PBS NOVA Tackles the Thorny Issue of DNA and Gene Manipulation

September 09, 2020

“I’m on the optimistic side as a scientist. But I try to temper my optimism, again, trying to be more neutral. But I’m very optimistic, because I see the potential benefit. I am hopeful that benefit will always outweigh the risk. It may not. But I’m hopeful.”

— Tshaka Cunningham, molecular biologist, Genetic Research Institute

Some of us still believe in the transformative power of science — its ability to inspire wonder while finding a way to solve problems. COVID-19 is a stark reminder of the role science plays in our everyday lives, whether we choose to believe in it or, sigh, not.

PBS Nova returns with a new season tonight, with the extended 90-minute documentary Human Nature, a new look at technological breakthroughs in gene manipulation and whether, just because we can shape DNA to our ends, we should.

Human Nature examines the moral, ethical and sociological implications of a new gene-editing tool called CRISPR.

Last month, program participants Robin Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at University of Wisconsin (Madison) and Tshaka Cunningham, executive director of the Faith Based Genetic Research Institute and co-founder of TruGenomix, were on a panel of experts — including a teenager afflicted with sickle cell disease who’s undergoing gene therapy — to answer reporters’ questions about whether any of this is a good idea, all issues that are raised in the Nova program.

Hints about the future to come are often evident in the past, provided we’re alert enough — and curious enough — to look for them at the time, bioethicist Charo asserted.

“Sure, we’re moving very quickly now, but let's keep in mind how disruptive some of the earlier technologies were,” she told reporters. “In the 1970s we had amniocentesis, and suddenly people had to decide whether or not they would have an abortion if they knew the child was going to develop Down syndrome.

“That’s where I began my career, in a Down syndrome lab. We moved from there to in vitro fertilization, and suddenly we had the ability to choose which embryo we were going to put back. Indeed, by the 1990s you could diagnose the embryos to decide which ones you would put back, and which ones you wouldn’t, and whether you would donate to research based on their genetic characteristics.

“We have been watching this kind of thing happening for quite a long time. We’ve seen cloning, the possibility of trying to make copies, so that you can have multiples of the same embryo, the same eggs being used.

“And, every time, we have had exactly this conversation.”

“This new technology (CRISPR) is less than a decade old,” Cunningham said. “The fascination with being able to change genes has always lended itself to science fiction, but now it is science fact. We can do it. It’s going to be interesting to see how closely (science fiction of the past) aligns with our real experience. During the space race, for example, we had rocket ships, but we didn't have Star Wars yet.

“We are in the early stages of genetics. You might have some interesting, imaginary ideas now, but in the next 10, 20, 30 years, we’re going to be facing real things we are really going to have to grapple with. It’ll be really interesting to see how life imitates art here.”

Charo again: “The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine have actually acknowledged the value of seeing science played out in science fiction, so that people can try to imagine how it might affect the future. A single change, people being able to vary from male to female during their own lifetime in a science-fiction book many years ago, has led to all kinds of changes in our notion of parenthood, the workplace and how we organize our lives.

“They have something called the Entertainment Science Exchange, where they try to get scientists together with Hollywood people to insert real science into their stories, and then see what happens to the plots.”

The world is in trouble — the climate emergency, populist politics, species extinction, growing indications of a worldwide economic crisis, the prospect of global food insecurity — but Charo insists there is cause to be optimistic. To a point. She sees herself as a “bio-optimist.”

“I have never tried to do a mathematically rigorous study of my predictions and what actually happens, but I do generally feel like we’re seeing progress in science — not fast enough and not enough of it, and with tremendous inequities in terms of who gets to benefit from scientific progress, around the world. But I do feel we’re seeing progress.

“But that might be because I’m getting old now.”

PBS Nova: Human Nature debuts tonight, Wednesday, on PBS at 8E/7C.

Dereck and Beverly Joubert’s ‘Jade Eyed Leopard’ a Diamond in the Rough

September 05, 2020

“We generally don’t wave cameras in front of animals. That is for TV personalities who want fame and reaction and usually get scratched as a result. We believe that when an animal sees and reacts to us, we have failed. Our ambition is to be invisible, wallpaper; to see, document, and be led into a magical world of acceptance. You only get this with respect and trust.”

— Dereck Joubert, The Soul of Africa

Leopards are elusive, famously so, which is why the new documentary film from National Geographic Explorers-at-Large Beverly and Dereck Joubert is such a joy to behold — and a privilege to watch.

Monday marks the first day of NatGeo Wild’s “Big Cat Week” and the Jouberts’ film, Jade Eyed Leopard, kicks off a week of programming dedicated to raising awareness of the crisis that faces big cats worldwide.

The Jouberts followed a leopard cub, Toto, Swahili for “little child,” and her mother Fig over three years in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve. At the beginning of the film, Toto is tiny, high-energy, playful and blissfully unaware of the dangers that will face her during the weeks and months ahead. By the end of the program, as Toto defends a fresh kill against marauding hyenas, she is no longer a child but a fully grown female leopard, in the prime of her life.

The film is beautifully photographed, sharply edited and narrated by the English stage and screen actor Jeremy Irons, who has become the go-to narrator for the Jouberts’ growing library of high-end nature films — a Shakespearean voice set against the ever-shifting rhythms and tides of the natural world. There are times when Jade Eyed Leopard literally glows on the screen.

Jade Eyed Leopard is not all pretty pictures though, heartwarming and inspiring thought the story may be. Jade Eyed Leopard is intimate and personal, but it also speaks to a bigger picture. The Jouberts are first and foremost about conservation — that’s why they’re making films for National Geographic and PBS Nature, and not, say, Disney. The world’s last surviving big cats are in trouble, and the Jouberts want the world to know that. Dereck Joubert founded National Geographic’s Big Cat Initiative — the clue is in the name — in 2009 in a bid to stem the decline of big cats in the wild.

The facts are these. World lion populations have declined to 30,000 from 110,000 in just 50 years.

Over that same period, jaguar populations have crashed to 15,000 from 60,000, and tigers are down to a mere 3,200 from 45,000. Leopards, which numbered some 80,000 in 1970, today number some 23,000.

These are estimates only. As Jade Eyed Leopard shows, big cats — while playful, curious and high-energy when young — become shy, moody and reclusive in their later years. Leopards, jaguars and tigers are near impossible to count with any degree of certainty; lions are a little easier because they tend to frequent open grasslands, and are social animals that live in groups.

What is certain, though, and what matters today, regardless of the exact numbers, is that there are fewer big cats in the wild today than there used to be. If big cats vanish altogether, it will be an unsettling harbinger of things to come. One doesn’t need an advanced degree in the biosciences to know that apex predators such as lions, tigers and leopards play a critical role in a healthy ecosystem. They cull the weak, the injured and the sick among prey animals, prevent the spread of disease — including zoonotic viruses and their attendant pandemics — and, as nature’s guardians at the top of the food chain, they maintain the order of life.

Leopards face an uncertain future because of shrinking habitat, exacerbated by ever-growing farms, roads and development. Wildlife corridors — natural “highways” through which animals can safely migrate or disperse — are one possible solution, especially for an animal such as a leopard. Males have been known to roam 320 km (200 miles) at the outward extent of their natal range, but even then inbreeding among ever-dwindling populations is a problem. That’s why the Maasai Mara National Reserve, the northern extension of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, is so crucial to their survival. The Mara is still a place where open grasslands can sustain a viable population of predators, without the perils that inbreeding entails.

If you have access to NatGeo Wild, Jade Eyed Leopard is well worth a look. Monday, 8ET/7CT.

Covid Diaries: Sea Turtles in Thailand. A Glimmer of Light in a Time of Darkness

August 27, 2020

“It is exciting, and we hope that the people in Samui will help us protect the turtles in the future. We have a chance.”

— Dr. Thon Thamrongnawasawot, Faculty of Fisheries, Kasetsart University, Bangkok

A glimmer of light in times of darkness: Beach resorts in Thailand are deserted — but — this past week, according to media reports, more than 800 sea turtle hatchlings scuttled from their nests across a lonely beach in Koh Samui, Thailand toward a new life in the sea.

That might not seem like big news — but — the daughter of a local beach resort owner in the area told a visiting journalist she hadn’t seen critically endangered hawksbill and green sea turtles nesting in the area in nearly 50 years, not since she was a teenager helping her father harvest coconuts on the island. The sudden increase in nests has delighted conservationists who for years have been fighting a losing battle to lessen the threats humans pose to one of the most familiar, recognizable species in the sea. Thailand’s turtle hatchlings finally have the beach to themselves.

This is worth pointing out — especially now, as the worldwide crash in wildlife tourism has effectively gutted funding for conservation programs from Brazil to Zambia — because the number of sea turtles in Thailand’s waters has fallen dramatically in the past 100 years, their future threatened by poaching, pollution, overfishing and global heating, which in turn causes sea acidification, the erosion of coral reefs and ever-changing ocean currents, coupled with a marked surge in violent, volatile and unpredictable storms.

The bigger picture surrounding conservation efforts worldwide, as with so much to do with the Covid-19 pandemic, lockdown and subsequent re-opening, is complicated. Nothing is quite what is seems. As hawksbill sea turtles cling to life off Thailand’s shores, there’s growing evidence that other species — polar bears, for example, that rely on dwindling shelves of sea ice to hunt for seals, their primary source of food and a necessity if they are to store the reserves of fat need to survive the Arctic winter and breed successfully — are in trouble.

If countries that rely on tourism to fund conservation are not supported — virtually every country in sub-Saharan Africa, for example — entire species and habitats will disappear. Wild creatures, and those who guard them, face a financially uncertain future. In the early days of the Covid-19 lockdown, poaching for ivory and rhino horn was down, then up again, then down, and now up again. In April, 12 park rangers were gunned down in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), home to around 1,000 of the tiny — but so far stable — population of critically endangered mountain gorillas. DRC and the volatile mountain areas surrounding Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi are on a political knife’s edge.

It’s hard to know who poses more of a threat to game rangers who place their lives on the line trying to preserve nature: roving bands of heavily armed poachers who are in it strictly for profit, or a rogues’ gallery of murderous militias, bands of bandits and proxy armies still fighting the aftermath of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, together with a civil war in Congo that started in 1998 and ended in 2003, then started again in 2004 and continues to burn to this day, in flare-ups in and around the northeastern province of Kivu, little more than a day’s march from the mountain gorilla parks. The war, as it is today, is loosely defined as an armed conflict between DRC’s army and the Hutu-based Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, but it’s basically a scrap between various armed groups with constantly shifting allegiances and enough weaponry to supply a midsize army in its own right.

Demand in countries like China, Vietnam and Laos for rhino horn, used in traditional medicine, pangolin scales and ivory — now illegal in China, but still traded on the black market — continues to drive wildlife trafficking, even during a global pandemic. Supply and demand are inextricably intertwined after all. It was ever thus.

Conservation relies on Western visitors for funding — philanthropy plays a part, but the truth is the super-rich, starting with the tech titans, could do a lot more — and so the Covid pandemic and its accompanying lockdowns threaten both the present and future viability of wildlife tourism.

There are signs of encouragement, the hawksbill hatcheries in Thailand being just one example. This past month has borne witness to one of the biggest, most spectacular wildebeest migrations in Kenya and Tanzania’s Mara-Serengeti ecosystem in recent memory, following unseasonably heavy rains earlier in the year and, ironically enough, fewer tourist vehicles to interfere with the cycle of life on Maasai Mara’s grasslands.

What effect will the Covid pandemic on wildlife conservation from here? It’s complicated.

The truth, as with so much to do with Covid, is that no one knows for certain, and anyone who says they do is lying. One thing is certain, though, You can rest easy tonight knowing that hawksbill and green sea turtles have a new lease on life off the coast of Thailand, and the annual wildebeest migration in East Africa, while still under threat, is having one of its finest hours in recent memory.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/21/thailand-turtle-hatchlings-finally-have-the-beach-to-themselves-aoe

“Insta”-gram from California: On Heat Waves, Firestorms, a Teenage Climate Activist and Now, “Firenados.”

August 19, 2020

“This is the moment we need to save November, to save the planet.”

— Alexandria Villasenõr, climate activist

Ironies abound. The first time I learned of the teenage climate activist Alexandria Villasenõr, age 15, was on Twitter, when I happened to be following the better-known teen activist Greta Thunberg.

Villasenõr, demonstrating against climate change at the time, was huddled with a hand-made sign on a bench outside a New York museum during one of the worst blizzards in the city’s history. Horrified museum workers begged her to come inside; she refused, and they sent her hot coffee instead while she tweeted a series of real-time updates, tapping her smartphone in a whirlwind of driving snow. I sent a tweet of encouragement, assuming it would vanish into the ether, and she replied immediately. The power of social media. I’ve followed her, through thick and thin, ever since.

Fast-forward 18 months.

Villasenõr, now in California where her family lives, where she was born, grew up and went to school, has been active again on Twitter these past few days, because she’s now in the middle of another weather-driven firestorm.

Only this firestorm is literally that — a storm made of fire.

The on-going heatwave across California and up the coast all the way to the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada, has sparked some of the most violent fires in a region already known for its volatile summer fires.

The climate crisis, as we all know, doesn’t exist — it’s a Chinese hoax, perpetuated by libtards, bunny huggers and radical lefties hidebound determined to sully the environmental record of the US Trump administration — the eternal sunshine of spotless minds! The Trump administration — paragons of virtue, educated, well informed and true believers in empirical evidence and the power science — never enact policy without first thinking of the public interest.

Right.

The facts are these: This past weekend, the US National Weather Service’s automated weather station at aptly named Furnace Creek — in equally aptly named Death Valley, just inside California’s border with Nevada — registered a record breaking high temperature of 54.4Cº.

That might not sound like much but it is the hottest reliably recorded temperature since temperatures first started being recorded by equipment specifically calibrated to take precise measurements — as opposed to, you know, taking a wild guess.

The record high — which equates to 129.9ºF, roughly speaking, in New World money — was registered at 3.41pm, confirming my theory (anecdotal, but scientifically unproven) that late afternoon is the hottest time of day, not high noon, regardless of how high in the sky the sun might be at any given time.

The official world record, according to the World Meteorological Organization, remains 56.7ºC

(134ºF), also taken at Death Valley, on 10 July 1913.

Private meteorological services, though, have challenged the validity of the 1913 figure. Weather monitoring instruments at the time were not what they are today. 1913, after all, was only a year after the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, and just one year before the outbreak of the First World War. Twitter was not a thing, and neither were GPS tracking devices and smartphones.

More importantly for 2020, the latest temperature record coincides with a scorching heat wave that has burned its way across the entire west coast of North America, especially Southern California — no stranger of late to summer drought and violent, weather-driven firestorms in the peak summer months of August and September. (Little-known fact: September is traditionally the driest, hottest month of the year in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area, ahead of June, July and August. Now you know.)

The ongoing heatwave has sparked numerous fires, one of which news sources local to the area dubbed a “firenado.”

Firenados are rarely recorded. They occur when the hot air from a fire on the ground rises in a tall, tornado-like column and rotates in winds higher off the ground, creating what appears to the outside eye to be a tornado made of fire.

Even in a region already baking from successive summers of fire and record-breaking heat, firenados are uncool.

Villasenõr again, on Twitter, mere hours ago.

“Crossing ‘eavesdropping on my parents while they discuss where they can drive me if the smoke outside gets worse”’ off my 2020 Bingo card.”

If this keeps up, one will no longer be able to see the forest or the trees — quite literally, because there will be no forest or trees to see.

What does this all mean? It seems crazy to have to say this in the year 2020, but one thing it means is that the climate crisis is not a hoax, Chinese or otherwise, and the libtards, bunny huggers and Trump doubters may be onto something after all.

It also means that when Villasenõr, Thunberg and other teenagers around the globe say something needs to be done, and done now, we need to listen. Never mind their future. The future health of the entire planet is at stake.

“In 2018,” Villasenõr posted in a pinned tweet on Aug. 11 of this year, “scientists said we have 12 years to reduce emissions and address catastrophic climate change. Since then we’ve only gone backwards. We can’t wait 4 more yrs to change the course we’re on, we have to do it now.”

And how.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/19/another-two-years-lost-to-climate-inaction-says-greta-thunberg

‘Akashinga: The Brave Ones’ Set a Marker On This World Elephant Day

August 12, 2020

“When we put local communities at the heart of conservation, we improve the lives of people, animals and the environment.”

— Jane Goodall, patron, International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF)

The Akashinga, or “brave ones” in the local Shona language of the miombo wetlands of Zimbabwe’s Phundundu Wildlife Area, have pride of place this World Elephant Day.

Akashinga: The Brave Ones, a short film executive-produced by feature filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence James Cameron, has been released across NatGeo’s international network of TV channels and streaming sites.

This comes on the heels of a profile on the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes and a spread in the June 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine that earned veteran conflict photographer Brent Stirton this year’s World Press Photo Association Award for environmental photography.

The Akashinga, to those in the know — and, increasingly, to those who weren’t until now, i.e. the wider public — are an all-female anti-poaching unit committed to wiping out the illegal wildlife trade — and ivory poaching in particular — in a 300-square kilometre (115 square mile) conservation area in the Zambezi Valley ecosystem.

The Zambezi, one of Africa’s most famous rivers, feeds directly into Victoria Falls.

Women as anti-poaching game rangers. It sounds like a gimmick, but according to Akashinga founder and former special forces operative Damien Mander, who has been training wildlife rangers in Zimbabwe for more than a decade, it’s anything but. With the women, Minder told National Geographic in 2019, an assault rifle is a tool. With the men, it’s more of a toy. The women must be prepared to face heavily armed poachers — but there are no Rambos in this unit. Working together as a self-contained, disciplined unit is job one. “One in, all in,” Mander said at the time.

The program is increasingly being viewed as a way to revolutionize the war against poaching, by empowering women in the community and placing local communities at the heart of any and all conservation decisions. If a community understands the economic benefit of preserving wildlife, it can eradicate — or at least scale back — poaching without any need for armed conflict. Women tend to be more engaged in their communities, economically and socially, than men. Mander knew that women who themselves had been marginalized, either through physical and sexual abuse or through economic hardship — many are single mothers — they would be more emotionally and ideologically invested in conservation efforts, if those efforts were shown to be a benefit to the community. Akashinga rangers are taught leadership, unarmed combat, wildlife awareness and conservation ethics. In exchange for helping combat poachers, they receive a salary, renewed purpose and an elevated, respected place in the community.

Does it work? In just three years, the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF), Akashinga’s parent NGO, had reported an 80% downturn in elephant poaching.

In a recent media interview to promote Cameron’s film, Akashinga ranger Petronella Chigumbura explained what drew her to a novel but seemingly crazy idea.

Crazy, that is, at first glance. Then the idea became practice, and it became clear the idea was anything but crazy., that is, at first glance. Then the idea became practice, and it became clear the idea was anything but crazy.

“I grew up in a poor, rural area of Zimbabwe and both of my parents passed away before I was able to finish my education,” Chigumbura explained. “In 2010 I got married, and after the birth of my second child I began having issues with my husband. I lived with him and his family and worked on their tobacco farm without any pay, and I struggled to feed myself and my kids. We divorced after I discovered he was having an affair.

“Since becoming an Akashinga ranger, I have become the breadwinner of my family and am able to take care of myself and my children. I have bought my own plot of land and have a driver’s license — I’m independent and proud of myself.”

That didn’t mean it was easy.

“Going through the selection and training process was hard. I pushed myself to my limits in order to pass as I knew it was the only chance for me to come out from my hard life. Through the program I have learned to respect nature and work as a team. I can do the same that a man can do. Bringing poachers to justice can be a dangerous job, but I do not get scared. I am the brave one and I’ve built confidence from the training and arrests we have made.

“To succeed as an Akashinga ranger you need to be hardworking, firm, fearless and willing to learn. . . . Traditionally, our community believed that only men could protect animals. My family and community (especially men) didn’t think I could hold a gun, move inside the thick bush and complete a successful arrest. Akashinga has empowered women like myself to be the protectors of animals and our communities. There have been increased arrests and convictions since the program started, and other women now understand and believe that they can do it too.”

If audiences take one thing away from Akashinga: The Brave Ones, Chigumbura hopes, it is this:

“I hope they can see that no matter how hard it gets, to keep pushing harder and harder and never lose hope.”

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/06/akashinga-women-rangers-fight-poaching-in-zimbabwe-phundundu-wildlife-area/