fisheries and marine ecosystems and people who potentially eat those fish,” he said.

    David Archer, a professor in the geophysical sciences department at University of Chicago who focuses on the global carbon cycle, said that escape of methane in the Baltic Sea is part of the much larger worldwide problem of methane emissions.

    The gas is a major contributor to climate change, responsible for a significant share of the climate disruption people are already experiencing. That is because it is 82.5 times more potent than carbon dioxide at absorbing the sun’s heat and warming the Earth, over the short term.

    Climate scientist have found that methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are far worse than what companies are reporting, despite claims by major companies that they’ve reduced their emissions.

    Scientists measuring methane from satellites in space have found that emissions from oil and gas operations are usually at least twice as high as what the companies reported, said Thomas Lauvaux, climate scientist at University of Reims in France.

    Many of those so-called leaks are not accidental. Companies release the gas during routine maintenance. Lauvaux and other scientists observed more than 1,500 major methane leaks globally, and potentially tens of thousands of smaller leaks, using satellites, he said.

    —

    AP reporters Patrick Whittle contributed from Portland, Maine, Seth Borenstein from Washington, DC., and Cathy Bussewitz from New York.

    ——

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • New technology collects data from inside most dangerous part of Tropical Storm Ian

    New technology collects data from inside most dangerous part of Tropical Storm Ian

    New technology collects data from inside most dangerous part of Tropical Storm Ian – CBS News


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    Only on “CBS Mornings,” scientists show Ben Tracy how they can fly straight into the eye of a massive hurricane.

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  • 3 Russian cosmonauts return safely from Intl Space Station

    3 Russian cosmonauts return safely from Intl Space Station

    MOSCOW — Three Russian cosmonauts returned safely on Thursday from a mission to the International Space Station.

    The Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft carrying Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov touched down softly at 4:57 p.m. (1057 GMT) at a designated site in the steppes of Kazakhstan about 150 kilometers (about 90 miles) southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan.

    The trio arrived at the station in March. For Artemyev, the mission marked a third space flight that has brought his total time spent in orbit to 561 days. Matveyev and Korsakov each logged 195 days on their first missions.

    As the Soyuz capsule was descending on a big striped red-and-white parachute under clear skies, Artemyev reported to the Mission Control that all members of the crew were feeling fine.

    Helicopters support teams landed minutes after to recover the crew. After a quick post-flight medical exam, the cosmonauts will be flown to the Star City cosmonaut training center outside Moscow later in the day.

    The station is currently operated by Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency, NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, Frank Rubio, and Jessica Watkins, and the Russian space agency Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin.

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  • NASA tests planetary defense with asteroid collision

    NASA tests planetary defense with asteroid collision

    NASA tests planetary defense with asteroid collision – CBS News


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    NASA crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in a test that could one day be used to prevent a doomsday collision with Earth. Mark Strassmann has more.

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  • Vulnerable Tampa Bay braces for storm not seen in a century

    Vulnerable Tampa Bay braces for storm not seen in a century

    ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — It’s been more than a century since a major storm like Hurricane Ian has struck the Tampa Bay area, which blossomed from a few hundred thousand people in 1921 to more than 3 million today.

    Many of these people live in low-lying neighborhoods that are highly susceptible to storm surge and flooding they have rarely before experienced, which some experts say could be worsened by the effects of climate change.

    The problem confronting the region is that storms approaching from the south, as Hurricane Ian is on track to do, bulldoze huge volumes of water up into shallow Tampa Bay and are likely to inundate homes and businesses. The adjacent Gulf of Mexico is also shallow.

    “Strong persistent winds will push a lot of water into the bay and there’s nowhere for it to go, so it just builds up,” said Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science. “Tampa Bay is very surge-prone because of its orientation.”

    The National Hurricane Center is predicting storm surge in Tampa Bay and surrounding waters of between 5 and 10 feet (1.5 and 3 meters) above normal tide conditions and rainfall of between 10 and 15 inches (12 and 25 centimeters) because of Hurricane Ian.

    “That’s a lot of rain. That’s not going to drain out quickly,” said Cathie Perkins, emergency management director in Pinellas County, where St. Petersburg and Clearwater are located. “This is no joke. This is life-threatening storm surge.”

    Officials in the area began issuing evacuation orders Monday for a wide swath of Tampa, with the St. Petersburg area soon to follow. The evacuations could affect 300,000 people or more in Hillsborough County alone.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis took note of the region’s vulnerability in a Monday afternoon news conference in Largo, Florida.

    “Clearly, when you look at the Tampa Bay area, one of the reasons why we fear storms is because of the sensitivity of this area and the fragility of this area,” DeSantis said.

    The last time Tampa Bay was hit by a major storm was Oct. 25, 1921. The hurricane had no official name but is known locally as the Tarpon Springs storm, for the seaside town famed for its sponge-diving docks and Greek heritage where it came ashore.

    The storm surge from that hurricane, estimated at Category 3 with winds of up to 129 mph ( 207 km/h) was pegged at 11 feet (3.3 meters). At least eight people died and damage was estimated at $5 million at the time.

    Now, the tourist-friendly region known for its sugar-sand beaches has grown by leaps and bounds, with homes and businesses along the water the ideal locations — most of the time. Hurricane Ian could threaten all of that development.

    Just as an example, the city of Tampa had about 51,000 residents in 1920. Today, that number is almost 395,000. Many of the other cities in the region have experienced similar explosive growth.

    A report from the Boston-based catastrophe modeling firm Karen Clark and Co. concluded in 2015 that Tampa Bay is the most vulnerable place in the U.S. to storm surge flooding from a hurricane and stands to lose $175 billion in damage. A World Bank study a few years before that placed Tampa as the seventh-most vulnerable city to major storms on the entire globe.

    Yet for years storms seemed to bypass the region somewhat inexplicably. Phil Klotzbach, research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, noted that only one of five hurricanes at Category 3 strength or higher has struck Tampa Bay since 1851.

    “In general, cyclones moving over the Gulf of Mexico had a tendency of passing well north of Tampa,” the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said in report on the 1921 storm.

    Also lurking in the waves and wind are the impacts of climate change and the higher sea levels scientists say it is causing.

    “Due to global warming, global climate models predict hurricanes will likely cause more intense rainfall and have an increased coastal flood risk due to higher storm surge caused by rising seas,” Angela Colbert, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote in a June report.

    McNoldy, the University of Miami researcher, noted that Hurricane Andrew’s storm surge today would be 7 inches (17 centimeters) higher than it was when that storm pounded South Florida 30 years ago.

    “As sea level rises, the same storm surge will be able to flood more areas because the baseline upon which it’s happening is higher,” McNoldy said.

    Amid all the science, a local legend has it that blessings from Native Americans who once called the region home have largely protected it from major storms for centuries. Part of that legend is the many mounds built by the Tocobagan tribe in what is now Pinellas County that some believe are meant as guardians against invaders, including hurricanes.

    Rui Farias, executive director of the St. Petersburg Museum of History, told the Tampa Bay Times after Hurricane Irma’s near miss in 2017 that many people still believe it.

    “It’s almost like when a myth becomes history,” Farias said. “As time goes on, it comes true.”

    It appears Hurricane Ian will give that legend a test in the coming days.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee contributed to this story.

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  • Bam! NASA spacecraft crashes into asteroid in defense test

    Bam! NASA spacecraft crashes into asteroid in defense test

    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.

    The galactic slam occurred at a harmless asteroid 7 million miles (11.3 million kilometers) away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the space rock at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph). Scientists expected the impact to carve out a crater, hurl streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, alter the asteroid’s orbit.

    “We have impact!” Mission Control’s Elena Adams announced, jumping up and down and thrusting her arms skyward.

    Telescopes around the world and in space aimed at the same point in the sky to capture the spectacle. Though the impact was immediately obvious — Dart’s radio signal abruptly ceased — it will take as long as a couple of months to determine how much the asteroid’s path was changed.

    The $325 million mission was the first attempt to shift the position of an asteroid or any other natural object in space.

    “As far as we can tell, our first planetary defense test was a success,” Adams later told a news conference, the room filling with applause. “I think Earthlings should sleep better. Definitely, I will.”

    NASA Administrator Bill Nelson reminded people earlier in the day via Twitter that, “No, this is not a movie plot.” He added in a prerecorded video: ”We’ve all seen it on movies like “Armageddon,” but the real-life stakes are high.”

    Monday’s target: a 525-foot (160-meter) asteroid named Dimorphos. It’s a moonlet of Didymos, Greek for twin, a fast-spinning asteroid five times bigger that flung off the material that formed the junior partner.

    The pair have been orbiting the sun for eons without threatening Earth, making them ideal save-the-world test candidates.

    Launched last November, the vending machine-size Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — navigated to its target using new technology developed by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft builder and mission manager.

    Dart’s on-board camera, a key part of this smart navigation system, caught sight of Dimorphos barely an hour before impact. “Woo hoo!” exclaimed Adams, a mission systems engineer at Johns Hopkins.

    With an image beaming back to Earth every second, Adams and other ground controllers in Laurel, Maryland, watched with growing excitement as Dimorphos loomed larger and larger in the field of view alongside its bigger companion. Within minutes, Dimorphos was alone in the pictures; it looked like a giant gray lemon, but with boulders and rubble on the surface. The last image froze on the screen as the radio transmission ended.

    Flight controllers cheered, hugged one another and exchanged high fives. Their mission complete, the Dart team went straight into celebration mode. There was little sorrow over the spacecraft’s demise.

    “Normally, losing signal from a spacecraft is a very bad thing. But in this case, it was the ideal outcome,” said NASA program scientist Tom Statler.

    Johns Hopkins scientist Carolyn Ernst said the spacecraft was definitely “kaput,” with remnants possibly in the fresh crater or cascading into space with the asteroid’s ejected material.

    Scientists insisted Dart would not shatter Dimorphos. The spacecraft packed a scant 1,260 pounds (570 kilograms), compared with the asteroid’s 11 billion pounds (5 billion kilograms). But that should be plenty to shrink its 11-hour, 55-minute orbit around Didymos.

    The impact should pare 10 minutes off that. The anticipated orbital shift of 1% might not sound like much, scientists noted. But they stressed it would amount to a significant change over years.

    “Now is when the science starts,” said NASA’s Lori Glaze, planetary science division director. “Now we’re going to see for real how effective we were.”

    Planetary defense experts prefer nudging a threatening asteroid or comet out of the way, given enough lead time, rather than blowing it up and creating multiple pieces that could rain down on Earth. Multiple impactors might be needed for big space rocks or a combination of impactors and so-called gravity tractors, not-yet-invented devices that would use their own gravity to pull an asteroid into a safer orbit.

    “The dinosaurs didn’t have a space program to help them know what was coming, but we do,” NASA’s senior climate adviser Katherine Calvin said, referring to the mass extinction 66 million years ago believed to have been caused by a major asteroid impact, volcanic eruptions or both.

    The non-profit B612 Foundation, dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid strikes, has been pushing for impact tests like Dart since its founding by astronauts and physicists 20 years ago. Monday’s feat aside, the world must do a better job of identifying the countless space rocks lurking out there, warned the foundation’s executive director, Ed Lu, a former astronaut.

    Significantly less than half of the estimated 25,000 near-Earth objects in the deadly 460-foot (140-meter) range have been discovered, according to NASA. And fewer than 1% of the millions of smaller asteroids, capable of widespread injuries, are known.

    The Vera Rubin Observatory, nearing completion in Chile by the National Science Foundation and U.S. Energy Department, promises to revolutionize the field of asteroid discovery, Lu noted.

    Finding and tracking asteroids, “That’s still the name of the game here. That’s the thing that has to happen in order to protect the Earth,” he said.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • US spy satellite launched into orbit from California

    US spy satellite launched into orbit from California

    VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A classified satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office launched into orbit aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy rocket on Saturday.

    The NROL-91 spy satellite lifted off at 3:25 p.m. from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California’s Santa Barbara County.

    It was the last launch of a Delta 4 from the West Coast. Additional launches are planned from Florida before the Deltas are replaced by ULA’s next-generation Vulcan Centaur rockets.

    The Delta IV Heavy configuration first launched in December 2004. This was the 387th flight of a Delta rocket since 1960 and the 95th and final launch from Vandenberg.

    The National Reconnaissance Office is the government agency in charge of developing, building, launching and maintaining U.S. spy satellites that provide intelligence data to policymakers, the intelligence community and Defense Department.

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  • NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week

    A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

    ___

    Photo altered to include judge who approved Mar-a-Lago warrant

    CLAIM: A photo shows Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein who was convicted of sex trafficking, with U.S. Magistrate Bruce Reinhart, the judge who approved the FBI search warrant for Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

    THE FACTS: This image has been manipulated by combining two separate, unrelated photos. Social media users are sharing the manipulated image that puts Reinhart and Maxwell together, making it appear she is rubbing his foot as he holds a bottle of bourbon and package of Oreos. “Ghislaine Maxwell and Judge Bruce Reinhart… looking awful cozy!” read one tweet of the image shared by hundreds. But reverse image searches show that the original photo of Maxwell was with Epstein, not Reinhart. That photo was released in 2021 as evidence in her trial and published by various news outlets. Maxwell was sentenced in June to 20 years in prison for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls. The AP identified the photo of Reinhart on a Facebook profile under his name. The caption indicates he was watching a football game. The manufactured image is circulating amid attention on Reinhart for approving the FBI search warrant for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Reinhart is a former federal prosecutor and has served as a magistrate in West Palm Beach, Florida, since March 2018. Reinhart did at one point represent associates of Epstein. For example, court records reviewed by the AP show he was an attorney for Sarah Kellen, Epstein’s personal assistant. The search at Mar-a-Lago was part of an investigation into whether Trump took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence, according to people familiar with the matter, the AP reported.

    — Associated Press writer Angelo Fichera in Philadelphia contributed this report.

    ___

    Monkeypox wasn’t found in Georgia drinking water

    CLAIM: A news report shows that monkeypox has been detected in drinking water.

    THE FACTS: The clip comes from an Atlanta-area news broadcast explaining how wastewater — not drinking water — can be tested for evidence of monkeypox’s spread. But the July 26 broadcast is being mischaracterized online to push the false claim that monkeypox has been found in residents’ tap water. The video shows a reporter explaining that the public works department in Fulton County, which encompasses Atlanta, is launching new efforts to try to detect monkeypox in the community. While the news report is playing in the video, a viewer filming their TV screen can be heard in the background saying “there’s monkeypox in the water.” TikTok and Twitter users are sharing the clip out of context to suggest it means that drinking water is contaminated or being intentionally tampered with. But the county’s tests have nothing to do with drinking water, nor did they reveal that the virus had been found in that supply. “The testing that we’re doing in wastewater for monkeypox DNA is completely separate from drinking water,” said Marlene Wolfe, an environmental microbiologist and epidemiologist at Atlanta’s Emory University, who is involved in the testing initiative. “We have not tested drinking water, we are not planning to test drinking water, we don’t have any expectations or concerns about monkeypox spreading through drinking water.” Experts say monkeypox is primarily spread through skin-to-skin contact such as sexual activity, or contact with items that previously touched an infected person’s rash or body fluids. Dr. Mark Slifka, a microbiology and immunology expert and professor at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, confirmed that “there is really no way” that monkeypox can be transmitted through drinking water. “Historically, there has been no evidence of monkeypox spread through drinking water and currently during this global outbreak, there is absolutely no evidence for monkeypox being spread through drinking water,” Slifka wrote in an email. Wolfe said that people infected with monkeypox excrete virus DNA through skin lesions, saliva, feces and urine, which, much like COVID-19, can enter wastewater through sewage that is produced after showering, flushing toilets and more. That water can be tested using PCR technology to determine whether certain viruses are being spread. This method has also been widely used for earlier detection of new COVID-19 waves. Data released after the news report found that wastewater samples from two areas in Fulton County have tested positive for monkeypox. Meanwhile, drinking water comes from separate reservoirs that go through different quality and treatment processes to make it drinkable. “That’s a totally different department. We only handle wastewater,” said Patrick Person, a Fulton County water quality manager. He added that wastewater is also eventually sanitized before being returned to the environment.

    — Associated Press writer Sophia Tulp in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    Tweet misrepresents Kenyan president’s speech

    CLAIM: Video shows outgoing Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta publicly admitting that his deputy president, William Ruto, will win the presidential elections on Aug. 9.

    THE FACTS: A tweet in English gave an incorrect description of the video, where Kenyatta speaks his mother tongue, Kikuyu. Kenyans headed to the polls on Tuesday to select a successor to Kenyatta, who has spent a decade in power. One candidate in the race is Raila Odinga, an opposition leader, who is backed by Kenyatta, his former rival. The other candidate is Ruto, Kenyatta’s deputy who fell out with the president. While Kenyatta was commissioning a dam project last week in Gatundu, a town in Kiambu County, he addressed the crowd from a car’s sunroof on Aug. 1. A Twitter user shared a video of Kenyatta’s speech and provided a false description in English: “President Uhuru Kenyatta publicly admits that DP@WilliamsRuto will WIN the August 9, Elections,” the tweet states. The AP translated the video, confirming that Kenyatta does not mention that Ruto will win. Instead, Kenyatta cautioned people against voting for Ruto. Kenyatta encouraged residents to vote for leaders allied with Odinga, a tweet from Kenya’s State House notes. “You are told to refuse us because they claim they are hustlers and they will bring you this and that,” Kenyatta said in the video. “Ask yourself what you are given. And when someone enters that house they look at you with a mean eye,” he continued, referring to the State House, the official residence of Kenya’s president. Ruto often refers to himself as a “hustler” who rose from humble beginnings, compared to Kenyatta and Odinga, who have elite backgrounds, the AP has reported. Multiple media outlets in Kenya also reported on the speech and made no mention of Kenyatta telling residents Ruto will win.

    ___

    WHO chief is vaccinated against COVID-19, contrary to false claim

    CLAIM: Video shows World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus saying he isn’t vaccinated against COVID-19.

    THE FACTS: The clip is from a documentary and shows part of an interview, filmed weeks after Ghebreyesus was vaccinated, in which he says at one point that he waited for better global vaccine equity before receiving his own shot. But the clip is circulating on social media without context to falsely claim that it shows the WHO leader expressing that he had not been vaccinated against COVID-19. “Tedros not jabbed?” reads one tweet, which garnered more than 8,000 likes. The 35-second clip shows a portion of a 2021 interview of Tedros by Jon Cohen, a writer for the publication Science. The interview was included in a documentary, “ How to Survive a Pandemic,” which runs more than 100 minutes. The clip shows Cohen asking Ghebreyesus when he was vaccinated, and then cuts to the WHO director-general responding: “You know, still I feel like I know where I belong: in a poor country called Ethiopia, in a poor continent called Africa, and wanted to wait until Africa and other countries, in other regions, low-income countries, start vaccination. So I was protesting, in other words, because we’re failing.” But the documentary never claimed Ghebreyesus was not vaccinated, nor did Ghebreyesus’ response indicate as much. In the full June 12, 2021, interview — which was edited for the documentary — Ghebreyesus in fact did reply that he was vaccinated on May 12, according to the Science article by Cohen that followed. Ghebreyesus also publicly posted a photo on Twitter showing him receiving his vaccine that day, which he followed with a post about vaccine equity. The date was not included in the portion of the response shown in the documentary, Cohen confirmed to the AP. Cohen responded to the erroneous claim about Ghebreyesus’ vaccination status on Twitter, calling it a “lie,” and pointing to his written interview. The filmmaker, David France, said in an interview with the AP that the important part of Ghebreyesus’ answer was his explanation that he had waited for better vaccine equity before getting his own shot. But, he said, Ghebreyesus’ explanation that he had waited was clearly in the past tense. “In the context of the film, it was the wait — and the reason for the wait — that was the core part of his answer, and that’s what we included,” France said.

    — Angelo Fichera

    ___

    Earth spinning faster is no cause for concern, scientists say

    CLAIM: The Earth is spinning faster and days are getting shorter, a change that is noticeable and cause for immediate concern.

    THE FACTS: While the Earth on June 29 did indeed record its shortest-ever day since the adoption of the atomic clock standard in 1970 — at 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours — scientists say this is a normal fluctuation. Still, news of the faster rotation led to misleading posts on social media about the significance of the measurement, leading some to express concern about its implications. “They broke news of earth spinning faster which seems like it should be bigger news,” claimed one tweet that was shared nearly 35,000 times. “We so desensitized to catastrophe at this point it’s like well what’s next.” Some Twitter users responded to these tweets with jokes, as well as skepticism about the magnitude of the measurement. Others, however, voiced worries about how it would affect them. But scientists told the AP that the Earth’s rotational speed fluctuates constantly and that the record-setting measurement is nothing to panic over. “It’s a completely normal thing,” said Stephen Merkowitz, a scientist and project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “There’s nothing magical or special about this. It’s not such an extreme data point that all the scientists are going to wake up and go, what’s going on?” Andrew Ingersoll, an emeritus professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, agreed with this assessment. “The Earth’s rotation varies by milliseconds for many reasons,” he wrote in an email to the AP. “None of them are cause for concern.” The slight increase in rotational speed also does not mean that days are going by noticeably faster. Merkowitz explained that standardized time was once determined by how long it takes the Earth to rotate once on its axis — widely understood to be 24 hours. But because that speed fluctuates slightly, that number can vary by milliseconds. Scientists in the 1960s began working with atomic clocks to measure time more accurately. The official length of a day, scientifically speaking, now compares the speed of one full rotation of the Earth to time taken by atomic clocks, Merkowitz said. If those measurements get too out of sync, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, an organization that maintains global time, may fix the discrepancy by adding a leap second. And despite recent decreases in the length of a day over the last few years, days have actually been getting longer over the course of several centuries, according to Judah Levine, a physicist in the Time and Frequency Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He added that the current trend was not predicted, but agreed it’s nothing to worry about. Many variables impact the Earth’s rotation, such as influences from other planets or the moon, as well as how Earth’s mass redistributes itself. For example, ice sheets melting or weather events that create a denser atmosphere, according to Merkowitz. But the kind of event that would move enough mass to affect the Earth’s rotation in a way that is perceptible to humans would be something dire like the planet being hit by a giant meteor, Merkowitz said.

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed this report.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck

    ___

    Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

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  • Napa County wineries research new technology to fight climate change

    Napa County wineries research new technology to fight climate change

    Napa County wineries research new technology to fight climate change – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    temperatures, severe drought and wildfires are threatening grapevines in wine country. Winemakers are now seeing the effects of climate change and are determined to fight back with technology. Elizabeth Cook has more.

    Be the first to know

    Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.


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  • Does Microdosing Impact Meditation? New Study From Beckley Foundation and Quantified Citizen Investigates

    Does Microdosing Impact Meditation? New Study From Beckley Foundation and Quantified Citizen Investigates

    Press Release
    –

    Sep 15, 2022


    VANCOUVER, British Columbia, September 15, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    The Microdosing and Meditation Study, led by Beckley Foundation in collaboration with Psychedelic Data Society and Quantified Citizen (QC), seeks to observe how meditation skills evolve over three months of regular meditation practice and whether, how, and for whom microdosing (the repeated use of low sub-perceptual doses of psychedelics) may impact these skills.

    ‘Enhancing Mindfulness’ was reported as the most widely endorsed motivation for microdosing (Rootman et al., 2021) in the largest microdosing study to date, Microdose.me, which was conducted by Quantified Citizen in collaboration with University of British Columbia and Maastricht University. The study was launched in 2019 and is still running with over 20,000 participants to date. Despite the growing evidence of overlap between the neurophysiology and phenomenology of psychedelic drug-induced states and contemplative practices, no research to date has specifically assessed the effect of microdosing on meditation practice. 

    “In my opinion, psychedelics can be used as tools to get into a higher state of awareness, which, rather like a farmer preparing the ground for seeding, can help achieve a more fertile ground for either meditation or creative thinking. No research has been conducted so far on the effect of microdosing on meditation practice, and I am very curious to find out if regular meditators do experience measurable benefits from microdosing,” shares Amanda Feilding, director of the Beckley Foundation. 

    The results of this study will help guide future research and improve understanding of the effects of microdosing. Ideally, this will lead to better safety and insight into potential benefits and risk factors.

    Why should you participate?

    This study will help you (whether you use psychedelics or not) engage in a useful self-reflexive process, where you can evaluate, through a protocol carefully designed by a psychology researcher and meditation expert, the ways in which your meditation practice evolves over time, and whether, and in what way, microdosing interacts with this practice. You may also help increase the current scientific understanding of the effects of psychedelic microdosing on meditation.

    Who can participate?

    The study will gather data from all meditation practitioners, whether or not they use psychedelics. 

    How to participate

    To join, please enroll in the Microdose.me study on the Quantified Citizen app. Microdose.me shares standardized assessments with the Microdosing and Meditation Study to avoid repetition. After this first step, you will unlock the Microdosing and Meditation onboarding process.

    Quantified Citizen is a citizen science-powered health research app. It has a growing library of studies on interventions, techniques and emerging trends.

    To fuel further growth and development of new study capabilities, Quantified Citizen is currently in the process of raising its Seed+ round of funding.

    Investor Contact:

    Eesmyal Santos-Brault, Co-founder & CEO

    invest@quantifiedcitizen.com, +1-604-800-2911

    Press Contact:

    Nikki Paqueo, Product Marketing Manager

    marketing@quantifiedcitizen.com, +1-604-800-2911

    Source: Quantified Citizen

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  • Latest Psilocybin Microdosing Study, Powered by Quantified Citizen, Finds Improved Mental Health and Psychomotor Performance in Those Over 55 Years of Age

    Latest Psilocybin Microdosing Study, Powered by Quantified Citizen, Finds Improved Mental Health and Psychomotor Performance in Those Over 55 Years of Age

    Press Release
    –

    Jul 11, 2022


    VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 11, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    The second manuscript of the world’s largest microdosing study, facilitated by Quantified Citizen (QC) and formally titled “Psilocybin microdosers demonstrate greater observed improvements in mood and mental health at one month relative to non‑microdosing controls,” has been published by Nature: Scientific Reports. The paper can be accessed here.

    The paper shows how psilocybin microdosing is associated with general improvements in mood and mental health. Additionally, a finding specific to individuals over the age of 55 indicated that microdosing was associated with greater improvements in psychomotor performance relative to non-microdosers. Further, adults over 55 exhibited an even larger improvement in psychomotor performance when psilocybin is stacked with lion’s mane and niacin (“Stamets Stack”) compared to psilocybin alone. These results may help inform the design of human clinical trials involving psychedelic substances.

    One of the common criticisms of observational studies of this kind is that they are uncontrolled and unable to parse apart placebo effects from those related to the true pharmacological effects of psychedelic substances. Observational research’s purpose is to observe behaviours as they occur naturally in the world, and draw conclusions without interfering with those natural practices. Although an expectancy effect cannot be ruled out for depression, anxiety and stress, the reports on subjective benefits are complemented by improvements in the study’s psychomotor task (the Finger Tap Task), which adds robustness to the results. 

    “The tap test results are interesting. Although a placebo in this type of observational study is not appropriate, the tap test results with microdosing combining psilocybin, niacin and Lion’s Mane over baseline, and in comparison to psilocybin taken with any other combination, stands out as a strong signal of significance for psychomotor performance. The QC app was designed for just such a purpose: to find improvements which can further inform clinical study design – with double-blinded placebo controls. It is hard to imagine that expectancy would be selective using this stack in improving the tap test in an older population. We are excited to test this clinically,” notes Paul Stamets.

    Some novel insights from this new publication include:  

    1. From baseline to Month 1, microdosers systematically report larger decreases in mental health-related symptoms than non-microdosers.

    2. Adults over 55, who microdosed with psilocybin mushrooms in the Stamets Stack showed the largest (about 40%) increases in total number of taps after about one month relative to non-microdosers and those that microdose psilocybin alone.

    The study, informally called Microdose.me, has over 19,000 participants from all over the world and has been presented at numerous conferences including SXSW, Summit LA, TED and Life Itself. The study was conducted in partnership with the University of British Columbia, Maastricht University, Paul Stamets and Dr. Pamela Kryskow, among others. 

    “I am proud of the constant effort put into improving the study design with feedback from our participants, supporters and other scientists. Together with fellow citizens and researchers, we are developing versions of the study that will be used to generate discoveries related to psychedelic microdosing for years to come,” shares Quantified Citizen Director of Research Maggie Kiraga.

    The study team is currently recruiting psychedelic users and non-users for the second version of the study, which will contain new active tasks and questionnaires that will examine connectedness to nature, psychedelic craving and mindfulness, among others.

    Quantified Citizen is a citizen science-powered health research app. It has a growing library of studies on interventions, techniques and emerging trends. The app is available on iOS and Android.

    To fuel further growth and development of new study capabilities, Quantified Citizen is currently in the process of raising its Series A round of funding.  

    Press Contact:

    Nikki Paqueo, Product Marketing Manager

    marketing@quantifiedcitizen.com, +1-604-800-2911

    Investor Contact:

    Eesmyal Santos-Brault, Co-founder & CEO

    invest@quantifiedcitizen.com, +1-604-800-2911

    Source: Quantified Citizen

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  • Mobile App Quantified Citizen Disrupts Health Research With Automation and the Citizen Science Movement

    Mobile App Quantified Citizen Disrupts Health Research With Automation and the Citizen Science Movement

    Press Release
    –

    Mar 17, 2022


    VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 17, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Everyone can contribute to world-changing scientific discoveries with the right tools and questions. Quantified Citizen is a mobile health research platform that powers scientific discovery through digitized health measures and a community of professional researchers and citizen scientists.

    The app leverages standard health measures that make it easy for anyone to rapidly create and deploy behavioral research studies. It has a growing library of studies on interventions like psychedelic microdosing for mental health, conditions like sobriety and its connections to mood, creativity, productivity and more. Anyone can choose studies based on their interests and, in as little as two minutes a day, contribute to global health and science. 

    “We envision a world where doing scientifically valid health research is as fast and easy as creating a website, with the same global reach. Where scientific tinkering and self-examination are normalized, vastly accelerating the pace of discovery by unlocking unexamined data,” shares co-founder and CEO Eesmyal Santos-Brault. 

    Quantified Citizen’s study on psychedelic microdosing’s effects on cognitive performance and mental health was recently published in the prestigious Nature Scientific Reports. The study, informally called Microdose.me, is the largest microdosing study in the world at 17,000 participants and counting, and has been presented at numerous conferences, including Exponential Medicine, SXSW, Summit LA, and soon TED and Life Itself.

    “For way too long, science has been the domain of a professional class, and citizens have been merely passive observers. By partnering with citizen scientists, we aim to empower a generation of amateur researchers, and unlock scientific curiosity, imagination, and creativity on a scale never seen before,” says co-founder and CTO Kalin Harvey

    The Quantified Citizen app is available on iOS and Android. A recent update offers visual redesign, new tasks and activities, and the ability to connect Apple Health or Google Fit. New studies have also been announced:

    To fuel further growth and development of new study capabilities, Quantified Citizen is pleased to announce the closing of its oversubscribed Series Seed financing round, led by Bicycle Day Ventures and Limitless, along with notable investors Paul Stamets, Lance Tracey, Iter Investments, and Empath Ventures. 

    Press Contact:

    Nikki Paqueo, Product Marketing Manager

    marketing@quantifiedcitizen.com, +1-604-800-2911

    Investor Contact:

    Eesmyal Santos-Brault, Co-founder & CEO

    invest@quantifiedcitizen.com, +1-604-800-2911

    Source: Quantified Citizen

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  • ACT Scores Improve for Juniors at Kemper County High School

    ACT Scores Improve for Juniors at Kemper County High School

    ACT English, ACT Math, ACT Reading, and ACT Science scores show improvements over prior best scores, with 44% of students improving their ACT composite by an average of 1.53 points

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Jun 22, 2021


    BROOKHAVEN, Miss., June 22, 2021 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Jumpstart Test Prep recently released the ACT® improvement results from Kemper County High School, whose junior class used the program to prepare for the state-administered February 2021 ACT® exam (American College Testing). Following completion of Jumpstart’s complete ACT prep review, the school had 65% of its students improving their best prior English subscores by an average of 2.8 points and 38% improving their Reading sub-scores by an average of 3.46 points. Additionally, 32% of students improved their Science sub-scores by an average of 3.54 points and 47% improved their Math subscores by an average of 2.18 points.

    Students who showed significant gains were excited to provide their thoughts about the review program. On her first ACT® attempt, Kemper County junior Kaylan Clayton achieved a 21 on her English subscore. She says Jumpstart made the difference because, “It helped me to gain knowledge in new areas and to refresh my memory. Jumpstart also taught me how to best use my time when taking the ACT.” Anderiah Rush agrees, as her English subscore improved 5 points over her prior attempt. “The many tips and flashcards helped me to remember things I learned years ago. The mark and move strategy for time management helped me to finish the ACT completely.” Rush continued, “I think other students in Mississippi need to know about Jumpstart and use it because the review will help them to remember everything they’ve forgotten.” Another student, Kaylah Hearn, who improved her English subscore by 3 points over her last attempt commented, “Jumpstart gave me a refresher of things I had completely forgotten about and the flashcards taught me a lot of tips that I didn’t know. I would say that Jumpstart works!”

    Kemper County junior Illyana McClendon improved her English subscore by 4 points, going from a 14 to an 18. She shared, “Jumpstart gave me so many tips and tricks to help me succeed on the ACT. It was a refresh from elementary school until now and that made all the difference for me!” Reslyn Ramsey agreed with McClendon, “The tips and tricks that Jumpstart shows you are really amazing and it is also a great program to teach time management.” Reslyn achieved a 45% increase in her English subscore, improving by 5 points.

    Jumpstart Test Prep is an online review program based on over 50 years of work by Dot McClendon, a legendary educator and Mississippi’s 19-year STAR teacher hall of fame inductee. “As a teacher at The Mississippi School of the Arts and several other schools during my career, I was able to help guide the preparation of students in person,” said McClendon. “Now through our online, on-demand video review, students in Kemper County classrooms, as well as classrooms around the country, around the breakfast table, or on the couch at home, are able to benefit from our approach.”

    All juniors at Kemper County had access to the following resources:

    • Expert content review and practice, along with test-taking tips and strategies delivered in the classroom via streaming video
    • Online, on-demand, 24-hour review (36 modules, approximately 40 minutes each) of English, Math, Reading, and Science content tested by the ACT® that could be led from the classroom or used individually by students
    • Consumable student workbooks for each subject area to be completed in conjunction with lecture content and later used as a student study guide
    • Online assessments for the Math and English review areas which linked students back to their weaker areas reviewed in the Jumpstart module content

    School administrators utilized an online dashboard reflecting the video module completion progress of teachers assigned to proctor the review and/or individual student progress.

    More information about Jumpstart Test Prep can be found at www.jumpstarttestprep.com.

    Source: Jumpstart Test Prep

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  • Several shark species are facing extinction. Here’s how you can help | CNN

    Several shark species are facing extinction. Here’s how you can help | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Older than dinosaurs and trees, sharks have endured a lot throughout their 450 million years on Earth. They’ve even survived five mass extinctions, including the asteroid that wiped out 75% of life on the planet. But many species of these aquatic apex predators are now in danger of dying out forever.

    “Sharks are in crisis globally,” says the WWF. Overfishing (hunting for their meat, fins, and other parts before they can reproduce fast enough) is their biggest threat along with unintentionally getting caught in fishing gear and the effects of climate change.

    Of the thousand known species of sharks and rays (sharks’ closest living relatives), over a third of them are at risk of extinction. And since sharks are “indicators of ocean health,” as sharks go, so does the delicate balance of marine ecosystems.

    From gathering data to educating the public to advocating for underwater life, many conservation groups are on a mission to protect these prehistoric creatures before they are lost to history. Click here to support their work or keep reading to learn how they’re taking action.

    Research is key to conservation. Scientists rely on this information to inform wildlife and habitat management and conservation plans while advocates use data to develop and recommend policy to public officials. This research can also be used for public safety purposes as well as to educate future generations that will inherit the planet.

    Often conducted in remote and dangerous environments, shark research requires time and money. But that work is paying off as researchers continually identify new species of sharks, such as those that can walk on the ocean floor and glow in the dark.

    These research-oriented organizations are exploring the world’s reefs, seas, coastlines, and oceans to ultimately benefit shark conservation:

    • Atlantic White Shark Conservancy – Based on the southern tip of Cape Cod, the conservancy’s main mission is white shark research and education. Offering expeditions to see the animals in their natural habitat, educational Shark Centers open to the public, and youth science programs, the non-profit also runs the Sharktivity app where user-reported shark sightings help researchers learn more about shark travel and behavior and keep sharks and humans safe from each other.
    • Beneath the Waves –– Since 2013, Beneath The Waves has used science and technology to promote ocean health and conservation policy. Their threatened species initiative collects research on sharks using tools such as tags, sensors, drones, and satellites to better understand shark biology and movement. The non-profit launched the first long-term study of large-scale shark sanctuaries and discovered deep-sea “hotspots” for sharks in the Caribbean.
    • MarAlliance – Headquartered in Houston, MarAlliance conducts research in tropical seas to support wildlife conservation in places such as the Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean, and Caribbean Sea. Their work includes identifying potential sites for marine protected areas from fishing, training local fishing communities, and monitoring population levels of threatened marine life, like some species of sharks.
    • Mote Marine Lab and Aquarium – Founded in 1955 on Florida’s west coast, Mote Marine Laboratory has been “obsessed” with sharks since their beginning. Today, their Sharks & Rays Conservation Research Program is one of 20 marine research programs studying human and environmental health, sustainable fishing, and animals such as manatees and dolphins. Mote also runs an aquarium equipped with a 135,000-gallon shark tank viewable on a live stream.
    • Fins Attached – While the Colorado-based non-profit aims to protect the health of the entire ocean, much of its research focuses on sharks since their position at the top of the marine food chain influences the health of the entire ecosystem. Fins Attached has produced many publications on shark research and allows donors to join some research expeditions, all with conservation and education in mind.

    Unfortunately for sharks, NOAA says, “What makes them unique also makes them vulnerable.” Some species of sharks, like great whites, are slow to reproduce: they can take decades to reach breeding age, have pregnancies last up to three years, and produce small litters. And warming waters are shifting some of their migration patterns beyond protected areas, putting them at risk of fishing.

    All of it is hurting their numbers. A 2021 report showed over the last 50 years, global shark and ray populations have fallen more than 70%.

    Listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, oceanic whitetip shark numbers in the Pacific Ocean have fallen an estimated 80 to 95% within the last 30 years, according to NOAA.

    “If we don’t do anything, it will be too late,” says biologist and study co-author Nick Dulvy. “It’s much worse than other animal populations we’ve been looking at,” adding the downward trend for sharks is even steeper than those for elephants and rhinos, which are “iconic in driving conservation efforts on land.”

    While the study found we may approach a “point of no return,” there are encouraging signs that conservation efforts are starting to work for white sharks and hammerheads thanks to government bans, policies, and quotas.

    There is still a long way to go, however, so many conservation organizations like these are dedicated to rescuing and protecting these vulnerable creatures:

    • PADI AWARE Foundation – The world’s largest scuba diver training organization, PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) officially launched its global conservation charity in 1992 to promote cleaner and healthier oceans. One of its goals is to reduce the amount of sharks and rays threatened with extinction by 25%. Data collected from its new Global Shark & Ray Census will help with ongoing and future efforts to protect vulnerable species.
    • Galápagos Conservancy – Some 600 miles west of Ecuador lies one of the world’s most famous and unique ecosystems: the Galápagos Islands. As the only American non-profit solely devoted to protecting and restoring the archipelago, the Galápagos Conservancy is working to rewild and save endangered species, including sharks. The organization is helping research breeding areas of scalloped hammerhead and blacktip sharks and supporting efforts to learn more about the high concentration of whale sharks that congregate in the Galápagos Marine Reserve.
    • Shark Advocates International –– Founded by veteran shark advocate Sonja Fordham, Shark Advocates International is a project of The Ocean Foundation. The non-profit promotes science-based shark conservation policies such as fishing limits, species-specific protections, and finning bans at the local, national, and international level.
    • WildAid –– Known for its high-profile media campaigns, WildAid fights the global illegal wildlife trade by changing consumer attitudes through awareness of the multi-billion dollar industry. Its anti-shark fin campaign in China featuring NBA legend Yao Ming has been especially successful, seeing an 80% drop in shark fin consumption in the country. Through its WildAid Marine Program, the non-profit also helps protect sharks around the world, including the Galápagos Marine Reserve, home to the densest shark population on Earth.
    • Wildlife Conservation Society – Founded in 1895, the Wildlife Conservation Society is one of the oldest organizations of its kind. In addition to operating world-famous parks like the Bronx Zoo, WCS runs long-term wildlife protection projects across the world, including an initiative to develop and implement policies to help protect sharks from overfishing in low-income, ocean-dependent countries.
    • WWF – With five million supporters, projects in nearly 100 countries, and one iconic panda logo, the World Wildlife Fund (known outside of the US and Canada as the World Wild Fund for Nature) is one of the largest and most well-known conservation organizations on the planet. WWF has partnered with the international wildlife trade monitoring non-profit TRAFFIC for a joint shark conservation program with local projects all over the world.

    It’s not just sharks that are vulnerable to deteriorating conditions in the water – the entire marine ecosystem is at risk due to unsustainable fishing practices, climate change, and pollution, which has reached “unprecedented” levels within the last 20 years.

    The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest concentration of ocean plastic in the world, is now twice the size of Texas. Scientists are seeing the highest ocean surface temperatures on record this year along with a “totally unprecedented” marine heat wave in the north Atlantic Ocean. Researchers warn all coral reefs on Earth could die out by the end of the century.

    Experts say it’s not too late to reverse course, but the window to do so is shrinking. A report in the journal Nature found marine wildlife to be “remarkably resilient” and could recover by 2050 with urgent and widespread conservation interventions.

    Organizations like the ones below are committed to protecting the health of the entire ocean and all life within it:

    • Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute – Started in 1963 by one of the founders of SeaWorld, HSWRI’s mission is to conserve and renew marine life for a healthier planet. Although the non-profit institute exists as an independent entity, it still collaborates with the for-profit park on scientific research and both act as “first responders” to rescue marine wildlife.
    • Ocean Conservancy – The Ocean Conservancy’s roots date back to the 1970’s when it campaigned to save whales and other vulnerable animals. It later expanded its mission to protect the broader ecosystem, holding its first International Coastal Cleanup in 1986, and since then has collected more than 348 million pounds of trash with the help of 17 million volunteers. Other current programs include advancing ocean justice, addressing climate change, advocating for ocean health funding and legislation, and promoting sustainable fishing.
    • The Ocean Foundation – Working in 45 countries across six continents, the community foundation operates conservation initiatives focused on climate resilience, ocean literacy and leadership, ocean science equity, and sustainable plastic production and consumption. The non-profit also offers training, research and development, and support for coastal communities.
    • WILDCOAST – Known as COSTASALVAJE in Spanish, WILDCOAST’s work spans 38 million acres primarily across California and Mexico to conserve coastal and marine ecosystems and wildlife. The non-profit works to protect shorelines, coastal wetlands, mangrove forests, and coral reefs and establish protected areas for threatened sea turtles and gray whales.
    • Wild Oceans – Focused on the future of sustainable fishing, Tampa-based Wild Oceans is the oldest non-profit in America dedicated to marine fisheries management. The non-profit’s Large Marine Fish Conservation initiative focuses on conserving big fish such as marlin, swordfish, tuna, and sharks – “the lions, tigers and wolves of the sea” – to keep the entire ocean food web and habitat healthy.

    Click here to support these organization’s work and help save sharks before it’s too late.

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  • Why Republicans can’t get out of their climate bind, even as extreme heat overwhelms the US | CNN Politics

    Why Republicans can’t get out of their climate bind, even as extreme heat overwhelms the US | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Deadly heatwaves are baking the US. Scientists just reported that July will be the hottest month on record. And now, after years of skepticism and denial in the GOP ranks, a small number of Republicans are urging their party to get proactive on the climate crisis.

    But the GOP is stuck in a climate bind – and likely will be for the next four years, in large part because they’re still living in the shadow of former president and 2024 Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

    Even as more Republican politicians are joining the consensus that climate change is real and caused by humans, Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has driven the party to the right on climate and extreme weather. Trump has called the extremely settled science of climate change a “hoax” and more recently suggested that the impacts of it “may affect us in 300 years.”

    Scientists this week reported that this summer’s unrelenting heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” were it not for the planet-warming pollution from burning fossil fuels. They also confirmed that July will go down as the hottest month on record – and almost certainly that the planet’s temperature is hotter now than it has been in around 120,000 years.

    Yet for being one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century, climate is rarely mentioned on the 2024 campaign trail.

    “As Donald Trump is the near presumptive nominee of our party in 2024, it’s going to be very hard for a party to adopt a climate-sensitive policy,” Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, told CNN. “But Donald Trump’s not going to be around forever.”

    When Republicans do weigh in on climate change – and what we should do about it – they tend to support the idea of capturing planet-warming pollution rather than cutting fossil fuels. But many are reticent to talk about how to solve the problem, and worry Trump is having a chilling effect on policies to combat climate within the party.

    “We need to be talking about this,” Rep. John Curtis, a Republican from Utah and chair of the House’s Conservative Climate Caucus, told CNN. “And part of it for Republicans is when you don’t talk about it, you have no ideas at the table; all you’re doing is saying what you don’t like. We need to be saying what we like.”

    With a few exceptions, Republicans largely are no longer the party of full-on climate change denial. But even as temperatures rise to deadly highs, the GOP is also not actively addressing it. There is still no “robust discussion about how to solve it” within the party, said former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, who now runs the conservative climate group RepublicEn, save for criticism of Democrats’ clean-energy initiatives.

    “The good news is Republicans are stopping arguing with thermometers,” Inglis told CNN. Still, he said, “when the experience is multiplied over and over of multiple days of three-digit temperatures in Arizona and record ocean temperatures, people start to say, ‘this is sort of goofy we’re not doing something about this.’”

    Meanwhile, the impacts of a dramatically warming atmosphere are becoming more and more apparent each year. Romney and Curtis, two of the loudest climate voices in the party, both represent Utah – a state that’s no stranger to extreme heat and drought, which scientists say is being fueled by rising global temperatures.

    “There are a number of states, like mine, that are concerned about wildfires and water,” Romney said, adding he believes Republican governors of impacted states have been vocal about these issues.

    Utah and other Western states are looking for ways to cut water use to save the West’s shrinking two largest reservoirs, Lakes Powell and Mead. And even closer to home, Utah’s Great Salt Lake has already disappeared by two-thirds, and scientists are sounding alarms about a rapid continued decline that could kill delicate ecosystems and expose one of fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the nation to toxic dust.

    “I think the evidence so far is that the West is getting drier and hotter,” Romney told CNN. “That means that we’re going to have more difficulty with our crops, we’re going to have a harder time keeping the rivers full of water. The Great Salt Lake is probably going to continue to shrink. And unfortunately, we’re going to see more catastrophic fires. If the trends continue, we need to act.”

    While Republicans blast Democrats’ clean energy policies ahead of the 2024 elections, it’s less clear what the GOP itself would prefer to do about the climate crisis.

    As Curtis tells it, there’s a lot that Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree on. They both want to further reform the permitting process for major energy projects, and they largely agree on the need for more renewable and nuclear energy.

    As the head of the largest GOP climate caucus on the Hill, Curtis’ Utah home is “full solar,” he told CNN, and is heated using geothermal energy.

    While at a recent event at a natural gas drilling site in Ohio, as smoke from Canada’s devastating wildfire season hung thick in the air, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was asked how he would solve the climate crisis. He suggested planting a trillion trees to help offset the pollution created by burning fossil fuels – a bill House Republicans introduced in 2020. The measure has not yet passed the House and has an uncertain future in the Senate.

    Rep. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, said his home is decked out in solar panels and geothermal energy.

    But the biggest and most enduring difference between the two parties is that Republicans want fossil fuels – which are fueling climate change with their heat-trapping pollution – to be in the energy mix for years to come.

    Democrats, meanwhile, have passed legislation to dramatically speed up the clean energy transition and prioritize the development of wind, solar and electrical transmission to get renewables sending electricity into homes faster.

    On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Democrats want to pass more climate legislation if they take back a full majority in Congress. He later told CNN the GOP is “way behind” on climate and there’s been “too little” progress on the party’s stances.

    “I think we’d get a lot more done with a Democratic House, a Democratic president and continuing to have a Democratic Senate,” Schumer told CNN. “Unfortunately, if you look at some of the Republican House and Senate Super PACs, huge amounts of money come from gas, oil and coal.”

    Even though Curtis and Romney are aligned on the party needing to talk about climate change, they differ on how to fix it. While Curtis primarily supports carbon capture and increased research and development into new technologies, Romney is one of the few Republicans speaking in favor of a carbon tax – taxing companies for their pollution.

    “It’s very unlikely that a price on carbon would be acceptable in the House of Representatives,” Romney said. “I think you might find a few Republican senators that would be supportive, but that’s not enough.”

    The idea certainly doesn’t have the support of Trump, or other 2024 candidates for president, and experts predict climate policy will get little to no airtime during the upcoming presidential race.

    “Regrettably, the issue of climate change is currently being held hostage to the culture wars in America,” Edward Maibach, a professor of climate communication at George Mason University and a co-founder of a nationwide climate polling project conducted with Yale University, told CNN in an email. “Donald Trump’s climate denial stance will have a chilling effect on the climate positions of his rivals on the right — even those who know better.”

    Even if climate-conscious Republicans say Trump won’t be in the party forever, Inglis said even a few more years may not be enough time to counteract the rapid changes already happening.

    “That’s still a long way away,” Inglis said. “The scientists are saying we can’t wait, get moving, get moving.”

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