400 attend URI’s third annual Food System Summit

Planning next steps in implementing Rhode Island Food Strategy

Dawn Bergantino

Speaker Nessa Richman, network director of the Rhode Island Food Policy Council (at left), talks with attendees at the 2019 Rhode Island Food System Summit at the University of Rhode Island. (URI photo/Nora Lewis)

More than 400 government, academic, business and community partners who play a role in the state’s food system learned Friday, Jan. 18 that the United States could benefit a great deal from others around the world about how to deal with climate change and its impact on food production locally, nationally and globally.

The third annual Rhode Island Food System Summit, sponsored by the Rhode Island Foundation, URI Business Engagement Center and the Rhode Island Food Center at URI, was an opportunity for those involved in this rapidly growing economic sector to drill down into the five pillars of the Rhode Island Food Strategy, hear from experts, and work together to identify next steps and ways to better support the state’s food economy.

Getting ready for the next flu pandemic

New anti-influenza drugs

Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

Researchers at LSTM and Imperial College London have designed drugs which could help combat any potential new flu pandemic, by targeting the receptors of the cells by which the virus gains entry to the human body.

In a paper published today in the Journal of Immunology the team, led by LSTM's Professor Richard Pleass, show that by engineering a part of an antibody they can target the viral proteins that allow flu to mutate and become so deadly to humans.

Last year marked the centenary of the 1918 influenza pandemic that claimed nearly 100 million lives worldwide, thus becoming the deadliest disease outbreak in recorded history. Global annual influenza outbreaks account for 300,000-650,000 respiratory deaths, mostly in children and the elderly.

Professor Pleass explained: "Influenza vaccines have limited public health impact during pandemics, and current influenza vaccines are less efficacious than vaccines for many other infectious diseases. 

This is because influenza viruses that circulate in human and animal populations mutate two key viral surface proteins, haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA), thus allowing them to escape from protective antibodies produced through natural infection or vaccination"

How did Jared get his security clearance over CIA objections?

Jared Kushner—Risky Business in The White House

By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport New York Editor

We’re all going to be learning more about a guy named Carl Kline, a former Pentagon official who was put in charge of personnel security in the White House in 2017.

He’s the guy who set aside all that might have been considered troubling about Jared Kushner’s background and international financial entanglements involving his family’s business to grant him a White House security clearance.

NBC News was the first to report about Kline, whose intervention in White House clearances has resulted in granting the special certification to see secret government information to more than 30 individuals. 

Kline’s predecessor in the job had overruled intelligence agency reviews of White House clearance candidates only once in three years.

How The Trump-Radical Republican Tax Cut Broke The Economy

But It’s Been Great for the Super-Rich and the Corporations They Control

By David Cay Johnston, DCReport Editor-in-Chief

Donald Trump’s tax cut for the rich and the corporations they control is turning out to be a bust for the American economy.

It will, however, burden taxpayers with at least $1.5 trillion more federal debt because, instead of boosting tax revenues through increased economic activity as promised, it has caused a sharp drop in revenue.

In addition, millions of residents of blue states are about to get hit with big federal income tax increases while many American expatriates who own businesses overseas are also facing unexpected new tax bills, especially if they prudently saved for their old age under the systems of the countries where they now reside.

We have our reasons

Understanding the meaning of Groundhog Day

From Fake Science, officially endorsed by Donald Trump's EPA

Blame China

Lobbyist Blames Ocean State's Plastic Pollution on Asia

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff

The meeting’s first speaker, a representative of the plastics industry, knew exactly where to place the blame: on foreigners and on alternatives to petroleum products.

Citing a study published in Science and a story in The Wall Street Journal, Keith Christman, managing director of plastic markets for the American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division, said the problem with marine debris and plastics in the ocean comes from a lack of waste management in "rapidly developing countries in Asia.” He specifically called out China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

During his nearly 30-minute presentation, however, Christman never mentioned the fact that for decades many developed countries, including the United States, sent massive amounts of plastic waste to Asia instead of recycling it on their own.

Step by step

Short bouts of stairclimbing throughout the day can boost health

McMaster University

It just got harder to avoid exercise. A few minutes of stair climbing, at short intervals throughout the day, can improve cardiovascular health, according to new research from kinesiologists at McMaster University and UBC Okanagan.

The findings, published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, suggest that virtually anyone can improve their fitness, anywhere, any time.

"The findings make it even easier for people to incorporate 'exercise snacks' into their day," says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster and senior author on the study.

Three Trump initiatives threaten access to health care

Help stop attacks on reproductive health care

By Dr. Leana Wen, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

There are more pro-reproductive health lawmakers in Congress than ever before, and while that's incredibly exciting, I worry that the promise of a new majority is distracting us from the very real threats we still face to sexual and reproductive care.

Right now, the Trump-Pence administration is pushing three nationwide policies that would immediately threaten people's access to care if they take effect.

• Banning insurance companies from covering abortion.
• Letting bosses deny employees birth control coverage.
• Changing the rules so Planned Parenthood health centers can't serve the more than a million patients with low incomes who access care under the Title X family planning program...

Solidarity works

Public Workers’ Trump Card

By Robert Reich

Air traffic controllers hold the trump card (pardon the expression) in upcoming negotiations between Donald Trump and congressional Democrats over border security.

That’s because the president and the Republicans know that another shutdown would likely cause a repeat of what happened last Friday, when so many of the nation’s air traffic controllers called in sick that America’s air traffic came to a near standstill. Hours later, Trump agreed to reopen the government without funding for his wall.

Never underestimate the power of airport delays to arouse the nation. Nancy Pelosi deserves credit for sticking to her guns, but the controllers brought the country to its knees.

Danger!

For more cartoons by Ruben Bolling, CLICK HERE.

Well, that was then, this is now

Slide in robo-enthusiasm

Increasing skepticism against robots

University of Würzburg

Robots performing in surgeries, robots in automobile production, and robots in caregiving. In some areas, the machines are already well-established, in others they are on the rise. 

The psychologists Timo Gnambs from Johannes Kepler Universität Linz (Austria) and Markus Appel from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (Germany) believe that we are at the brink of a robotic era.

More and more robots in everyday life. But how do people feel about robots? 

Apparently increasingly uncomfortable, as the two professors show in the journal Computers in Human Behavior: according to their cross-European data analysis, robots were evaluated more negatively in 2017 than five years before.

This junk is everywhere

Microplastic contamination found in common source of groundwater, researchers report

BY   LOIS YOKSOULIAN  | PHYSICAL SCIENCES EDITOR  

Microplastics contaminate the world's surface waters, yet scientists have only just begun to explore their presence in groundwater systems. 

A new study is the first to report microplastics in fractured limestone aquifers – a groundwater source that accounts for 25 percent of the global drinking water supply.

The study identified microplastic fibers, along with a variety of medicines and household contaminants, in two aquifer systems in Illinois. The findings are published in the journal Groundwater.

“Plastic in the environment breaks down into microscopic particles that can end up in the guts and gills of marine life, exposing the animals to chemicals in the plastic,” said John Scott, a researcher at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center and study co-author. 

“As the plastics break down, they act like sponges that soak up contaminants and microbes and can ultimately work their way into our food supply.”

Groundwater flows through the cracks and voids in limestone, sometimes carrying sewage and runoff from roads, landfills and agricultural areas into the aquifers below, Scott said.

The “Pee Tapes” are just part of a much larger Russiagate tape collection

The Capital Couples Club: Roger & Nydia Stone Organized Orgies For Washington Power Players

By Randa Morris 

Roger Stone stands accused of seven federal charges, including felony witness tampering and lying to the FBI. 

But does the Stone indictment give us a true picture of the Russia-probe or is there more going on behind the scenes? 

A Manhattan madam and the story of how Roger Stone organized orgies for the DC elite at a now-defunct Washington area sex club suggest there are still many loose ends to tie up.

Roger Stone was arrested on Friday, 1/26/2019.

Early on Friday morning, a team of FBI agents surrounded the home of Roger Stone, a self-described political operative and close associate of Donald Trump. Stone was indicted on multiple federal charges. The charges relate to the ongoing FBI probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

According to the 22-page indictment, Stone made various false statements to the FBI regarding his contacts with Julian Assange in the months leading up to the presidential election. Stone also attempted to persuade at least one witness, Randy Credico, to give false testimony to Congress.