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Yesterday (April 27, 2017) NASA announced that the Cassini spacecraft was back in contact with Earth after its successful first-ever dive between the planet Saturn and its rings on April 26. The spacecraft is now in the process of beaming back science and engineering data collected during its historic dive.
As it dove through the gap, Cassini came within about 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) of Saturn’s cloud tops and within about 200 miles (300 kilometers) of the innermost visible edge of the rings.
Cassini has begun began what mission planners are call its “Grand Finale” during which the spacecraft loops Saturn approximately once per week, making a total of 22 dives between the rings and the planet. Cassini’s next dive through the gap is scheduled for Tuesday (May 2, 2107). The spacecraft is on a trajectory that will eventually plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere – and end its mission – on September 15, 2017.
These two unprocessed images show features in Saturn’s atmosphere from closer than ever before. The views were captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its first Grand Finale dive past the planet on April 26, 2017. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
According to a NASA statement:
The gap between the rings and the top of Saturn’s atmosphere – a region that has never been explored – is about 1,500 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide. The best models for the region suggested that if there were ring particles in the area where Cassini crossed the ring plane, they would be tiny, on the scale of smoke particles. The spacecraft zipped through this region at speeds of about 77,000 mph (124,000 kph) relative to the planet, so small particles hitting a sensitive area could potentially have disabled the spacecraft.
As a protective measure, the spacecraft used its large, dish-shaped high-gain antenna (13 feet or 4 meters across) as a shield, orienting it in the direction of oncoming ring particles. This meant that the spacecraft was out of contact with Earth during the ring-plane crossing, which took place at 2 a.m. PDT (5 a.m. EDT) on April 26. Cassini was programmed to collect science data while close to the planet and turn toward Earth to make contact about 20 hours after the crossing.
Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement:
I am delighted to report that Cassini shot through the gap just as we planned and has come out the other side in excellent shape.
This unprocessed image shows features in Saturn’s atmosphere from closer than ever before. The view was captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its first Grand Finale dive past the planet on April 26, 2017. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
More information about Cassini’s Grand Finale, including images and video, is available at:
http://ift.tt/2nBhQsZ
Bottom line: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made the first-ever dive through the narrow gap between the planet Saturn and its rings on April 26, 2017.
Our annual fund-raiser ends May 5. EarthSky needs your help to keep going! Please donate!
Want to donate via PayPal or send a check to EarthSky? Click here.
Yesterday (April 27, 2017) NASA announced that the Cassini spacecraft was back in contact with Earth after its successful first-ever dive between the planet Saturn and its rings on April 26. The spacecraft is now in the process of beaming back science and engineering data collected during its historic dive.
As it dove through the gap, Cassini came within about 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) of Saturn’s cloud tops and within about 200 miles (300 kilometers) of the innermost visible edge of the rings.
Cassini has begun began what mission planners are call its “Grand Finale” during which the spacecraft loops Saturn approximately once per week, making a total of 22 dives between the rings and the planet. Cassini’s next dive through the gap is scheduled for Tuesday (May 2, 2107). The spacecraft is on a trajectory that will eventually plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere – and end its mission – on September 15, 2017.
These two unprocessed images show features in Saturn’s atmosphere from closer than ever before. The views were captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its first Grand Finale dive past the planet on April 26, 2017. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
According to a NASA statement:
The gap between the rings and the top of Saturn’s atmosphere – a region that has never been explored – is about 1,500 miles (2,000 kilometers) wide. The best models for the region suggested that if there were ring particles in the area where Cassini crossed the ring plane, they would be tiny, on the scale of smoke particles. The spacecraft zipped through this region at speeds of about 77,000 mph (124,000 kph) relative to the planet, so small particles hitting a sensitive area could potentially have disabled the spacecraft.
As a protective measure, the spacecraft used its large, dish-shaped high-gain antenna (13 feet or 4 meters across) as a shield, orienting it in the direction of oncoming ring particles. This meant that the spacecraft was out of contact with Earth during the ring-plane crossing, which took place at 2 a.m. PDT (5 a.m. EDT) on April 26. Cassini was programmed to collect science data while close to the planet and turn toward Earth to make contact about 20 hours after the crossing.
Cassini Project Manager Earl Maize of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement:
I am delighted to report that Cassini shot through the gap just as we planned and has come out the other side in excellent shape.
This unprocessed image shows features in Saturn’s atmosphere from closer than ever before. The view was captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during its first Grand Finale dive past the planet on April 26, 2017. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
More information about Cassini’s Grand Finale, including images and video, is available at:
http://ift.tt/2nBhQsZ
Bottom line: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made the first-ever dive through the narrow gap between the planet Saturn and its rings on April 26, 2017.
Last week’s General Election announcement took a lot of people by surprise.
Soon, usual parliamentary business will be on hold as MPs switch from being sitting members to candidates and return to their constituencies to campaign.
We think cancer should be a key election topic and a focus for any new government. And our priorities for this election are health and science.
Since the publication of England’s Cancer Strategy in 2015 there has been encouraging news for cancer patients. More funding has been announced for diagnostics and new radiotherapy machines. And new cancer alliances have been introduced to improve care on a regional level.
But there’s still a lot more progress to be made.
Last year, we published data predicting that half a million people will be diagnosed with cancer each year by 2035. So the health service has to be ready to deal with the increasing pressure, as well as pushing for better outcomes for patients across the country.
We want to see all the main political parties renew their commitment to England’s cancer strategy. If all the recommendations in the strategy were introduced in full, it could save 30,000 more lives each year in England.
So, as party manifestos are being written and campaigning begins, here are 4 key areas where we want to see political parties act.
Tackling tobacco and obesity has the potential to relieve huge pressures on the NHS, and secure its future. Tobacco costs the NHS £2bn each year, and obesity costs £1.5bn each year. So investment in public health is essential when budgets will be tight for a new government.
There’s already been some progress here. Just this week parliament passed the sugar tax, to help tackle children’s obesity. But increasing public health cuts have resulted in local Stop Smoking Services being closed, meaning smokers are denied support to help them stop.
We want to see all parties commit to a new Tobacco Control Plan and full implementation of the Childhood Obesity Strategy. But we’d also like to see more ambitious moves to tackle childhood obesity, including restrictions on junk food marketing.
Diagnosing cancer at the earliest stages is key to giving patients the best chance of survival.
A cancer diagnosis often involves tests and scans. And for those to happen, the NHS needs the right staff in place. This poses a problem: the NHS doesn’t have enough people who are trained to perform these important diagnostic tests.
By 2020 the NHS will need to do more than 75,000 extra endoscopies (tests used to diagnose gastrointestinal cancers) every year – more than the population of Leeds. So we want to see more people trained to carry out these diagnostic tests.
That means more endoscopists, radiologists and pathologists to help match the demand that’s already weighing heavy on the NHS.
Every patient should be able to have the best, evidence-based treatment for them. We’ve seen some progress this year, with the Cancer Drugs Fund being transformed and funding for new radiotherapy machines.
But patients need more.
The Accelerated Access Review, published last October, outlined some promising ways to change the way drugs are priced, which could help make sure new treatments get to patients sooner. In this election, we want to see parties commit to the recommendations in the review.
The UK must continue to invest in world-class research to improve how cancer patients are diagnosed and treated. That’s because scientific collaboration between the UK, Europe and beyond plays a vital part in the discoveries that benefit patients everywhere.
Our Chief Clinician, Peter Johnson, recently blogged about our priorities now Brexit negotiations are underway, saying research can’t happen without the brilliant staff across our centres, institutes and in the NHS.
Almost half (46%) of our PhD students, and half of our researchers, are from outside the UK. So as the UK leaves the EU it’s important that the UK can still attract, recruit and retain the best scientists, irrespective of where they are from. It’s also vital that researchers in the UK can collaborate across the world. So we need parties to push for an immigration system that allows this to continue.
It’s also important that the UK sends a clear and positive message to researchers already working in the UK, to show how much we value them. This includes protecting their rights to live and work in the UK, as well as the rights of their partners and dependents.
If the next government is serious about giving people the best possible chance of surviving cancer, it will need to consider how best to support the NHS and research.
From mid-May, we’ll be asking supporters to email their election candidates to tell them about our priorities. But in the meantime, share this post and help us keep cancer high on the political agenda.
Rose Gray is a policy advisor at Cancer Research UK
Last week’s General Election announcement took a lot of people by surprise.
Soon, usual parliamentary business will be on hold as MPs switch from being sitting members to candidates and return to their constituencies to campaign.
We think cancer should be a key election topic and a focus for any new government. And our priorities for this election are health and science.
Since the publication of England’s Cancer Strategy in 2015 there has been encouraging news for cancer patients. More funding has been announced for diagnostics and new radiotherapy machines. And new cancer alliances have been introduced to improve care on a regional level.
But there’s still a lot more progress to be made.
Last year, we published data predicting that half a million people will be diagnosed with cancer each year by 2035. So the health service has to be ready to deal with the increasing pressure, as well as pushing for better outcomes for patients across the country.
We want to see all the main political parties renew their commitment to England’s cancer strategy. If all the recommendations in the strategy were introduced in full, it could save 30,000 more lives each year in England.
So, as party manifestos are being written and campaigning begins, here are 4 key areas where we want to see political parties act.
Tackling tobacco and obesity has the potential to relieve huge pressures on the NHS, and secure its future. Tobacco costs the NHS £2bn each year, and obesity costs £1.5bn each year. So investment in public health is essential when budgets will be tight for a new government.
There’s already been some progress here. Just this week parliament passed the sugar tax, to help tackle children’s obesity. But increasing public health cuts have resulted in local Stop Smoking Services being closed, meaning smokers are denied support to help them stop.
We want to see all parties commit to a new Tobacco Control Plan and full implementation of the Childhood Obesity Strategy. But we’d also like to see more ambitious moves to tackle childhood obesity, including restrictions on junk food marketing.
Diagnosing cancer at the earliest stages is key to giving patients the best chance of survival.
A cancer diagnosis often involves tests and scans. And for those to happen, the NHS needs the right staff in place. This poses a problem: the NHS doesn’t have enough people who are trained to perform these important diagnostic tests.
By 2020 the NHS will need to do more than 75,000 extra endoscopies (tests used to diagnose gastrointestinal cancers) every year – more than the population of Leeds. So we want to see more people trained to carry out these diagnostic tests.
That means more endoscopists, radiologists and pathologists to help match the demand that’s already weighing heavy on the NHS.
Every patient should be able to have the best, evidence-based treatment for them. We’ve seen some progress this year, with the Cancer Drugs Fund being transformed and funding for new radiotherapy machines.
But patients need more.
The Accelerated Access Review, published last October, outlined some promising ways to change the way drugs are priced, which could help make sure new treatments get to patients sooner. In this election, we want to see parties commit to the recommendations in the review.
The UK must continue to invest in world-class research to improve how cancer patients are diagnosed and treated. That’s because scientific collaboration between the UK, Europe and beyond plays a vital part in the discoveries that benefit patients everywhere.
Our Chief Clinician, Peter Johnson, recently blogged about our priorities now Brexit negotiations are underway, saying research can’t happen without the brilliant staff across our centres, institutes and in the NHS.
Almost half (46%) of our PhD students, and half of our researchers, are from outside the UK. So as the UK leaves the EU it’s important that the UK can still attract, recruit and retain the best scientists, irrespective of where they are from. It’s also vital that researchers in the UK can collaborate across the world. So we need parties to push for an immigration system that allows this to continue.
It’s also important that the UK sends a clear and positive message to researchers already working in the UK, to show how much we value them. This includes protecting their rights to live and work in the UK, as well as the rights of their partners and dependents.
If the next government is serious about giving people the best possible chance of surviving cancer, it will need to consider how best to support the NHS and research.
From mid-May, we’ll be asking supporters to email their election candidates to tell them about our priorities. But in the meantime, share this post and help us keep cancer high on the political agenda.
Rose Gray is a policy advisor at Cancer Research UK
“One of the great things about music is that it has the capability of time travel – you smell a certain smell in the room and it takes you back to your childhood. I feel like music is able to do that, and it happens to me all the time.” -M. Ward
Have you ever wondered about time travel? Perhaps you have your destination in the far future, and want to see how it all turns out? Maybe you want to return to the past, and alter the future or present by your actions there? Or maybe you want to freeze time altogether? If you want to know whether it’s possible, the physics of relativity holds the answer.
The travel time for a spacecraft to reach a destination if it accelerates at a constant rate of Earth’s surface gravity. Note that, given enough time, you can go anywhere. Image credit: P. Fraundorf of Wikipedia.
Special relativity allows us to control our motion through time by manipulating our motion through space. The more we move through space, the less we move through time, allowing us to travel as far as we want into the future, limited only by our energy available for space travel. But going to the past requires some specific solutions to general relativity, which may (or may not) describe our physical Universe.
By mapping the distance coordinate outside the event horizon, R, with an inverse coordinate inside the event horizon, r = 1/R, you find a unique 1-to-1 mapping of space. However, connecting two distinct locations in either space or time via a wormhole remains a theoretical idea only. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons user Kes47.
“One of the great things about music is that it has the capability of time travel – you smell a certain smell in the room and it takes you back to your childhood. I feel like music is able to do that, and it happens to me all the time.” -M. Ward
Have you ever wondered about time travel? Perhaps you have your destination in the far future, and want to see how it all turns out? Maybe you want to return to the past, and alter the future or present by your actions there? Or maybe you want to freeze time altogether? If you want to know whether it’s possible, the physics of relativity holds the answer.
The travel time for a spacecraft to reach a destination if it accelerates at a constant rate of Earth’s surface gravity. Note that, given enough time, you can go anywhere. Image credit: P. Fraundorf of Wikipedia.
Special relativity allows us to control our motion through time by manipulating our motion through space. The more we move through space, the less we move through time, allowing us to travel as far as we want into the future, limited only by our energy available for space travel. But going to the past requires some specific solutions to general relativity, which may (or may not) describe our physical Universe.
By mapping the distance coordinate outside the event horizon, R, with an inverse coordinate inside the event horizon, r = 1/R, you find a unique 1-to-1 mapping of space. However, connecting two distinct locations in either space or time via a wormhole remains a theoretical idea only. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons user Kes47.
The Lese people practice swidden horticulture in the Ituri Forest, Congo (formerly Zaire). Living in the same area are the Efe people, sometimes known as Pygmies (but that may be an inappropriate term). The Efe and Lese share a culture, in a sense, but are distinct entities within that culture, as distinct as any people living integrated by side by side ever are. The Efe are hunter-gatherers, but the gathering of wild food part of that is largely supplanted by a traditional system of tacit exchange between Efe women and Lese farmers, whereby the Efe provide labor and the farmers provide food. The Efe men also work on the farms sometimes, but their contribution to the family’s diet is more typically from foraged goods, including plants but mostly animals, and during a particular season of the year, the products of honey bee nests.
For several years, in the 1980s and early 90s, I lived in Zaire (now Congo) for several months out of each year (generally between May and January, roughly), and for much of that time I was in the Ituri with the Lese and Efe. During that time, I spent much of the time in the forest with the Efe (very few of the researches on that long term multidisciplinary project did that — most spent their time with the Lese for various reasons).
To go from our study site to the grocery store (which was not really a grocery store because they did not exist in that part of Zaire, but a city with markets) was about a week’s trip or more. Only a few days of that was driving, the rest fixing the broken truck, doing the shopping, etc. So, one did this infrequently. There was no local market during my time there, though one opened up 10 clicks away for a while, at which one might or might not be able to buy a chicken or a yam, if you showed up early.
I (and this pertains to most of my colleagues as well, only a few of us would be at the site at a time) would buy sacks of rice and beans and other long term food items in the city, and carefully curate them at the base camp, a small village constructed of wattle and daub leaf-roofed huts and outhouses. When I went to the forest just to live with or observe the Efe, I would bring the exact amount of food I would need to survive if all I did was feed myself. This way my presence would not affect the Efe’s food budget. But, this is a sharing culture and it would have been very bad for me to just eat that food. I feely shared my food with my fellow camp members, and they shared their food, and my food was almost exactly the same as their local food (rice was grown there) except I would have beans and they are not local. Otherwise, the same.
This meant that I ate what they ate.
Other times, I would hire Efe and maybe one Lese to go with me to the forest to carry out research. I’d be careful to hire them for limited amounts of time to not disrupt their lives too much, but there was very little difference between them working for me and, say, getting honey during honey season. I would only ask them to work with me for a few hours a day and they would otherwise forage. On these trips, I brought more food, for them, because our geographic location and the work we were doing interfered with their normal food getting activities, so I made up for that. But still, during these times we ate plenty of forest foods.
So, what do the Efe (and their Lese compatriot) eat?
Locally, the plant diet is insufficient nutritionally, and often, children are undernourished. There is a hunger season during which the plants from the forest and gardens are rare or absent at the same time, and this is often the death season. No one dies form starving, really (though that apparently can happen) but they have another dangerous disease, and the lack of food may put an ill individual over the top. During one bad hungers season, a small family attempted mass suicide, and mostly succeeded.
Locally, there is no beef, or as is the case a couple of hundred clicks away in most directions, commercially harvested fish. They have goats but the are ceremonial and seem to be never eaten. The Lese have chickens, a few, and they are eaten now and then. The wild animal foods they eat are incredibly important. Without that, they would be in very bad shape.
The most common animals they eat, as in day to day and mundane, are a form of antelope called the Blue Duiker, and monkeys, usually Mangabeys. During a certain season they eat a fair umber of another animal, like but not exactly a duiker, called a water Cheverotain. But since food supply is so unpredictable, they are always on the lookout, and they eat everything. A song bird or bat that flies too close may be batted down with a machete, a Honey Badger that stumbles up on a group of resting Efe may be chased own, an Elephant Shrew that happens on a camp will be dispatched by an archer and cooked up. The only time I ever saw the Efe not go after an animal that happened to show up is when a small herd of elephants came along, and the Efe made a lot of noise to chase them off, while at the same time making plans to hide in the nearby hide-from-the-elephant trees (yes, they have them.) And snakes. Something odd going on there with snakes (see below).
One of the focal points of my research was to look at how animals reacted to the Efe’s presence, and it is striking. Since the Efe will kill and eat almost anything they encounter, most of the animals are very careful to avoid the Efe, and even the Efe’s habitually used trails.
There is a certain amount of elephant hunting. Pygmies, generally, are the African elephant hunters, and apparently, have been so for a very long time. The importance of elephant is very under-appreciated by most experts. The data show that most of the food the Efe eat is plant food, and animal food makes up a percentage of their diet typical for tropical or subtropical African hunter gatherers. But those data never include elephant. I’ve estimated that the total amount of elephant meat they eat over medium periods of time, left to their own, is about the same as all the other meat combined. This happens because when someone does kill an elephant (a rare event compared to the daily killing of a duiker or other more common mammal), everyone from everywhere shows up and gorges on that meat for a few weeks.
So, even though most researchers would classify elephant as uncommon in their diet and therefor not a major contributor to the diet, they’ve simply got that wrong. It is a big deal.
Beyond that, the range of animals is huge, because the number of species native to the area is huge. Oddly, the Efe I was with (and these were more than one distinct group) didn’t seem to eat snakes, tough I know that others do. These Efe also often have a particular species of snake as their totem animal, and you don’t eat your totem animal. So, maybe that is the reason.
Because Efe live the life they live, one without the privilege of access to unlimited supplies of cattle flesh, swine meat, domestic birds, and commercially caught or raised fish, they have a wide dietary niche. Because they live in a remote part of the African rain forest, this list includes a lot of animals many may have never even heard of, or that most regard as exotic, though they are very common there. They live a life where the plant foods often fail them, and collectively do not provide a sufficiently nutritious diet, so they do not have the privilege of eschewing meat, and in fact, perhaps with the knowledge that meat is the real hunger-killer in their environment, they prefer to spend as much time as they can chewing meat.
And I spent a lot of time sharing their culture and ecology with them, and in so doing, had the privilege of getting much closer to truly experiencing another culture than most ever get. Close enough, in fact, to know that I wasn’t even close, and knowing that is a privilege the dilettante missionary or subscriber to National Geo can not have.
The Lese people practice swidden horticulture in the Ituri Forest, Congo (formerly Zaire). Living in the same area are the Efe people, sometimes known as Pygmies (but that may be an inappropriate term). The Efe and Lese share a culture, in a sense, but are distinct entities within that culture, as distinct as any people living integrated by side by side ever are. The Efe are hunter-gatherers, but the gathering of wild food part of that is largely supplanted by a traditional system of tacit exchange between Efe women and Lese farmers, whereby the Efe provide labor and the farmers provide food. The Efe men also work on the farms sometimes, but their contribution to the family’s diet is more typically from foraged goods, including plants but mostly animals, and during a particular season of the year, the products of honey bee nests.
For several years, in the 1980s and early 90s, I lived in Zaire (now Congo) for several months out of each year (generally between May and January, roughly), and for much of that time I was in the Ituri with the Lese and Efe. During that time, I spent much of the time in the forest with the Efe (very few of the researches on that long term multidisciplinary project did that — most spent their time with the Lese for various reasons).
To go from our study site to the grocery store (which was not really a grocery store because they did not exist in that part of Zaire, but a city with markets) was about a week’s trip or more. Only a few days of that was driving, the rest fixing the broken truck, doing the shopping, etc. So, one did this infrequently. There was no local market during my time there, though one opened up 10 clicks away for a while, at which one might or might not be able to buy a chicken or a yam, if you showed up early.
I (and this pertains to most of my colleagues as well, only a few of us would be at the site at a time) would buy sacks of rice and beans and other long term food items in the city, and carefully curate them at the base camp, a small village constructed of wattle and daub leaf-roofed huts and outhouses. When I went to the forest just to live with or observe the Efe, I would bring the exact amount of food I would need to survive if all I did was feed myself. This way my presence would not affect the Efe’s food budget. But, this is a sharing culture and it would have been very bad for me to just eat that food. I feely shared my food with my fellow camp members, and they shared their food, and my food was almost exactly the same as their local food (rice was grown there) except I would have beans and they are not local. Otherwise, the same.
This meant that I ate what they ate.
Other times, I would hire Efe and maybe one Lese to go with me to the forest to carry out research. I’d be careful to hire them for limited amounts of time to not disrupt their lives too much, but there was very little difference between them working for me and, say, getting honey during honey season. I would only ask them to work with me for a few hours a day and they would otherwise forage. On these trips, I brought more food, for them, because our geographic location and the work we were doing interfered with their normal food getting activities, so I made up for that. But still, during these times we ate plenty of forest foods.
So, what do the Efe (and their Lese compatriot) eat?
Locally, the plant diet is insufficient nutritionally, and often, children are undernourished. There is a hunger season during which the plants from the forest and gardens are rare or absent at the same time, and this is often the death season. No one dies form starving, really (though that apparently can happen) but they have another dangerous disease, and the lack of food may put an ill individual over the top. During one bad hungers season, a small family attempted mass suicide, and mostly succeeded.
Locally, there is no beef, or as is the case a couple of hundred clicks away in most directions, commercially harvested fish. They have goats but the are ceremonial and seem to be never eaten. The Lese have chickens, a few, and they are eaten now and then. The wild animal foods they eat are incredibly important. Without that, they would be in very bad shape.
The most common animals they eat, as in day to day and mundane, are a form of antelope called the Blue Duiker, and monkeys, usually Mangabeys. During a certain season they eat a fair umber of another animal, like but not exactly a duiker, called a water Cheverotain. But since food supply is so unpredictable, they are always on the lookout, and they eat everything. A song bird or bat that flies too close may be batted down with a machete, a Honey Badger that stumbles up on a group of resting Efe may be chased own, an Elephant Shrew that happens on a camp will be dispatched by an archer and cooked up. The only time I ever saw the Efe not go after an animal that happened to show up is when a small herd of elephants came along, and the Efe made a lot of noise to chase them off, while at the same time making plans to hide in the nearby hide-from-the-elephant trees (yes, they have them.) And snakes. Something odd going on there with snakes (see below).
One of the focal points of my research was to look at how animals reacted to the Efe’s presence, and it is striking. Since the Efe will kill and eat almost anything they encounter, most of the animals are very careful to avoid the Efe, and even the Efe’s habitually used trails.
There is a certain amount of elephant hunting. Pygmies, generally, are the African elephant hunters, and apparently, have been so for a very long time. The importance of elephant is very under-appreciated by most experts. The data show that most of the food the Efe eat is plant food, and animal food makes up a percentage of their diet typical for tropical or subtropical African hunter gatherers. But those data never include elephant. I’ve estimated that the total amount of elephant meat they eat over medium periods of time, left to their own, is about the same as all the other meat combined. This happens because when someone does kill an elephant (a rare event compared to the daily killing of a duiker or other more common mammal), everyone from everywhere shows up and gorges on that meat for a few weeks.
So, even though most researchers would classify elephant as uncommon in their diet and therefor not a major contributor to the diet, they’ve simply got that wrong. It is a big deal.
Beyond that, the range of animals is huge, because the number of species native to the area is huge. Oddly, the Efe I was with (and these were more than one distinct group) didn’t seem to eat snakes, tough I know that others do. These Efe also often have a particular species of snake as their totem animal, and you don’t eat your totem animal. So, maybe that is the reason.
Because Efe live the life they live, one without the privilege of access to unlimited supplies of cattle flesh, swine meat, domestic birds, and commercially caught or raised fish, they have a wide dietary niche. Because they live in a remote part of the African rain forest, this list includes a lot of animals many may have never even heard of, or that most regard as exotic, though they are very common there. They live a life where the plant foods often fail them, and collectively do not provide a sufficiently nutritious diet, so they do not have the privilege of eschewing meat, and in fact, perhaps with the knowledge that meat is the real hunger-killer in their environment, they prefer to spend as much time as they can chewing meat.
And I spent a lot of time sharing their culture and ecology with them, and in so doing, had the privilege of getting much closer to truly experiencing another culture than most ever get. Close enough, in fact, to know that I wasn’t even close, and knowing that is a privilege the dilettante missionary or subscriber to National Geo can not have.
Ignoring workers’ safety concerns.
Failing to fix hazards.
Directing employees to do unsafe tasks.
Repeatedly violating safety laws.
Falsifying training records and safety audits.
Lying to safety inspectors.
Who would do such things?
Regrettably, far too many employers and 12 of them are profiled in the report “The Dirty Dozen 2017: Employers who put workers & communities at risk.” It was released this week by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) as part of global commemorations of Worker Memorial Day.
National COSH asked its expansive network of health and safety activists to nominate employers for the shameful designation. They received loads of suggestions. The group whittled down the long list to 12, using criteria such as the severity of worker injuries and the companies’ histories of repeat violations.
The brief profiles of each company is more than enough to illustrate their indifference to safety and workers’ rights. The behavior of the companies is inexcusable. The worker deaths and injuries caused by these employers are senseless.
Take the case of Dedicated Trailer Cleaning Services (DTCS) which is just one of the “Dirty Dozen.” DTCS’s disregard for employees’ lives resulted in the death in October 2015 of Armond Stack, 49. He was killed inside an oxygen-depleted railway tanker that he was assigned to clean with two co-workers. DTCS failed to monitor the air inside the tank to determine whether it was safe. Doing so is fundamental for working inside a confined space because toxic gases can build up.
But the circumstances preceding Mr. Stack’s death make the fatality even more horrific. DTCS had been busted two times earlier by OSHA for exposing workers to the same hazard. (There’s no doubt that DTCS broke the law many other times without being caught.
The company was cited by OSHA in 2012 for two willful and nine serious violations of confined space safety regulations. The company never paid the penalty. The government referred the debt to a collection agency. An OSHA inspection in 2014 resulted in eight repeat violations of those same confined space rules. The company paid a $55,625 penalty. Not too long afterwards came the day that Armond Stack, 49, was killed on the job.
As noted in the “Dirty Dozen” report,
Mr. Stack and two co-workers quickly were affected by the lack of oxygen inside the railway tanker. “One worker staggered out and called for help. Another recovered once emergency crews arrived on the scene. Armond Stack, an Algiers, Louisiana native, had no pulse. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.”
The company is challenging the three repeat, two willful, and four serious violations identified by OSHA, as well as the proposed $226,000 penalty.
I scratch my head trying to figure out how DTCS can stay in business?
Why would any company hire DTCS for a tank cleaning project?
What firm sells them insurance?
I ask the same questions about National COSH’s other “Dirty Dozen” companies:
Among all the fine content in National COSH’s Dirty Dozen report, two short lines are sticking with me:
“There’s no reason for a worker to die in a trench. Or in a confined space. Or from a collision with an unguarded machine.”
Today is Worker Memorial Day, but those lines are appropriate for us to repeat every day of the year.
Ignoring workers’ safety concerns.
Failing to fix hazards.
Directing employees to do unsafe tasks.
Repeatedly violating safety laws.
Falsifying training records and safety audits.
Lying to safety inspectors.
Who would do such things?
Regrettably, far too many employers and 12 of them are profiled in the report “The Dirty Dozen 2017: Employers who put workers & communities at risk.” It was released this week by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) as part of global commemorations of Worker Memorial Day.
National COSH asked its expansive network of health and safety activists to nominate employers for the shameful designation. They received loads of suggestions. The group whittled down the long list to 12, using criteria such as the severity of worker injuries and the companies’ histories of repeat violations.
The brief profiles of each company is more than enough to illustrate their indifference to safety and workers’ rights. The behavior of the companies is inexcusable. The worker deaths and injuries caused by these employers are senseless.
Take the case of Dedicated Trailer Cleaning Services (DTCS) which is just one of the “Dirty Dozen.” DTCS’s disregard for employees’ lives resulted in the death in October 2015 of Armond Stack, 49. He was killed inside an oxygen-depleted railway tanker that he was assigned to clean with two co-workers. DTCS failed to monitor the air inside the tank to determine whether it was safe. Doing so is fundamental for working inside a confined space because toxic gases can build up.
But the circumstances preceding Mr. Stack’s death make the fatality even more horrific. DTCS had been busted two times earlier by OSHA for exposing workers to the same hazard. (There’s no doubt that DTCS broke the law many other times without being caught.
The company was cited by OSHA in 2012 for two willful and nine serious violations of confined space safety regulations. The company never paid the penalty. The government referred the debt to a collection agency. An OSHA inspection in 2014 resulted in eight repeat violations of those same confined space rules. The company paid a $55,625 penalty. Not too long afterwards came the day that Armond Stack, 49, was killed on the job.
As noted in the “Dirty Dozen” report,
Mr. Stack and two co-workers quickly were affected by the lack of oxygen inside the railway tanker. “One worker staggered out and called for help. Another recovered once emergency crews arrived on the scene. Armond Stack, an Algiers, Louisiana native, had no pulse. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.”
The company is challenging the three repeat, two willful, and four serious violations identified by OSHA, as well as the proposed $226,000 penalty.
I scratch my head trying to figure out how DTCS can stay in business?
Why would any company hire DTCS for a tank cleaning project?
What firm sells them insurance?
I ask the same questions about National COSH’s other “Dirty Dozen” companies:
Among all the fine content in National COSH’s Dirty Dozen report, two short lines are sticking with me:
“There’s no reason for a worker to die in a trench. Or in a confined space. Or from a collision with an unguarded machine.”
Today is Worker Memorial Day, but those lines are appropriate for us to repeat every day of the year.
Young moon over the West Philippine Sea by Jv Noriega.
A waxing crescent moon – sometimes called a young moon – is always seen in the west after sunset.
In general, a waxing moon is seen one day to several days after new moon. It’s always seen in the evening, and it’s always seen in the west. On these days, the moon rises one hour to several hours behind the sun and follows the sun across the sky during the day. When the sun sets, and the sky darkens, the moon pops into view in the western sky.
The moon is now waxing toward first quarter. Next first quarter moon will be May 3, 2017 at 02:47 UTC.
Next full moon is May 10 at 21:42 UTC.
Watch for the moon near bright stars in the first week of May!
On May 3, 4 and 5, the moon is moving past the constellation Leo the Lion. Look for Leo’s brightest star Regulus. Read more.
On May 1, the moon will be sweeping near the bright stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini. Read more.
Some people think a moon visible in the west after sunset is a rising moon. But it’s not; it’s a setting moon. All objects in our sky rise in the east and set in the west, due to Earth’s spin under the sky. When you see a waxing crescent, you know the Earth, moon and sun are located nearly on a line in space. If they were more precisely on a line, as they are at new moon, we wouldn’t see the moon. The moon would travel across the sky during the day, lost in the sun’s glare.
But a waxing crescent moon is far enough away from that Earth-sun line to be visible near the sun’s glare – that is, in the west after sunset.
2017 started out with a beautiful waxing crescent moon. This day-lapse composite image combines the earthshine moon from New Year’s Day with the crescent moon from the following day. A wide-field image with Venus at sunset and more information on how to make day-lapse images is available from Robert Pettengill of Austin, Texas.
Note that a crescent moon has nothing to do with Earth’s shadow on the moon. The only time Earth’s shadow can fall on the moon is at full moon, during a lunar eclipse. There is a shadow on a crescent moon, but it’s the moon’s own shadow. Night on the moon happens on the part of the moon submerged in the moon’s own shadow. Likewise, night on Earth happens on the part of Earth submerged in Earth’s own shadow.
Because the waxing crescent moon is nearly on a line with the Earth and sun, its illuminated hemisphere – or day side – is facing mostly away from us. We see only a slender fraction of the day side: a crescent moon. Each evening, because the moon is moving eastward in orbit around Earth, the moon appears farther from the sunset glare. It is moving farther from the Earth-sun line in space. Each evening, as the moon’s orbital motion carries it away from the Earth-sun line, we see more of the moon’s day side. Thus the crescent in the west after sunset appears to wax, or grow fatter each evening.
The pale glow on the darkened portion (night side) of a crescent moon is called earthshine. Is caused by light reflected from Earth’s day side onto the moon. After all, when you see a crescent moon in Earth’s sky, any moon people looking back at our world would see a nearly full Earth. Read more: What is earthshine?
Very young moon with a pale earthshine glow, April 27, 2017, by Edmund Buras.
As the moon orbits Earth, it changes phase in an orderly way. Follow these links to understand the various phases of the moon.
Four keys to understanding moon phases
Where’s the moon? Waxing crescent
Where’s the moon? First quarter
Where’s the moon? Waxing gibbous
What’s special about a full moon?
Where’s the moon? Waning gibbous
Where’s the moon? Last quarter
Where’s the moon? Waning crescent
Where’s the moon? New phase
Check out EarthSky’s guide to the bright planets.
Young moon over the West Philippine Sea by Jv Noriega.
A waxing crescent moon – sometimes called a young moon – is always seen in the west after sunset.
In general, a waxing moon is seen one day to several days after new moon. It’s always seen in the evening, and it’s always seen in the west. On these days, the moon rises one hour to several hours behind the sun and follows the sun across the sky during the day. When the sun sets, and the sky darkens, the moon pops into view in the western sky.
The moon is now waxing toward first quarter. Next first quarter moon will be May 3, 2017 at 02:47 UTC.
Next full moon is May 10 at 21:42 UTC.
Watch for the moon near bright stars in the first week of May!
On May 3, 4 and 5, the moon is moving past the constellation Leo the Lion. Look for Leo’s brightest star Regulus. Read more.
On May 1, the moon will be sweeping near the bright stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini. Read more.
Some people think a moon visible in the west after sunset is a rising moon. But it’s not; it’s a setting moon. All objects in our sky rise in the east and set in the west, due to Earth’s spin under the sky. When you see a waxing crescent, you know the Earth, moon and sun are located nearly on a line in space. If they were more precisely on a line, as they are at new moon, we wouldn’t see the moon. The moon would travel across the sky during the day, lost in the sun’s glare.
But a waxing crescent moon is far enough away from that Earth-sun line to be visible near the sun’s glare – that is, in the west after sunset.
2017 started out with a beautiful waxing crescent moon. This day-lapse composite image combines the earthshine moon from New Year’s Day with the crescent moon from the following day. A wide-field image with Venus at sunset and more information on how to make day-lapse images is available from Robert Pettengill of Austin, Texas.
Note that a crescent moon has nothing to do with Earth’s shadow on the moon. The only time Earth’s shadow can fall on the moon is at full moon, during a lunar eclipse. There is a shadow on a crescent moon, but it’s the moon’s own shadow. Night on the moon happens on the part of the moon submerged in the moon’s own shadow. Likewise, night on Earth happens on the part of Earth submerged in Earth’s own shadow.
Because the waxing crescent moon is nearly on a line with the Earth and sun, its illuminated hemisphere – or day side – is facing mostly away from us. We see only a slender fraction of the day side: a crescent moon. Each evening, because the moon is moving eastward in orbit around Earth, the moon appears farther from the sunset glare. It is moving farther from the Earth-sun line in space. Each evening, as the moon’s orbital motion carries it away from the Earth-sun line, we see more of the moon’s day side. Thus the crescent in the west after sunset appears to wax, or grow fatter each evening.
The pale glow on the darkened portion (night side) of a crescent moon is called earthshine. Is caused by light reflected from Earth’s day side onto the moon. After all, when you see a crescent moon in Earth’s sky, any moon people looking back at our world would see a nearly full Earth. Read more: What is earthshine?
Very young moon with a pale earthshine glow, April 27, 2017, by Edmund Buras.
As the moon orbits Earth, it changes phase in an orderly way. Follow these links to understand the various phases of the moon.
Four keys to understanding moon phases
Where’s the moon? Waxing crescent
Where’s the moon? First quarter
Where’s the moon? Waxing gibbous
What’s special about a full moon?
Where’s the moon? Waning gibbous
Where’s the moon? Last quarter
Where’s the moon? Waning crescent
Where’s the moon? New phase
Check out EarthSky’s guide to the bright planets.
