Ruffed grouse’s display at Canadian bird feeder

This video from Canada says about itself:

Ruffed Grouse Makes Amazing Display For Ontario FeederWatch Cam! – Feb. 12, 2020

Well hello there! It’s always a treat when a Ruffed Grouse stops by the Ontario FeederWatch cam, and this individual isn’t shy about showing off its cocked crest and beautifully mottled plumage while strutting around the platform. You absolutely don’t want to miss when the grouse begins to display at 6:33 by fanning its tail feathers and erecting the glossy black feathers on its neck into a ruff!

BP oil spill, worse than once thought

This February 2015 video from the USA says about itself:

BP Oil Spill 5 Years Later: Wildlife Still Suffering | msnbc

Ed Schultz continues his investigation into the Deepwater Horizon oil spill five years on, as it continues to wreak havoc on the Gulf Coast.

By Maria Temming in the USA, 12 February 2020:

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill spread much farther than once thought

Simulations show the extent of toxic oil pollution in the Gulf of Mexico from the 2010 disaster

Nearly a decade after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, computer simulations suggest that the toxic pollution extended much farther than satellite images first indicated.

Those images, taken after the spill dumped nearly 800 million liters of oil into Gulf waters, helped to determine which areas would be temporarily closed for fishing (SN: 4/3/15). Scientists’ observations since then had suggested that the oil had spread farther (SN: 7/31/14).

The new analysis confirms that fact with computer simulations, which considered ocean currents, oil evaporation and other factors to map the spill’s true expanse. Satellites appear to have overlooked at least 30 percent of the hazardous pollution, says biological oceanographer Claire Paris-Limouzy of the University of Miami.

The simulations uncovered vast ocean swaths where oil concentrations were high enough to endanger marine life, but dilute enough to have been overlooked by satellites, Paris-Limouzy and colleagues report online February 12 in Science Advances.  Water and sediment samples from around the Gulf supported the findings.

In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill, satellite observations that could detect high oil concentrations (brown) helped determine where to close fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico (black dashed line). But computer simulations of the spill indicate that lower oil concentrations invisible to satellites but still toxic to marine creatures (yellow) crept outside the boundaries of the fishery closures. Meanwhile, even lower, nontoxic levels of oil pollution (blue) spread even more widely.

Satellite images had shown oil mostly in a northern and central patch of the Gulf. But the simulations suggest toxic levels of oil pollution cast a much wider stain on the ocean. Fishery closures covered about 94 percent of the polluted region observed by satellites, but only about 70 percent of the hazardous area identified by the new analysis — missing spots near Texas and Florida. Some of those waters remained closed to fishing for years.

Computer simulations could similarly estimate toxic but invisible portions of future oil spills, providing better guidance on where to close fisheries or send cleanup crews.

A Decade Later, Gulf Residents Suffer From BP’s Toxic Legacy.

AN AUSTRALIAN BP refinery worker who was fired for allegedly comparing his employers to Hitler successfully won back his job today: here.

Wolves feed blueberries to pups, new research

This 12 February 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

First-ever footage of wolves eating blueberries in Northern Minnesota

The first-ever footage of wolves eating blueberries in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem! We tried for 2 years to get this footage of wolves eating berries and finally got it this past summer! As far as we know, this is the only footage that exists of wild wolves eating blueberries. Though, we know of a few clips of wolves eating other kinds of berries or fruits.

By Jake Buehler, 11 February 2020:

Wolves regurgitate blueberries for their pups to eat

Fruit may be more important to the animals’ diet than previously thought

Gray wolves are known to snack on blueberries, but the animals do more than fill their own bellies. A new, serendipitous observation shows an adult wolf regurgitating the berries for its pups to eat, the first time anyone has documented this behavior.

Wolves have a well-earned reputation as skillful hunters with a taste for large, hoofed ungulates like deer and moose. But scientists are increasingly recognizing that these predators have an exceptionally varied diet, partaking in everything from beavers and fish to fruit.

In 2017, biologist Austin Homkes of Northern Michigan University in Marquette got a sense of just how important this mixed diet could be for wolves. A cluster of signals from a GPS collar on a wolf led Homkes to a meadow just outside Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park. Homkes, who was studying the animals’ predatory and dietary habits, thought he was headed for a spot where the wolf had killed a meal. But it turned out to be a rendezvous site, with adult wolves bringing food to their no longer den-bound pups.

Homkes watched from a distance as several pups gathered around an adult wolf, licking up at its mouth. This behavior stimulates adult wolves to throw up a recent meal. Sure enough, the adult began vomiting, and the pups eagerly ate what accumulated on the ground. After the wolves left, Homkes got closer and saw that the regurgitated piles were purely of partially chewed blueberries, he and colleagues report February 11 in the Wildlife Society Bulletin.

“It’s a pretty big part of wolf ecology that was right under our noses that we didn’t see,” Homkes says.

Until now, he and his colleagues thought pups in the region just casually munched on berries while hanging around rendezvous sites, which often contain blueberry plants. The fruit may be an underappreciated food source for the pups, the researchers think.

Conservation biologist Robert Mysłajek of the University of Warsaw says the discovery is an “interesting complement” to our knowledge of the species. “Such observations should be especially important for wildlife managers, who often focus only on wolf-ungulate interactions, forgetting about other food items consumed by wolves,” Mysłajek says.

The findings are generating plenty of questions. Homkes is curious about the nutritional value of blueberries for the mostly carnivorous wolves, and the consequences of a bad berry year. “What happens when blueberries are not available if a pack is used to relying on them?” he wonders.

European Union fossil fuel deal with Azerbaijan dictatorship

This video says about itself:

Why Azerbaijan Is Getting Poorer Despite An Oil Revolution

All the President’s Oil (2001): After the fall of the Soviet Union, millions poured into Azerbaijan’s oil industry. But only a select few reaped the rewards. Presented by Marcel Theroux.

The oil-rich Azerbaijan ought to be a textbook example of the benefits of globalisation. Multinationals from across the globe have poured in cash to exploit its oil wealth, and now a tidal wave of money is hitting Azerbaijan. But who are the winners? The oil companies of course – but the comfortable contemporary wisdom says that riches will also trickle down to the whole Azeri population, creating a contented, prosperous nation at the centre of a troublesome region that includes Iran and Russia. But it isn’t happening. Forget the cosy platitudes of globalisation. Think corruption, nepotism, despotism, warlords…

By Ben Cowles:

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

EU approves funding for fossil fuel projects linked to Azerbaijan’s dictatorship

THE European Parliament voted in favour of funding gas infrastructure projects today, including a controversial pipeline linked to the brutal dictatorship in Azerbaijan, a day after a fresh crackdown on civil rights activists in the country.

MEPs rejected a resolution that would have blocked the European Union from providing upwards of €25 million (£21m) for cross-border fossil fuel infrastructure.

“This a hypocritical decision that fails to reflect the scale of the climate impacts that we are already experiencing and the urgent need to keep fossil fuels in the ground,” said Clemence Dubois of environmental charity 350.org.

“The EU has made a number of big announcements over the past few months, declaring a climate emergency and proposing a green deal, but today’s vote shows that many MEPs and EU institutions are not yet ready to walk the talk,” Mr Dubois said.

“In November, the European Investment Bank pledged to end fossil fuel finance by 2022, but today’s decision activates a loophole that will allow the world’s largest international public lender to pump billions of euros into new climate-wrecking fossil gas projects.”

One such fossil gas project that the EU has pumped millions of euros into is the Southern Gas Corridor, a 2,200-mile enterprise costing around £34 billion, bringing gas from Azerbaijan to Italy.

Snap parliamentary elections held in the small south Caucasian country on Sunday produced another majority for the party of President Ilham Aliyev, whose family has ruled since 1993.

Around 30 people who gathered outside the Electoral Commission yesterday to protest at the dubious election results were beaten by police.

Ulviyya Guliyeva, an independent journalist at the scene, told the Star what she saw.

“For the first two hours, [the police] did nothing. And then they saw that a lot of people were joining the protest, so they began to kick and punch everyone. They beat and detained everyone.”

Ms Guliyeva was bundled into the back of a police van along with protesters and other journalists.

“When we were in the police bus, they said that we were opposition journalists.

“To them, criticising the police or the state is on equal terms with being a member of the opposition.”

INVESTIGATIONS are under way into today’s suicide attempt by a woman who was hounded after displaying a feminist slogan at an International Women’s Day demonstration in Azerbaijan: here.

Sauropod dinosaurs’ long necks, why?

This 11 February 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

A Short Tale About Diplodocus‘ Long Neck

Long necks gave sauropods a huge advantage when it came to food, but not in the way you think. And this benefit would allow them to become the biggest terrestrial animals of all time!

Parasite film, first ever non-USA Oscars victory

This 11 February 2020 video says about itself:

A ‘Foreign’ Film Just Made History At The Oscars

‘Parasite‘, a South Korean movie about inequality made history at the biggest movie award event.

TRUMP COMPLAINS ‘PARASITE’ WON BEST PICTURE Trump complained during a rambling rally in Colorado Springs about the South Korean blockbuster “Parasite” winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. “I’m looking for like … let’s get ‘Gone with the Wind,’ can we get ‘Gone with the Wind’ back, please?” Trump rambled, naming the 1939 epic that romanticizes slavery. [HuffPost]

How butterflies protect themselves against overheating

This 10 February 2020 video says about itself:

Butterfly wings are equipped with living structures such as veins and scent patches that release more heat than surrounding areas, helping to cool the wings down when the insect basks in the sun.

Read more here.

Bangladeshi folk singers persecuted

This 6 February 2020 music video from Bangladesh is by singer Rita Dewan.

By Wimal Perera:

Folk singers charged for violating Bangladesh’s draconian Digital Security Act

12 February 2020

Two Bangladeshi Baul (folk) singers—Rita Dewan and Shariat Sarker—face prosecution, under the Awami League-led government’s repressive Digital Security Act (DSA), for allegedly making “derogatory comments” against religion and “hurting the religious sentiments of Muslims”.

Baul singing, which incorporates elements of Tantra, Sufism, Vaishnavism and Buddhism, originated in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, including Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam.

Rita Dewan faces two accusations: one filed with the so-called Cyber Tribunal by Imrul Hasan, a member of the Dhaka Lawyers’ Association, on February 2, and another in a Dhaka court on February 3, by filmmaker Rasel Mia. The judges have directed the police to investigate these complaints.

This 2019 music video from Bangladesh is by singer Shariat Sarker.

Shariat Sarker was arrested in Mirzapur on January 11, following a protest by more than 1,000 Islamic fundamentalists and a complaint to the police by a local Muslim cleric. Sarker was denied bail, at the first hearing of his case, at the Tangail District court on January 29.

Prime Minister Sheik Hasina’s government passed its repressive DSA law in September 2018, in defiance of widespread national and international criticism. The measure is in line with its moves towards autocratic rule, in response to rising working-class opposition and slowing economic growth.

The DSA replaced the so-called Information Communication and Technology Act (ICT) and associated Cyber Tribunal, a legal body to try those accused.

Under section 57 of the ICT, police could arrest anyone accused of causing a “deterioration in law and order”, prejudicing the image of the state, or a person, or causing “any hurt to religious belief.” These offences were non-bailable and anyone found guilty could be jailed for up to 14 years.

Section 57 has been reworded and incorporated in the DSA, with the charges kept deliberately vague so they can be used against any dissenting voices, and made more punitive.

For example, anyone found guilty for “campaigning against the liberation war of the nation” or discrediting the national anthem or the national flag, can be jailed for life. Those accused of gathering information inside a state institution can be charged with “espionage”.

Dewan is alleged to have made derogatory comments against Allah during a musical competition performance with another singer. After a video recording of the song went viral on the internet, she apologized, in an interview with YouTube channel Gaan Rupali HD, on February 1.

Sarker’s alleged crime was to criticise fundamentalist Muslim clerics who oppose singing. The Baul singer, who has millions of fans, is reported to have said that the “Quran does not prohibit the practice of music.” He is also accused of declaring, during a December concert, that he opposed religion being used as a political tool.

Hundreds of people demonstrated in Mymensingh and Mirzapur after the news broke of Sarker’s arrest. The popular singer could face a ten-year prison term if found guilty.

Nikhil Das, president of the Charan Cultural Centre, a platform for folk singers, immediately demanded Sarker’s unconditional release. Sultana Kamal, a Supreme Court lawyer and rights activist, denounced the arrest as another attack on the “right to free speech” and said the government was appeasing Islamic radical elements.

The allegations against Dewan and Sarker are part of a much larger crackdown. According to Odhikar, a Bangladesh human rights group, at least 29 people were arrested for violating the DSA, including journalists and individuals who posted comments on Facebook, or even “liking” certain comments.

Internationally-acclaimed photojournalist, Shahidul Alam was arrested in August 2018 and detained for 100 days, under Section 57 of the ICT, for allegedly making “provocative” statements about student demonstrations during in an interview with Al Jazeera and Facebook. The students were demanding that the government improve road safety, after two youth were run down and killed by a bus.

Alam had told Al Jazeera that the real reasons behind the popular anger was the government’s gagging of the media and widespread “extrajudicial killings, disappearing, bribery and corruption.”

Poet Henry Sawpon was arrested last May, following claims by a Catholic priest that the writer had offended “religious sentiments”, because he criticised an Easter Sunday cultural event in a local Catholic Church. The priest opposed Sawpon’s comments, because many Catholics had been killed in the terrorist bombing attacks that day in Sri Lanka.

A prominent writer-lawyer, Imtiaz Mahmud, was also arrested in May on charges that police had filed in July 2017, under the ICT Act. Mahmud had posted a Facebook comment opposing military violence against indigenous residents in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts.

Human Rights Watch observed, in its 2020 World Report, that journalists in Bangladesh “face pressure to self-censor or risk arrest”. which effectively prohibited investigative journalism in the country. In 2017 alone, at least 25 journalists, several hundred bloggers and Facebook users were prosecuted.

With 28 million Facebook users in Bangladesh, the Awami League-led regime is using the DSA to censor social media, in an attempt to stop workers and youth throughout the country, like their international counterparts, using social media to organise and fight government attacks on social conditions and democratic rights.

In order to justify this surveillance, in October 2018, the government established a nine-member monitoring cell to “detect rumours” on social media.

While the Hasina government claims to stand for “secularism”, the persecution of Rita and Sarker further demonstrates how the regime rests upon and uses Islamic fundamentalist and other ultra-right groups to advance its repressive agenda.

In 2013, when four bloggers were accused of atheism and arrested, Prime Minister Hasina’s son, Sajeeb Wajed Joy and so-called ICT adviser, declared, “We don’t want to be seen as atheists.”

In 2014, a group known as “defenders of Islam” published a death list of 84 critics of Islam. Several of those named were attacked and killed. The government said nothing about the assassinations.

When Rajshahi University professor, Rezaul Karim Siddique, was killed in April 2016—one of four academics killed at the institution—Prime Minister Hasina declared that no one had the “right to write or speak against any religion.”

The state persecution of artists, intellectuals and journalists, via bogus claims of offending “religious sentiment,” is not limited to Bangladesh; it is increasing throughout South Asia.

In June 2016, famous Pakistani musician Amjad Sabri was killed by the Taliban, and last April, award-winning Sri Lankan author Shakthika Sathkumara was arrested and held in remand for four months, following bogus complaints by Buddhist extremists that he had defamed Buddhism.

The author also recommends:

Persecuted Sri Lankan writer released on bail
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Deepa Mehta calls off production of her film Water
[10 April 2001]

Young dinosaur with diseased tail discovery

From the American Friends of Tel Aviv University:

Disease found in fossilized dinosaur tail afflicts humans to this day

February 11, 2020

The fossilized tail of a young dinosaur that lived on a prairie in southern Alberta, Canada, is home to the remains of a 60-million-year-old tumor.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University, led by Dr. Hila May of the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research, have identified this benign tumor as part of the pathology of LCH (Langerhans cell histiocytosis), a rare and sometimes painful disease that still afflicts humans, particularly children under the age of 10.

A study on the TAU discovery was published on February 10 in Scientific Reports. Prof. Bruce Rothschild of Indiana University, Prof. Frank Rühli of the University of Zurich and Mr. Darren Tanke of the Royal Museum of Paleontology also contributed to the research.

“Prof. Rothschild and Tanke spotted an unusual finding in the vertebrae of a tail of a young dinosaur of the [hadrosaur] grass-eating herbivore species, common in the world 66-80 million years ago,” Dr. May explains. “There were large cavities in two of the vertebrae segments, which were unearthed at the Dinosaur Provincial Park in southern Alberta, Canada.”

It was the specific shape of the cavities that attracted the attention of researchers.

“They were extremely similar to the cavities produced by tumors associated with the rare disease LCH that still exists today in humans,” adds Dr. May. “Most of the LCH-related tumors, which can be very painful, suddenly appear in the bones of children aged 2-10 years. Thankfully, these tumors disappear without intervention in many cases.”

The dinosaur tail vertebrae were sent for on-site advanced micro-CT scanning to the Shmunis Family Anthropology Institute at TAU’s Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, which is located at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History.

“The micro-CT produces very high-resolution imaging, up to a few microns,” Dr. May says. “We scanned the dinosaur vertebrae and created a computerized 3D reconstruction of the tumor and the blood vessels that fed it. The micro and macro analyses confirmed that it was, in fact, LCH. This is the first time this disease has been identified in a dinosaur.”

According to Dr. May, the surprising findings indicate that the disease is not unique to humans, and that it has survived for more than 60 million years.

“These kinds of studies, which are now possible thanks to innovative technology, make an important and interesting contribution to evolutionary medicine, a relatively new field of research that investigates the development and behavior of diseases over time,” notes Prof. Israel Hershkovitz of TAU’s Department of Anatomy and Anthropology and Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research. “We are trying to understand why certain diseases survive evolution with an eye to deciphering what causes them in order to develop new and effective ways of treating them.”

Bernie Sanders wins New Hampshire primary election

This 11 February 2020 video from the USA says about itself:

US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders thanked New Hampshire voters for his primary win and described it as ‘the beginning of the end for Donald Trump.’ Bernie Sanders … won New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary, solidifying his front-runner status in the nominating race and dealing a setback to moderate rival Joe Biden, who appeared likely to finish a disappointing fifth.

By Patrick Martin in the USA:

Sanders wins three-way contest in New Hampshire primary

12 February 2020

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won the Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire Tuesday. The vote counting showed a close race between the top three candidates, with Sanders at 26 percent, former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg at 24 percent, and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota at 20 percent. Sanders led Buttigieg by a 4,000-vote margin, while Buttigieg was about 12,000 votes ahead of Klobuchar.

Voter turnout was up significantly compared to 2016, when Sanders won a nearly 2-1 victory over Hillary Clinton. Just under 250,000 people voted in 2016, while New Hampshire state officials said that nearly 300,000 people voted in 2020, an increase of nearly 20 percent. The total surpassed the previous record turnout of 265,000 in 2008, when Hillary Clinton defeated Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The state of New Hampshire, now under a Republican administration, changed its rules to make it harder for the large student population to vote, and the percentage of votes cast by young people under 30 fell significantly, holding down the total for Sanders, who won more than 50 percent in that category.

Exit polls showed significant differences in the demographic support for the three leading candidates. Sanders won a large plurality among men without a college education, a section of the working class that his campaign has targeted. As a result, Sanders carried the seven largest cities and towns in New Hampshire, including Manchester, the largest city, Nashua, the second-largest, the state capital Concord, and the port city of Portsmouth.

Support for Buttigieg was concentrated in the suburbs and rural areas rather than the cities, and he carried many of the townships along the border with Massachusetts, home to thousands who commute to work in the Boston metropolitan area. Klobuchar’s campaign had its strongest support among women with a college education, particularly in upscale suburban areas like those the Democratic Party swept in winning control of the House of Representatives in 2018.

While Sanders carried Durham, the town that is home to the University of New Hampshire, the state’s largest college, Buttigieg won in Hanover, home to the far more expensive Ivy League school, Dartmouth University.

The primary results were disastrous for the two Democrats who were regarded as frontrunners for the nomination at various times during 2019, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren from neighboring Massachusetts. Warren received 9 percent of the vote and Biden only 8 percent. Biden, who followed up a fourth-place finish in Iowa with a fifth-place showing in New Hampshire, left the state in the afternoon and made a brief statement on the primary results at a rally in South Carolina, where his campaign may make its last stand on February 29.

New Hampshire’s 24 delegates to the Democratic national convention will be divided nine for Sanders, nine for Buttigieg and six for Klobuchar. Warren, Biden and the other candidates on the ballot failed to reach 15 percent of the vote and therefore failed to win any delegates. Three of the also-rans, businessman Andrew Yang, Senator Michael Bennet, and former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who only entered the race in November, indicated they would end their campaigns.

The campaign now turns to the Nevada caucuses on February 22, followed by the South Carolina primary a week later, and then “Super Tuesday” on March 3, when voters in 14 states will elect nearly 40 percent of the delegates to the nominating convention, and where billionaire Michael Bloomberg has already poured in $250 million in advertising to promote his own candidacy to supplant the political corpse of Biden as the standard-bearer of the “moderate” wing of the Democratic Party. …

In their speeches to supporters on the night of the primary, the three leading candidates signaled their political posture going forward, with Klobuchar and Buttigieg vying with the fading Biden and the billionaire Bloomberg to become the face of the anti-Sanders campaign.

Klobuchar’s performance in last Friday’s debate was extravagantly hyped by the media, contributing to her surge in the polls from low single digits to 20 percent in a week. She sought to reprise some of these themes in her speech Tuesday night, calling for the building of a movement of “fired-up Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans,” claiming that “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare is that people in the middle … have someone to vote for in November.” ,,,

As with the debate, media pundits portrayed her “victory” speech as a tour de force and sought to boost her campaign as a potential right-wing alternative to Sanders. …

Buttigieg gave a speech full of vague platitudes, … along with suggestions of generational change, since he is 38, half the age of Biden or Sanders. He made no mention of the two factors that constitute his real credentials in the eyes of the ruling class: his role as a naval intelligence officer in Afghanistan, and his generally right-wing program, aligned with that of the Democratic Party establishment. …

Sanders repeated his declarations that health care is a human right, that the wealthy should pay higher taxes, that colleges should be tuition-free, and a litany of other liberal slogans on climate change, criminal justice reform, immigration reform, gun control and women’s right to abortion. …

There is no question that the vote for Sanders was an expression of a shift among working people and youth to the left. The first half-hour of the Democratic debate Friday night, which had a wide audience in the state, consisted of Biden, Klobuchar and other candidates bemoaning the prospect that a “democratic socialist” might win the nomination, supposedly dooming the electoral prospects of every Democratic candidate in the November election.

Those who voted for Sanders clearly rejected this type of thinly disguised red-baiting. The New York Times quoted one young voter, employed at Dartmouth, saying, “In my world, there’s more support for the word socialist than billionaire.”

Forbes magazine—a bible of Wall Street—published this weekend a remarkable commentary under the headline, “Why Young Voters Are Embracing Bernie Sanders And Democratic Socialism.” It concluded, as a matter of obvious fact, “Younger people face the frightening realization that they may be the first generation to have a lower standard of living than their parents.”

The column went on to point out the impossible economic circumstances confronting the younger generation, including “a combination of crushing student loan debt, low-wage jobs and escalating home and rental costs.” It concluded, “In light of their situation, it’s not surprising that Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls and the idea of socialism is gaining traction among young people.”