A Little Good News

[GordMay]

Vaccine Made of Live malaria Parasites Shows Early Success
Strategy uses a combination of parasites and medicines, to generate immunity, while avoiding symptoms.

An experimental vaccine, containing live malaria parasites, protected nearly all recipients from infection, in a small clinical trial.
People were given a shot, containing Plasmodium falciparum parasites, along with drugs to kill any parasites that reached the liver or bloodstream, where they can cause malaria symptoms. Participants were then, intentionally, infected with malaria, three months later, to test the vaccine’s efficacy.
Producing this type of vaccine, on the scale needed to combat malaria, would present a challenge: the parasites would have to be harvested from mosquito salivary glands, and then stored at extremely low temperatures.

More about ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01806-1

“Two chemoattenuated PfSPZ malaria vaccines induce sterile hepatic immunity” ~ by Agnes Mwakingwe-Omari, Sara A. Healy et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03684-z

***

Malaria vaccine shows promise — now come tougher trials
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01096-7

“High Efficacy of a Low Dose Candidate Malaria Vaccine, R21 in 1 Adjuvant Matrix-M™, with Seasonal Administration to Children in Burkina Faso” ~ by Mehreen S. Datoo
➥ https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=3830681

[GordMay]

Putin signs law that aims to curb Russia's greenhouse gas emissions
A first step toward carbon regulation in Russia.
Vladimir Chuprov, a Greenpeace spokesperson in Russia, welcomed the law.
"It's not as ambitious as it could be. But compared with what there was, or rather what there wasn't, this is very good news," Chuprov said.
More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/puti...-law-1.6088174

[GordMay]

Why Iceland's 4-day workweek pilot was an 'overwhelming success'

2,500 employees worked reduced hours for 4 years, saw greater well-being and productivity.

Between 2015 and 2019, the Reykjavík City Council and Icelandic federal government teamed up with trade unions to test the pros and cons of a four-day workweek.
About 2,500 workers — more than one per cent of the country's workforce — worked between 35 and 36 hours a week, as opposed to the standard 40, with no reduction in pay.
In a joint report [1], Autonomy and Alda found employees exhibited "greater well-being, improved work-life balance and a better co-operative spirit in the workplace — all while maintaining existing standards of performance and productivity."

The Icelandic findings are on par with other similar experiments around the world. Microsoft Japan tried a four-day workweek in 2019 and reported a 40 per cent boost in productivity [2].
A New Zealand company, called Perpetual Guardian switched permanently to a four-day week in 2018 after its trials saw a 20 per cent increase in productivity [3].
Municipal employees in Guysborough, N.S., ran a four-day workweek pilot in 2020 and found it to be such a positive experience, they voted in April to keep the policy in place [4].

[1] “GOING PUBLIC: ICELAND’S JOURNEY TO A SHORTER WORKING WEEK” ~ by Association for Democracy and Sustainability [ALDA] & Iceland's Association for Sustainable Democracy [Autonomy]
➥ https://en.alda.is/wp-content/upload...CELAND_4DW.pdf

[2] ➥ https://mashable.com/article/microso...-3-day-weekend

[3] ➥ https://www.smh.com.au/business/work...03-p507fo.html

[4] ➥ https://www.1015thehawk.com/2021/04/...n-guysborough/

[GordMay]

For the first time in history, a combination of wind, solar, and other renewables overtook Germany’s coal, oil, and gas, for use as the country’s fuel source, during 2020.

A combination of the pandemic, lower demand for electricity, mild weather, cheaper natural gas, and various economic and market factors led to the historic numbers on the data sheets of Western Europe’s biggest consumer of fossil fuels, and the world’s fourth-largest economy.

According to data collected from the German think tank Agora Energiewende [1], wind power alone supplied more of the nation’s energy than its lignite brown coal plants, while mild weather and warmer months, that were largely cloud-free, saw solar contributing 40% of the nation’s baseline, a greater share than black coal.

All this clean energy led to a whopping 10% dip in the emissions of greenhouse gases compared to the previous year, contributing to what Agora described as “the end of coal.”

[1] “The German Energy Transition in the Year of Corona” ~ Agora Energiewende
➥ https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en...ear-of-corona/

➥ https://www.agora-energiewende.de/pr...er-dinge-2020/

[GordMay]

COVID-19:
Lambda variant is now in 29 countries, but what evidence do we have that it’s more dangerous?

So what evidence do we have that these mutations make lambda more dangerous than the original coronavirus? Very little, it turns out.

There are no published studies on the lambda variant and just a handful of preprints – papers that have yet to be subject to the scrutiny of other scientists (peer review) and published in a journal.

A preprint from the New York University Grossman School of Medicine [1] looked at the effect of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against the lambda variant and found a two-to-threefold reduction in vaccine-elicited antibodies compared with the original virus. In the scheme of things, this is not a massive loss of neutralising antibodies. The researchers conclude that these mRNA vaccines will probably remain protective against the lambda variant.

Researchers from the University of Chile investigated the effect of the Sinovac (also known as “CoronaVac”) [2] vaccine against the lambda variant. They also found a threefold reduction in neutralising antibodies compared with the original variant.

The fact that these two studies [1 & 2] found that neutralisation is at least partially retained is promising, not least because this is only one facet of the immune response elicited by vaccination [T-cells].

According to PHE’s latest “risk assessment” (July 8) [3] of lambda, there is no evidence of a country where lambda has outcompeted delta. Studies are ongoing, but for now, lambda remains a variant of interest, rather than a variant of concern.

[1] “SARS-CoV-2 Lambda Variant Remains Susceptible to Neutralization by mRNA Vaccine-elicited Antibodies and Convalescent Serum” ~ by Takuya Tada, et al
➥ https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...959v1?rss=1%22

[2]“Infectivity and immune escape of the new SARS-CoV-2 variant of interest Lambda” ~ by Mónica L. Acevedo et al
➥ https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....28.21259673v1

[3] “8 July2021 Risk assessment for SARS-CoV-2 variant: LAMBDA (VUI-21JUN-01, C.37)” ~ Public Health England
➥ https://assets.publishing.service.go...DA_01.00-1.pdf

[GordMay]

Methane-Eating Microbes in Ocean Play Important Role in Moderating Earth’s Temperature

Over the years, researchers are finding more and more methane beneath the seafloor, yet very little ever leaves the oceans and gets into the atmosphere.
Where is the rest going?

Methane is a strong greenhouse gas, that plays a key role in Earth’s climate. Anytime we use natural gas, whether we light up our kitchen stove or barbeque, we are using methane.
Only three sources on Earth produce methane naturally: volcanoes, subsurface water-rock interactions, and microbes.
Between these three sources, most is generated by microbes, which have deposited hundreds of gigatons of methane into the deep seafloor. At seafloor methane seeps, it percolates upwards toward the open ocean, and microbial communities consume the majority of this methane before it reaches the atmosphere.

A team of researchers, led by Jeffrey J. Marlow, former postdoctoral researcher in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, discovered microbial communities, that rapidly consume the methane, preventing its escape into Earth’s atmosphere.

The study [1], published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, collected and examined methane-eating microbes from seven geologically diverse seafloor seeps and found, most surprisingly, that the carbonate rocks from one site in particular hosts methane-oxidizing microbial communities with the highest rates of methane consumption measured to date.

More about ➥ https://scitechdaily.com/methane-eat...s-temperature/


[1] “Carbonate-hosted microbial communities are prolific and pervasive methane oxidizers at geologically diverse marine methane seep sites” ~ by Jeffrey J. Marlow et al
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/118/25/e2006857118

[GordMay]

China launches world’s largest carbon market: but is it ambitious enough?

China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has launched its first national emissions-trading scheme. Such carbon-pricing mechanisms already exist in around 45 countries, but China’s is the world’s biggest. It has been plagued by delays, and researchers argue that it might not be ambitious enough to enable the country to meet goals, including a 2030 deadline for peak emissions, and a 2060 target for net-zero emissions. But they are hopeful that the market will have a far-reaching impact, over time.

More ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01989-7

[GordMay]

World’s Largest Seagrass Project Proves “You Can Actually Restore the Oceans
A “game changing” 20-year effort [1] suggests that even severely depleted marine ecosystems can be brought back to life.
More about ➥ https://reasonstobecheerful.world/wo...re-the-oceans/

[1] “Restoration of seagrass habitat leads to rapid recovery of coastal ecosystem services” ~ by Robert J. Orth et al
➥ https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/41/eabc6434

“Accelerating loss of seagrasses across the globe threatens coastal ecosystems” ~ by Michelle Waycott et al
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/106/30/12377

How seagrass has grown, over time:

[GordMay]

A stranded orca was freed from a rocky coastline in Alaska after being stuck for hours
An orca that became stranded on a rocky beach in Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, Thursday morning was freed with the help of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and sailors who happened to be nearby.
More ➥ https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/31/us/al...scn/index.html

[GordMay]

Gray whale rescued after being tangled in fishing gear in Nootka Sound
Fisheries and Oceans Canada is sharing incredible footage of whale being rescued, on Vancouver Island, after it was tangled up in fishing gear for several days. Kylie Stanton has more details on the five-day ordeal.
➥ https://globalnews.ca/video/8083667/...n-nootka-sound

➥ https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1948320648664055

[GordMay]

China pledges 2 billion vaccines globally through year’s end
Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged that 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines would be supplied to the world through this year, increasing China’s commitment as the largest exporter of the shots.
The figure likely includes the 770 million doses China has already donated or exported already, and it’s not clear if it includes a COVAX agreement for Chinese producers to supply 550 million doses.
Xi also promised to donate $100 million to the UN-backed COVAX program, which aims to distribute vaccines to low- and middle-income countries.
More ➥ https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden...4cf7f69bba71d0

[Joh.Ghurt]

Originally Posted by GordMay

China pledges 2 billion vaccines globally through year’s end

Lets hope those vaccine doses aren't of the same quality as those nearly original replacement batteries for cameras or other gadgets from China.
Just hoping, they won't be shipped to your country would be a little too egoistical.

[GordMay]

Hundreds step up for program to rescue stranded puffins and petrels

“On the southern shore of the Avalon Peninsula, a nighttime patrol is prowling the streets—but it's looking for puffins and Leach's storm-petrels, rather than people.
The Puffin & Petrel Patrol is back for its 17th year rescuing birds in the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve and the surrounding communities. Although tourism has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels, organizer Suzanne Dooley said as of Aug. 7, 850 volunteers had already registered to help out ...”

More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfo...2021-1.6134255

[GordMay]

"Good news: Some climate change impacts are 'reversible.'
Here's what that means" ~ by Emily Chung · CBC News

“... Both surface temperature and acidification of the ocean's surface (but not the deep ocean) are expected to be reversible, the IPCC report said, noting that "other climate changes would continue in their current direction for decades to millennia."

The reversible changes are directly related to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and respond "relatively quickly" to changes in that amount ...”

Much more ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/irre...ange-1.6137709

[GordMay]

Agave and Mesquite:
An innovative solution that not only restores degraded land to productivity, but also greatly enhances soil carbon storage, provides a valuable new crop, and even offers a hopeful diet for diabetics

A small-scale Mexican farmer, José Flores Gonzalez [& his 2 brothers] found a way to reverse semi-arid land degradation, with the help of two drought-tolerant plants common to Mexico: agave and mesquite.
Agaves have shallow root systems, and draw moisture directly from the air, storing it in their thick, thorny leaves.
Mesquites, on the other hand, have extremely long roots and seek water deep underground.

Much more, replete with links to primary supporting data:
“Mexico devises revolutionary method to reverse semiarid land degradation” ~ by Sue Branford
➥ https://news.mongabay.com/2021/08/me...d-degradation/