More than half of small business owners (56%) agree that working from home during the pandemic has made their experience of leading a team easier and more productive, according to a new poll.
A survey of 1,000 small business owners looked at how working remotely has impacted their company—uncovering several silver linings.
The results showed that three in five respondents said they are feeling more empathetic toward their employees and colleagues.
The vast majority—seven in 10—admitted the lockdowns had given them certain business opportunities they wouldn’t have had before.
Conducted by OnePoll in partnership with software company Field Effect, the survey also found that most small business owners have improved their relationship with their employees by trusting them more (63%) and having better communication (55%).
Working from home has also allowed more businesses to see an increase in customers (46% vs. 25% who have lost customers) and sales.
But, working remotely has its challenges. Nearly half of those polled agree that running their businesses primarily from home has proven to be more challenging than they anticipated.
41% admitted they don’t have the same capacity to oversee all aspects of their business from home.
Business owners are busier than ever, too, with 47% saying they wear more hats than before the pandemic by taking on roles like marketing or bookkeeping.
“In the face of uncertainty and rapidly changing business conditions, small business owners continue to prove their resiliency and adaptability,” said Andrew Milne, chief revenue officer at Field Effect.
“The fact that they have been able to overcome the inherent challenges in building a business from home, while still seeking out new business opportunities and customers is remarkable.”
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Scientists Zhexin Wang and Dr. Michael Grange at the Cryo-ET microscope-MPI of Molecular Physiology-released
Scientists Zhexin Wang and Dr. Michael Grange at the Cryo-ET microscope-MPI of Molecular Physiology-released
Scientists have obtained the first high-resolution 3D image of nebulin, a giant actin-binding protein that is an essential component of skeletal muscle.
This discovery shines a light on the mysterious role of nebulin, a protein whose functions remained cloudy due to its large size and the difficulty of extracting it in a native state from muscle.
The team of Max Planck researchers used electron cryo-tomography to decipher the structure of nebulin in impressive detail. Their findings could lead to novel therapeutic approaches to treat muscular diseases, because genetic mutations in nebulin are accompanied by a dramatic loss in muscle force—known as nemaline myopathy.
Knowing the structure of nebulin and how it interacts with actin could be pivotal to the development of new treatments. But traditional experimental approaches that reconstitute nebulin in vitro have failed because of the size of the protein, its flexibility, and the fact that it is intertwined with actin.
An elusive protein
Skeletal and heart muscles contract and relax upon sliding of parallel filaments of the proteins myosin and actin. Nebulin, another long slender protein, which is present only in skeletal muscle, pairs up with actin, stabilizing and regulating it. Mutations in the gene encoding nebulin can produce an abnormal nebulin that causes nemaline myopathy, an incurable neuromuscular disorder with various degrees of severity, from muscle weakness to speech impediments and respiratory problems.
Led by Stefan Raunser, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund, in collaboration with Mathias Gautel at King’s College London, the team took a different approach: they visualize these proteins directly in their native environment—the muscle—by using a powerful microscopy technique called electron cryo-tomography (cryo-ET). A cryo-ET experiment in the Raunser lab begins with flash-freezing muscle samples. Then, scientists apply a gallium-based ion beam to the sample to shave away extra material from it and reach an ideal thickness of around 100 nanometres for the transmission electron microscope.
This powerful tool then acquires multiple images of the sample tilting along an axis. Finally, computational methods render a three-dimensional image at an impressively high resolution.
Pushing the limits of cryo-ET
In a 2021 publication, the Max Planck researchers produced the first detailed 3D image of the sarcomere—the basic contractile unit of skeletal and heart muscle cell that contains actin, myosin and, eventually, the nebulin protein. The resolution of one nanometre (a millionth of a millimeter) was good enough to image actin and myosin but too low for visualizing nebulin.
This time, the team improved their data acquisition and processing pipeline to obtain a 3D picture of skeletal muscle filaments at near atomic resolution (0.45 nanometres). By comparing the images of the skeletal muscle with the nebulin-free cardiac muscle, the structure of the long nebulin protein became distinct and the researchers were able to build an atomic model of nebulin. “This is the first high-resolution structure using FIB-milling and cryo-ET, and it proves that we can reach atomic models in a reliable way.”
“It’s a quantum leap!” says Raunser.
The findings reveal that each nebulin repeat binds with an actin subunit, demonstrating nebulin’s role as a ruler that dictates the length of the actin filament. Besides, each nebulin repeat interacts with every neighboring actin subunit, which explains its role as a stabilizer. Finally, the scientists propose that nebulin regulates the binding of actin and myosin, and hence muscle contraction, by interacting with another protein called troponin. Experiments were done on mouse muscles that are very similar to the human ones — and were isolated at King’s College London.
“We obtained a detailed in situ 3D structure of nebulin, actin and myosin heads that can be used to pinpoint the mutations leading to myopathies,” notes Raunser.
Researchers can then take advantage of this new structure to locate binding sites for targeting with small molecules of pharmaceutical interest, he adds.
Driven by their recent success, the group will now concentrate on unveiling the structural details of myosin, the other sliding filament. Such findings could finally help paint the complete picture of the intricate details behind skeletal muscle contraction.
Niki Colemont escaped to Belgium when he was just four, with his 9-year-old sister, before the Rwandan genocide broke out.
An orphan whose mother died 3 months after giving birth and a father who died in the war, Niki said it was hard growing up in a country without knowing the language.
“I had no clue how to make friends and I was always alone and scared to talk to someone because everybody was white,” he told GNN. “I had to go to a special school because I was way behind.”
But his sister helped him to grow up and, eventually, he found his power through nature photography.
He picked up a camera in 2016 with no formal education and learned everything through trial and error. Now 35, he has dedicated the last six years of his life to photographing red squirrels.
He shares his pictures in a recently-released French-language children’s book about how he connects with, and photographs, the fluffy-tailed animals.
Niki Colemont aka Squirrelman
“I’m so blessed to have the squirrels in my life and to spend my free time with them,” says Niki, who works in the automotive field. “They gave me a lot of power and motivation to keep going.”
When he first saw a squirrel in someone’s garden, he bought a squirrel feeder for his own yard. He waited for 2 months, then the magic happened, and they learned how to open it and access the treats.
Niki Colemont aka Squirrelman
“I was so happy! On my 30th birthday, I bought myself a tele-lens to use on my Nikon D5200 and a wildlife hide tent for observation.”
He spent about 5 hours a day observing his little friends.
Niki Colemont aka Squirrelman
“My brain was on fire and I started to get ideas—my goal was to get the squirrels into special poses without using Photoshop, thinking about things nobody else had done before.”
Niki Colemont aka Squirrelman
He’s only sold a few prints from his webpage, but in 2019 he achieved a significant career milestone by becoming a National Geographic Photography Contest finalist. A documentary about him on Facebook has tallied over 5 million views.
“Now I do have a lot of support from people who follow and appreciate my work. They also push me to continue with what I’m doing. I hope to inspire others to go out and enjoy nature, as it has so much to offer.”
The British Museum has announced the discovery of “the most important piece of prehistoric art to be found in Britain in the last 100 years.”
The object is a 5,000-year-old chalk sculpture and was discovered on a country estate near the village of Burton Agnes in East Yorkshire.
The sculpture was first unearthed in a routine excavation by Allen Archaeology in 2015, and has since been studied extensively and conserved. Its existence is now confirmed to be one of the most significant ancient objects ever found on the British Isles.
This remarkable discovery is now on public display for the very first time as part of the British Museum’s The World of Stonehenge exhibition, open until July 2022.
The sculpture is decorated with elaborate motifs that reaffirms a British and Irish artistic style that flourished at exactly the same time as Stonehenge was built.
It was uncovered alongside the burial of three children. The children are different ages and were buried in close contact in a moving scene. The two youngest were placed in the grave touching or holding hands. The eldest child was laid in the grave holding the two younger children. The sculpture was found just above the head of the eldest child and it includes three hastily added holes, perhaps marking the presence of the three bodies in the grave.
Described as a chalk drum, it is only the fourth example of its kind known to have survived. Despite the use of the term ‘drum’, they are not thought to have had a musical function. Rather they are works of sculptural art, perhaps intended as talismans to protect the children they accompanied.
A radiocarbon date from one of the child’s bones in Burton Agnes identifies the burial as from 3005–2890BC. It also confirms for the first time that these burial drums were made at the same time as the first construction phase of Stonehenge. This is significant because it suggests that at the same time as the monument’s bluestones were being moved hundreds of kilometers from west Wales to Salisbury Plain, communities across Britain and Ireland were also sharing artistic styles, and probably beliefs, over remarkable distances.
The drum was accompanied by a chalk ball and polished bone pin, which lay beneath the head of one of the children. The chalk ball is a type of object that has also recently been found by archaeologists at the site of Bulford, close to Stonehenge.
Its symbolism is unclear. It could be a fertility symbol or even a toy held dear by a child. The bone pin is similar to objects placed with burials inside Stonehenge at around the same time period as the Burton Agnes drum was buried (c.3000 BC).
British Museum and Allen Archaeology
The Burton Agnes drum is also one of the most elaborately decorated objects of this period found anywhere in Britain and Ireland. Every inch of the object is decorated with motifs that are found on a range of prehistoric objects, including pottery and stone balls, and architectural surfaces, some incorporated within houses and tombs.
This was the artistic style of the people who built Stonehenge and related monuments across Britain and Ireland. It helps to illustrate the joined-up nature of society during this period, and the vibrant artistic culture of the time. The motifs themselves are abstract but may convey symbolism or religious principles that have yet to be deciphered.
“The discovery of the Burton Agnes grave is highly moving,” said Neil Wilkin, curator of The world of Stonehenge at the British Museum. “The emotions the new drum expresses are powerful and timeless, they transcend the time of Stonehenge and reflect a moment of tragedy and despair that remains undimmed after 5,000 years.”
“We were all stunned to see it up close when it came off site,” said Mark Allen, Director of Allen Archaeology. “The detailed relief carving on the drum is quite something to behold and shows great skill by its maker. Research is ongoing on the drum, the burials and the surrounding excavations, and we look forward to publishing more on this in the future.”
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Quote of the Day: “Sometimes I arrive just when God is ready to have someone click the shutter.” – Ansel Adams (born 120 years ago today)
Photo: by Ansel Adams, cropped / public domain
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Rooftop solar panels on Dearborn Homes housing complex, part of ComEd’s Bronzeville community microgrid project – ComEd
Rooftop solar panels on Dearborn Homes housing complex, part of ComEd’s Bronzeville community microgrid project – ComEd
Recent winter storms in Texas, as well as Gulf Coast hurricanes, and heat waves in California have forced utilities to think about more resilient power grids.
In Chicago, where the threat of winter blizzards, summer power surges, and deadly tornadoes can leave tens of thousands of residents without power for many days, a new microgrid is on the cusp of becoming a model for the country.
ComEd, the electric and gas utility company with 10 million customers, has successfully completed final testing of a microgrid integration—a network of solar panels, generators, batteries—that will increase energy security and resilience for residents and businesses on Chicago’s South Side.
“The impact of this project will be felt the world over as the industry better understands what is possible in integrating clean energy technologies,” said Prof. Amin Khodaei of the University of Denver.
Microgrids are small power grids with defined boundaries. They can operate in conjunction with the main grid or disconnect and operate standalone to keep power flowing. The tests demonstrated how Distributed Energy Resources (DER), such as solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage, can be used to support microgrid operations and enhance the resilience of the grid during disruptive events such as storms or natural disasters.
During the test, the microgrid successfully disconnected and reconnected to the main power grid without any interruptions in service to customers.
Located in the historic Black neighborhood of Bronzeville, this Community Microgrid will directly serve more than 1,000 residences, businesses and public institutions, as well critical public services—including the Chicago police and fire department headquarters.
ComEd
“Demonstrating microgrid technology has presented numerous engineering challenges, and we’ve met them all,” said Michelle Blaise, senior vice president of technical services for ComEd. “These technologies will support a higher level of service to communities throughout our region and drive the entire industry to a more resilient and sustainable future.”
The collaboration involves partnerships with universities, national labs, and suppliers, and has utilized a $4 million grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office.
“This project has provided us the opportunity to develop the algorithms that enable utilities to integrate distributed energy technologies while enhancing the resilience of the distribution system,” says Prof. Khodaei.
ComEd is scheduled to complete the installation of DER into the microgrid this year, before becoming fully operational.
WATCH a video about the green community grid and how it’s educating youth…
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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week of February 19, 2022
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
In 1961, Piscean cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit the Earth in a spacecraft. As his feat neared its end, Gagarin left the capsule at 20,000 feet above the ground and parachuted the rest of the way. He arrived in a turnip field where a girl and her grandmother were working. They provided him with a horse and cart so he could travel to the nearest telephone and make a call to get picked up and brought back to headquarters. I foresee a metaphorically comparable series of events transpiring in your life, Pisces. Be flexible and adaptable as you adjust to changing conditions with changing strategies. Your exceptional and illustrious activities may require the assistance of humble influences.
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
You’re slipping into a phase when stuff that has been invisible will become visible, at least to you. You will have extra power to peer beneath the surfaces and discern the hidden agendas and study the deeper workings. Your interest in trivia and distractions will dissipate, and you’ll feel intensified yearnings to home in on core truths. Here’s your guiding principle during this time: Favor the interests of the soul over those of the ego. And for inspiration, have fun with this quote by religious scholar Huston Smith: “The Transcendent was my morning meal, we had the Eternal at lunch, and I ate a slice of the Infinite at dinner.”
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
“You cannot have fun with anything that you don’t love or admire or respect,” declared comedian Mel Brooks. I agree! The joyous release that comes through playful amusement is most likely to unfold when you’re in the presence of influences you are fond of. The good news, Taurus, is that in the coming weeks, you will have a special inclination and knack for hanging around people and influences like that. Therefore, you will have an enhanced capacity for mirth and delight and pleasure. Take full advantage, please! As much as possible, gravitate toward what you love and admire and respect.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
“The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else,” says Gemini author Vikram Seth. I bring this truth to your attention because I believe you will soon be the beneficiary of steady, strong waves of inspiration. I also predict that these waves will transport you away from minor irritations that are best left alone for now. Be alert and ever-ready to spring into action, my dear, so that as the inspirational surges flow, you will harvest the maximum rewards from their gifts.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
The advice that Reb Nachman of Breslov offered two centuries ago is just right for you now: “Never ask directions from someone who knows the way, or you will never be able to get lost.” In the coming weeks, you will attract tricky but palpable blessings from meandering around without knowing exactly where you are. It’s time for you to find out what you don’t even realize you need to know; to stumble upon quiet little wonders and marvels that will ultimately prove to be guideposts for your holy quests in the future. Yes, I understand that being in unknown territory without a reliable map isn’t usually a pleasure, but I believe it will be for you. Fellow Cancerian, author Rebecca Solnit, wrote a book entitled A Field Guide to Getting Lost that might be helpful during your wanderings.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
“You face your greatest opposition when you’re closest to your biggest miracle,” wrote author and filmmaker T. D. Jakes. According to my analysis of upcoming astrological omens, that’s good advice for you. I suspect that the problems you encounter will be among your best and most useful ever. With the right attitude, you will harness the challenges to generate magnificent breakthroughs. And what’s the right attitude? Proceed with the hypothesis that life is now conspiring to bring your soul exactly what your soul needs to express its ripest beauty.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
“Always remember this,” said actor Hattie McDaniel (1893–1952). “There are only 18 inches between a pat on the back and a kick in the rump.” Metaphorically speaking, I believe her advice will be useful for you in the coming days. Lately, you’ve had to deal with too many experiences and influences akin to kicks in the rump. But now that will change. Soon there’ll be a surge of experiences and influences that resemble pats on the back. In my estimation, you have finished paying your dues and making course corrections. Now it’s time for you to receive meaningful appreciation and constructive approval.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
Author Gayle Forman offers a set of truths that I suspect will be useful for you in the coming weeks. They may even be inspirational and motivational. Forman writes, “Sometimes fate or life or whatever you want to call it, leaves a door a little open, and you walk through it. But sometimes it locks the door and you have to find the key, or pick the lock, or knock the damn thing down. And sometimes, it doesn’t even show you the door, and you have to build it yourself.” Are you ready for the challenge, Libra? I think you are. Do whatever you must do to go through the doorways you want and need to go through.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash described her process. “I dream of songs,” she began. “I dream they fall down through the centuries, from my distant ancestors, and come to me. I dream of lullabies and sea shanties and keening cries and rhythms and stories and backbeats.” Scorpio, I would love for you to explore comparable approaches to getting the creative ideas you need to live your best life possible. I would love for you to draw freely from sources beyond your conscious ego—including your ancestors, the people you were in previous incarnations, gods and spirits, heroes and allies, the intelligence of animals, and the wisdom of nature. The coming months will be a favorable time to expand your access. Start boosting the signals now!
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Author Madeleine Thien has lived in Vancouver, Montreal, and Iowa City, and has taught at schools in Hong Kong and Brooklyn. Her father was born and raised in Malaysia and her mother in Hong Kong. She has a rich array of different roots. Not surprisingly, then, she has said, “I like to think of home as a verb, something we keep recreating.” That’s an excellent meditation for you right now, Sagittarius. And it will continue to be worthy of your ruminations for another four months. What’s the next step you could take to feel comfortable and secure and at peace?
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
The fastest animal on earth is the peregrine falcon, which can reach speeds of 200 miles per hour when it dives from a great height. The seventh-fastest creature is the humble pigeon. Having been clocked at 92.5 miles per hour, the bird outpaces the cheetah, which is the fastest land animal. I propose we make the pigeon your spirit creature for the coming weeks. On the one hand, you may seem mild and modest to casual observers. On the other hand, you will in fact be sleek, quick, and agile. Like the pigeon, you will also be highly adaptable, able to thrive in a variety of situations.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
“Self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion,” wrote Aquarian author W. Somerset Maugham. Yes! I agree! And that’s the perfect message for you to hear right now. If you choose to take advantage of the potentials that life is offering you, you will explore and experiment with the mysteries of self-discipline and self-command. You’ll be a trailblazer of discernment and poise. You will indulge in and enjoy the pleasures of self-regulation.
WANT MORE? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 minute meditations on the current state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique daily text message service at: RealAstrology.com
An astounding photo of five whale sharks, feeding together at night in the waters of the Maldives has won the 2022 Underwater Photographer of the Year contest.
Rafael Fernandez Caballero from Spain triumphed over 4200 underwater pictures entered by photographers from 71 countries. The photo captures a unique ocean event, taken in demanding photographic conditions.
“Giants Of The Night” features five whale sharks, the biggest fish in the world, feeding together on nocturnal plankton that have been concentrated in the lights of a boat. “It was already incredible when one whale shark came to our boat,” explains Fernandez. “But more and more kept arriving. I was diving with Gador Muntaner, a shark researcher, who couldn’t believe it, as their numbers grew.”
“He counted 11 sharks that night – a once in a lifetime encounter that nobody thought was possible.”
Competition judge, Peter Rowlands, commented, “this image took my breath away from the first viewing and I never tired coming back to it.” Judge Alex Mustard said, “photography needs light— and simply recording these giants in a dark ocean is a massive achievement.”
Founded in 1965 by Rowlands, a British photographer, the Underwater Photographer of the Year contest has 13 categories, testing photographers with themes such as Macro, Wide Angle, Behavior—as well as categories for photos taken specifically in British waters.
Matty Smith, an Englishman now living in Australia, was named as British Underwater Photographer of the Year 2022 for a portrait of a great white shark taken in the Neptune Islands, South Australia.
To produce “Great White Split” Smith build a special supersize dome port for his camera, as well as a carbon pole and remote trigger to allow him to get this revealing perspective.
“I had wanted to shoot a charismatic over/under portrait for years,” explained Smith. “Some techniques I had previously tried failed terribly, so this time I designed and constructed my own equipment to get the camera exactly where I wanted. Surprisingly, the sharks were instantly attracted to the camera, in fact it was a battle to stop them biting it!”
The competition also aims to promote new photographic talent.
Quico Abadal, from Spain, was named as Up & Coming Underwater Photographer of the Year for a creative image “Supernova In Paradise”. Adabal’s photo was taken at sunset off Sairee Beach, Koh Tao, Thailand and is purposely shown upside down.
“This photo features Jeniya, who moves so poetically in the water,” explained Abadal. “What I like about this photograph is the imperfection of backscatter in the dark water, creating the feeling of outer space and making it perfect to me.”
The winner of the My Backyard category was Pekka Tuuri of Finland. He spent four days and four nights in April in a local pond—wearing a drysuit with argon, and lots of undergarments—to capture a photo of frogs mating, and called it: All you need is love!
“I floated and stayed put among the frogs and quite soon they accepted me and my camera as a part of the scenery. The frogs climb on top of my camera, make grunting sounds in my ears and squeeze between my face and the backplate of the camera. The active spawning time lasts about two days and nights. What an experience!”
Taking third place in the category of Wide Angle, Hannah Le Leu of Australia captured a green sea turtle hatchling at Heron Island and captioned the photo: Against All Odds.
“It cautiously surfaces for air to a sky full of hungry birds. Against all odds, this hatchling must battle through the conditions of a raging storm whilst evading a myriad of predators,” says Hannah. “Not only has the tropical storm brought out thousands of circling birds, but there are also patrolling sharks and large schools of fish on the hunt for baby turtles. Only one in 1000 of these hatchlings will survive.”
“A diseased species is usually easy prey for a predator. In this case, a Mediterranean predatory fish has hunted a green fish (Labrus viridis), abundant in the Mediterranean. The moment was unique, the green wrasse swam slowly and roughly, it was probably sick, and a few meters away I could see the sawing hiding among the dense posidonia meadow to hunt it down. It was a matter of being patient and in the blink of an eye I caught it. It was so interested in swallowing it that I was able to get within a few inches without flinching.”
The winner of the category, British Waters Macro, was Dan Bolt, from the UK with his image, Best Buddies.
“2021 was the 10 year anniversary of my first trip to the beautiful Loch Carron. I’m not very good at finding Yarrels blennies, (but) we were diving on an area of reef, and after an excited squeal and waving of a torch in my direction I dropped down to see that my buddy had found not one, but two beautiful little blennies holed up in a crack in the rock. Having my long macro lens on was an advantage as I could stand-off from the reef enough to get some light into their home so we could all see their some-what bemused little faces. Best buddies for sure!”
“In the summer months Jelly fish frequent the British isles in larger numbers, thought to be attracted by the warmer waters. In 2021, there were huge numbers of these Compass jellyfish in Falmouth Bay. It was a perfect summers evening – clear and calm with hardly a breath of wind. We grabbed the paddle board and camera and headed to the beach in search of jellyfish. I had a sunset shot like this in mind and fortunately all the elements lined up to create something quite memorable.
“I hope my image can inspire others to explore and appreciate the wonders that are found right in our backyard, in British waters,” says Jefferies.
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A giant black diamond with an origin unsolved for decades has sold at auction, despite scientists unsure whether it was formed from lava or dropped from a meteorite—or stranger things besides.
It’s easy to be romantic about diamonds. As well as being ‘forever’ and ‘a girl’s best friend,’ they also can harken back to the magic of human mythology—such as the Hammer of Thor being forged in the heart of a dying star.
The extraordinary hardness of the stones, as well as the diversity of color, elicits theories about their formation that are equally incredible—and this jet black “carbonado” diamond weighing almost 4 ounces (111 grams), which is scientifically unexplainable, is a perfect example.
Aptly named ‘The Enigma Diamond’, it fetched $4.3 million at Sotheby’s, as the largest faceted diamond to ever appear on the auction market. Weighing a staggering 555.55 carats, the black naturally-colored diamond surpasses the weight of other giants like the 530-carat Great Star of Africa.
Cutting Enigma into its 55 facets took three years, due to the carbonado diamond’s hardness.
Exactly what a carbonado diamond is, and how it is formed, scientists don’t know—and their lack of certainty has led to some fascinating possibilities. They do know that Enigma, and all other carbonados, formed in an unknown event around 3-4 billion years ago—and they’re only ever been found in Brazil and the Central African Republic.
Meteormight
As diamonds are formed hundreds of miles below the earth’s surface, they often encapsulate other minerals. Carbonados contain unique collections of minerals, such as a titanium nitride called “osbornite”, not found in any other diamonds but which is commonly found in meteorites.
SOTHEBY’S
Another curiosity of carbonados is their age. They are always at least 500 million years older than the oldest-ever diamond found in other sources like Kimberlites, which are essentially church-organ-like tubes that shot diamonds out in spurts of lava millions of years ago. Furthermore, the true host rock of carbonados, the magma-based minerals they were born of, has never been identified.
“A revised model for the origin of carbonado is developed based on: (1) new observations which show that white dwarf stars can have diamond cores; (2) carbon-rich exoplanets may have diamond-bearing mantles; and (3) new shock wave experiments on methane suggest that diamond may be present in large gaseous planets such as Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune where diamond in the core is solid, and in Jupiter where liquid diamond may be present,” writes Stephen Haggerty, the pioneering geologist and diamond expert who in 1996 first proposed that carbonados come from meteorites.
However, any diamonds ever found in meteorites have been truly minuscule, while carbonados are regularly quite large. As the science of carbonados advanced, evidence that osbornite has been found in Earth’s crust has lead other researchers to develop theories that the black diamonds are homegrown.
Are they home-baked diamonds…
Diamonds are at their heart, a form of carbon. Yet carbonados, true to their mysterious nature, are formed from the light carbon isotope C12; in other words, the carbon that makes up biological life.
“Are carbonados fossils of the very earliest organisms to form on Earth?” Peter Heaney a mineralogist at Pennsylvania State University, pondered in Nat Geo. “Nobody knows the answer to that.”
This idea has been proposed before as an explanation for other common diamonds, but another possibility is that the strange black diamonds, like common ones, were formed in the mantle. This was previously thought impossible. However, in 2010, another carbonado researcher found strikingly similar diamonds in a truly ancient form of crystalized lava called komatiite, which flowed like a liquid, during Earth’s early history to around 2.7 billion years ago.
The komatiite theory contains a model in which carbonado-like diamonds could be formed in these unthinkably hot lava flows, but doesn’t explain yet another curious feature of The Enigma diamond and other carbonados.
…Or, from a dying star?
The surfaces of these black diamonds are covered in pores, a feature which under the extreme heat and pressure near the Earth’s core would simply not allow a crystal to remain intact. Heaney thinks the pores contained radioactive phosphate minerals which left the pores as they decayed, and darkened the diamonds’ color in the same process.
Haggerty proposes another extraterrestrial theory for the pores, which is that they were formed as molten carbon degassed on the surface of a dying star.
Whatever the secret behind the formation of these strange black diamonds, there is no doubt that they are extremely captivating in all respects. And whether they came from an erupting lake of liquid diamond on a far away world, and then carried here on a meteorite, or whether they were forged in Mount Doom by Tolkien’s Sauron, there’s no origin story that isn’t sufficiently mind-blowing to be featured in a fantasy book.
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Editors note: This story has been altered to correct a previous editor’s misunderstandings of the difference between The Hobbit and the mythology of Thor.
Quote of the Day: “The only walls that exist are those you have placed in your mind. And whatever obstacles you conceive, exist only because you have forgotten what you have already achieved.” – Suzy Kassem
Photo: by Gene Devine
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baleen whale cc license wikimedia commons Whit Welles Wwelles14 -
Whit Welles Wwelles14, CC license
Whales off the coast of Iceland will be left alone by the end of next year, after the nation’s Fisheries Minister announced a cancelation of all new permits for commercial whaling.
The country had already banned international whaling crews in their waters, but now, once the current permits expire in 2023, the practice will end, for good.
New economic feasibility studies find that whales would generate more tourism revenue from being seen—on whale-watching tours—than from being eaten, and the campaign generated 175K signatures, the largest signature campaign in the nation’s history.
Transcend Media Service reports that hundreds of thousands of whale-watchers visited the northern European nation in 2019 to observe both the minke whales—the world’s smallest baleen whale—and fin whales, the world’s second largest species.
Whale sightings are bound to become more lively in coming years, now that average annual catches will drop to zero, from around 83 caught yearly from 2003-2019.
Representatives from more than 100 countries arrived last week in France for a summit on protecting oceans from pollution, plastic, and overfishing.
The nation which birthed the most famous marine biologist in history (that’d be Jacques Cousteau) welcomed the One Ocean Summit, the highlight of which was a 43-nation agreement to create a treaty to regulate the high seas in a more sustainable way.
A deal is looking likely when the United Nations meet in in March, and President of the European Commission described one as “so close.”
Being beyond the territorial jurisdiction of any country, the laws of the high seas must be made and changed through international accords, and thereby suffer from the “tragedy of the commons” problem that occurs whenever something is removed from the profit-loss function of the market.
A largely European affair, the U.S. nevertheless said it would throw its weight behind any proposals to introduce an international deal on curbing plastic pollution.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development joined the European Investment Bank and other state development banks to create a €4 billion fund for helping countries reduce their share of plastic pollution that ends up in the oceans.
The summit in Brest also saw six more countries join the International Maritime Organization’s Cape Town agreement which sets safety standards for shipping vessels, while several EU nations said they would deploy their national navies to step up surveillance on illegal fishing vessels.
Colombia and France also jointly announced a blue carbon financing program to help improve the restoration of coastal mangroves and other important ecosystems.
Speaking for the private sector, 22 shipping countries pledged to reduce underwater noise pollution, sulfur pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions above deck, while 18 ports also signed on to reduce emissions.
Courtesy of Cassie Stymiest, EducationalPassages.org
Courtesy of Cassie Stymiest, EducationalPassages.org
A student project focusing on learning about the oceans saw high schoolers launch a small boat filled with mementoes drifting across the Atlantic.
Lost at sea for 462 days, the vessel finally struck land in remote Norway, where a young sixth-grade boy got to share it with his classmates.
Back in the 2019-20 school year, Rye Junior High students in the classroom of science teacher Sheila Adams were told that they would be participating in an experiment with Educational Passages, a Maine-based nonprofit that teaches about oceans and their impact.
However, after pandemic restrictions forced the students into remote learning, Ms. Adams instructed them to design a piece of personalized artwork that could be scanned and copied and placed on top of of the six-foot boat complete with mast, hull, and keel.
The following school year, Adams was assigned to a different fifth grade class who were also scheduled to work with Educational Passages. Adams and executive director for EP Cassie Stymiest decided to merge the project between the two classes, and asked the new kids to load the cargo hold with small trinkets and decide what colors the boat would be painted.
Lost at sea
The boat, christened Rye Riptides was launched from Massachusetts’s shore in October of 2020, equipped with a GPS tracker that occasionally would log waypoints showing the kids where their boat was.
During hurricane season the GPS stopped responding for a time, before turning back on on August 18th, and again on September 30th, after which it didn’t transmit its location for four months.
“Honestly, I thought it would sink,” Solstice Reed from the sixth grade class admitted to Seacoast Online.
Then on January 30th, Stymiest got an update: Rye Riptides had made landfall somewhere on the small island of Smøla off the coast of Norway.
“This is an educational project built by students in Rye, New Hampshire, U.S.A. Contact Educational Passages for more information and if you know anyone that can assist in a recovery to avoid damage to the vessel,” Stymiest wrote on a Norway Facebook group around the area in which the boat landed.
“It is an unscrewed vessel, like a message in a bottle, but we would like to recover it and have it brought to a nearby school to connect students.”
Local news outlets picked up the story and published it. A local sixth grader, Karel Nuncic, saw the story and along with his dog and family, went out on their boat to find Rye Riptides.
While the cargo hold was intact, everything else was lost, including the mast, hull, keel, and rudder. The brightly covered boat was covered in gooseneck barnacles from its long voyage.
Nuncic’s sixth grade class are planning to write a letter in reply, since their English second language is quite good—Karel’s mom even recorded him reading the letter contained in the boat written by the Rye students. The classes are also scheduled to have a video call.
“There’s a magical thing, there’s so much hope in it, you really just don’t know what’s going to happen. When you’re sending it out, you have no idea where it’s going to end up, how it’s going to get there, if it ends up (anywhere) at all,” Stymiest said. “But these kids, they put their hopes and dreams and wishes into it and I tend to think sometimes that helps.”
Decades of research has shown that limits on calorie intake by flies, worms, and mice can enhance life span in laboratory conditions. But whether such calorie restriction can do the same for humans had remained unclear.
Now a new study led by Yale researchers confirms the health benefits of moderate calorie restrictions in humans—and identifies a key protein that could be harnessed to extend health in humans.
The research was based on results from the Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy (CALERIE) clinical trial, the first controlled study of calorie restriction in healthy humans. For the trial, researchers first established baseline calorie intake among more than 200 study participants. The researchers then asked a share of those participants to reduce their calorie intake by 14% while the rest continued to eat as usual, and analyzed the long-term health effects of calorie restriction over the next two years.
The overall aim of the clinical trial was to see if calorie restriction is as beneficial for humans as it is for lab animals, said Vishwa Deep Dixit, the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Pathology, Immunobiology, and Comparative Medicine, and senior author of the study. And if it is, he said, researchers wanted to better understand what calorie restriction does to the body specifically that leads to improved health.
Since previous research has shown that calorie restriction in mice can increase infections, Dixit also wanted to determine how calorie restriction might be linked to inflammation and the immune response.
“Because we know that chronic low-grade inflammation in humans is a major trigger of many chronic diseases and, therefore, has a negative effect on life span,” said Dixit, who is also director of the Yale Center for Research on Aging. “Here we’re asking: What is calorie restriction doing to the immune and metabolic systems and if it is indeed beneficial, how can we harness the endogenous pathways that mimic its effects in humans?”
Dixit and his team started by analyzing the thymus, a gland that sits above the heart and produces T cells, a type of white blood cell and an essential part of the immune system. The thymus ages at a faster rate than other organs. By the time healthy adults reach the age of 40, said Dixit, 70% of the thymus is already fatty and nonfunctional. And as it ages, the thymus produces fewer T cells. “As we get older, we begin to feel the absence of new T cells because the ones we have left aren’t great at fighting new pathogens,” said Dixit. “That’s one of the reasons why elderly people are at greater risk for illness.”
For the study, the research team used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to determine if there were functional differences between the thymus glands of those who were restricting calories and those who were not. They found that the thymus glands in participants with limited calorie intake had less fat and greater functional volume after two years of calorie restriction, meaning they were producing more T cells than they were at the start of the study. But participants who weren’t restricting their calories had no change in functional volume.
“The fact that this organ can be rejuvenated is, in my view, stunning because there is very little evidence of that happening in humans,” said Dixit. “That this is even possible is very exciting.”
With such a dramatic effect on the thymus, Dixit and his colleagues expected to also find effects on the immune cells that the thymus was producing, changes that might underlie the overall benefits of calorie restriction. But when they sequenced the genes in those cells, they found there were no changes in gene expression after two years of calorie restriction.
This observation required the researchers to take a closer look, which revealed a surprising finding: “It turns out that the action was really in the tissue microenvironment not the blood T cells,” Dixit said.
Dixit and his team had studied adipose tissue, or body fat, of participants undergoing calorie restriction at three time points: at the beginning of the study, after one year, and after two. Body fat is very important, Dixit said, because it hosts a robust immune system. There are several types of immune cells in fat, and when they are aberrantly activated, they become a source of inflammation, he explained.
“We found remarkable changes in the gene expression of adipose tissue after one year that were sustained through year two,” said Dixit. “This revealed some genes that were implicated in extending life in animals but also unique calorie restriction-mimicking targets that may improve metabolic and anti-inflammatory response in humans.”
Recognizing this, the researchers then set out to see if any of the genes they identified in their analysis might be driving some of the beneficial effects of calorie restriction. They honed in on the gene for PLA2G7—or group VII A platelet activating factor acetylhydrolase —which was one of the genes significantly inhibited following calorie restriction. PLA2G7 is a protein produced by immune cells known as macrophages.
This change in PLA2G7 gene expression observed in participants who were limiting their calorie intake suggested the protein might be linked to the effects of calorie restriction. To better understand if PLA2G7 caused some of the effects observed with calorie restriction, the researchers also tracked what happened when the protein was reduced in mice in a laboratory experiment.
“We found that reducing PLA2G7 in mice yielded benefits that were similar to what we saw with calorie restriction in humans,” said Olga Spadaro, a former research scientist at the Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the study. Specifically, the thymus glands of these mice were functional for a longer time, the mice were protected from diet-induced weight gain, and they were protected from age-related inflammation.
These effects occurred because PLA2G7 targets a specific mechanism of inflammation called the NLRP3 inflammasome, researchers said. Lowering PLA2G7 protected aged mice from inflammation.
“These findings demonstrate that PLA2G7 is one of the drivers of the effects of calorie restriction,” said Dixit. “Identifying these drivers helps us understand how the metabolic system and the immune system talk to each other, which can point us to potential targets that can improve immune function, reduce inflammation, and potentially even enhance healthy lifespan.”
For instance, it might be possible to manipulate PLA2G7 and get the benefits of calorie restriction without having to actually restrict calories, which can be harmful for some people, he said.
“There’s so much debate about what type of diet is better—low carbohydrates or fat, increased protein, intermittent fasting, etc.—and I think time will tell which of these are important,” said Dixit. “But CALERIE is a very well-controlled study that shows a simple reduction in calories, and no specific diet, has a remarkable effect in terms of biology and shifting the immuno-metabolic state in a direction that’s protective of human health. So from a public health standpoint, I think it gives hope.”
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uppy koa at princeton released Camden Olson only for this story
Camden Olson
A new study into how long dogs live busts the myth that each of our years is seven for dogs—and could even help humans live longer.
A commonly-held belief is that dogs age seven times faster than us, so a one-year-old dog is like a seven-year-old child.
But large breeds age ten times quicker than us and some small dogs can be half of that.
Now scientists are studying the genomes of 10,000 dogs in a long-term study called the Dog Aging Project.
And they hope they will be able to see why ‘super centenarian’ dogs that live to 20 can survive so long and apply it to people.
Professor Joshua Akey, at Princeton University, said, “This is a very large, ambitious, wildly interdisciplinary project that has the potential to be a powerful resource for the broader scientific community.
“Personally, I find this project exciting because I think it will improve dog, and ultimately, human health.
“This will be one of the largest genetics data sets ever produced for dogs, and it will be a powerful resource not only to understand the role of genetics in aging, but also to answer more fundamental questions about the evolutionary history and domestication of dogs.
“One part of the project that I am super excited about is a ‘super-centenarian’ study, comparing the DNA of exceptionally long-lived dogs to dogs that live to the average age for their breed.”
The researchers hope to identify specific biomarkers of canine aging.
Prof Akey added, “This is the first study of its kind in dogs and I think it’s a clever way of trying to find genetic differences that contribute to exceptional longevity.”
They anticipate that their findings will translate to human aging, for several reasons, dogs experience nearly every functional decline and disease of aging that people do; the extent of veterinary care parallels human healthcare in many ways, and our dogs share our lived environments, a major determinant of aging and one that cannot be replicated in any lab setting.
Professor Daniel Promislow, at the University of Washington and principal investigator, said, “Given that dogs share the human environment and have a sophisticated health care system but are much shorter-lived than people, they offer a unique opportunity to identify the genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors associated with healthy lifespan.”
The project has been outlined in the journal Nature.
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The media has dubbed them “forever chemicals,” but now scientists are putting their name to the test.
Perflourinated or polyfluorinated alkyl-substances (PFAS) are known to be nearly impossible to break apart, and tend to accumulate in groundwater sources, soils, and other places. Their health effects are known, as is a new method to destroy 99% of them in water sources.
Known as “supercritical water oxidation” (SWO), a paper recently published found the procedure could destroy 99% of of a wide variety of known and unknown PFAS contained in a water sample.
When water is heated to to 374°C (705.2°F) under pressures of 220 bar, it becomes not gas, nor liquid, but a state known as supercritical. Here, accelerated oxidation and other reactions cause the PFAS to dissolve into component elements, which can be more readily collected and disposed of.
In testing SWO, the EPA-backed researchers found that only 27% of the weight of the water sample’s fluorinated content came from the PNAS the scientists were targeting, suggesting a large portion belonged to forever chemicals not identified in the study. Such a finding lends huge credence to SWO as a cleaning method.
“As a destructive technology, SCWO may be an alternative to incineration and could be a permanent solution for PFAS-laden wastewaters rather than disposal by injection into a deep well or landfilling,” the authors write in their paper.
Discovering a way to destroy these chemicals is valuable because restricting their manufacturing and use would be difficult because they are prized for their ability to resist oil and water, and high temperatures—and because they are one of the principal components of fire-fighting technology.
“Given that supercritical water oxidation systems are already commercially available, this may be a technology that could soon be deployed for significantly impacted sites or wastewaters,” lead author Max Krause told Scientific American. “We are currently evaluating air emissions to understand all of the pathways and to be certain we are destroying the PFAS.”
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eized_ivory_slated_for_destruction_in_the_crush._(10843354356) wikimedia commons cc license USFWS Mountain-Prairie
USFWS Mountain Prairie, CC license
Two men from the Democratic Republic of Congo were arrested on November 3 outside of Seattle, Washington, having been indicted on charges of trafficking after they were caught trying to smuggle 49 pounds of elephant ivory into the U.S.
The men owe their indictment and day in court to Samuel Wasser, a crack sleuth on the trail of the world’s major organized crime syndicates responsible for the trade in illegal wildlife parts like elephant ivory.
His 15-year production of a database containing familial relationships between poached animals like elephants is creating maps which authorities are using not only to make arrests of criminal henchmen, but identifying the geographical chokepoints organized crime is operating through.
Taking DNA samples of a single elephant tusk isn’t likely to reveal anything that authorities, either rangers or detectives, might need to know to stop elephants being poached. Ivory is often mixed together in the scramble to smuggle it out of Africa, meaning that the right and left tusk of a single elephant could be separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of days.
Directing the Center for Environmental Forensic Science at the University of Washington, Wasser has pioneered a method of connecting metaphorical red yarn between elephant ivory confiscated by authorities, and where in Africa it was taken from.
Now, when Wasser gets to take DNA samples from confiscating ivory, he can look for distant familial matches in his database to get a picture of where the animals and their family lived, and where they were smuggled to.
He can gather family IDs, their migration paths, national park locations, airports, shipping ports, transit countries, nationality of arrested suspects, smuggling methods, and more that can give him and wildlife authorities an idea of the patterns poachers, and their organized backers, are using.
Recently, in 2019, a seizure of nine tons of ivory in Singapore allowed Wasser to enter dozens of individual genotypes into his database, which created a family tree of 40 familial matches. He can then look at where those familial matches came from, where they ended up, who was arrested in conjunction, and provide the authorities with leads to use in further busts, or evidence to beef up prosecution power.
Artist's impression of a rare kind of stellar merger event between two white dwarf stars. Nicole Reindl Licence type Attribution (CC BY 4.0)
Artist’s impression of a rare kind of stellar merger event between two white dwarf stars/Nicole Reindl; CC license
A team of German astronomers, led by Professor Klaus Werner of the University of Tübingen, have discovered a strange new type of star covered in the by-product of helium burning. It is possible that the stars might have been formed by a rare stellar merger event.
While normal stars have surfaces composed of hydrogen and helium, the stars discovered by Werner and his colleagues have their surfaces covered with carbon and oxygen, the ashes of helium burning—an exotic composition for a star.
The situation becomes more puzzling as the new stars have temperatures and radii that indicate they are still burning helium in their cores—a property typically seen in more evolved stars than those observed by Werner and his team in this study.
Published alongside the work of Professor Werner and his team, a second paper from a group of astronomers from the University of La Plata and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics offers a possible explanation for their formation.
“We believe the stars discovered by our German colleagues might have formed in a very rare kind of stellar merger event between two white dwarf stars,” says Dr Miller Bertolami of the Institute for Astrophysics of La Plata, lead author of the second paper. White dwarfs are the remnants of larger stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel, and are typically very small and dense.
Stellar mergers are known to happen between white dwarfs in close binary systems due to the shrinking of the orbit caused by the emission of gravitational waves. “Usually, white dwarf mergers do not lead to the formation of stars enriched in carbon and oxygen,” explains Miller Bertolami, “but we believe that, for binary systems formed with very specific masses, a carbon- and oxygen-rich white dwarf might be disrupted and end up on top of a helium-rich one, leading to the formation of these stars.”
Yet no current stellar evolutionary models can fully explain the newly discovered stars. The team need refined models in order to assess whether these mergers can actually happen.
These models could not only help the team to better understand these stars, but could also provide a deeper insight into the late evolution of binary systems and how their stars exchange mass as they evolve. Until astronomers develop more refined models for the evolution of binary stars, the origin of the helium covered stars will be up for debate.
“Normally we expect stars with these surface compositions to have already finished burning helium in their cores, and to be on their way to becoming white dwarfs.
These new stars are a severe challenge to our understanding of stellar evolution.” explains Professor Werner.
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