Tag Archives: panama

Someone just paid $25,000 to name a worm-like amphibian after Donald Trump

by AnnettOlmstead Posted on December 18, 2018

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Donald Trump’s name is attached to a lot of things — Trump Towers, Trump University, The Trump Foundation (oops nevermind) — and now, Dermophis donaldtrumpi — a four-inch-long, worm-like amphibian from Panama.

Dermophis donaldtrumpi isn’t the first species to get a presidential naming treatment. President Obama has an watery namesake as well — he earned his by expanding a marine protected area around the Northwestern Hawaiian islands. And President Trump had a species of yellowish-”haired” moth named after him (Neopalpa donaldtrumpi) in 2017. But this newest addition to the Trump family name does not derive not from its physical similarity to the president. Rather, the species’ tendency to bury its head (and body) in the sand drew parallels to Trump’s persistent denial of climate change.

The naming rights for the species were auctioned off to raise money for Rainforest Trust. Dermophis donaldtrumpi is a caecilian, a word derived from the Latin for “blind.” The winning bidder, Aidan Bell, is the head of a sustainable building materials company called EnviroBuild, and wound up spending $25,000 to make the environmental and political jab. .

In a post on EnviroBuild’s blog, Bell wrote: “The dermophis genus grows an extra layer of skin which their young use their teeth to peel off and eat, a behavior known as dermatrophy. As a method of ensuring their children survive in life, Donald Trump prefers granting them high roles in the Oval Office.”

Ooh scientific burn.

But Dermophis donaldtrumpi may not be with us for much longer. he caecilian has a thin skin (sound like anyone we know?) , and like other amphibians, is especially vulnerable to the impacts of global warming. Will President Trump think and act any differently, knowing that his namesake is on the line?

Hey, a herpetologist can dream, right?

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Someone just paid $25,000 to name a worm-like amphibian after Donald Trump

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How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls – David Hu

by Myrna Posted on November 3, 2018

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How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls

Animal Movement and the Robots of the Future

David Hu

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $17.99

Expected Publish Date: November 13, 2018

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Seller: Princeton University Press


Discovering the secrets of animal movement and what they can teach us Insects walk on water, snakes slither, and fish swim. Animals move with astounding grace, speed, and versatility: how do they do it, and what can we learn from them? In How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls , David Hu takes readers on an accessible, wondrous journey into the world of animal motion. From basement labs at MIT to the rain forests of Panama, Hu shows how animals have adapted and evolved to traverse their environments, taking advantage of physical laws with results that are startling and ingenious. In turn, the latest discoveries about animal mechanics are inspiring scientists to invent robots and devices that move with similar elegance and efficiency. Hu follows scientists as they investigate a multitude of animal movements, from the undulations of sandfish and the way that dogs shake off water in fractions of a second to the seemingly crash-resistant characteristics of insect flight. Not limiting his exploration to individual organisms, Hu describes the ways animals enact swarm intelligence, such as when army ants cooperate and link their bodies to create bridges that span ravines. He also looks at what scientists learn from nature’s unexpected feats—such as snakes that fly, mosquitoes that survive rainstorms, and dead fish that swim upstream. As researchers better understand such issues as energy, flexibility, and water repellency in animal movement, they are applying this knowledge to the development of cutting-edge technology. Integrating biology, engineering, physics, and robotics, How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls demystifies the remarkable mechanics behind animal locomotion.

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How to Walk on Water and Climb up Walls – David Hu

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Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson Resigns in the Wake of "Panama Papers" Scandal

by AnnetteLorenzo Posted on April 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson announced his resignation on Tuesday amid mounting public anger over evidence that he and his wife owned a secretive offshore company called Wintris that managed millions of dollars of investments in three Icelandic banks that collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis.

Calls to step down were sparked by this weekend’s so-called “Panama Papers” leak, a massive trove of documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonesca that exposed a number of international leaders and their closest confidantes as participating in complex offshore banking arrangements. High-profile leaders linked to the leak include Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But Gunnlaugsson is the first leader ousted in the international fallout. The public outcry in Iceland is particularly intense due to lasting memories of the 2008 financial crisis, which paralyzed the country’s economy, and sent shock waves around the world. And as our own Kevin Drum noted, Iceland was “ground zero for the European banking crisis.”

Gunnlaugsson had initially insisted on staying in office. When questioned about his ties to Wintris on Monday, the visibly shaken prime minister was unable to properly respond and ended the interview. “You are asking me nonsense,” he is heard telling the reporters conducting the interview.

In the days following the leak, mass demonstrations calling for Gunnlaugsson to step down were held outside Parliament. Some people were seen hurling yogurt at the building in protest:

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Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson Resigns in the Wake of "Panama Papers" Scandal

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Let’s Knock It Off With the Ted Cruz Birther Stuff

by ReneHEHFqudao Posted on January 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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Over the last few days, Republican front-runner Donald Trump has suggested that Sen. Ted Cruz should ask a court for a written declaration that the Canadian-born Texan is eligible to be president. That’s to be expected—Trump rose to prominence among conservatives by questioning the eligibility of the sitting president. On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain, one of the Republican Party’s elder statesmen, told a talk radio host that he wasn’t sure if Cruz was eligible to be president. That’s less expected but still easily explained—McCain hates Cruz with the fire of a thousand suns.

And now House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has joined the fray. “I do think there’s a difference between John McCain being born into a family serving our country in Panama than someone being born in another country, but again this is a constitutional issue that will be decided or not,” she told reporters on Thursday.

This is absurd. Cruz is eligible to be president because his mother was an American citizen. And as National Review explains, it’s not even an especially unusual situation:

There is nothing new in this principle that presidential eligibility is derived from parental citizenship. John McCain, the GOP’s 2008 candidate, was born in the Panama Canal Zone at a time when there were questions about its sovereign status. Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee in 1964, was born in Arizona before it became a state, and George Romney, who unsuccessfully sought the same party’s nomination in 1968, was born in Mexico. In each instance, the candidate was a natural born citizen by virtue of parentage, so his eligibility was not open to credible dispute.

It shouldn’t be a hard question for Pelosi or McCain to answer unambiguously—we’ve spent roughly eight years rehashing the constitutional requirements for the office over and over again (in part because of Trump and the kinds of people who support him). The fact that McCain and Pelosi both—for perfectly legitimate reasons—can’t stand Cruz is just not an appropriate justification for Trumpian nativism.

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Let’s Knock It Off With the Ted Cruz Birther Stuff

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The Pfizer-Allergan Merger Uses a Tax Trick That Lets US Companies Stash Billions Overseas

by BurtonStrehlow Posted on November 23, 2015

Mother Jones

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Earlier today, the pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Allergan announced a merger worth $160 billion. There’s a wrinkle to this deal between the makers of Viagra and Botox: It’s being facilitated by a controversial tax trick known as an inversion, which lets American companies move their headquarters abroad, avoiding the IRS while keeping executives stateside. If it goes through, the Pfizer-Allergan agreement will be the largest tax inversion ever.

Hillary Clinton has already criticized the pharma deal and has called for “cracking down on inversions that erode our tax base.” In the past, President Barack Obama has slammed inversions as unpatriotic. His administration and congressional Democrats estimate that tax inversions will result in nearly $20 billion in lost taxes through 2024.

Inversions have been around since the early ’80s, when a tax lawyer masterminded a move known as the “Panama Scoot”. Since then, more than 100 companies have renounced their American citizenship. Here’s where they went:

And inversions are just one of many ways US companies stash earnings abroad. Between 2008 and 2013, American firms had more than $2.1 trillion in profits held overseas—that’s as much as $500 billion in unpaid taxes.

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The Pfizer-Allergan Merger Uses a Tax Trick That Lets US Companies Stash Billions Overseas

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Donald Trump Just Released His Personal Finances—and, Oh Boy…

by DemetriaNorthrup Posted on July 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump, the tycoon now leading the GOP presidential pack, made more money selling mattresses last year than twice the total net worth of Marco Rubio.

Last week Trump announced he had filed the details of his personal finances, as all presidential candidates must, and was worth “in excess of TEN BILLION DOLLARS” (his emphasis). On Wednesday, his financial disclosure form was released by the Federal Election Commission, and it backs up his bluster. It also tells the complicated—and entertaining—story of Trump’s financial life.

Trump’s net worth does appear to be in the billions, though he owes hundreds of millions of dollars to creditors. The total amount of his liabilities is not provided in this disclosure. Government regulations do not not require him to specify the actual amount of any liability over $50 million, but he does list four liabilities in excess of that sum. The minimum amount for his total debt is $270 million, but he could owe far more than that. A Trump spokeswoman did not immediately reply to a query asking if Trump would reveal the full extent of his debt.

Trump doesn’t own every building around the world that bears his name. On his financial disclosure form, he reports licensing fees for buildings in the Philippines, Turkey, and Panama. Yet he does appear to own many of the buildings and properties, and some provide huge incomes for him. The Trump National Doral golf course in Florida, which he valued at more than $50 million, seems to be the most lucrative of his properties, earning Trump $49.4 million last year.

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Donald Trump Just Released His Personal Finances—and, Oh Boy…

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Why Is There No Code Name for the ISIS Bombing Campaign?

by DamienCorser Posted on October 1, 2014

Mother Jones

I learned something new today: code names for military operations only became a public thing after World War II, and it was only around 1980 that the names of major operations got turned into serious PR exercises. Paul Waldman runs down all the recent hits:

Operation Urgent Fury (invasion of Grenada, 1983)
Operation Just Cause (invasion of Panama, 1989)
Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm (Kuwait/Iraq, 1989)

Operation Restore Hope (Somalia, 1993)
Operation Uphold Democracy (Haiti, 1994)
Operation Deliberate Force (NATO bombing of Bosnia, 1995)
Operation Desert Fox (bombing of Iraq, 1998)
Operation Noble Anvil (the American component of NATO bombing in Kosovo, which was itself called Operation Allied Force, 1999)
Operation Infinite Justice (first name for Afghanistan war, 2001)
Operation Enduring Freedom (second name for Afghanistan war, 2001)
Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq, 2003)
Operation Odyssey Dawn (bombing of Libya, 2011)

Aside from the fact that we have twelve of these things in just the past 30 years, Waldman points out that Republican names (in bold) are considerably more martial than Democratic names:

Even though it’s the military that chooses these names, you might notice that the ones during Republican administrations have a particularly testosterone-fueled feel to them, while most of the Democratic ones are a little more tentative. Something like Operation Uphold Democracy just doesn’t have the same oomph as, say, Operation Urgent Fury. If the Obama administration had really wanted to get people excited about fighting ISIS, they should have called it Operation Turgid Thrusting or Operation Boundless Glory.

Oddly, though, it turns out that the ISIS campaign doesn’t even have any name at all. I guess that’s a good sign.

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Why Is There No Code Name for the ISIS Bombing Campaign?

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How the melting Arctic could spread invasive species far and wide

by EwanMinton Posted on May 31, 2014

How the melting Arctic could spread invasive species far and wide

By

USGS

After 300 years of fruitless (and sometimes deadly) attempts to find the fabled Northwest Passage, a sea route to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans via the Arctic, global warming’s shown up all those hard-man sailors by suddenly making the journey easy. In 2007, higher temperatures had melted enough of that pesky Arctic ice to open the passage up to non-icebreaking vessels for the very first time, and since then the ice has only continued to melt — meaning more and more shippers will be using this efficient trade route.

But what’s good news for shippers is not necessarily good news for the rest of us: More vessels taking the northern course is also projected to spread harmful invasive species.

NASAThe Northwest Passage

“What’s happening now is that ships move between oceans by going through the Panama or Suez [canals], but that means ships from higher latitudes have to divert south into tropical and subtropical waters,” says Whitman Miller, who recently wrote about the issue in a commentary in the journal Nature Climate Change. “[S]o if you are a cold water species you’re not likely to do well in those warm waters.” And, since freshwater flows through the Panama Canal, critters that cling on to hulls often die from osmotic shock as they go from saltwater to freshwater and back again.

But as more ships take a northerly route, the barnacles, mussels and crabs that hitch along for the journey won’t be exposed to those shocks, and so will be more likely to survive the ride. 

What’s this gonna mean for our ports? The answer still unknown. But past examples of invasive species that are thought to have spread by boat, such as zebra mussels, have shown us that the damage ain’t pretty. Not only do invasives change an area’s ecology, but they cost a lot, too. Zebra mussels, which harm infrastructure like pipes, have caused billions of dollars of economic damage in the Great Lakes area.

“Invasive species are one of those things that once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s hard to put her back in,” climate scientist Jessica Hellman told Scientific American. Thankfully, if we act now there may be some ways to keep that genie in, such as requiring open water ballast exchange, and making sure that ships keep their hulls clean. Because, hey, if we’ve waited 300 years for the passage to open up, we might as well do what we can to make sure we don’t regret it.


Source
Arctic Shipping: Good for Invasive Species, Bad for the Rest of Nature, Smithsonian.com

Samantha Larson is a science nerd, adventure enthusiast, and fellow at Grist. Follow her on Twitter.

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How the melting Arctic could spread invasive species far and wide

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Canada approves export of genetically modified salmon eggs

by graptorm Posted on November 26, 2013

Canada approves export of genetically modified salmon eggs

By

FWS

An incubation tray full of (not genetically modified) salmon eggs.

Canada will allow genetically modified salmon eggs to be produced and exported — but no way in hell will the eggs be allowed to hatch on Canadian soil.

The GM salmon was developed by AquaBounty, which blended genetic material from Chinook salmon and from another type of fish called ocean pout into the DNA of Atlantic salmon. That helps accelerate growth rates. The eggs will be produced at a hatchery on Canada’s Prince Edward Island and exported to be hatched at a site in Panama. There, the fish will be fattened up before being exported to the U.S. for sale.

Worries abound that the genetically modified fish will escape and spread their altered genes to wild populations of salmon and trout. And those concerns are weighing on the minds of Canadian officials. From The Guardian:

The decision marked the first time any government had given the go-ahead to commercial scale production involving a GM food animal.

The move clears the way for AquaBounty to scale up production of the salmon at its sites in PEI and Panama in anticipation of eventual approval by American authorities. …

The Canadian government said in its decision that the GM fish presented a high risk to Atlantic salmon, in the event of an escape, and a spokesman was adamant there would be no immediate sale or consumption of GM salmon eggs in Canada.

“There are strict measures in place to prevent the release of this fish into the food chain,” an Environment Canada spokesman said by email. “In Canada, no genetically modified fish or eggs are currently approved for the purposes of human consumption.”

But the limited approval still represents a big win for AquaBounty, which has fought for 20 years to bring GM salmon to American dinner tables.

Many consumers have doubts about genetically modified meat, and leading American grocers have already announced that they will not sell it. Also, each fish will have traversed the continent, traveling from Canada to Panama and back up again to the U.S. before arriving at a plate — and that’s unlikely to prove particularly popular with any GM-friendly locavores, either.


Source
Canada approves production of GM salmon eggs on commercial scale, The Guardian

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Canada approves export of genetically modified salmon eggs

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