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San
José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 207
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 University of Florida
photo
This is the entrance to the
Bahamas caveCave in Bahamas
may hold survival key
By the University of Florida news staff
Nearly 100 fossil species pulled from a flooded cave in the Bahamas reveal a true story of persistence against all odds, at least until the time humans stepped foot on the islands. University of Florida researchers say the discovery, detailed in a study appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows many human activities pose a threat to the future of island biodiversity, with modern human-driven climate change not necessarily the most alarming. A new $375,000 National Science Foundation grant will allow further exploration of caves on Caribbean islands beginning in December. Thirty-nine of the species discussed in the new study no longer exist on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas. Of those, 17 species of birds likely fell victim to changes in climate and rising sea levels around the end of the ice age, about 10,000 years ago. Twenty-two other species of reptiles, birds and mammals persisted through those dramatic environmental changes only to vanish when humans first arrived on the island 1,000 years ago. Exploring why some species were more flexible than others in the face of climate and human-driven changes could alter policies in conservation and restoration of species today, when scientists fear activities like habitat alteration and the introduction of invasive species could pose the greatest risk to island species, said lead author Dave Steadman, ornithology curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the University of Florida campus. “What we see today is just a small snapshot of how species have existed for millions of years,” Steadman said. “The species that existed on Abaco up until people arrived were survivors. They withstood a variety of environmental changes, but some could not adapt quickly or drastically enough to what happened when people showed up. “So, there must be different mechanisms driving these two types of extinctions. What is it about people that so many island species could not adapt to? That’s what we want to find out.” Steadman and colleagues, including plant ecologist Janet Franklin with Arizona State University, will attempt to answer that question later this year when they return to the Bahamas to further exploration of caves on Caribbean islands and expand the picture of which species were lost when humans arrived versus those that survived even though their environment was not always stable. For species that were lost at the end of the Ice Age, climate change, habitat change and rising seas, with resulting smaller islands, may have caused their populations to become too small to remain genetically viable, resulting in inbreeding, Steadman said. A January 2015 study co-authored by Steadman found the Caribbean’s first humans depleted species as small as bats on Abaco. The new study shows several other species that endured until human arrival were lost to activities such as hunting and starting wildfires, he said. Hayley Singleton, a master’s student and study co-author, said the new research shows how quickly humans can drastically alter habitats. Unlike during the Ice Age, modern climate change and other human-driven changes often go hand-in-hand, she said. “When humans change habitats at a rate that local species cannot keep up with, that can very quickly result in the losses,” Singleton said. “Likewise, even small climate changes can affect migration and significantly impact habitats. So, you can have the perfect storm where climate and human-driven changes are occurring at the same time, like we’re seeing in places around the world today.” Future research will explore whether there are fundamental genetic differences between the Bahamian species that persisted and those that were lost when humans arrived. In other words, scientists want to know if there’s a genetic basis for adaptability, Steadman said. “The answer could help us predict what animals will be affected most by a changing climate and humans,” he said. Study finds heavy rain bad for trees By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Rain should be good for trees, scientists thought. But African savannas, rolling grasslands with heavy rainfalls and spells of drought, do not have many trees. Princeton University researchers have an explanation: the way grasses absorb and use water gives them a competitive edge over trees. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they point out grasses can quickly absorb water to support photosynthesis and rapid growth, but trees, with tougher leaves and roots, are not as efficient in taking advantage of abundant water. Trees withstand droughts better than grasses, but in a future that is predicted to be warmer and much wetter, the authors predict even fewer trees on the savanna. That could be good for grazers and other herbivores, but worse for birds and other wildlife that depend on trees. It could also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide pulled from the atmosphere. The Princeton researchers developed a mathematical model to mimic how trees and grasses photosynthesize and absorb water, and factored in rainfall numbers from observations across the savanna to come up with their conclusions. First author Xiangtao Xu said the model could help communities make better policies and decisions to adapt to climate change. Don't forget the umbrella again today By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Figure more of the same today with a hot, humid morning causing thunderstorms on the Pacific coast and Central Valley. The moisture is coming in from the Pacific. The temperature will soar because of little cloud cover, said the Instituto Meteorológico Nacional. Storms also are predicted for the Caribbean mountains and in the northern zone. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 207 | |
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| Legislature acts to resolve flap over visits by U.S. Coast
Guard planes |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Some 41 lawmakers voted Monday to allow U.S. Coast Guard aircraft to land at the country's airports as long as they were not armed. There was a flap over the weekend because a Coast Guard aircraft had landed. The plane left Monday. There also was a complaint earlier in the month because a U.S. helicopter had landed. The Costa Rican Constitution gives the legislature the power to permit the entry and presence of foreign troops or warships in ports and also aircraft at the nation's airports. The Coast Guard operates under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, although during wartime it becomes a uniformed service. |
Lawmakers
have long made a distinction between U.S. Navy ships and
Coast Guard ships even though both are involved in anti-drug patrols. Casa Presidencial said that there may be as many as 800 overflights or landings by U.S. planes during a year, and suggested that Aviación Civil should be the agency to give approval. President Luis Guillermo Solís had a meeting scheduled this week with U.S. anti-drug officials. In the past there has been considerable discussion when the U.S. Embassy sought approval for docking Navy boats. In fact, the leftist propaganda machine once issued a statement say that thousands of troops and boats were going to invade Costa Rica. |
| Marchers seek
housing bonds for islanders By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Some 4,000 residents of the islands in the gulf of Nicoya are seeking bonds to build houses. About 100 representatives of the residents marched from the Asamblea Legislativa to the Corte Suprema de Justicia Monday. They carried signs. The residents have filed a court appeal demanding that the state provide them with housing bonds. They come from the islands of Chira, Venado, Islita, Caballo and Cedros. The marchers were accompanied by Gerardo Vargas Rojas, a legislator. No state agency now provides housing assistance for those who live on the islands. The marchers are seeking equality under the law. |
 Asociación de Desarrollo de Isla
Chira photo
Sign demands an end to discrimination
for island dwellers.
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| Police sweep parts of Pavas and Desamparados in search for
drugs |
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By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Police swept sections of Pavas and Desamparados Saturday night and Sunday morning in an effort to reduce crime. These areas have seen the majority of drug-related killings in the past year. The Fuerza Pública effort was not particularly effective. One man was detained because he has not completed requirements issued by a court. |
In addition
marijuana was found along with small amounts of cocaine and crack.
Police also invaded a crack house where more drugs were found. In all, 238 persons were stopped and questioned and motorcycles and vehicles were checked, police said. Police blame more than half the killings this year on confrontations between rival drug gangs. Murders are expected to be a record this year. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 207 | |||||
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Food |
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| New process modifies plants without adding foreign DNA,
report says |
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By Institute for Basic Science news staff
The public and scientists are at odds over the safety of genetically modified food. According to a January 2015 Pew Research Center report, only 37 percent of the public believe that modified foods are safe which is in stark contrast to the support from 88 percent of scientists. There is concern that adding DNA of different species will lead to unintended, undesirable consequences. Scientists at the Institute for Basic Science Center for Genome Engineering in South Korea have created a way to genetically modify plants using CRISPR-Cas9 without the addition of DNA. Because no DNA is used in this process, the resulting genome-edited plants could likely be exempt from current genetically modified regulations and given a warmer reception by the public. What makes this work so groundbreaking is that these genetic modifications look just like genetic variations resulting from the selective breeding that farmers have been doing for millennia. Jin-Soo Kim, the director of the institute's Center for Genome Engineering, said that “the targeted sites contained germline-transmissible small insertions or deletions that are indistinguishable from naturally occurring genetic variation.” CRISPR is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat, which refers to the unique repeated DNA sequences found in bacteria and archaea. CRISPR is now used widely for genome editing. What’s crucial in genetic engineering is for the gene editing tool to be accurate and precise, which is where CRISPR-Cas9 excels. CRISPR-Cas9 uses a single guide RNA (sgRNA) to identify and edit the target gene and Cas9 (a protein) then cleaves the gene, resulting in site-specific DNA double-strand breaks. When the cell repairs the strand break, the resulting fix is the intended genetic edit. The beauty of this research is that the research team has elevated the process and no longer uses DNA, being unshackled from genetically modified regulations. The team |
 Institute for Basic
Science photo
This is the manipulated lettuce.used Cas9 proteins to transfect several different plants including tobacco, lettuce and rice. The team found mutations 24 hours into the procedures. Finally, the team demonstrated that mutations were maintained after regeneration. The team’s technique of genome editing without inserting DNA could be revolutionary for the future of the seed industry. The process will enable researchers to produce plants that are heartier and more suited to climate change. Currently European Union regulations don’t allow for food with added DNA. Since the Cas9 technique does not use DNA, it may be able to avoid being in violation of these rules. In addition, using Cas9 RNP is cheaper, faster and more accurate to apply to plants than previous breeding techniques (like radiation-induced mutations). Large agribusiness companies have been able to afford the time and money necessary to create seeds for genetically modified food, but the Cas9 RNP technique could allow for a more decentralized gene-edited seed production industry. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 207 | |||||||
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| Another Trudeau will lead Canada as prime minister By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Justin Trudeau will become Canada's next prime minister after leading his Liberal Party to a commanding victory in Tuesday's parliamentary elections. The Canadian Broadcasting Co. is projecting the Liberals will win more than 180 seats in the 338-seat Parliament, with outgoing Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party winning 104 seats and the left-leaning New Democratic Party finishing a distant third with 36 seats. Trudeau claimed victory before a crowd of cheering supporters in Montreal late Monday night, saying the campaign proved "this is what positive politics can do" and that he hoped it will serve as "an inspiration to like-minded people to step up and pitch in.” Moments before, Harper congratulated Trudeau in a concession speech in Calgary late Monday, saying "while tonight's results are not one we had hoped for, the people are never wrong." The Conservative Party later announced that Harper will step down from his post as its leader. The victory marks a rapid rise to power for the 43-year-old Trudeau, who becomes the second youngest prime minister in Canada's history. He withstood political attacks that he was too inexperienced and not ready for the job. The former schoolteacher was first elected to Parliament in 2008, and became head of the Liberals in 2013 after the party lost three straight elections to the Conservatives dating back to 2006. He campaigned on a platform of raising taxes on Canada's richest citizens, increasing spending on infrastructure to boost the economy and improving relations with the United States. His late father, Pierre, was first elected in 1968 on a wave of support among voters that became known as Trudeaumania, and served nearly uninterrupted for the next 16 years. The charismatic Pierre, who died in 2000 at the age of 84, introduced Canada's version of the bill of rights and made French one of the country's official languages, all while capturing international headlines for dating movie stars and models before marrying. Writer describes the reason German culture vanished By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
People with German ancestry have long dominated the U.S. melting pot yet their stamp on American culture, once so proud and robust, seems to have all but disappeared. There are more than 49 million Americans, 16 percent of the population, with German ancestry, according to Ancestry and Ethnicity in America, which used data from the 2010 Census and the 2006-2010 American Community Survey. At the turn of the century, just before the United States entered World War I, German Americans accounted for about 10 percent of the population, and their presence was keenly felt. “They were very proud and they clung to their culture very strongly. They still spoke German everywhere. They were almost arrogantly proud of what they thought was a superior German culture and a lot of them didn’t want to integrate and assimilate in the United States,” said Erik Kirschbaum, author of "Burning Beethoven: The Eradication of German Culture in the United States during World War I." “They wanted to preserve their culture and keep it intact as long as they could.” German immigrants flocked to New York and Chicago, and residents in numerous small Midwestern towns spoke German almost exclusively. German-language newspapers, theaters and churches flourished. In some of these areas, the German influence was so pervasive that other non-German settlers ended up learning German so they could communicate with fellow residents. Germans helped establish General Electric and designed New York’s Brooklyn Bridge. They dominated the beer industry and that influence lingers in name brands like Busch, Miller and Pabst. The situation took a dark turn for German Americans when the United States entered World War I. Suddenly, as anti-German hysteria swept the country, America’s largest, most powerful minority was considered suspect. “A lot of people thought the country was filled with spies and saboteurs and actually 30 Germans were killed by mobs and lynch mobs,” said Kirschbaum, whose own grandfather grew up speaking German but refused to speak in the language in his later years. Shortly after declaring war on Germany, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson required about 250,000 German-born men, aged fourteen and older, to register their address and employment at their local post office. Within a year, that order was expanded to include women. About 6,000 of these people were arrested and 2,000 of them, who were deemed dangerous, were sent to internment camps. German language books were taken out of schools and libraries and burned by so-called patriotic organizations that wanted to make sure German was eradicated from the American landscape. Kirschbaum says German Americans, who saw Germany as their mother and America as their wife, felt they had to make a choice. “They suddenly realized they can’t be both German and American,” he said. “And after the war, a lot of them felt they had to assimilate, there was no choice and a lot of them did. A lot of them became thoroughly American. They stopped speaking German. They stopped teaching their children German. They stopped reading German newspapers and they became whole-hearted Americans.” And in doing so, much of the German culture they’d proudly held onto for so long, slowly vanished from the American landscape. Today, Kirschbaum sees disturbing parallels between the anti-German sentiment that swept the nation a century ago and the rise of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “There’s definitely a parallel between the United States government turning sauerkraut into liberty cabbage during World War I and some people in Congress trying to change the term French fries into freedom fries after 9/11,” he said. “It’s another sad chapter in American history that perhaps could have been prevented or avoided if more Americans knew about the history and the way they persecuted German Americans 100 years ago.” President goes star gazing with students at White House By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
President Barack Obama told dozens of students gathered on the South Lawn of the White House Monday night that they could be the ones participating in the first missions to Mars within the next two decades. The president hosted students, teachers, astronomers, engineers and space enthusiasts from across the country for the second-ever White House Astronomy Night. Obama joined the attendees in stargazing through a high-powered telescope, holding genuine space artifacts and meeting the nation's top scientists and astronauts. Standing on stage next to a spacesuit, Obama emphasized his administration's efforts in preparing more young people to pursue studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, commonly referred to as STEM. He announced a new set of private-sector commitments to further that goal, such as an initiative to create 100 STEM networks across the nation in five years, and supporting after-school and summer STEM programs for more than 500,000 students in dozens of states. "America can do anything," the president declared. "We've just got to keep on encouraging every new generation to explore, and invent, and create and discover." With the help of a high school senior, Obama peered at the moon through a large telescope, proclaiming the sight spectacular. Among the guests Monday was Ahmed Mohamed, the Texas teenager arrested for bringing his homemade clock to school where it was mistaken for a bomb. The president had personally invited Ahmed to the White House and told him to bring his cool clock. Student claims he hacked emails of top officials By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The FBI is investigating a claim by a high school student that he hacked the personal email account of Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan. The anonymous student described himself to the New York Post newspaper as a marijuana smoker who backs the Palestinians. He said he used publicly available information to break into Brennan's account and another account belonging to Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson. The student told CNN television Monday "John and Jeh are both very big people and high ranking people. . . If we hacked them, they would be ashamed. But it was really because the government are killing innocent people. They also fund for killing innocent people," speaking of Israel. The hacker claims to have seen Brennan's security clearance application for his federal job. The CIA and Homeland Security say they are aware of the reports. The FBI would not comment. Registration of U.S. drones to be planned by committee By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. government will soon require many drone aircraft to be registered, a move prompted by the growing number of reported close calls as planes fly into and out of some of the nation's biggest airports, federal officials announced Monday. Officials say the registration will give drone operators accountability so that when a drone enters prohibited airspace or breaks a law, the operator can be traced through the registration. Pilot sightings of drones have doubled since last year, including sightings near manned aircraft and major sporting events, and interference with wildfire-fighting operations, the government said. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said at a news conference to announce the step: "When you are entering the national airspace it’s a very serious matter. This isn’t riding your ATV on your own property. It’s actually going into the space where other users are also occupying that space, and it’s a matter of responsibility that we will take seriously and there are penalties for those who refuse to do so.” The FAA now receives about 100 reports a month from pilots who say they've seen drones flying near planes and airports, compared with only a few sightings per month last year. Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Huerta explained that the FAA expects drone operators to register their aircraft so that his department and local law enforcement can trace rogue drones back to operators. "These reports signal a troubling trend," Huerta said at a news conference to announce the step. Registration will increase pressure on drone operators to fly responsibly, he said. In July, there was a dangerously close encounter between a drone and a passenger jet with 159 people aboard setting up to land at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, NBC News reported. To work out details of the registration, the FAA and the Transportation Department are setting up a 25- to 30-member task force including government and industry officials and hobbyists. Capt. Tim Canoll of the Air Line Pilots Association, which will represent its 52,000 pilot members on the task force, said the registration is just a beginning of what is needed. Great Wall of China faces double threats of integrity By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
It is more than 2,500 years old and is one of the most recognizable man-made structures on the planet, but the Great Wall of China is quietly and quickly disappearing, one stone at a time. Built in ancient times to keep invading Mongols out, the Great Wall is a historical treasure for China. Stretching for thousands of kilometers across northern China, the World Heritage site is a marvel that attracts tens of thousands of tourists every year. But the massive length of the wall is also its greatest weakness. In rural areas, the wall continues to disappear with alarming regularity due to erosion and vandalism. Aside from tourist spots near major cities such as Beijing, most of the wall is in poor condition and research indicates that 74 percent of it is poorly protected. "In the summer of 2014, we discovered that the walls were toppled. There were people buying scorpions from villagers to make Chinese medicine, and each scorpion was worth 5 cents. Five cents meant nothing to adults, but was appealing to children. Since scorpions resided between bricks, children toppled the Great Wall to catch them," said Huo Jien Ren, a Great Wall volunteer. Huo added that the rural areas of the wall, without the promise of tourists, lack profitability, which leads to a lack of protection from officials. Besides vandalism, the weather itself is largely to blame for the problem, according to local resident A Mao, who did not want to give his family name. "It starts weathering once the weather gets drier. If the weather is rainy or windy, it weathers as well. There are cavities. They needed to be fixed," he said. Although China’s State Council recently issued new regulations to protect the wall, the current situation remains gloomy. But according to the Beijing municipal government, Beijing, Hebei, and Tianjin have reached an agreement on repairing and protecting the Great Wall in rural areas. |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015, Vol. 16, No. 207 | |||||||||
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 Pensoft
Publishers/A. C. Dietzsch
This is a branch of Sommera cusucoana showing flower
and fruits.Rare coffee
relative found in Honduras
By the Pensoft Publishers news staff
Amid the challenging terrain of northwestern Honduras, where Daniel Kelly's team faced rugged and steep forest areas cut across here and there by a few trails, a gorgeous tree with cherry-like fruits was discovered. Being about 10 meters (33 feet) high and covered with cream-colored flowers, it was quickly sorted into the coffee family (Rubiaceae), but it was its further description that took much longer. Eventually, it was named Sommera cusucoana, with its specific name stemming from its so far only known locality, the Cusuco National Park. The study is available in the open-access journal PhytoKeys. The researchers were working on a plant diversity study in the Cusuco National Park, conducted by Kelly, Anke Dietzch and co-workers as a part of a broader survey by Operation Wallacea, an international organisation dealing with biodiversity and conservation management research programs. A couple of curious findings in the past decade provide a strong incentive to further work. The place turns out to be not only of high biodiversity but to also contain rare and hitherto unknown plant and animal species. For instance, the tree Hondurodendron (from Greek, 'Honduras Tree') and the herbaceous plant Calathea carolineae are another two endemic species discovered as a result of the Operation Wallacea survey. In 2013, two individuals of another unknown, 10-meter high (33 foot) tree with cream-colored flowers and red, cherry-like fruits were found by Kelly and Ms. Dietzsch, who are from Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland. The two were aided by local guide Wilmer Lopez. The multinational collaboration did not stop then and there. Although the scientists quickly figured that the tree belonged to the coffee family, they needed some additional help to further identify their discovery. Thus, they were joined by two leading specialists in this plant group, first Charlotte Taylor from Missouri Botanical Garden and then David Lorence from the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii. It was actually Lorence who was the first to recognize the unknown tree as a member of the Sommera genus, a group of nine known species of trees and shrubs. Later, the team decided to name the new plant Sommera cusucoana to celebrate its singular locality, the Cusuco National Park. "Sadly, there has been extensive logging in the vicinity in recent years, and we fear for the future of our new species," the authors stressed. "According to the criteria of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, it must be regarded as critically endangered." |
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| From Page 7: China's recent growth set at 6.9 percent By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
China's economic growth slowed to a 6.9 percent annual rate between August and September, which is the slowest expansion since 2009. While growth slowed, it was still slightly better than economists predicted, as the services sector offset some declines in manufacturing. China's government has been trying to bolster growth with interest rate cuts and other actions, and some experts predict more stimulus efforts may be coming. The author of a book about China's economic problems, Gordon Chang, says if the economy is growing at a 6.9 percent annual rate, then electricity consumption would probably grow at a similar rate. But in an interview he said it actually rose just 1 percent. "China is growing at a much slower pace than Beijing reports.” However, another expert on China's economy, Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says China's economy is doing better than many critics think. In an interview, Lardy said some state-owned companies and industries are struggling, but many private firms, particularly in the services area, are expanding. Slowing growth in the world's second largest economy is a problem for many other nations because China's huge economic expansion has helped growth in the many other nations that sell it raw materials and other goods. |
