How the loss of Native American languages affects our understanding of the natural world

How the loss of Native American languages affects our understanding of the natural world

Dance is a unique way of passing on cultural stories to a younger generation. Aaron Hawkins/Flickr.com, CC BY-ND By Rosalyn R. LaPier, The University of Montana Alaska has a “linguistic emergency,” according to the Alaskan Gov. Bill Walker. A report warned earlier this year that all of the state’s 20 Native American languages might cease to exist by the end of this century, if the state did not act. American policies, particularly in the six decades between the 1870s and…

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Leading investment banks pump billions into fossil fuel industry

Leading investment banks pump billions into fossil fuel industry

The Guardian reports: The world’s largest investment banks have provided more than $700bn of financing for the fossil fuel companies most aggressively expanding in new coal, oil and gas projects since the Paris climate change agreement, figures show. The financing has been led by the Wall Street giant JPMorgan Chase, which has provided $75bn (£61bn) to companies expanding in sectors such as fracking and Arctic oil and gas exploration, according to the analysis. The New York bank is one of…

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For microorganisms, cooperation rather than competition, is the key to survival

For microorganisms, cooperation rather than competition, is the key to survival

The University of Copenhagen reports: New microbial research at the Department of Biology reveals that bacteria would rather unite against external threats, such as antibiotics, rather than fight against each other. The report has just been published in the scientific publication ISME Journal. For a number of years the researchers have studied how combinations of bacteria behave together when in a confined area. After investigating many thousands of combinations it has become clear that bacteria cooperate to survive and that…

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‘Oh my God, why are they doing this?’ Northeastern Syrians await their fate

‘Oh my God, why are they doing this?’ Northeastern Syrians await their fate

Elizabeth Tsurkov reports: A massive humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Syria. Over 130,000 civilians have been displaced in a once relatively stable region. Dozens of civilians have been killed or injured. Horrific videos showing field executions by Turkish-backed armed factions have begun to circulate on social media. The fate of the area, home to over three million people, is now increasingly unclear – thanks to President Trump’s decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from northeastern Syria. Fighters from Brigade 123…

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Trump orders withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria, leaving behind dozens of ‘high value’ ISIS prisoners

Trump orders withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria, leaving behind dozens of ‘high value’ ISIS prisoners

The Washington Post reports: President Trump has ordered a withdrawal of virtually all U.S. forces from northern Syria in the face of a Turkish military offensive targeting Kurdish fighters in the region, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said Sunday, after days of assurances from the Pentagon that the United States was not “abandoning” its partners in the campaign against the Islamic State. The order to remove the troops came Saturday, toward the end of a chaotic day in which the…

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Pullback leaves Green Berets feeling ‘ashamed’ of U.S. betrayal of their Kurdish allies

Pullback leaves Green Berets feeling ‘ashamed’ of U.S. betrayal of their Kurdish allies

The New York Times reports: American commandos were working alongside Kurdish forces at an outpost in eastern Syria last year when they were attacked by columns of Syrian government tanks and hundreds of troops, including Russian mercenaries. In the next hours, the Americans threw the Pentagon’s arsenal at them, including B-52 strategic bombers. The attack was stopped. That operation, in the middle of the American-led campaign against the Islamic State in Syria, showed the extent to which the United States…

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Trump and Erdoğan risk a resurgent ISIS and refueling of the civil war in Syria

Trump and Erdoğan risk a resurgent ISIS and refueling of the civil war in Syria

Hassan Hassan writes: Future historians might remember Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria, launched last week, as the second time that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan provided Islamic State with a lifeline, intentionally or not. The first was when Turkey opened its borders to foreign jihadists entering Syria, which ultimately enabled Isis to build a caliphate the size of Britain in 2014. Both the time and manner of the intervention risk unravelling the situation in Syria beyond the buffer zone that Turkey…

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Donald Trump: Xenophobe in public, international mobster in private

Donald Trump: Xenophobe in public, international mobster in private

Robert Reich writes: The most xenophobic and isolationist American president in modern history has been selling America to foreign powers for his own personal benefit. Trump withdrew American troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, leaving our Kurdish allies to be slaughtered and opening the way for a resurgent Islamic State. Trump’s rationale? He promised to bring our soldiers home. There could be another reason. Trump never divested from his real estate business, and the Trump Towers Istanbul is the Trump Organization’s…

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Companies ignoring climate crisis will go bankrupt, Bank of England governor warns

Companies ignoring climate crisis will go bankrupt, Bank of England governor warns

The Guardian reports: Companies and industries that are not moving towards zero-carbon emissions will be punished by investors and go bankrupt, the governor of the Bank of England has warned. Mark Carney also told the Guardian it was possible that the global transition needed to tackle the climate crisis could result in an abrupt financial collapse. He said the longer action to reverse emissions was delayed, the more the risk of collapse would grow. Carney has led efforts to address…

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Fast evolution explains the tiny stature of extinct ‘Hobbit’ from Flores Island

Fast evolution explains the tiny stature of extinct ‘Hobbit’ from Flores Island

An Indonesian island was home to H. Floresiensis – but how did the dwarfed human species evolve? areza taqwim/Shutterstock.com By José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho, Universidade Federal de Goias and Pasquale Raia, University of Naples Federico II It’s not every day that scientists discover a new human species. But that’s just what happened back in 2004, when archaeologists uncovered some very well-preserved fossil remains in the Liang Bua cave on Flores Island, Indonesia. The diminutive size of this new human species,…

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Global warming threatens two-thirds of North American bird species

Global warming threatens two-thirds of North American bird species

National Geographic reports: As they soar through the sky, birds seem blissfully impervious to the stresses of Earth. Indeed, their ability to migrate makes them more resilient to habitat disruption than less dynamic creatures. That makes the most recent annual report produced by the National Audubon Society, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting birds and their habitat, particularly startling. Released this week, the report predicts that if Earth continues to warm according to current trends—rising 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit)…

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U.S. foreign policy is for sale. Who else is buying?

U.S. foreign policy is for sale. Who else is buying?

Anne Applebaum writes: Whether you are a Democrat or Republican, a pro-Trumper or a never-Trumper, an inhabitant of a blue state or a red state, you owe it to yourself and your country to read the text of the statement prepared for Congress by former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. If you care about the Constitution, if you feel any fealty to the ideas and ideals that have shaped U.S. foreign policy for the past century, then you will find it deeply…

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Giuliani is said to be under investigation for Ukraine work

Giuliani is said to be under investigation for Ukraine work

The New York Times reports: Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani broke lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the inquiry. The investigators are examining Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to undermine the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, one of the people said. She was recalled in the spring as part of Mr. Trump’s broader campaign to pressure Ukraine into helping his political prospects. The investigation…

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Military leader of Syrian Kurds tells U.S. ‘you are leaving us to be slaughtered’

Military leader of Syrian Kurds tells U.S. ‘you are leaving us to be slaughtered’

CNN reports: The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces told a senior US diplomat, “You are leaving us to be slaughtered,” demanding to know whether the US is going to do anything to protect Syrian Kurds as Turkey continues its military operation targeting America’s Kurdish allies in Syria. “You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered,” Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told the Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, William Roebuck,…

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