1 Week, 7 Stories - Newsletter #36

Every edition features 7 stories, from the past week. I’ll draw on my background in media, journalism, agriculture, biotech, and renewable energy to come up with an interesting selection and to offer some context.

Sometimes when having conversations, we get animated, use lots of hand gestures, and we (generally!) take turns talking. Seems our chimpanzee relatives go through much the same process. An ideal point to start the conversation in 1 Week, 7 Stories.

There are approximately 7,000 languages spoken around the world, but 23 of those are spoken by more than half of the world with English, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, and French topping the list. We have had language in some form starting with a “proto-language” for more than 2 million years though some research sets a very different timeline. ?Even our Neanderthal relatives may well have had some form of speech, but here is where it gets tricky. Speech means the ability to vocalize sounds and words. Language is more complex and can be differentiated by using those sounds to communicate ideas. That includes humour which recent research says is shared by apes – though the study also said they have a terrible sense of humour!

New research published this week in the peer-reviewed journal, Current Biology says that our modern language shares some characteristics with chimpanzee communication. According to the release from the University of St. Andrews, while there are cultural variations, conversation structure is a “human universal”. Chimpanzees in the wild share our snappy conversational style, interrupt each other, and take turns in conversation.

There is a long way to go before we can join in on animal conversations, but do you really want to have an app at hand to translate what the critters are saying? We may not like what they have to say about us.

Remember the old lady who swallowed the fly that wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her? Well, your gut has trillions of bacteria, parasites, viruses, and microbes tickling around inside you and together they make up your microbiome. So do other animals and those wrigglers and jigglers all serve the same purpose. To break down food, stimulate our immune system, influence disease risk, ?and may even have an effect on how you handle stress.

Researchers at the University of Calgary have zeroed in on the gut microbiome of feral horses and this week shared their findings in an article in Nature Communications.? The study involved the Sable Island horses which were released on the island in the 1700s, have no natural predators, and mainly compete for food in the closed environment.

The findings have implications not just for the island’s horses but for wild species such as elephants, rhinoceros, tapirs, Przewalski's horses, and for animal agriculture. Methane emissions (a greenhouse gas) from livestock are an environmental problem but also an economic problem because the more emissions from an animal the less is its feed efficiency. In the wild that becomes a matter of survival and on the farm a matter of cost. Much of that efficiency comes down to the makeup of the gut microbiome.

The work will also add to the extensive research helping us understand the importance of our own gut microbiome.? Poor gut health can lead to readily observable symptoms such as weight gain or gastrointestinal discomfort and can play a significant role in autoimmune diseases, migraines, and a number of other problems.? Fecal transplants are being seen as a possible option for restoring gut microbiota balance and as one of the treatment options for disease including a trial underway in Canada for melanoma.? As we learn more about the importance of our microbiome we are finding out how its balance can be upset by food additives and as University of Guelph researchers said in early July that includes common food dyes.

While it may be a bit disconcerting to think about all those wee beasties living in your microbiome, learning how to live with them is preferable to living without them. Just ask the old lady with the fly.

Bats cannot exactly be described as cute. I used to live in an area where bats were common and occasionally, they made their way into the house, and I learned how to get them out safe and sound – for the bat and for me. ?Good thing too, because European folklore once had it that a bat in the house is an omen of death.? In some cultures, the bat is a vehicle for the souls of witches and the flying mammal also gets a bad rap in Leviticus as being unclean. And of course, we all know the association between bats and vampires.

However it is time to cast aside all those notions , because the “only scary thing about bats is the rate of their decline”. In Canada we have 17 species and most of those are considered to be of conservation concern.

According to a report from Bat Conservation International bats are important to keep insect pests under control, play a role in pollinating plants, and dispersing seeds. The report says that 52% of North American bat species need conservation action.?

The leading cause of the decline is white-nose syndrome which has now spread to Alberta. According to a CBC report last week the disease is considered one of the worst wildlife diseases in North America. The only province where white-nose syndrome has not been reported is British Columbia but we have no reason to think that will continue. Parks Canada says “all of Canada’s hibernating bats could be infected within 12-18 years” and if it cannot be controlled, we could lose all our cave-dwelling bats.

There is no cure for the disease but in a paper published earlier this month there was hopeful news. Researchers have figured how the disease infects bats and hope that treatment and perhaps a vaccine are closer to reality.

Whether it will be in time to save nature’s only flying mammal is another matter.

One of the top stories this week on the Bloomberg website was that the Pentagon had new concerns about the increased interest in the Arctic by China and Russia. Recent Russian and Chinese military aircraft activity in international airspace in the Arctic seemed to add emphasis to the concerns which are part of an updated US Department of Defense Arctic Strategy paper released this week. The paper raised the specter of Russia jamming GPS satellites which Rob Huebert of the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies?at the University of Calgary said would be an escalation in activity. ?

Though the paper emphasizes co-operation with Arctic countries including Canada, the Bloomberg piece gives Canada passing mention, an indication I would suggest, that we are not seen as being prepared to or have the resources to protect the security of the people and the environment north of the 60th parallel. This despite Global Affairs Canada saying on its website that the “Arctic is central to Canada’s national identity” and that the Canadian Arctic covers 40% of our territory.

A 2023 article in Canadian Geographic noted that over the last 40 years the Arctic has warmed nearly four times faster than the rest of the planet, the Northwest Passage is rapidly become ice free, and that by 2050 we could see at least one summer with no summer Artic ice at all. Apart from the devastating effects on the ecosystem, it opens shipping lanes to commercial and military traffic, and raises interest in resource extraction.

We talk a good line, but often don’t follow through and as Rob Huebert says in this Edmonton Journal column, it may be too little and too late. He noted we first announced we would be adding new armed icebreakers in 2005. They still have not been completed. A new naval refuelling facility on Baffin Island was announced in 2007, but a recent CTV News story said it “could be” finished this season. At the recent NATO meeting Canada’s announcement of a commitment to buy 12 submarines capable of operating under the ice started off noting that “underwater surveillance is crucial to our security and sovereignty”. That has been a fact since the WWII, yet we still do not have the capability to undertake the task. CBS said last week that the Canadian decision to bolster our Arctic defence comes as “NATO watches Russia and China move in”.

Canada, Finland, and the US agreed recently to work together to build more icebreakers to improve shipping and strengthen sovereignty, but given our track record it may well indeed be too late and too little.

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Smoke. Here in Alberta, it is almost impossible to get away from it as there are 176 active wildfires taking a massive toll on people and property.

Living with smoke is becoming so commonplace that it is worth understanding just how it can affect you.

Wildfire smoke is made up of small particles that are a by-product of the burning organic matter as well as toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Particles in smoke can be as fine as 2.5 microns (human hair is 40 microns) and at that size will travel deep into your lungs and can be absorbed into your bloodstream.

We know that breathing in all that haze can cause eye and throat irritation, headaches, trigger asthma, and lead to wheezing, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and exacerbate pre-existing health conditions.?

Research however is starting to reveal less well-known effects that are similar to those caused by traffic pollution. An article this week from the UBC Faculty of Medicine says those effects can impair brain function in a matter of hours. There is growing evidence that exposure to wildfire smoke during pregnancy can impact birth weight and preterm birth. In big cities we can duck into a mall or use air purifiers in our homes. As we experience longer smoke seasons health care officials are finding that people in smaller or remote communities and even poor housing condition in larger centres do not have the same access to the necessary infrastructure so the effects are being disproportionately felt.

Extended exposure to wildfire smoke is relatively new and we are behind on studying the long term effects.? We do however know a lot about air pollution so we can draw some parallels about where we are headed.

Coffee Badging was a new one for me this week.

According to Samfiru Tumarkin LLP it is the practice of showing up at the office briefly to swipe an entry card, have a coffee, and then head back home to work. And yes, you can be fired for it. The Canadian HR Reporter says Amazon is pushing back against the practice, by imposing minimum numbers of hours to count as office attendance. It is not going over well with some workers.

This is just one more glitch in the evolution of hybrid work as employers and workers are at odds over remote policies according to a CTV News story.

Owl Labs, the company which coined the term says in its State of Hybrid Work that a quarter of workers surveyed would be willing to sacrifice part of their annual salary for more flexibility, and 29% of those already working remotely would expect a pay increase if they were forced to come into the office. The trend also holds true at the executive level.

The attitude of younger Canadian workers (aged 15 to 35) might surprise you as it goes against the stereotype of them spending their lives online. Rather than being all-in for remote work, ?there is a significant level of wanting to be working in-person all the time or at least only partial hybrid work. A project at the University of Waterloo found that young people value mentorship and friendship at work and want to be part of decision making.

The ideal workplace is becoming harder to define since the pandemic, and as for coffee badging, more than half of workers have tried it, and more than half of those are men. No details on that trend.

To finish off this week’s newsletter another trip along the global supply chain.

Shipping container rates are going up, bookings on cargo ships are tight, and shipping snarls are coming closer to affecting prices to consumers according to BNN Bloomberg.

Red Sea traffic had already dropped 80% since Houthi rebels started attacking ships last year after the Israel-Hamas conflict began. Last weekend the conflict escalated, and the drop is expected to worsen says Deutsche Welle. The weekend attack by Israel also damaged fuel storage facilities in the port of Hodeida. The shipping company Maersk says the delays are affecting its entire global operations as ships are taking the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope which increases delivery times by 10 days or more. This comes at a time when major North American retailers were expecting back-to-school stock and are ordering Christmas stock. That route was hit by severe weather conditions which has slowed traffic and resulted in one ship running aground and another losing some of its container cargo overboard.

Meanwhile:

• The Port of Houston was first hit by Hurricane Beryl and just as traffic was returning to normal the global IT outage slowed things down once again.
• The Strait of Malacca is the main shipping channel between the Indian and Pacific Oceans and is used by 400 shipping lines. Last week a maritime hit and run slowed down traffic when the supertanker Ceres I collided with another tanker and then fled the scene. It was tracked down in Malaysian waters and it may have been carrying Iranian oil.
• And in what port authorities called a “exceptional” situation a vessel loaded with several thousand vehicles, was prohibited from unloading its cargo in Belgium after a large population of wolf spiders was discovered on board. ?The spider is not dangerous to people but there were concerns of introducing them into Belgium.

As we live in an increasingly interconnected world of commercial traffic it can be something as small as a spider or as big as a pirate attack to slow the supply chain down or bring it to a standstill.

Better order in your supplies for Christmas now.

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I’m available for contract and freelance work with not-for-profits and charities. With 40 years of experience behind me and lots of time ahead of me, I’m here to help you make a difference in your media relations, public relations, and general communications needs.

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