If The Spike Protein Alone Causes Extensive Vascular Damage - Why The mRNA Jabs Code For Spike-ulation?

salk |  Scientists have known for a while that SARS-CoV-2’s distinctive “spike” proteins help the virus infect its host by latching on to healthy cells. Now, a major new study shows that they also play a key role in the disease itself.

The paper, published on April 30, 2021, in Circulation Research, also shows conclusively that COVID-19 is a vascular disease, demonstrating exactly how the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages and attacks the vascular system on a cellular level. The findings help explain COVID-19’s wide variety of seemingly unconnected complications, and could open the door for new research into more effective therapies.

“A lot of people think of it as a respiratory disease, but it’s really a vascular disease,” says Assistant Research Professor Uri Manor, who is co-senior author of the study. “That could explain why some people have strokes, and why some people have issues in other parts of the body. The commonality between them is that they all have vascular underpinnings.”

Salk researchers collaborated with scientists at the University of California San Diego on the paper, including co-first author Jiao Zhang and co-senior author John Shyy, among others.

While the findings themselves aren’t entirely a surprise, the paper provides clear confirmation and a detailed explanation of the mechanism through which the protein damages vascular cells for the first time. There’s been a growing consensus that SARS-CoV-2 affects the vascular system, but exactly how it did so was not understood. Similarly, scientists studying other coronaviruses have long suspected that the spike protein contributed to damaging vascular endothelial cells, but this is the first time the process has been documented.

In the new study, the researchers created a “pseudovirus” that was surrounded by SARS-CoV-2 classic crown of spike proteins, but did not contain any actual virus. Exposure to this pseudovirus resulted in damage to the lungs and arteries of an animal model—proving that the spike protein alone was enough to cause disease. Tissue samples showed inflammation in endothelial cells lining the pulmonary artery walls.

The team then replicated this process in the lab, exposing healthy endothelial cells (which line arteries) to the spike protein. They showed that the spike protein damaged the cells by binding ACE2. This binding disrupted ACE2’s molecular signaling to mitochondria (organelles that generate energy for cells), causing the mitochondria to become damaged and fragmented.

Previous studies have shown a similar effect when cells were exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but this is the first study to show that the damage occurs when cells are exposed to the spike protein on its own.

 

Sum'n Not Right With The Continuing Emphasis On Hygiene Theater....,

The evidence for aerosol transmission is now so solid that you have to wonder why just about everyone in authority refuses to sign on. For my part, I start by excluding the possibility that they’re uninformed or misinformed. Something else must be at work. 

 

My conclusions:

1) The administration, governors, and others - are responding to their real constituencies who care little about public health and are clamoring to get the economy back on track without any consequential additional costs;

 

2) These political authorities know very well that doing so requires A) ignoring or slighting the fact of aerosol transmission and B) focusing instead on low-cost distractions such as masks, disinfectants and plexiglass barriers;

 

3) They also know that this means Covid will continue to be a public emergency, and here's the key;

 

4) They have gamed a way to avoid any culpability for the resulting wave of additional deaths, lung transplants and prolonged and perhaps permanent disabilities due to impairment of long-Covid sufferers’ major organs;

 

5) The authorities calculate they personally will be fine by the time they leave office for quiet but plush and safe Covid-free obscurity (like Newsom at the French Laundry, or in bunkers or off to New Zealand).

 

6) They want to prevent and delay aerosol mitigation long enough to turn the rona into a permanent endemic disease, on purpose and with malice of forethought.

 

Why?

6A) Investors need a new "big win". The synthetic biology complex wants to sell high-priced high-margin boosters every year for the next several years. That requires a steady reservoir of permarona in the population to keep breeding up new variants that will be used to scare up new supplicants for additional mRNA boosters. 

 

6B) The fact that mRNA therapeutics are themselves dangerous and will worsen the potency of variants may work to profitably kill off a few billion surplus laborers whose services are no longer needed - all the while making it look like an accident.

Wolves Out'Chere Shearing Sheeple...,

khn |  Last summer, Global Plasma Solutions wanted to test whether the company’s air-purifying devices could kill covid-19 virus particles but could find only a lab using a chamber the size of a shoebox for its trials. In the company-funded study, the virus was blasted with 27,000 ions per cubic centimeter.

In September, the company’s founder incidentally mentioned that the devices being offered for sale actually deliver a lot less ion power — 13 times less — into a full-sized room.

The company nonetheless used the shoebox results — over 99% viral reduction — in marketing its device heavily to schools as something that could combat covid in classrooms far, far larger than a shoebox.

School officials desperate to calm worried parents bought these devices and others with a flood of federal funds, installing them in more than 2,000 schools across 44 states, a KHN investigation found. They use the same technology — ionization, plasma and dry hydrogen peroxide — that the Lancet COVID-19 Commission recently deemed “often unproven” and potential sources of pollution themselves.

In the frenzy, schools are buying technology that academic air-quality experts warn can lull them into a false sense of security or even potentially harm kids. And schools often overlook the fact that their trusted contractors — typically engineering, HVAC or consulting firms — stand to earn big money from the deals, KHN found.

Academic experts are encouraging schools to pump in more fresh air and use tried-and-true filters, like HEPA, to capture the virus. Yet every ion- or hydroxyl-blasting air purifier sale strengthens a firm’s next pitch: The device is doing a great job in the neighboring town.

“It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more people buy these technologies, the more they get legitimacy,” said Jeffrey Siegel, a civil engineering professor at the University of Toronto. “It’s really the complete wild west out there.”

Marwa Zaatari, a member of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ (ASHRAE) Epidemic Task Force, first compiled a list of schools and districts using such devices.

Schools have been “bombarded with persistent salespersons peddling the latest air and cleaning technologies, including those with minimal evidence to-date supporting safety and efficacy” according to a report released Thursday by the Center for Green Schools and ASHRAE.

Zaatari said she was particularly concerned that officials in New Jersey are buying thousands of devices made by another company that says they emit ozone, which can exacerbate asthma and harm developing lungs, according to decades of research.

“We’re going to live in a world where the air quality in schools is worse after the pandemic, after all of this money,” Zaatari said. “It’s really sickening.”

The sales race is fueled by roughly $193 billion in federal funds allocated to schools for teacher pay and safety upgrades — a giant fund that can be used to buy air cleaners. And Democrats are pushing for $100 billion more that could also be spent on air cleaners.

In April, Global Plasma Solutions said further tests show its devices inactivate covid in the air and on surfaces in larger chambers. The company studies still use about twice the level of ions than its leaders have publicly said the devices can deliver, KHN found.

There is virtually no federal oversight or enforcement of safe air-cleaning technology. Only California bans air cleaners that emit a certain amount of ozone.

U.S. Rep. Robert “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.), chair of the education and labor committee, said the federal government typically is not involved in local decisions of what products to buy, although he hopes for more federal guidance.

In the meantime, “these school systems are dealing with contractors providing all kinds of services,” he said, “so you just have to trust them to get the best expert advice on what to do.”

 

 

Plexiglas And Poor Ventilation Show Why Biden Won't Force School Reopening In The Fall..,

Even With Nothing To Lose Cornpop Dares Not Piss Off These Teachers Unions..,

CNN  |  President Joe Biden hasn't committed to K-12 schools reopening full-time and in-person in the fall, one of his senior advisers said Sunday, because the coronavirus remains unpredictable.

"He said 'probably.' He did not say 'absolutely,' " Senior Adviser to the President Anita Dunn told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union." "Because we've all seen this since unfortunately January of 2020. It's an unpredictable virus. And it is a virus that has -- you know it mutates. So we can't look in a crystal ball and say what September looks like."

 

Dunn's comments come after Biden said Friday that K-12 schools "should probably all be open" in the fall for in-person learning after more than a year of challenges with remote learning and as more Americans get vaccinated.

 

"Based on the science and the (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), they should probably all be open. There's not overwhelming evidence that there's much of a transmission among these people, young people," the President had said during an interview with NBC's "TODAY." 

 

The CDC in February released highly anticipated guidelines for reopening schools that focus on mask wearing, physical distancing, washing hands, cleaning facilities and improving ventilation, and contact tracing, isolation and quarantine. Last month, the agency also made another recommendation that experts said would allow more schools to open. The CDC relaxed its physical distancing guidelines for children in schools to recommend most students maintain at least three feet of distance, down from six feet.

 

Dunn told Tapper if Americans get vaccinated against Covid-19 and if schools follow CDC guidelines then "we probably should be able to have them open," encouraging people to seek medical advice before getting a vaccine.

 

"If they have doubts about it they should ask their doctor. They should ask people who have already gotten it. They should certainly do their own research," she said.

 

"Trust The Science" But Obey The Teachers Unions On School Reopenings

pjmedia  |  In the Biden administration, “follow the science” takes second place to “follow the campaign donations from teachers unions.”

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was heavily lobbied by the nation’s second-largest teachers union on when to reopen America’s schools, emails obtained by the New York Post show. There was extensive communication between the American Federation of Teachers, the CDC, and the White House in the lead up to the release of school reopening guidelines in February.

The documents were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the group Americans for Public Trust and provided to The Post.

Anyone in the United States, any group, has a perfect right to lobby any federal agency they wish. But don’t you think it would have been nice to know that the CDC was being influenced by teachers in coming to the conclusion that schools should remain closed to in-person learning?

The documents show a flurry of activity between CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, her top advisors and union officials — with Biden brass being looped in at the White House — in the days before the highly-anticipated Feb. 12 announcement on school-reopening guidelines.

“Thank you again for Friday’s rich discussion about forthcoming CDC guidance and for your openness to the suggestions made by our president, Randi Weingarten, and the AFT,” wrote AFT senior director for health issues Kelly Trautner in a Feb 1 email — which described the union as the CDC’s “thought partner.”

You can’t really say the teachers union was driving the discussion on when to open schools. Or can you?

“We were able to review a copy of the draft guidance document over the weekend and were able to provide some initial feedback to several staff this morning about possible ways to strengthen the document,” Trautner continued. “… We believe our experiences on the ground can inform and enrich thinking around what is practicable and prudent in future guidance documents.”

 

PoPo Say No No To The Mark Of The Beast

WaPo  |  Police officers were among the first front-line workers to gain priority access to coronavirus vaccines. But their vaccination rates are lower than or about the same as those of the general public, according to data made available by some of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies.

The reluctance of police to get the shots threatens not just their own health, but also the safety of people they’re responsible for guarding, monitoring and patrolling, experts say.

At the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, just 39 percent of employees have gotten at least one dose, officials said, compared to more than 50 percent of eligible adults nationwide. In Atlanta, 36 percent of sworn officers have been vaccinated. And a mere 28 percent of those employed by the Columbus Division of Police — Ohio’s largest police department — report having received a shot.

“I think it’s unacceptable,” Joe Lombardo, the head of Las Vegas police and sheriff of Clark County, said of the meager demand for the shots within his force.

The numbers paint a troubling picture of policing and public health. Because officers have high rates of diabetes, heart disease and other conditions, their hesitancy puts them at greater risk of serious illness from the coronavirus while also undermining force readiness, experts said. Police officers were more likely to die of covid-19 last year than of all other causes combined, according to data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Police hesitancy also means officers may be vectors of spread to vulnerable people with whom they interact during traffic stops, calls for service and other high-contact encounters. That could thwart efforts to restore community trust in a moment of heightened scrutiny after last month’s conviction of ex-officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd.

“Police touch people,” said Sharona Hoffman, a professor of law and bioethics at Case Western Reserve University. “Imagine having a child in the car who’s not vaccinated. People would want to know if a police officer coming to their window is protected.”

Police ambivalence about immunization finds a parallel among other front-line workers. Just 52 percent of health-care workers surveyed by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation between Feb. 11 and March 7 said they had received at least one dose.

One solution is for departments to make vaccination compulsory, according to experts in bioethics and public health, just as some health-care settings and institutions of higher education have begun doing.

It Would Wear On Any Ordinary Woman To Be Thought Of As The Devil's Wife...,

Nurse Fuentes Should've Claimed The Religious Exemption And Kept It Moving...,

 fox26houston  |  Fuentes says a supervisor encouraged her to file for a religious exemption.

"And I said, 'Well, I don't have a religious exemption. I'm not doing this for religious reasons,' and she said, 'I know, but we'll help you fill it out, and at least this will save your job,'" Fuentes claims. "So, because I don't have a religious reason and it's a personal reason, my beliefs and my feelings aren't as worthy as someone who has a religious reason?"

Fuentes says when she did not agree to stay quiet about the reason for her departure, she was not allowed to complete her final two weeks and escorted out of the hospital. 

In response, Houston Methodist stated they do not advise those who decline the vaccine for personal reasons to file for a religious exemption. Adding:

"We have a process in place for the employees who want to request a religious/medical exemption--- like we have had for the flu shot for more than a decade. Not all exemptions are granted."

In the meantime, Fuentes says she was prepared to wear masks at work and show lab results of COVID-19 antibodies since she'd recovered from the disease.

She adds, she regularly worked in a surgical unit, but volunteered to work in the COVID-19 unit.

"I want to be known that I was a safe nurse when I worked at the height of the pandemic and volunteered to work and did work in the COVID unit. So, I was a safe nurse then, not vaccinated, and I was able to turn back around and work in my unit without being tested and without being vaccinated," Fuentes said.

Houston Methodist adds:

"Our employees have the choice to stay or leave—we are not forcing anyone to get a vaccine. But over everything, we must put patients first. It is our obligation as health care workers to do no harm to our patients, who are among the most vulnerable in our community."

Generally, employers are able to require employees to get vaccinated. Clayton Craighead, an employment attorney in Houston, says there are the two exemption that both deal with accomodations. 

"One of them is an accomodation under the American with Disabilities Act and the second exception is an accomodation on a religious basis. In order to establish an entitlement under the ADA, the employee would have to provide some sort of documentation from a doctor explaining why he or she, could not or should not receive the vaccination due to some medical condition or disability," Craighead explained.

No One Is Safe Until Everyone Is Safe...,

commondreams |  The U.S. is facing sustained calls to end its opposition of a proposal to temporarily lift intellectual property rules for Covid-19 vaccines and related technology as soaring coronavirus cases ravage India and new reporting spotlights a debate within the Biden administration over whether to support the patent suspension effort to help tackle the global pandemic or prioritize Big Pharma's interests.

At issue, as the Washington Post reported Friday, is a proposal India and South Africa submitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) last October to suspend Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) rules on Covid-19 vaccines and treatments to boost manufacturing capacity. It's now cosponsored by 60 nations and backed by over 100 countries as well as hundreds of U.S. and international civil society organizations, former world world leaders and Nobel laureates, and some U.S. lawmakers.

In addition to the U.S., other wealthy nations including the U.K. and Canada are blocking the proposal—which needs consensus to pass.

The WTO's TRIPS panel met Friday to discuss the proposal, and it's now being revised by its cosponsors. 

Asked Friday whether the U.S. would continue its opposition, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the administration has not yet confirmed its stance and said the White House's "overall objective is to provide as much supply to the global community and do that in a cost-effective manner."

A Novel IS Being Written - What's India's Role In The Unfolding Narrative?

consortiumnews  |   The unfolding pandemic horror in India has many causes. These include the complacency, inaction and irresponsibility of government leaders, even when it was evident for several months that a fresh wave of infections of new mutant variants threatened the population. Continued massive election rallies, many addressed by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, brought large numbers to congested gatherings and lulled many into underplaying the threat of infection.

The incomprehensible decision to allow a major Hindu religious festival — the Mahakumbh Mela, held every 12 years — to be brought forward by a full year, on the advice of some astrologers, brought millions from across India to one small area along the Ganges River and contributed to ‘super-spreading’ the disease.  

The exponential explosion of Covid-19 cases — and it is likely much worse than officially reported, because of inadequate testing and undercounting of cases and deaths — has revealed not just official hubris and incompetence but lack of planning and major deficiencies in the public health system. The shortage of medical oxygen, for instance, has effectively become a proximate cause of death for many patients.

Failing Vaccination Program

But one significant — and entirely avoidable — reason for the catastrophe is the failing vaccination programme. Even given the global constraints posed by rich-country vaccine-grabbing and the limits on domestic production set by the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement, this is unnecessary and unexpected.

India is home to the largest vaccine producer in the world and has several other companies capable of producing vaccines. Before the pandemic, 60 per cent of the vaccines used in the developing world for child immunisation were manufactured in India.

The country has a long tradition of successful vaccination campaigns, against polio and tuberculosis for infants and a range of other diseases. The available infrastructure for inoculation, urban and rural, could have been quickly mobilised.

In January, the government approved two candidates for domestic use: the Covishield (Oxford-AstraZeneca) vaccine, produced in India by the Serum Institute of India, and Covaxin, produced by Bharat Biotech under a manufacturing licence from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) — other producers could have been similarly licenced to enhance supply.

The vaccination program officially started on Jan. 16 , with the initial target of covering 30 million healthcare and frontline workers by the end of March and 250 million people by July. By April 17 , however, only 37 percent of frontline workers had received both doses (of either vaccine); an additional 30 percent had received only the first.

Low uptake even among this vulnerable group could have resulted from concerns about the rapid regulatory approval granted to Covaxin, which had not completed Phase III trials. The Indian government also encouraged exports, partly to fulfil commitments by the Serum Institute of India to AstraZeneca and the global COVAX facility — partly to enhance its own standing among developing countries.

Paradise Within Reach - But Billions Of Y'all Gotta Go, Gotta Go, Gotta Go!!!

NYTimes |  As medical and social advances mitigate diseases of old age and prolong life, the number of exceptionally long-lived people is increasing sharply. The United Nations estimates that there were about 95,000 centenarians in 1990 and more than 450,000 in 2015. By 2100, there will be 25 million. Although the proportion of people who live beyond their 110th birthday is far smaller, this once-fabled milestone is also increasingly common in many wealthy nations. The first validated cases of such “supercentenarians” emerged in the 1960s. Since then, their global numbers have multiplied by a factor of at least 10, though no one knows precisely how many there are. In Japan alone, the population of supercentenarians grew to 146 from 22 between 2005 and 2015, a nearly sevenfold increase. 

Given these statistics, you might expect that the record for longest life span would be increasing, too. Yet nearly a quarter-century after Calment’s death, no one is known to have matched, let alone surpassed, her 122 years. The closest was an American named Sarah Knauss, who died at age 119, two years after Calment. The oldest living person is Kane Tanaka, 118, who resides in Fukuoka, Japan. Very few people make it past 115. (A few researchers have even questioned whether Calment really lived as long as she claimed, though most accept her record as legitimate based on the weight of biographical evidence.)

As the global population approaches eight billion, and science discovers increasingly promising ways to slow or reverse aging in the lab, the question of human longevity’s potential limits is more urgent than ever. When their work is examined closely, it’s clear that longevity scientists hold a wide range of nuanced perspectives on the future of humanity. Historically, however — and somewhat flippantly, according to many researchers — their outlooks have been divided into two broad camps, which some journalists and researchers call the pessimists and the optimists. Those in the first group view life span as a candle wick that can burn for only so long. They generally think that we are rapidly approaching, or have already reached, a ceiling on life span, and that we will not witness anyone older than Calment anytime soon.

In contrast, the optimists see life span as a supremely, maybe even infinitely elastic band. They anticipate considerable gains in life expectancy around the world, increasing numbers of extraordinarily long-lived people — and eventually, supercentenarians who outlive Calment, pushing the record to 125, 150, 200 and beyond. Though unresolved, the long-running debate has already inspired a much deeper understanding of what defines and constrains life span — and of the interventions that may one day significantly extend it.

The theoretical limits on the length of a human life have vexed scientists and philosophers for thousands of years, but for most of history their discussions were largely based on musings and personal observations. In 1825, however, the British actuary Benjamin Gompertz published a new mathematical model of mortality, which demonstrated that the risk of death increased exponentially with age. Were that risk to continue accelerating throughout life, people would eventually reach a point at which they had essentially no chance of surviving to the next year. In other words, they would hit an effective limit on life span.

Instead, Gompertz observed that as people entered old age, the risk of death plateaued. “The limit to the possible duration of life is a subject not likely ever to be determined,” he wrote, “even should it exist.” Since then, using new data and more sophisticated mathematics, other scientists around the world have uncovered further evidence of accelerating death rates followed by mortality plateaus not only in humans but also in numerous other species, including rats, mice, shrimp, nematodes, fruit flies and beetles.

In 2016, an especially provocative study in the prestigious research journal Nature strongly implied that the authors had found the limit to the human life span. Jan Vijg, a geneticist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and two colleagues analyzed decades’ worth of mortality data from several countries and concluded that although the highest reported age at death in these countries increased rapidly between the 1970s and 1990s, it had failed to rise since then, stagnating at an average of 114.9 years. Human life span, it seemed, had arrived at its limit. Although some individuals, like Jeanne Calment, might reach staggering ages, they were outliers, not indicators of a continual lengthening of life.

The Hardest Choices Require The Strongest Wills

scitechdaily |  In a paper published today (January 13, 2021) in the journal Frontiers in Conservation Science, the researchers cite more than 150 scientific studies and conclude, “That we are already on the path of a sixth major extinction is now scientifically undeniable.”

Among the paper’s co-authors is Daniel Blumstein, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and member of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

Because too many people have underestimated the severity of the crisis and have ignored experts’ warnings, scientists must continue speaking out, said Blumstein, author of the 2020 book “The Nature of Fear: Survival Lessons from the Wild” — but they also must avoid either sugarcoating the overwhelming challenges or inducing feelings of despair.

“Without fully appreciating and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest sustainability goals, and catastrophe will surely follow,” he said. “What we are saying is frightening, but we must be both candid and vocal if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face in creating a sustainable future.”

The Earth has experienced five mass extinctions, each accounting for a loss of more than 70% of all species on the planet. The most recent was 66 million years ago. Now, the paper reports, projected temperature increases and other human assaults on the environment mean that approximately 1 million of the planet’s 7 million to 10 million species are threatened with extinction in the coming decades.

Blumstein said that level of damage could occur within the next several decades; an extinction affecting as many as 70% of all species — like the earlier mass extinctions cited in the paper — could potentially occur within the next few centuries.

One of the major trends discussed in the paper is the explosive growth of the planet’s human population. There are now 7.8 billion people, more than double the Earth’s population just 50 years ago. And by 2050, the figure is likely to reach 10 billion, the scientists write, which would cause or exacerbate numerous serious problems. For example, more than 700 million people are starving and more than 1 billion are malnourished already; both figures are likely to increase as the population grows.

Population growth also greatly increases the risk for pandemics, the authors write, because most new infectious diseases result from human–animal interactions, humans live closer to wild animals than ever before and wildlife trade is continuing to increase significantly. Population growth also contributes to rising unemployment and, when combined with a hotter Earth, leads to more frequent and intense flooding and fires, poorer water and air quality, and worsening human health.

 

Far Older Than Their Calibrated Dating

 

 

Indigenous Land Stewardship And Forest Gardening Across Two Continents

nationalgeographic |  For hundreds of years, Indigenous communities in what is now British Columbia cleared small patches amid dense conifer forest. They planted and tended food and medicine-bearing trees and plants—sometimes including species from hundreds of miles away—to yield a bounty of nuts, fruits, and berries. A wave of European disease devastated Indigenous communities in the late 1700s, and in the 1800s, colonizers displaced the Indigenous people and seized the land. The lush, diverse forest gardens were abandoned and forgotten.

A few years ago, Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, an ethnobotanist at Simon Fraser University, was invited by First Nation elders to investigate why hazelnut trees were growing at abandoned village sites near the coast. The plants were far from their native habitat in the dry interior and seemingly lost among towering cedars and hemlocks. Armstrong began to suspect she was studying human-created ecosystems—and they were thriving, even with no one caring for them. She brought her suspicions to community elders, who confirmed them by sharing memories of ancestors cultivating edible and medicinal plants.

Armstrong gathered colleagues to study these ancient gardens’ ecology. In a new paper published this week in the journal Ecology and Society, the team reports a striking finding: After more than a century on their own, Indigenous-created forest gardens of the Pacific Northwest support more pollinators, more seed-eating animals and more plant species than the supposedly “natural” conifer forests surrounding them.

“When we look at forest gardens, they’re actually enhancing what nature does, making it much more resilient, much more biodiverse—and, oh yeah, they feed people too,” says Armstrong.

The paper may be the first to quantify how Indigenous land stewardship can enhance what ecologists call functional diversity—a measure of how many goods an ecosystem provides. It joins a growing scientific literature revealing that Indigenous people—both historically and today—often outperform government agencies and conservation organizations at supporting biodiversity, sequestering carbon, and generating other ecological benefits on their land. Leaving nature alone is not always the right course, scientists are finding—and the original land stewards often do it best.

This is, of course, a claim that Indigenous groups have long made. Western scientists, by contrast, have often written Native people out of forests and other ecosystems they helped create. An increasing number of scientists are now questioning this practice—and in the process, forcing ecology and conservation to undergo what some would say is a long-overdue reckoning.

“Western science for too long has embraced the idea of primordial wilderness,” says Jesse Miller, an ecologist at Stanford and Armstrong’s coauthor. “We’re seeing this paradigm shift to recognizing how much of what was thought of as primordial wilderness were actually landscapes shaped by humans.”

 

 

Rainforests Were Manmade Food Gardens

wikipedia |  First aired on Thursday 23 June 2011. The final episode looks at the Amazon rainforest - billed as the world's last great wilderness. However, the discovery of geoglyphs uncovered following deforestation in the 1970s and terra preta, provide growing evidence for ancient cities in the heart of the 'virgin forest'.^[5] Ondemar Dias is accredited with first discovering the geoglyphs in 1977 and Alceu Ranzi with furthering their discovery after flying over Acre.^[6][7]

The documentary presents evidence that Francisco de Orellana, rather than exaggerating his claims as previously thought, was correct in his observations that a complex civilization was flourishing along the Amazon in the 1540s. It is believed that the civilization was later devastated by the spread of diseases from Europe, such as smallpox. Some 5 million people may have lived in the Amazon region in 1500, divided between dense coastal settlements, such as that at Marajó, and inland dwellers.^[8] By 1900 the population had fallen to 1 million and by the early 1980s it was less than 200,000.^[8]

The documentary features interviews with Betty Meggers, William Balée, Anna Roosevelt, José Iriarte, Eduardo Góes Neves, Cristiana Barreto, Francis Mayle, Denise Schaan and Michael Heckenberger.

Ancient Permaculture Was Practiced Continent-Wide

sci-news |  The Llanos de Moxos is a savannah of approximately 126,132 km² (48,700 square miles) located in the Beni Department of Bolivia in southwestern Amazonia.

The landscape is dotted by earthworks, including raised fields, mounds, canals and forest islands.

“The Llanos de Moxos savannah area floods from December to March and is extremely dry from July to October, but the mounds remain above the water level during the rainy season allowing trees to grow on them,” said lead author Dr. Umberto Lombardo from the University of Bern and colleagues.

“The mounds promoted landscape diversity, and show that small-scale communities began to shape the Amazon 8,000 years earlier than previously thought.”

“Our research confirms this part of the Amazon is one of the earliest centers of plant domestication in the world.”

The researchers looked at the forest islands located within the vast savannah for signs of early gardening.

“We basically mapped large sections of forest islands using remote sensing. We hypothesized that the regularly shaped forest islands had anthropic origin,” said co-author Dr. José Capriles, from the Pennsylvania State University and the Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas y Arqueológicas at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés.

“However, most circular forest islands are in fact artificial and irregular ones are not. There is not a clear pattern,” Dr. Lombardo said.

In fact, there are more than 4,700 artificial forest islands in the Llanos de Moxos savannah, according to the scientists.

“Archaeological evidence for plant domestication is very poorly available, especially in Amazonia where the climate destroys most organic materials. There is no stone in this area because it is an alluvial plain (water deposited) and it is hard to find evidence of early hunter-gatherers,” Dr. Capriles said.

Using microscopic plant silica bodies called phytoliths, found well preserved in tropical forests, the team documented the cultivation of squash (Cucurbita sp.) at about 10,250 years ago, manioc (Manihot sp.) at about 10,350 years ago and maize (Zea mays) at about 6,850 years ago.

The study involved a large scale regional analysis of 61 archaeological sites, identified by remote sensing, now patches of forest surrounded by savannah.

Why Don't Police Have To Get Public Approval Before Getting Expensive New "Public Safety" Toys?

gothamist |  Thanks to FEMA cash the NYPD has a bulletproof boat, but that isn't close to the only toy in the Department's nautical arsenal. A story in today's Times takes a look at the NYPD Harbor Unit, which has become increasingly important to counterterrorism in the past few years. All of which is to say, the NYPD's six remote-controlled submarines will put those flimsy (banned) motorized model boats in Central Park to shame!

Seriously, these are some fancy and expensive toys (four of them, bought in 2007, cost $75,000 each and the other two, bought in 2008, cost $120,000 a pop!) that are crucial, along with the 34 vessels in the department's fleet, in helping the NYPD look around under boats and bridges in our expansive waterways for potential bombs (and drugs, contraband and criminals). So far the drone submarines haven't actually found a bomb, but when they do, the Harbor Unit is ready...to call in the Navy to deal with the bomb ("We mark the location, get out of the water and call them," a detective explains). 

dnainfo |   The NYPD’s International Liaison Program that posts detectives in nearly a dozen foreign cities is a waste of money that has not prevented any attacks, say sources who have dealt with the officials overseas.

Former NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly systematically began assigning NYPD personnel in foreign port-of-calls — using money from a charity to pay for it — not long after taking office in post-9/11 New York. He was eager to get information quickly and directly from his own personnel rather than rely on the feds.

But former federal officials who served overseas told “On The Inside” the NYPD detectives are ineffective, often angering and confusing the foreign law enforcement officials they are trying to work with, and are usually relegated to the sidelines because they lack national security clearance.

nypost |  The NYPD will part ways with “Digidog,” the robotic police dog that earned Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s wrath and became the subject of a City Council subpoena after images of it went viral.

The department told The Post on Wednesday that it ended a contract with Boston Dynamics to lease the four-legged robo-cop.

“The contract has been terminated and the dog will be returned,” a spokesperson said.

The sudden termination comes after a clip of the machine patrolling a Manhattan housing project went viral, sparking backlash and drawing comparisons to the dystopic TV series “Black Mirror.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio then urged the NYPD to “rethink” its use of the robot. Eventually, City Council leaders agreed and decided to subpoena the NYPD to find out its cost.

Negroes Ain't Gone Do Nothing - But This White Boy Summer Though...,

theconversation |  Any anti-police insurgency in the U.S. will likely start as an urban-based guerrilla-style movement. Attacks may be carried out on sites and symbols of law enforcement. Small arms and improvised explosive devices will likely be weapons of choice, which are relatively easy to acquire and build, respectively. The U.S. has the highest number of civilian firearms in the world with 120.5 guns per 100 persons or more than 393 million guns.

Critical infrastructure and government buildings may be targeted after business hours. The various groups will initially seek to avoid civilian casualties, and this may help to garner a level of support among the socially marginal from various backgrounds. The public would be concerned but relatively secure in understanding that only the police are being targeted. Escalation may ensue through copycat attacks.

The U.S. government will seem to have a handle on the insurgency at first but will gradually come to recognize that this is different. African American leaders will likely be helpless to stop the insurgency. Anyone who strongly denounces it in public may lose credibility among the people. Authenticity would mean developing a way to accommodate the insurgents in public rhetoric while condemning them in private.

Moving forward

I am often amazed that many people appear unaware that Nelson Mandela was co-founder of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the violent youth wing of the African National Congress, which carried out bombings in South Africa. The rationale provided in court by Mandela regarding his use of violence is instructive. Mandela told a South African court in 1963:

I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness, nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation, and oppression of my people…. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence.

To predict that an armed insurgency may happen in the U.S. is not the same as wishing for it to happen: It is not inevitable, and it can and should be avoided.

Police reform is a first step. A comprehensive criminal justice overhaul is overdue, including addressing the flaws inherent in trial by jury, which tends to produce mind-boggling results in cases involving police killings. Finally, the judgment in the trial of Derek Chauvin for George Floyd’s death will have an impact on the trajectory of any possible future events.

If Elites Are Shutting Down Social Media What You Think They'll Do To Mass Protests?

FAIR  |  EP: Absolutely, yeah. A common thread throughout these bills is that they use vague, sweeping language to define new criminal offenses, or redefine existing ones, related to conduct that may occur during a protest.

So we’ve seen bills targeting “taunting” police in Ohio and Kentucky. The new law in Florida that contains this new criminal offense around mob intimidation, which is sweepingly defined—you only need three people who are trying to get another person to do something, or to have a particular viewpoint, which sounds a lot like any kind of protest, where you’re trying to convince someone to do or think differently. Broad prohibitions on inciting or encouraging or aiding unlawful assemblies; obviously those cast a wide net.

And in many cases, these new bills and laws are relying on states’ existing definitions of “rioting,” which, in almost all states, are already very broadly defined in ways that can capture a completely peaceful protest. In many cases, you only need a small number of people, whereas most of us conceive of a “riot” as kind of a large group. In most instances, you don’t actually have to cause any damage or injure anyone for it to be a riot; you only need to pose a threat or a danger of something, property being damaged or someone being injured. This is one of the many ways that these sweeping definitions can cover, again, completely peaceful, nonviolent protest activity.

JJ: The problem that I think a lot of folks could see is the broad sweep of it. And yet at the same time—it’s not a “but,” it’s an “and”—and at the same time, we see that they’re actually specifically targeted. Florida’s law is about Black Lives Matter; it’s not about January 6, you know? We know that there are particular targets, and we shouldn’t pretend we don’t know.

EP: Right. And that’s something that we’ve seen, time and time again in this tracking project, that lawmakers are really introducing these anti-protest initiatives in the aftermath of distinct protest movements. And it’s often clear from the text of the bills themselves, as well as from what lawmakers say, what they’re targeting. And that’s true of, certainly, this wave of legislation.