Category Archives: Evolution

Web 3.0 is a theme, a vision, a set of ideals to reshape internet in a sense to live out its founding promise and shape its next evolution vs the centralised Web2 we have today.

It attracts idealists, technologists and entrepreneurs who all have different motivations about this space, making it quite difficult to provide a simple definition and creates some very high profile differences of opinion around Web 3.0 as well.

But, what is Web 3.0? If you have heard about Brave, Arweave, Decentraland, Axie Infinity, etc., then congratulations, you are already familiar with some initial Web 3.0 real world examples.

Its original purpose was to share knowledge among humanity with different iterations coined to represent their evolution.

Web1 - 90s Web Altavista, Yahoo, Email but mostly static web to read.

Web2 - Interactive web, search engines, ecommerce, social media, new business models and power concentrated among technology companies.

Web 3.0 - Indicates a decentralised and permissionless future for the internet.

Web 3.0 aspires to build a decentralised internet where a community of users own, control participation, switch seamlessly between services / platforms and share the rewards of using the ecosystem. The key tenet is decentralisation (trustless and permissionless) which leaves it open for all and resistant to any form of censorship. Any Web 3.0 conversation is mentioned in the same breath as crypto, which would make readers wonder whats the connection here?

To achieve the Web 3.0 vision, we rely heavily on blockchain the technology that underpins the crypto ecosystem, the ability to implement smart contracts, etc. A blockchain is a distributed ledger of records maintained by a community. Its public and immutable in the sense that history is maintained by consensus.

Smart contracts allow you to enforce agreements and terms via software code. All the developments we see in this space, like NFTs (non fungible tokens), layer 0/1/2 protocols, zero knowledge proofs, innovative tokenomics, DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations), DeFi (decentralised finance), dApps (decentralised applications), metaverse and play-to-earn all tie in to some of these aspirations around Web 3.0. Its this remaking of the internet with these innovations that broadly gets referred to as Web 3.0 but its still early days.

There are already companies, platforms, protocols and services that operate in Web 3.0 but as a new field, we need to look forward, not necessarily to how Web 3.0 works at present, but at what the future might be, such as:

There have been some legitimate criticisms of Web 3.0 about whether it will truly deliver a new world, or just shift power from incumbents to a different set of stakeholders and early movers. Would Web 3.0 investors and builders who own a large number of tokens end up driving its future evolution / governance standards to their advantage?

Originally posted here:

Web 3.0: the evolution | BCS - BCS

Cyclone Asani

This week began on a wet note for the states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal, owing to the formation of Cyclone Asani over the Bay of Bengal. And while most cyclones are wont to cause a lot of devastation, Asani was relatively polite. Despite all the fanfare that accompanied its arrival, Asani left quietly, only bringing heavy rainfall and some respite from summer heat to the states along the East coast and across the southern peninsula.

Still, its journey from an innocuous cyclonic circulation to a full-blown Severe Cyclonic Storm is definitely worth talking about. Below, we dive into the rise and fall of 2022's first cyclone, as reported by the India Meteorological Department (IMD)!

Despite its minimal impact, Asani's journey was far from straightforward. The cyclonic storm saw itself recurving quite a bit, making it rather unpredictable till the last minute. The majority of models predicted a shift in the system's path from northwest to northeast as it approached the coast. However, on May 11, the deep depression (remains of cyclone Asani) drifted slowly northward/northwestwards until dark, then west-southwestwards.

The cyclonic storm was expected to proceed northeastwards near the coast under the influence of a short-amplitude westerly trough in the middle and upper troposphere approaching from the west. Instead, as the storm weakened as it approached the coast, the storm's height reduced, and it was confined to middle tropospheric levels. As a result, the storm's steering wind shifted from southeasterly to northwesterly, causing it to proceed northwestward.

But an anticyclone over peninsular India, northwestward progress was restricted. Therefore, the system moved slowly and stayed almost stationary along the shore, followed by a gradual west-southwestward movement until fading into a well-defined low-pressure area over the region on the morning of May, explains IMD.

Man crosses a road in heavy rains

Around the storm's centre, the maximum sustained wind speed was estimated to be around 30 knots (50-60 kmph) along and off the coast of Andhra Pradesh. On May 11, the high wind speed recorder at IMD, Machilipatnam, recorded a peak wind speed of 30 knots (55 kmph).

As far as rains are concerned, several Andhra, Yanam, Rayalaseema and Odisha districts received more than or equal to 7 cm of rainfall on May 11 and 12.

But the impact of the cyclone was far and wide in terms of rain and temperature. The cyclone-induced clouds hovered over the entire southern peninsula and blocked harsh summer sunshine. Its cooling effects were so strong that the faraway Bengalurus daytime mercury levels down to 24.3C, making May 11 the coldest May day the Karnataka capital has experienced since the year 2000.

Asani's birth began as that of any other cyclone, in the form of a low-pressure area. The LPA formed over the South Andaman Sea and the adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal on May 6. There began its process of intensification.

At first, it moved northwestwards, strengthening into a depression on the afternoon of May 7 and then a deep depression by the evening of the same day. During the early hours of May 8, continuing to move in the same direction, it intensified into a cyclonic storm and a severe cyclonic storm in the same evening.

This rapid intensification helped Asani reach its peak intensity of 55 knots (100-110 kmph gusting to 120 kmph) early the following day (May 9). It maintained its peak intensity till 10th noon.

Asani, which first de-intensified into a cyclone from a severe cyclone, moved slowly northwards before weakening into a deep depression over the west-central Bay of Bengal near the Andhra Pradesh coast on the evening of May 11.

It then crossed the Andhra Pradesh coast between Machilipatnam and Narsapur during the evening hours of May 11 as a severe depression with maximum sustained wind speeds of 55-65 kmph gusting to 75 kmph. It subsequently proceeded slowly west-southwestwards, weakening into a depression early the next morning and a well-defined low-pressure area over coastal Andhra Pradesh the next morning.

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Curious Case of Asani: Birth, Evolution, Impact, and Eventual Waning of 2022's First Cyclonic Storm | The Weather Channel - Articles from The Weather...

Photo: A humpback whale, by Whit Welles Wwelles14 / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0).

The Illustra Media documentary Living Waters: Intelligent Design in the Oceans of the Earthshares amazing information about humpback whales: their enigmatic songs, their multiple adaptations for aquatic life that defy the evolutionary mechanism, and the miraculous web of blood vessels that refrigerates the male reproductive organs to safe levels for sperm production. All of it defies explanations based on natural selection. But thats just the beginning when it comes to the largest animals that have ever lived larger even than the largest dinosaurs (see Brian Switeks discussion onSlate). Want to see humpback songs as sheet music?The Smithsonianhas printouts and recordings.

The system actually works better when the whale swims hard. How can that be, when the testes are located right between the abdominal swimming muscles? Its like trying to keep a refrigerator cold between two furnaces.

It works because the blood pumps harder during exercise, allowing more heat to escape into the water through the dorsal fin and tail. The higher volume of cool venous blood then enters the miraculous web (Latinrete mirabile,read more here) between the abdominal muscles, where the heat from the arteries is transferred to the cooler veins before entering the testes. Its a marvelous solution: a counter-current heat exchanger (CCHE) mechanism.

As Richard Sternberg and Paul Nelson explain in the film, without both internal testes and the refrigeration mechanism existing simultaneously, natural selection would halt, and whales would have gone extinct. Females, too, have a CCHE to protect the young during pregnancy. Similar CCHE systems are found in other marine mammals such as manatees and seals, providing more unlikely examples of convergent evolution.

Blue whales are the largest whales, making them the largest animals on earth. How do they sustain their massive weight? An article fromNOAA Fisheriessays that they target the highest-quality prey in order to maximize energy gain.

These huge animals can span a basketball court and weigh as much as 25 large elephants combined. But they feed on tiny fish called krill that are less than an inch long. When prey is scarce, blue whales conserve oxygen for deep dives. When the fish are plentiful, they ram through the schools at high speed, a strategy called lunge-feeding. They have their ROI (return on investment) all figured out. By watching tagged blue whales off the California coast, Elliott Hazen and a NOAA research team were able to figure out their optimization strategy.

The magic number for krill seems to be about 100 to 200 individuals in a cubic meter of water, Hazen said. If its below that range, blue whalesuse a strategyto conserve oxygen and feed less frequently. If its above that, theyll feed at very high rates and invest more effort.

Whales have an incredible capacity for long-distance migration. A pygmy blue whale set a new record.Sciencereports that a female named Isabela that had been photographed at the Galpagos Islands was seen eight years later off the coast of Chile, having traveled 5,200 kilometers, the longest recorded latitudinal migration made by any Southern Hemisphere blue whale on record. Most likely this is an annual trip the whales make, over 3,200 miles one-way.

Humpback whales are long-distance migrators too. The Australians have a cause for celebration now that conservation efforts have led to a remarkable rebound in their numbers down under,Science Dailysaid.

Captain Dave Anderson, featured in the Illustra film, often sees humpbacks off Dana Point, California, that have traveled south from Alaska, where they had delighted viewers on cruise ships.Phys.Orgreports the first sighting of a humpback near Hawaii on September 29, over a month earlier than normal. About 10,000 humpbacks winter in the oceans around Hawaii, usually November through May. Thats where Anderson got that beautiful drone shot of a humpback with her calf.

You may recall the dramatic slow-motion scene inLiving Watersof a humpback breaching the surface, rising high above the water and landing on its back with a mighty splash. Lad Allen and Jerry Harned got lucky on that shot. They were filming off the coast of Monterey with their Red Epic high-speed camera, looking for whales. But where are you going to point the camera, when they could be anywhere around the 360-degree horizon?

Harned pointed it out over the featureless water, turned on the pre-roll (a kind of camera memory) hopefully. As if on cue, the whale shot up right in the center of the field. Jerry hurriedly switched on the record button and got the whole sequence in high-definition slow motion a shot that still gives him chills when he thinks about it. As Paul Nelson said, the language fails when you see such wonders.

Whales play a vital role in the global nutrient cycle. TheProceedings of the National Academy of Sciencespublished a special issue about large mammals. One of the papers discussed Global nutrient transport in a world of giants, describing the oversized role that whales play in spreading nitrogen around for other ecological communities:

Despite their vastly decreased numbers, theimportant role of whales in distributing nutrients is just now coming to light.Whales transport nutrientslaterally, in moving between feeding and breeding areas, andvertically, by transporting nutrients from nutrient-rich deep waters to surface waters via fecal plumes and urine. Studies in the Gulf of Maine show that cetaceans and other marine mammalsdeliver large amounts of N to the photic zoneby feeding at or below the thermocline and then excreting urea and metabolic fecal N near the surface. [Emphasis added.]

The scientists estimate that whales transport almost four times as much nitrogen as terrestrial animals do. They also transport phosphorus and iron.

Because of theirenormous size and high mobility(and despite having many fewer species), great whales might have once transported nutrients away from concentration gradientsmore efficientlythan terrestrial mammals, the writers say. These nutrients are also assimilated more rapidly, andcontribute to system productivity more directlythan on land.

One of the diagrams in the paper, reproduced byScience Daily, shows the dependency of land animals on this nutrient cycle. Seabirds and anadromous fish like salmon carry these nutrients up rivers, where land animals like bears feed on the fish, profiting from the nutrients that whales had brought up from the deep ocean.

The authors even think that whales play a role in carbon dioxide levels that can affect the planets climate. They estimate that whale populations have been reduced by 90 percent from levels before the Moby Dick whaling days raising alarms about ecological damage to planetary ecosystems. This interconnectedness of life raises fresh impetus to preserve these magnificent creatures.

A paper inNature Communicationsreports something interesting about whale guts. Baleen whales have microbiomes with similarities to land animals, including humans. This is likely because, although they feed exclusively on marine animals, they have to digest chitin a polysaccharide from arthropod exoskeletons that is somewhat similar to the cellulose in plants that cows eat.

Like land herbivores, whales also have a foregut that helps pre-digest the polysaccharides. Since there are similarities and differences in the gut microbiomes, though, its not clear they successfully tied the findings to the old tale of whale evolution from a four-footed land animal.

Mammals host gut microbiomes of immense physiological consequence, but the determinants of diversity in these communities remainpoorly understood, the paper begins sheepishly. Dietappearsto be the dominant factor, buthost phylogenyalsoseemsto be an important, ifunpredictable, correlate.

Sternberg explains in the film how the whale-evolution sequence is more artistic license than demonstrable fact.

Captain Dave Anderson has taken an active role in rescuing whales. A thousand whales and dolphins a day, he says, die from being trapped in fishing nets. HisDolphin Safari websitetells the story of Lily the gray whale, whose rescue made TV news and inspired an award-winning book Anderson wrote to raise awareness of the plight of marine mammals caught in nets.

Recently, he has been developing a low-cost floating beacon that whale watchers can fasten to nets that whales are dragging along with them. This allows rescuers to find the whale again and cut it free, using a special pole with V-shaped knife that allows the rescuer to cut off the net off without harming the animal.

Sadly, whales and dolphins are also threatened by a growing problem: plastic trash.Phys.Org shows a picture of a dead sperm whale on a beach on Taiwan that was found to have plastic bags and fishing nets in its stomach. This may be one cause of the mysterious beachings of whales you hear about from time to time.

Anderson tells about how mylar balloons, let loose by thoughtless partygoers, often wind up in the ocean. Deflated and floating on the surface, they are mistaken for jellyfish, part of the whales diet, and can lead to death when ingested. We all need to realize that trash washed down our storm drains can threaten the most magnificent animals on earth.

But lets end on a happy note. The drones that gave the Illustra team such spectacular aerial photographs of whales and dolphins are proving useful for science.NOAA Fisheriesreports that hubcap-sized hexacopter drones are being used to study gray whales from above. Like humpbacks, gray whales have made a remarkable comeback since 1994 when restrictions on whaling were imposed. With these new aerial monitoring tools, scientists hope to spread this success story to other species that are still endangered.

Hopefully in the not-too-distant future, a NOAA marine biologist says, there will be many healthy populations of large whales to study. With that, the beauty of their intelligent design will also be preserved for posterity.

This article was originally published in 2015.

More here:

Whales Give More Design of Life Evidence, Defying Explanations Based on Natural Selection - Discovery Institute

A snow-soaked monkey gazes into the camera lens | Photo by the writer

As tourism in the Galiyat region has increased, the eating habits and behavioural patterns of the areas native monkey population have changed. Those looking out for the primates are concerned about them becoming dependent on tourists for sustenance, while local farmers consider the monkeys a menace. Can man and monkey find a way to coexist?

It is the eyes that first get me. Frail and isolated from his family members, the baby monkey looks at me with innocence and vulnerability. It is February and the Galiyat region is white with snow. I am on assignment to do a story about the snowfall. The same snow has left the baby monkey soaked. The little creature out in the cold pulls harder at my heartstrings.

While it is not advisable for me to stop my old 1997 Toyota unless absolutely necessary, I just cannot move past the tiny beautiful creature. Maybe I am also driven by an instinctive curiosity to re-establish the thousands-year-old evolutionary relation between monkey and man. I step out of my vehicle and start feeding the infant biscuits. A mistake many tourists have made before me.

The serene moment between me and the infant is interrupted when I hear howling. Soon I see a troop of rhesus macaque, known more commonly as rhesus monkeys, aggressively advancing in my direction.

It is an unusual sight for me. The creatures, usually depicted as friendly and jovial, are in no mood to play. These monkeys clearly mean business.

This may have been an overreaction on my part, but seeing the troops advance, I jump back into my car. I have apparently invited the monkeys antagonist behaviour by ignoring their large troop and instead choosing to feed the baby. But there is more to the story.

When I am visiting the Galiyat, the region has been temporarily closed following the Murree tragedy in January, where at least 22 people, including 10 children, froze to death. The lack of tourists has made the monkeys more aggressive. They rely on these visitors for food.

It is common for tourists to feed the monkeys in the Galiyat valleys. No matter what season it is, one sees visitors feeding them fruits, corn, biscuits, chips and beverages. It is not exactly a healthy diet for the primates, but it is a diet they are used to.

People also feed these monkeys to make a mannat (pledge to God). This is not unique to the Galiyat and the culture exists in other parts of Pakistan and India. I bring bananas for them every week on Thursday or Friday, says Farzana Bibi, a resident of Abbottabad. She has allocated a certain amount from her sons incomes to support the monkeys in the Galiyat.

Besides the religiously inclined, on an average day, one may come across troops of monkeys surrounding tourists. Or, more commonly, tourists are seen approaching the monkeys resting on the railings by the roads or perched on pine tree branches, closely observing the movement and gifts their guests have brought to what has been their natural habitat for centuries.

Monkeys in the Galiyat region are very used to human company, as indicated by their usually friendly attitude towards them. But sometimes they snarl at tourists, warning them when they are crossing the boundaries of a friendly exchange. If feeling threatened, the monkeys may attack the intruders. But with the exception of rarely reported minor abrasions to tourists, no major injuries have ever been reported from the entire valley.

The mischievous monkeys also steal and snatch food from the tourists. Excited children, who love to be around the monkeys, are more vulnerable to the occasional attacks.

Raja Fareed, an eatery owner in Nathiagali, has grown up with these primates, closely observing their every move for years. Their angry mood, he tells me, can easily be judged from their howling and snarling. They apparently call on their intruders to inform them of where the monkeys territory starts. It is a natural alert system.

It is understandable that the monkeys are territorial. After all, this land was their home much before the transformation of the Galiyat valleys into a tourist friendly spot. But as tourism increases and makes inroads into the forests, the monkeys are making more frequent visits to the human population. While the tourists love the primates presence, local farmers consider them a menace.

What we see on display is a conflict as old as human civilisation. Settler versus the native. Man versus animal.

THE GALIYATS RHESUS MONKEYS

The name Rhesus, after a character in the Iliad, was apparently arbitrarily given to the primates by French naturalist and artist Jean-Baptiste Audebert in the book Natural History of the Monkeys and Lemurs (1799). These monkeys have existed in eastern Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and northern Pakistan for centuries.

In Pakistan, according to a 2020 WWF Pakistan article Why worrying about monkey business should be everyones business, these monkeys are illegally poached from their natural habitats. These monkeys can then be seen around the country, performing bandar tamashas and putting on shows so monkey charmers can make a quick buck. The practice remains under-researched.

The lack of research does not stop there. The exact population of the monkeys is not known by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife Department. This is cause of concern for policymakers and researchers. The lack of baseline statistics has resulted in limited research on the threats to the Rhesus natural habitats.

However, according to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife Department officials, the Galiyat alone have over 10,000 Rhesus monkeys. Dr Ume Habiba, a lecturer at the Wildlife Department at the University of Haripur, also estimates the monkey population in the Galiyat to be between 10,000 to 12,000.

They are a common species, Sardar Anwar, a Subdivisional Officer in Abbottabads Wildlife Division tells me. They are neither endangered nor extinct. According to the International Union for Conservation of Natures Red List of Threatened Species also, the species is at a relatively low risk of extinction.

In fact, the population is growing unchecked in the Galiyat. The region is home to a species of monkeys which, according to wildlife experts, give birth to one to three babies a year. Female macaques first breed when they are four years old.

Sardar Khalid, a social activist who cares for the monkeys in his free time, believes that, despite unchecked poaching, the Rhesuss population is much bigger than the estimates I am being provided with.

While the numbers vary, one thing is clear: the population of monkeys is increasing, while their natural habitat in the Galiyat region is being taken over for tourist and commercial activity.

A CHANGING HOME

When the area was closed during January and February this year, following the Murree tragedy, the monkeys suffered. Some social activists from Abbottabad and neighbouring areas highlighted that the monkeys were facing starvation. This brought into focus a hard-to-face reality: the tourists offerings have become the primary source of food for these animals.

Some administrative officers, officials of the Galiyat Development Authority (GDA) and social activists tirelessly advocated for the monkeys, demanding a sustainable solution for feeding them. Some even demanded a permanent arrangement of transporting rotting vegetables and fruits to the Galiyat for feeding monkeys.

Ahsan Hameed, a GDA spokesperson says that, during the Covid-19 lockdowns too, they transported tonnes of rotting vegetables and fruits to the Galiyat, and dumped them at points most frequently visited by the monkeys. Additional Assistant Commissioner Galiyat Aminul Hasan also shares similar stories of taking care of the food problem of the monkeys.

Feeding monkeys is a common scene, but experts believe that humans socialising with and feeding the monkeys has, in fact, disturbed their natural eating habits.

The tourists who want to enjoy the company of monkeys, and want to post their interactions with the primates on social media, have changed the food preference of monkeys. According to Anwar from the Wildlife Division, their diet pattern has changed.

"When I am visiting the Galiyat, the region has been temporarily closed following the Murree tragedy in January, where at least 22 people, including 10 children, froze to death. The lack of tourists has made the monkeys more aggressive. They rely on these visitors for food. It is common for tourists to feed the monkeys in the Galiyat valleys.

These individuals are facilitating human-animal conflict, experts believe. A hungry monkey could attack tourists when not fed. Anwar says that there is plenty of indigenous food in the valley that the monkeys can, and should, eat instead.

During the Covid-19 lockdowns, wildlife experts were hopeful that human-monkey distancing would facilitate rehabilitation of the disturbed ecosystems. Some social distancing from humans would do the monkeys good, they thought.

But even during the lockdowns, people would manage to make their way to the monkeys, feeding them, while posing for social media. The GDA also fed the monkeys rotting fruits and vegetables. Anwar disagrees with this practice and says he has written to the authority on the subject multiple times. This makes the monkeys dependent on humans for their sustenance, he says.

No threat would come to the monkeys lives if we do not throw biscuits and other food items at them, he tells me. These primates have survived on natural greenery and vegetation for centuries and, according to Anwar, there is an abundance of these in their habitats.

Anwar says that the Wildlife Division has made efforts to stop people from feeding the animals. He says that the monkeys behaviour has changed over the years, and they feel motivated to leave the forest areas and come down to the population, scavenging for and surviving on leftover food. This is wrong and must be stopped, the official reiterates.

WE ARE WHAT WE FEED

Monkeys have developed brains and are smart, says University of Haripurs Dr Habiba. They would not eat food that they find harmful to their life, the wildlife expert says. She does, however, agree that frequent human interaction has exposed the monkeys to multiple threats and the unmonitored feeding by tourists could cause them harm. Roads going through the forests have also disturbed their natural habitat and their movement across the roads also puts them in danger of fatal accidents.

These omnivores are vital for biodiversity and for the ecosystem to function. Yet their growing conflicts with humans are hard to deny. Habitat destruction and fragmentation, climate change, introduction to exotic species, pollution, overexploitation of resources, hunting, poaching and accidental death are also the threats to these mammals, observes Hina Jamil, a researcher.

But not everyone believes that separating man from monkey is a critical issue.

Dr Sajida Noreen, an assistant professor in the Department of Forestry and Wildlife at the University of Haripur, says, Rhesus monkeys are synanthropic in nature [undomesticated species that benefit from living alongside human populations], which helps them adapt in various geographic regions of the world where human populations are settled. She adds that the monkeys can adjust to a variety of environmental conditions due to their tolerance of a broad range of habitats, including subtropical, temperate and subalpine habitats, as well as urban and other human modified environments.

In Pakistan, they are found in the northern hill regions of Murree, Swat, Kaghan, Azad Kashmir and Chitral. They also live throughout the high hills of the Hazara and Malakand Divisions, and in the Sakra mountains in Mardan Division and the Margalla Hills.

Those working towards increased protections for the monkey population point out that the monkeys are coming to the farms, at least in part, due to the construction of roads and arrival of tourists in the forests.

But while the monkeys may also benefit from their interactions with the human population, in many of the regions listed above, they are considered a nuisance and a severe threat to the livelihood of local farmers.

The conflict between man and monkey is a major issue. The destruction of crops and fruits by monkeys is a problem local farmers in the Galiyat are all too familiar with. The struggle for the same resources and land is ongoing, and can turn ugly.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

The fight against monkeys hell-bent on destroying crops is an everyday reality for farmers in the Galiyat valley. People have become accustomed to the intruding monkeys attacks.

I had developed an orchard over an area of about five kanals of land, planting 104 plants of apples, apricots, walnuts, peaches, red and black persimmons, plums, pears and cherries during 2002, with the technical support of a non-governmental organisation, says Sardar Gohar Rehman Abbasi, a resident of the village Seri Khun Kalan. With this blooming orchard he was sure his income would increase and he would be able to better support his family.

The orchard started giving produce a year before some uninvited guests, the monkeys, started raiding the fruit trees, destroying the fruit at a very early stage. Abbasi complained about his predicament to the Wildlife Division, but to no avail. Instead they warned me to not even throw a stone at the uncontrolled monkeys, as it was a punishable crime under the wildlife protection laws and could lead to 14 years imprisonment, Abbasi recalls.

The monkey attacks, Abbasi estimates, resulted in a loss of 100,000 rupees per year. He says that NGOs planted 1,200 fruit trees in the area, but landowners had to cut most of them down due to frequent monkey attacks.

Abbasi complains that he and his fellow farmers spend their days taking care of their orchards, spending thousands of rupees every year on fertilisers, insecticides and, above all, protection for their crops. But still they are left with half eaten apples, apricots, persimmons and broken branches.

Our area had two main agriculture markets, one in Kala Bagh and the other in Kohala, says Abdul Sattar Khan, another villager. [These markets] used to facilitate trade and the export of Galiyats famous potatoes across the country. The markets, says Khan, have now ceased to exist as the monkeys unchecked raids have disturbed the agricultural activities in the area.

Khan says that tomatoes, beans, ladyfingers, turnips and pumpkins are the most favoured crops of the monkeys. He says that a troop of monkeys may comprise as many as a 100 monkeys, that attack the crops and rampage through the farms uncontrolled, destroying anything edible that they find.

Sardar Muhammad Sharif Khan, another villager, shares the names of seven persons, including a woman from his area, who were injured by the monkeys during year 2019 alone.

We have stopped growing potatoes due to the unchecked attacks and the destruction caused by the monkeys, says Raja Abdul Waheed, another farmer. Waheed says that he used to earn a decent income growing potatoes until a few years back. But when the monkeys began to attack, he had no choice but to change course.

Following the frequent construction and human activity in the forest areas of Bhagan and the Bakot forest, and with the growing dependence of monkeys on human feeding, troops of monkeys barge into orchards in search of food. They not only forcibly take away the unallocated share of fruits but also damage the plants and tree branches.

My wife and I throw stones at the invading monkeys climbing walnut trees in the small orchard, but they continue to eat and drop half eaten walnuts, says Chaudhry Sarwar, a resident of Bakot.

THE RULE OF THE LAW

As with many conflicts, the court had to intervene in the conflict between the farmers and the monkeys as well. Abbasi, the owner of an orchard in village Seri Khun Khalan who continued to highlight the loss of farmers livelihood because of monkey attacks at different forums, had finally had enough. He moved to the court of the Senior Civil Judge Abbottabad on May 19, 2017, seeking compensation for the loss of fruit and trees of his orchard.

The court heard both sides and some officials of the Abbottabad Wildlife Division also appeared and contested the case on behalf of their department. They stated before the court that none of the monkeys from Ayubia Park, a protected area for wildlife, go to the populated area and the complaint was baseless.

On February 20, 2019, the court ordered the Wildlife Division to pay a compensation of 3.5 million rupees to Rehman for the damage of his fruit trees and land by monkeys due to non-provision of food and negligence by the department.

The farmers also complain that, while the wildlife protection laws provide cover for the monkeys, no one is looking out for them. Painting themselves as helpless victims, they say they just look at the monkeys and can only make loud noises to scare them off. Shay, shay; Ha, ha, demonstrates Tamaz Khan, showing the kind of noises they make. Tamaz Khan is another villager who was injured by a small troop of monkeys once when he stopped them from entering his maize field.

But a look at the laws tells a different story.

Section 9A of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife and Biodiversity (Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management) Act, 2015, states that: No person shall hunt any wild animal by means of a set gun, drop spear, deadfall, explosive, gun trap, explosive projectile, bomb, grenade, baited hook, net, snare, or any other trap, an automatic weapon, or a weapon of a calibre used by the Pakistan Army or Police Force or by means of a projectile containing any drug or chemical substance, likely to anaesthetise, paralyse, stupefy or render incapable an animal whether partly or totally.

But Section 63 allows Hunting in defence and defines that: (1) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, it shall not be an offence if (a) any person kills any wild animal by any means in the immediate defence of his own life or that of the life of any other person; and (b) the owner of livestock or his employee kills any wild animal, doing material damage to his livestock, by means not prohibited under this Act, within a reasonable distance where that livestock is grazing or where it is.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife (Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Management) Act, 1975, also used to provide cover for the owner of standing crops or his employee [who] kills any wild animal which is doing material damage to those crops by any means within the bounds of those crops. But similar clauses are not included in the 2015 Act.

The farmers, frustrated with the monkeys, believe that they do not have enough cover in the face of the monkeys. During multiple conversations, they lament the fact that they cannot use an electric fence or more extreme measures against the monkeys.

Those working for increased protections towards the monkey population point out that the monkeys are coming to the farms, at least in part, due to the construction of roads and arrival of tourists in the forests. The antagonism the farmers feel towards the monkeys who are costing them their livelihoods is understandable. But peaceful coexistence is also possible.

LEARNING TO COEXIST

According to the National Geographics Rhesus Macaque factsheet, these intelligent animals can adapt to many habitats, and some can even become accustomed to living in human communities.

In the Galiyat, experts suggest that rules regarding feeding and interacting with the monkey population must be strictly enforced. This is the norm in national parks and other areas with animal populations around the world.

The animals should also be better provided for in the forest area and their natural habitats must be protected, so they do not feel the need to venture out. The population of the monkeys must also be studied, so policymakers and researchers can work with the ground realities in mind.

Informed policymaking and enforcement will see behavioural change in both the tourists and the monkeys.

Even before a man was sent to space, Albert II, a male rhesus monkey became the first mammal to travel to space in 1949. So the primates ability to adapt has been long established.

Surely, with the right kind of planning and attention, and protection of their habitats, the monkeys could adapt to the changing dynamics. And, sooner or later, the tourists could also learn to mend their ways.

The writer is a journalist based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He tweets @MSadqat

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 15th, 2022

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THE EVOLUTION OF MONKEY - DAWN.com

Frank Rijkaard, Dick Advocaat and Louis van Gaal all had an input and effect on the Rangers managers playing days and now the Dutchman wants to join those legendary peers by landing a European trophy as a manager.

Management, van Bronckhorst says, is a constant learning cycle, where he has taken the best work of his teachers and reflected the results on his own role at Rangers. He has moulded the key elements to reach a Europa League goal which could not only match one of the many achievements of the past Dutch masters, but earn legendary status at Ibrox.

One previous boss in particular, though, is a model on which van Bronckhorst works and sets up his team.

You learn from every coach you have and Im still learning. As a player, I was still learning at 34 or 35 and as a coach you never stop learning, improving yourself and getting new ideas.

So its an ongoing process, the manager said.

I was privileged to train under some really good coaches. I think the final I played with Barcelona in 2006, when we won the Champions League, we had Frank Rijkaard as coach. As a character and the way I work, I think Im closest to his manners and the way he approaches games.

I always had a good feeling with him because he used the strength of the team. He always made us feel like we were special and able to achieve great things. With him, I had a really good relationship.

Louis van Gaal was another coach I had with the Dutch team. As a coach in general, he is one of the best.

And Dick Advocaat was a coach I had with both Rangers and the Dutch team.

They are not the only historic group van Bronckhorst is seeking to join on Wednesday evening.

The Barcelona Bears of 1972 who brought the Cup Winners Cup back to Scotland the only Rangers team to taste success on the continent are still discussed in feted tones around the corridors of Ibrox, and John Greig ensures their feat is never forgotten.

"John is telling that story every day! No, its good to have. I love having John Greig around because he is a true legend, van Bronckhorst added.

I think its also very important for the players to hear those stories, of the influence and experience they had and what it meant to them. Thats very important because this club is all about history.

I also told my players that we have two big finals and the final in Seville next week will give them a chance to be in the history books of this club.

Then the stories they will tell in 10, 20 or 30 years will be the same stories that all the players from 72 will tell to mine.

It is a chance of greatness, of that there is no doubt. Eintracht Frankfurt are talented but sit 11th in the German top flight, far beyond RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund, who Rangers have eliminated already.

Using the Dutch methodology of van Gaal, Rijkaard and company has seen a tactical evolution at Rangers sometimes midway through games and van Bronckhorst will apply more of the elements he has learned through a 30-year football career against Frankfurt that have served Rangers so well against more illustrious opponents including the two German sides already.

Its a Bundesliga team and a very strong team, physically good, well organised and very fast in transitions, said Van Bronckhorst. We also saw when we played against Leipzig. They have had great results, beating Barcelona and West Ham is a great achievement for them the results they have had in Europe will give them confidence. But they have different players to the ones we faced.

The system might be the same but individually they have different strengths but we are watching all the games they have played so far and in the end we will make a plan to try to be victorious against Eintracht.

If you play against a really strong opponent Dortmund at that time were favourites to win the Europa League and you give a performance like that, its good for confidence and your belief in your strength as a team. We stayed really humble and respected the opponent and made sure that we did everything we could to win against every team we played. Thats one of the strengths of this team. Im really happy with that. Frankfurt will be the same. We wont change our approach. We wont change anything in addressing all the tactics. The preparations will be the same as when we played before.

It would be a huge achievement and it also the beauty of football because it doesnt matter how much you spend or what your players are worth, in the end you have the chance to win against a team in 90 minutes.

You can play against a team with much bigger budgets and better players but we have won those games.

I think it is a huge achievement for us and it shows that everything is possible in football once you work hard for it. You have to believe.

Original post:

The evolution of Rangers: 'You have to believe' as Giovanni van Bronckhorst reveals his coaching idols - The Scotsman

The original Firestarter, based on the 1980 novel by Stephen King, starred Drew Barrymore as Charlie, an 8-year-old girl who can set things on fire with her mind. Barrymore was fresh from stealing the show in 1982s E.T., but this 1984 thriller was a critical flop, with Roger Ebert observing that for a film about lethal telekinesis, the most astonishing thing in the movie is how boring it is.

Since then, pop culture has fully embraced the trope of the young girl with psychic powers, with many characters inspiring devoted cult followings. The metaphor of the unknowable mystery, power and instability of a girl on the cusp of womanhood 16th birthdays and proms have both figured prominently has been through many iterations. And the genre has come a long way from the original Carrie shower scene, in which Sissy Spaceks terrified powderkeg of a teen is pelted with tampons by mean girls chanting Plug it up!

On the occasion of a Firestarter reboot, starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong (American Horror Story) in the Barrymore role and Zac Efron as her dad, we present a watch list for the evolution of the psychic-girl universe.

Kings first published novel became a Brian De Palma horror classic, with a young Spacek starring as Carrie White, the abused teen who develops the ability to move things with her mind (not to mention set them on fire) when shes pushed to the brink by her domineering mother (Piper Laurie) and a horrifying prom prank involving a bucket of pig blood. Carrie would pave the way for decades of dangerous psychic girls down the line in pop culture.

In this late-eighties movie now viewed by many as a camp classic, Robyn Lively played Louise Miller, a gawky teen who finds that shes actually the reincarnation of a powerful witch and will come into her abilities when she turns 16. A precursor to the teenage-witch bonanza of the 90s, it brought a light touch to the subject matter. Bonus: its got an inexplicable rap scene.

The mid-1990s were high times for supernatural teen girls. Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell, Fairuza Balk and Rachel True are a group of high school friends who find empowerment in developing their magical powers before it corrupts some of them.A millennial fave, its feminist and cheesy in equal measure.

Melissa Joan Hart starred in this lighthearted, laugh-tracked series adaptation of an Archie comic, in which her character Sabrina learns on yep, her 16th birthday that she can do magic. Seven seasons ensued, with Hart proving the staying power, and ratings clout, of the supernatural teen girl.

Adorable child actor Mara Wilson played the title role in this adaptation of a comically dark Roald Dahl book, in which precocious Matilda Wormwood finds she has telekinetic powers that emerge when shes abused by the awful grownups around her.More ominous than many movies ostensibly for kids and a predecessor of many other girl-centric kid lit adaptations in film this Dahl adaptation would spawn a hit Broadway musical.

Joss Whedons series featured a host of high school kids dealing with supernatural issues, but Alyson Hannigans geeky Willow Rosenberg was the character who most embodied the psychic-teen trope, with her powers emerging gradually throughout the series concurrently with discovering she was gay, and then tragically losing her girlfriend. The plotlines of Buffy have inspired countless academic studies, and Willows arc has been viewed as a depiction of queerness, of drug use, and of the experiences of female hackers pushing back against a sexist community.

Emma Watsons Hermione Granger, hero to many a tousle-haired female bookworm, was a Muggle-born girl with magical powers who ended up saving Harrys life on many an occasion. Of all the psychic girls in the pop culture landscape, Hermione probably looms largest, inspiring generations of girls to embrace their inner superpowers.

The Duffer brothers Netflix series channeled so many aspects of pulpy 1980s pop culture, but its breakout was surely Millie Bobby Brown as the telekinetic Eleven.Initially giving strong Drew Barrymore vibes, Browns Eleven has very much grown into her own unique character, and introduced many younger viewers to the trope of the psychic girl.

Kiernan Shipka anchored this revisit of the Sabrina story, which was modernized with a darker, twistier, more thoroughly Gothic worldview and, crucially, no laugh track.This Sabrina modernized the character once written for a sitcom, giving her an edge that was in keeping with the cultural embrace of girls and womens complexity.

Set in a vaguely sketched era that could be now or the 80s, this Netflix series starred Sophia Lillis as Sydney Novak, alarmed to find she has anger-induced telekinetic powers. The show tips its hat to early influences (see her initial appearance in a blood-soaked dress a la Carrie) and to Eleven of Stranger Things, making it the perfect bridge between the old and the new guard.

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'Firestarter' and the evolution of the psychic teen girl - New York Post

DUBLIN, May 13, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "The Evolution of Eating Occasions" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Eating occasions have evolved significantly with changes in consumer habits, and home as a hub will be a core focus in the next few years. Meanwhile, experiential dining out and food discovery at specialist retailers have been under threat, leading to a surge in experimentation and self-creation at home. Value for money positioning is more important than ever as consumers seek novel experiences despite tightened budgets.

The The Evolution of Eating Occasions global briefing offers an insight into to the size and shape of the Packaged Food market, highlights buzz topics, emerging geographies, categories and trends and identifies the leading companies and brands.

It also offers strategic analysis on driving packaged food industry trends like health and wellness, premiumisation, convenience and value-for-money and how those trends influence factors like new product developments, packaging innovations, retail distribution and retail pricing both historically and into the future.

Product Coverage: Cooking Ingredients and Meals, Dairy Products and Alternatives, Snacks, Staple Foods.

Why buy this report?

Get a detailed picture of the Packaged Food market;

Pinpoint growth sectors and identify factors driving change;

Understand the competitive environment, the market's major players and leading brands;

Use five-year forecasts to assess how the market is predicted to develop.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Introduction

2. Examining the Evolution of Eating Occasions

3. Meeting Consumer Needs

4. Conclusion

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/f7upqw

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220513005206/en/

Contacts

ResearchAndMarkets.comLaura Wood, Senior Press Managerpress@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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The Evolution of Eating Occasions, 2022 Consumer Study: Changes in Consumer Habits and Home as a Hub will be a Core Focus in the Next Few Years -...

The Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution was released in 1997 as the Japanese automakerslatestParis-Dakar Rallychallenger. 2,500 road-legalversions were made forhomologation purposes, internally codenamed V55W, and today theyre highly collectible.

Mitsubishi still holds the Guinness World Record for having the Most Dakar Rally Wins by An Automobile Manufacturer. In total the company has 12 victories and 150 stage wins, as well as a slew of class wins from 1985 to 2007.

Mitsubishis exploits in the Paris-Dakar Rally are the stuff of legend, the first Pajero took part in the Dakar back in 1983, by 1985 the model took its first win. It would be the first of a dozen outright wins and many more class wins over a period of 22 years from 1985 to 2007.

Above Video: This is the official review of the 1998 Paris-Dakar Rally, Mitsubishi would win again, this time with their new Pajero Evolution.

The 1997 Paris-Dakar Rally would be won by Mitsubishi however the new Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution hadnt been officially homologated yet and so the previous generation vehicle was used the Pajero T2.

Despite the fact the Pajero T2 was a little long in the tooth it still won the event, thanks in no small part to the driver Kenjiro Shinozuka the first non-European driver to win the event. Shinozuka had an incredible career that began in 1967 and continued to 2007, he would also become the first Japanese driver towin a WRC event.

In 1998 it was the turn of the new Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution to compete in the Dakar, unsurprisingly it won first time out with French driver Jean-Pierre Fontenay at the wheel and co-driver Gilles Picard on navigation.

The Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution was released in 1997 and sold until 1999, the only reason a street-legal version was offered was to homologate the vehicle for the Paris-Dakar Rally, and other rally raid entries.

It was based on the second generation Pajero but included a wide range of changes to make it better suited to high-speed off-road use.

The two-door body has wide flared fenders, a look that became a signature of the model. It has two fin-like spoilers on the back of the roof, a hood scoop, Recaro front seats, and vents on the rear side of the front fender flares.

The Pajero Evolution has independent front and rear suspension, with double wishbones up front andmulti-link independent suspension on the rear that was unique to this model.

The vehicle was also equipped with limited slip differentials, a locking centre differential, and underbody protection to avoid damage from rocks and debris off road.

Power is provided by a 3.5 liter 24 valve V6 engine with MIVEC, Mitsubishis variable valve technology the acronym stands for Mitsubishi Innovative Valve timing Electronic Control system.

This V6 produces276 bhp at 6,500 rpm and power is sent back through either a 5-speed automatic or a 5-speed manual transmission, though the manual box is relatively rare.

With just 2,500 made the Pajero Evolution is now highly collectible, perhaps the biggest issue being that good examples come up for sale relatively rarely.

The Pajero Evolution you see here is from 1997, the first year of production. It has a number of rare options including front spotlights, a heavy-duty fuel filler cap, and a carbon fiber-trimmed gear selector.

It currently rides on a set of OZ Racing rally wheels, which certainly suit the model very well, but the original alloys come with it as part of the sale. Its accompanied by itsoriginal toolkit and its most recent service was in December 2021, the fluids and battery were replaced, and the undercarriage was inspected.

Its being offered for sale in a live auction on Collecting Cars out of Sydney in Australia. If youd like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

Ben has had his work featured onCNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine,Road & Track Magazine,the official Pinterest blog, theofficialeBay Motorsblog, BuzzFeed, and many more.

Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with millions of readers around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.

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For Sale: A Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution The Street-Legal "King Of The Dakar" - Silodrome

WASHINGTON - The future Soldier will soon be significantly more lethal.

The Army recently announced that the Next Generation Squad Weapon, the XM5 rifle and XM250 light machine gun will replace the M4/M16 rifle and the 249 light machine gun, with some Soldiers expected to receive the weapons by the fourth quarter of 2023. New Hampshire-based weapons manufacturer Sig Sauer was awarded the contract.

The new weapon system will use the 6.8 mm family of ammunition instead of the 5.56 mm ammunition the M4/M16 utilized. The 6.8 mm has proven to outperform most modern 5.56mm and 7.62mm ammunition against a full array of targets.

We should know that this is the first time in our lifetime this is the first time in 65 years the Army will field a new weapon system of this nature, a rifle, an automatic rifle, a fire control system, and a new caliber family of ammunition, said Brig. Gen. Larry Burris, the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team director. This is revolutionary.

Army units that engage in close-quarters combat will be the first to receive the weapons including those with 11B infantrymen, 19D cavalry scouts,12B combat engineers, 68W medics, and 13F forward observers.

According to Brig. Gen. William M. Boruff, the program executive officer in the Joint Program Executive Office, the course of action to support readiness with the new ammunition is going to be carried out through a combined effort of the industrial base at Sig Sauer and the Lake City Ammunition Plant.

Now, consider preparing a new weapon fielding starting with absolutely zero inventory and the industrial base being established. It's daunting, Boruff said.

Despite starting from the ground up the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant has actively began producing rounds during the prototyping process and will continue to provide ammunition in the future.

In 1964, before the Army entered the Vietnam conflict, the M16A1 rile was introduced into the services weapons rotation. It was a significant improvement on the M14 rifle, and it became the standard service rifle for Soldiers.

The Next Generation Squad Weapon and ammunition will provide an immense increase in the capability for the close-combat force, said Brig. William Boruff, program executive officer for armaments and ammunition.

In 2017, the Small Arms Ammunition Configuration Study identified capability gaps, and in 2018, the Next Generation Squad Weapon program was established to counter and defeat emerging protected and unprotected threats.

We are here to establish overmatch against near-peer adversaries, and that is more urgent and relevant today than any time in recent history, Burris said. We are one giant step closer to achieving overmatch against global adversaries and threats that emerge on the battlefield of today and tomorrow.

During the prototyping phase, the NGSW outperformed the M4 and M249 at all ranges, and leaders said that the maximum effective ranges will be validated during another testing phase.

Burris said that with the help of industry partners, the Army accelerated through an acquisition process that normally takes eight to 10 years to complete in only 27 months.

More than 20,000 hours of user feedback from about 1,000 Soldiers were collected during 18 Soldier touch points and more than 100 technical tests have shaped the design of the NGSW system. The Army will continue to improve on the weapon systems by combining new technology while decreasing size, weight, power and cost.

This is a process driven by data and shaped by the user, the Soldier who will ultimately benefit on the battlefield, Burris said. The Soldier has never seen this full suite of capabilities in one integrated system.

We committed to kitting the Soldier and the squad as an integrated combat platform in order to introduce and enhance capabilities holistically. We are committed to creating an architecture that facilitates technology growth and capability integration across those platforms, Burris added.

The XM5, which weighs about two pounds heavier than the M4, and the XM250, which is about four pounds lighter, are still in their prototype phase and may change slightly by the time it is out for mass production. The XM5 weighs 8.38 pounds and 9.84 with the suppressor. The XM250 weighs 13 pounds with a bipod and 14.5 with the suppressor.

Currently the XM5 basic combat load is seven, 20-round magazines, which weighs 9.8 pounds. For the XM250 the basic combat load is four 100-round pouches, at 27.1 pounds. For comparison: the M4 carbine combat load, which is seven 30-round magazines, weighs 7.4 pounds, and the M249 light machine gun combat load, which is three 200-round pouches, weighs 20.8 pounds.

The overall length of the weapons with suppressors attached are 36 inches long for the XM5 and 41.87 inches long for the XM250. The barrel of the XM5 is 15.3 inches long and the XM250 is 17.5 inches long. The barrel on the XM250 is also not considered a quick-change barrel like the M249.

We are facilitating the rapid acquisitions of increased capabilities to enhance the ability of the Soldier and the squad to fight, win, and survive on the modern battlefield, Burris said.

See the article here:

NGSW Signifies an evolution in Soldier Lethality | Article | The United States Army - United States Army

As the worlds most infamous flu pandemic (often referred to as the Spanish flu) raged from 19181920, scientists had very few tools available to help them combat or understand the disease. Researchers didnt even know that a virus was responsible for the disease until the causal agent was finally isolated in a lab in 1930. In the years and decades that followed, improving technology has allowed researchers to look back and learn more about the often-fatal pathogen, but questions remain about the pandemics course, especially regarding how and why the virus changed over time.

Research published today (May 10) in Nature Communicationsfills in some of the gaps in that body of knowledge: researchers managed to extract viral genomes from tissue samples of people who caught the 1918 pandemic flu in different years to show how the virus mutated over time to adapt to the human immune system. They conclude that the virus may have evolved into the pathogen that circulated as a seasonal flu after the pandemic ended.

The Spanish influenza from 1918 is still a big mystery and riddle because there are so many questions [about] what really happened at the time, study coauthor Thorsten Wolff, a respiratory virus researcher at the Robert Koch Institute in Germany, told reporters at a press conference.

Studies of the nature and evolution of the 1918 pandemic virus have been limited by two major barriers: very few samples of the virus exist, and those that do are locked away in preserved, century-old specimens. Extracting them, experts tell The Scientist, is no small feat.

Colorized transmission electron microscope image of the 1918 H1N1 flu virus

CDC / C. GOLDSMITH PUBLIC HEALTH IMAGE LIBRARY #11098

When we started this work, there were only 18 specimens. . . . There was no genome-wide information about the early [stage] of the pandemic, Sbastien Calvignac-Spencer, also of the Robert Koch Institute, said at the press conference. Any new genome . . . can really add to our knowledge. But, he added, these specimens had and still have a terrible reputation of being difficult to work with.

Working with 13 formalin-fixed lung samples that were collected from people who died in Berlin between 1913 and 1920 of the flu or other bronchial diseases, Wolff, Calvignac-Spencer, and their colleagues only managed to extract one complete and two partial genomes. But these included the first-ever genomes of the virus from before the pandemics initial 1918 peak, granting new insight into the genetic changes that the virus underwent as it first adapted to humans.

As the researchers compared the newly sequenced genomes to two previously sequenced genomes of the notorious flu virus from 1918, the researchers noticed that different mutations in the gene for the polymerase complexthe enzyme that mediates viral replication and is thought to be a major factor in the viruss outsize pathogenicitywere prevalent in different years, allowing them to plot out a rudimentary history of the flus evolution over the course of its multiple waves.

I think the coolest part of this paper was that they were able to pull these sequences out of these formaldehyde-fixed tissues, Emily Bruce, a virologist at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont who didnt work on the study, tells The Scientist, and the fact that they found specific point mutations in the polymerase that they think contributed to changes in virulence as the pandemic progressed.

The team was able to reconstitute that polymerase complex and link those mutations and others in the underlying gene to specific phenotypic changes that they say were adaptive responses. For example, the team identified multiple genetic alterations that, in some cases, nearly doubled the enzymes activity. By connecting the prevalence of mutations in a given specimen to the month and year of the persons death, the researchers saw that mutations that increased disease severity coincided with the peaks of the pandemic, suggesting that the pandemic worsened after the virus adapted to its human hosts.

The team found that there was a change in activity related to adaptive processes, Wolff said at the press conference, indicating that the virus is trying to optimize replication . . . in the human population.

The ability to take these archived medical samples and get this really interesting genomic data from them to help answer some really critical questions about the Spanish flu pandemic was the real takeaway from this paper, says Emma Loveday, an influenza researcher at Montana State University who wasnt involved in the study.

The researchers also suggest that the seasonal H1N1 flu virus that began circulating after the 1918 pandemic ended (and continued to circulate until supplanted by the 1957 H2N2 pandemic flu) is the direct descendant of the pandemic virus.

Scientists have linked the 1918 pandemic flu to the subsequent seasonal flu before, but via different mechanisms. In the past, researchers have proposed that the seasonal H1N1 virus that emerged after the pandemic did so as the result of reassortment, the shuffling of genes among multiple viruses infecting the same host cell, meaning that the virus may have become less lethal after swapping genes with other flu viruses. The authors write in the new paper that their results dont debunk the reassortment hypothesis; they simply show that H1N1 could have descended directly from the pandemic flu, no reassortment necessary.

A public health poster published during the 1918 pandemic with advice for stopping the spread of the flu

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE

Loveday tells The Scientist that the idea that the seasonal H1N1 virus that followed the 1918 pandemic stemmed from the pandemic virus is well established, but the underlying mechanism was less clear.

Wolff and Calvignac-Spencer say that going forward, their goal is to extract and analyze genomes from more specimens so that they can flesh out what they describe as preliminary findings and answer more questions about the 1918 pandemic virus. Because there are no sequences from the 15 or so years worth of flu seasons following the pandemic, fully charting the evolution of the virus for now remains impossible.

It is actually very, very difficult to [find] such specimens, Calvignac-Spencer says. We were crazy lucky to find a handful of those in the [Berlin Museum of Medical History] just around the corner.

Bruce says that, hypothetically, it would be interesting to see what scientists could learn if they reconstituted the virus at different evolutionary stages, recreating the various mutations that occurred over time and testing their phenotypic effects in tissue cultures and live animals. What do [the various genetic changes over time] mean in the viruss ability to transmit or cause disease? We know the polymerase is an important determinant in virulence, but we dont know exactly how, she says.

But she concedes that doing so would require working in facilities with a higher biosafety level than the current study because the researchers only looked at the polymerase, and that there would be more regulatory and logistical hurdles to clear in order to study viable virus.

Bruce notes that the findings presage humanitys current experience with COVID-19, and that they may help in understanding future pandemics as well. What [the authors] are saying is these mutations may represent hallmarks of early adaptions to humans, she says. The study shows that this is the normal thing thats going to happen: in a pandemic, youre going to have waves, in part because changes in the viral sequence are selected for.

Today we still have very poor information on the genetic sequences over the course of the [1918] pandemic, she adds. The data that do exist can help us understand things that were maybe surprising to us in 2020.

Read more:

Evolution of 1918 Flu Virus Traced from Century-Old Samples - The Scientist