GENEVA (AP) — A top official at the World Health Organization said that a genetic analysis of the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Guinea suggests it may have been sparked by a survivor of the devastating West Africa epidemic that ended five years ago.
At a press briefing in Geneva, WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan described the results of the genetic sequencing of the virus in Guinea as “quite remarkable.”
Scientists in Africa and Germany posted their results on a virology website on Friday, concluding that the current Ebola virus sickening people in Guinea is extremely similar to the virus that sparked the widespread West Africa outbreak that began in 2014.
Researchers used radiocarbon dating of eye proteins to determine the ages of 28 Greenland sharks, and estimated that one female was about 400 years old. The former vertebrate record-holder was a bowhead whale estimated to be 211 years old.
As lead author Julius Nielsen, a marine biologist from the University of Copenhagen, put it: “We had our expectations that we were dealing with an unusual animal, but I think everyone doing this research was very surprised to learn the sharks were as old as they were.”
Greenland sharks swim through the cold waters of the Arctic and the North Atlantic at such a sluggish pace that has earned them the nickname “sleeper sharks.” Image credit: Julius Nielsen
Greenland sharks are huge and can grow up to 5m in length. Yet, they grow at just 1cm a year. They can be found, swimming slowly, throughout the cold, deep waters of the North Atlantic.
The team believes the animals only reach sexual maturity when they are 4m-long. And with this new, very lengthy age-range, it suggests this does not occur until the animals are about 150 years old.
A newly tagged Greenland shark returns to the deep and cold waters of the Uummannaq Fjord in western Greenland. Image credit: Julius Nielsen
The research was made possible, in part, by the atmospheric thermonuclear weapons tests conducted during the 1960s, which released massive amounts of radiocarbon that were then absorbed by organisms in ocean ecosystems. Sharks that showed evidence of elevated radiocarbon in the nucleus of their eye tissue were therefore born after the so-called “bomb pulse,” and were younger than 50 years old, while sharks with lower radiocarbon levels were born prior to that, and were at least 50 years old or older, the study authors wrote.
The scientists then calculated an age range for the older sharks based on their size, and on prior data about Greenland sharks’ size at birth and growth rates in fish.
A Greenland shark near the ocean surface after its release from research vessel Sanna in northern Greenland. Image credit: Julius Nielsen
According to the results of the analysis – which has a probability rate of about 95 percent – the sharks were at least 272 years old, and could be as much as 512 years old (!) with 390 years as the most likely average life span, according to Nielsen.about:blank
But why do Greenland sharks live so long?
Their longevity is actually attributed to their very slow metabolism and the cold waters that they inhabit. They swim through the cold waters of the Arctic and the North Atlantic at such a sluggish pace that has earned them the nickname “sleeper sharks.” Seal parts have been found in their bellies, but the sharks move so slowly that experts have suggested that the seals must have been asleep or already dead when the sharks ate them.
(CNN)Inhis speechmarking the one-year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, President Joe Biden offered these words of encouragement: “There is hope and light and better days ahead.”And he’s, largely, right! As CNN’sRyan Struyk noted Friday morning: “The United States is now averaging 1,482 deaths per day from coronavirus, the lowest daily death toll since November 30, according to data from CNN and Johns Hopkins University.” Struyk also calculates that the7-day rolling average of cases is at 53,494as of Thursday, less than half the total we were seeing in the United States just a month ago.All of the trend lines are going in the right direction. Biden’s pledge to allow everyone to sign up for a vaccination by May 1 and his promise of a return…
Hong Kong (CNN)China is assembling an increasingly offensive military and expanding its regional footprint, as Beijing steps up efforts to supplant American military power in Asia, a top US commander warned Congress on Tuesday.”I cannot for the life of me understand some of the capabilities that they’re putting in the field unless it is an aggressive posture,” Adm. Philip Davidson, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.”I see them developing systems, capabilities and a posture that would indicate that they’re interested in aggression,” Davidson said.Adm. Philip Davidson, head of US Indo-Pacific CommandDavidson, who in the hearing defended budget requests for billions of dollars of new weaponry in the Pacific, said the increased investment was necessary to deter Chinese military ambition in the region.Content by RV ShareMillennials are…
IN MOJO’S THE WEEK THAT IS, WILKINSON AND SADLER DISCUSS HOW STATE LEGISLATORS ARE SETTING BACK WILDLIFE CONSERVATION FOR GRIZ, WOLVES AND OTHER ICONIC ANIMALS
byTodd Wilkinson and Tom SadlerSUPPORT USGET NEWSLETTERControversial bills moving through the 2021 Montana legislature would allow grizzlies to be killed outside the recovery zone based on the mere claim they were threatening livestock or human safety. They would prohibit bears outside the recovery zone from being relocated, and would allow black bears to be hunted with hounds, likely causing conflicts with grizzlies. Other bills have negative implications for grizzlies too. Experts say, if passed, they will reverse 40 years of bear conservation and likely reduce the possibility of bear populations from Greater Yellowstone linking up with bear populations in the northern part of the state. This photo, titled “Blondie’s Legacy” is by Thomas D. Mangelsen (mangelsen.com)
Las Vegas Review-JournalMarch 2, 2021 – 4:21 pm Don’t miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Freviewjournal&width=105&layout=button_count&action=like&size=large&show_faces=false&share=false&height=21&appId=846558002155573
Clark County commissioners on Tuesday formally urged Nevada to ban wildlife killing contests — a form of hunting competition already barred by neighboring states that activists have castigated as “unethical,” “barbaric” and a “sick bloodsport.”
In such contests, single shooters or teams of two set out at dawn to kill as many coyotes, rabbits, bobcats or other small mammals as they can, according to activists, who say that animals are then often thrown away and that lead ammunition strewn on public lands risks being ingested by wildlife and poisoning the food chain.
Participants compete for money or other prizes, the county said, and because western states such as California, Arizona and New Mexico have already banned the practice, Nevada has recently become a destination for contest organizers.
There have been more than two dozen competitions in Nevada in recent years, at least four which have occurred in the county, according to a resolution unanimously adopted by the commission imploring the Nevada Department of Wildlife “to take immediate action” to outlaw the contests.
“I am proud to have sponsored this resolution, which will help to ensure that the public is safe from stray bullets by unethical shooters in a hurry to kill as many animals as possible and protect our state’s wildlife from inhumane practices and unnecessary slaughter,” Commissioner Justin Jones said in a statement.
Ultimately the authority to establish a ban falls on the state Board of Wildlife Commissioners, a nine-member panel appointed by the governor, and not the state’s wildlife agency.
State biologists will, however, provide scientific information requested by the Wildlife Commission when the board considers any regulatory changes, which is a lengthy and public process, Nevada Department of Wildlife spokesman C. Douglas Nielsen said.RJ POLITICSTeam coverage from Las Vegas, Carson City and DCSign up for our free RJ Politics newsletter. SIGN UP By signing up you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Unsubscribe at any time.
“It is not our role to determine what is acceptable to society,” Nielsen said in an email about the state agency, adding that “if the department is asked for its recommendations, they are based on science.”
Resolution supported by activistshttps://bd47ccc157bea08d92e1d5d6b4cdb75d.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Wildlife activists immediately praised the county’s decision, noting that it marked the first forward movement against the contests in Nevada six years after the state Wildlife Commission voted 7-1 to deny a petition seeking to end them.
“With the passage of this historic resolution to condemn the scourge of wildlife killing contests in our state, Nevada has been put on the path toward joining the bevy of other states that have already eliminated these barbaric practices,” said Annoula Wylderich, the Nevada state director for Animal Wellness Action, in a statement.
Connie Howard, the chair of conservation and public lands for the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, had written a letter of support stating that “nothing is more antithetical” to the club’s mission of wildlife preservation and protection than “killing contests that glorify the killing of animals purely for blood sport with the intention of seeing who can kill the most.”
And Patrick Donnelly, the Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity, underscored that there was no evidence that killing coyotes reduces human conflict or the depredation of livestock.
“We need to show respect for our native wildlife, not treat it as fodder in some sick bloodsport,” Donnelly said in a statement.
In passing the resolution, commissioners also clearly delineated a distinction between the competitions and hunting. The county, according to its resolution, “values hunting as a method of food gathering, recreation, wildlife management, and protecting private property.”
Abortion rights activists hold placards and chant outside of the Supreme Court ahead of a ruling on abortion clinic restrictions on June 27, 2016, in Washington, D.C.
ARepublican lawmaker in Texas has introduced a bill that would make all abortions in the state illegal, with the punishment being the death penalty for anyone performing or undergoing the medical procedure.
Texas Republican State Rep. Bryan Slaton said in a press release that his bill would showcase how his party truly feels about the practice. “It’s time Republicans make it clear that we actually think Abortion is murder,” Slaton’s statement said. In a tweet about the proposal, Slaton also claimed the bill would “guarantee the equal protection of the laws to all Texans, no matter how small.”
Slaton’s bill, HB 3326, would charge any person who has an abortion, as well as any provider who performs the medical procedure, with assault or homicide. Those charges carry with them extreme punishments, including the death penalty in the state, and are in stark opposition to the stated “pro-life” positions anti-abortion activists say they hold.
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The bill would ban all abortions from the point of fertilization, and would not make any exceptions for rape or incest, though it would allow the procedure when a pregnant person’s life is at risk. The bill would also grant immunity to any individual who gives evidence or testifies against a person whom they have helped in obtaining an abortion.
“Texas Republicans filed a bill to abolish and criminalize abortions — potentially leaving women and physicians who perform the procedure to face the death penalty,” it said. “The right to choose is a human right. Period.”
Abortion is a favorite topic for Slaton, a freshman legislator in Texas. He previously led an effort to try to halt any legislation in the state from moving forward — including the naming of roads and bridges — until the issue of abortion was addressed.
But the bill is representative of a series of other bills across the nation that are seeking to impose extreme limits on abortion, and it’s possible that his proposal could go beyond those other two bills. Fourteen states throughout the U.S. have seen Republican legislators propose similar plans to ban abortion outright. It is hoped by these lawmakers that enacting these laws will lead to lawsuits, which in turn could result in the U.S. Supreme Court taking them up, and possibly overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision.
Just this week, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, signed into law a bill that bans nearly all abortions in the state. In a statement regarding the new law, Hutchinson expressly stated that he hoped the law would be challenged.
The abortion ban “is in contradiction of binding precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court, but it is the intent of the legislation to set the stage for the Supreme Court overturning current case law,” Hutchinson said in a statement.
Jessica Mason Pieklo, executive editor at Rewire News Group, a reproductive rights-focused media organization, noted in a tweet that the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas was already planning to challenge it. But Pieklo also worried over how far legal challenges would advance, particularly within conservative-leaning federal courts.
“The question is what will the Trump judges on the 8th Circuit do and what [toll] will that take on patients and providers?” she asked in her tweet.
One way to create an EMP is to set off a nuclear bomb. Here, a billowing white mushroom cloud during Operation Ivy, the first test of a hydrogen bomb, at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands.(Image credit: CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
A U.S. Air Force base in Texas has taken the first steps to guard against an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. But what, exactly, is an EMP, and how big is the threat?
Officials at the Joint Base San Antonio in Lackland, Texas, issued a request for bids to carry out a survey of a facility called the Petroleum, Oil and Lubrication Complex. The survey will identify any equipment that could be vulnerable to an EMP ahead of more detailed vulnerability testing, according to the request. After that, officials would figure out ways to keep that equipment safe in the event of…
Artist’s reconstruction showing the life stages of the fossil lamprey Priscomyzon riniensis. It lived around 360 million years ago in a coastal lagoon in what is now South Africa. Clockwise from right: A tiny, yolk-sac carrying hatchling with its large eyes; a juvenile; and an adult showing its toothed sucker. Credit: Kristen Tietjen
A new study out of the University of Chicago, the Canadian Museum of Nature and the Albany Museum challenges a long-held hypothesis that the blind, filter-feeding larvae of modern lampreys are a holdover from the distant past, resembling the ancestors of all living vertebrates, including ourselves. The new fossil discoveries indicate that ancient lamprey hatchlings more closely resembled modern adult lampreys, and were completely unlike their modern larvae counterparts. The results were published on March 10 in Nature.
Lampreys—unusual jawless, eel-like, creatures—have long provided insights into vertebrate evolution, said first author Tetsuto Miyashita, Ph.D., formerly a Chicago Fellow at the University of Chicago and now a paleontologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature. “Lampreys have a preposterous life cycle,” he said. “Once hatched, the larvae bury themselves in the riverbed and filter feed before eventually metamorphosing into blood-sucking adults. They’re so different from adults that scientists originally thought they were a totally different group of fish.
“Modern lamprey larvae have been used as a model of the ancestral condition that gave rise to the vertebrate lineages,” Miyashita continued. “They seemed primitive enough, comparable to wormy invertebrates, and their qualities matched the preferred narrative of vertebrate ancestry. But we didn’t have evidence that such a rudimentary form goes all the way back to the beginning of vertebrate evolution.”
Newly discovered fossils in Illinois, South Africa and Montana are changing the story. Connecting the dots between dozens of specimens, the research team realized that different stages of the ancient lamprey lifecycle had been preserved, allowing paleontologists to track their growth from hatchling to adult. On some of the smallest specimens, about the size of a fingernail, soft tissue preservation even shows the remains of a yolk sac, indicating that fossil record had captured these lampreys shortly after hatching.
Fossil of the hatchling of Priscomyzon, from the Late Devonian around 360 million years ago. The hatchling is already equipped with large eyes and toothed sucker, which in modern lampreys only develop in adults. (The Canadian 25-cent coin offers a size comparison for the tiny fossil). Credit: Tetsuto Miyashita
Crucially, these fossilized juveniles are quite unlike their modern counterparts (known as “ammocoetes”), and instead look more like modern adult lampreys, with large eyes and toothed sucker mouths. Most excitingly, this phenotype can be seen during the larval phase in multiple different species of ancient lamprey.
The researchers say that these results challenge the 150-year-old evolutionary narrative that modern lamprey larvae offer a glimpse of deep ancestral vertebrate conditions. By demonstrating that ancient lampreys never went through the same blind, filter-feeding stage seen in modern species, the researchers have falsified this cherished ancestral model.
Tetsuto Miyashita (right) stands with researcher Rob Gess in 2016 atop the shale locality in Makhanda, South Africa that has yielded fossils of the 360 million-year-old Priscomyzon lamprey. Credit: Tetsuto Miyashita
“We’ve basically removed lampreys from the position of the ancestral condition of vertebrates,” said Miyashita. “So now we need an alternative.”
After looking back at the fossil record, the team now believes that extinct armored fishes known as ostracoderms might instead represent better candidates for the root of the vertebrate family tree, whereas modern lamprey larvae are a more recent innovation. The team thinks the evolution of filter-feeding larvae may have allowed lampreys to populate rivers and lakes. Fossil lampreys reported in the new study all came from marine sediments, but modern lampreys mostly live in freshwater.
The researchers say that this is the sort of discovery that can rewrite textbooks. “Lampreys are not quite the swimming time capsules that we once thought they were,” said Coates. “They remain important and essential for understanding the deep history of vertebrate diversity, but we also need to recognize that they, too, have evolved and specialized in their own right.”
byHEIDI HATCH | KUTV StaffWednesday, March 10th 2021AAhttps://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.446.1_en.html#goog_1842399464Volume 90%14VIEW ALL PHOTOSKassidi Kurill with her daughter. (Photo: Courtesy Hawley family)
One case stood out, a39-year-old single mom from Ogdenwho died four days after her second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Her family, who is now waiting on an autopsy, held a celebration of life for her this past weekend.
Kassidi Kurill, by all accounts, was healthy, happy and “had more energy” than just about anyone else around her. Her family told 2News she had no known health problems or pre-existing conditions.
Adm. Philip Davidson, head of US Indo-Pacific CommandDavidson, who in the hearing defended budget requests for billions of dollars of new weaponry in the Pacific, said the increased investment was necessary to deter Chinese military ambition in the region.Content by RV ShareMillennials are…
Clark County Commissioners, from left, Chairman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, Tick Segerblom and Jim Gibson during a break in a commission meeting at the Clark County Government Center in Las Vegas Tuesday, March 2, 2021. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @KMCannonPhoto
Clark County Commissioners, from left, William McCurdy II, Michael Naft, Justin Jones, Chairman Marilyn Kirkpatrick, Jim Gibson and Tick Segerblom during a commission meeting at the Clark County Government Center in Las Vegas Tuesday, March 2, 2021. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @KMCannonPhotoMore Stories
