Salamence

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5720376

Nine million years ago, in the shadow of the rising Andes Mountains, a key ancestor of the beloved modern-day potato was born. And now new research shows this pivotal event—and the mashed, baked and fried bounty it routinely delivers today—only happened with crucial help from another treasured kitchen staple: the tomato.

According to a study published on Thursday in Cell, the prehistoric potato precursor was a hybrid of nearby-growing plants in the lineages of the tomato and Etuberosum, a section of species in the genus Solanum. The latter visually resembles the modern-day cultivated potato plant, which is part of the lineage of the Solanum section Petota. But it lacks the ability to produce the distinctive tubers that store all that useful nutrition in a convenient, fist-sized underground package,

“We have always thought that these three lineages were closely related,” says study co-author Sandra Knapp, a research botanist at the Natural History Museum in London. “But what the relationships between those three lineages were [was] not clear; different genes told us different stories. Our group came together to look into the why!”

Knapp and her international team of researchers began by analyzing more than 100 genomes from modern-day potatoes and tomatoes, as well as the largest collection of Etuberosum genomes ever analyzed. The scientists found that each potato genome carried a balanced mosaic of genes from the tomato and Etuberosum lineages. Team members pieced together all the possible phylogenetic trees that could have related the three lineages—and they found strong evidence that the potato was likely not a sister of either the tomato or Etuberosum. The team could then conclude that the potato was a result of a hybridization between the two.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5720338

A newly discovered stick insect which weighs slightly less than a golf ball may be the heaviest insect in Australia, scientists say.

The 40cm-long new species, named Acrophylla alta, was found in the high altitudes of the Atherton tablelands in north Queensland – and scientists said the habitat could be part of the reason for its large size.

A peer-reviewed study documenting the discovery, published in Zootaxa journal, noted the stick insect was likely heavier than the giant burrowing cockroach, which is endemic to Queensland and is at present the heaviest insect in Australia.

James Cook University researcher Prof Angus Emmott said a social media post helped with the discovery.

Emmott said he believed the species had not been discovered earlier as its habitat was too hard to access.

“It lives high in the canopy. So, unless you get a cyclone or a bird bringing one down, very few people get to see them,” Emmott said in a statement.

But the habitat could also explain why the stick insect is larger, he said, saying the body mass could help them survive the cold conditions in the “cool, wet environment where they live”.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5717213

After the Ansarallah-aligned Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) announced that it would resume attacks on merchant ships linked to companies operating with Israeli ports, tensions in the Red Sea and beyond have reignited, as Tel Aviv's ongoing genocide in Gaza fuels instability across West Asia.

As part of the fourth phase of the blockade, the Yemeni army sank two commercial vessels earlier this month, showcasing not only its enduring capabilities but also the failure of US-led strikes to curb its maritime campaign.

On 6 May, US President Donald Trump claimed, “The Houthis have declared they no longer want to fight. They simply don't want to fight anymore. And we will honor that. We will stop the bombings, and they have surrendered.”

Yemeni officials immediately dismissed the claim, reiterating that Sanaa had not negotiated with Washington nor agreed to halt operations in support of Gaza. The Sanaa government's naval campaign resumed soon after, with fresh attacks targeting Israeli-linked vessels – undermining Trump’s attempt to declare victory.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5710118

The Arctic island of Svalbard is so reliably frigid that humanity bet its future on the place. Since 2008, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault — set deep in frozen soil known as permafrost — has accepted nearly 1.4 million samples of more than 6,000 species of critical crops. But, the island is warming six to seven times faster than the rest of the planet, making even winters freakishly hot, at least by Arctic standards. Indeed, in 2017, an access tunnel to the vault flooded as permafrost melted, though the seeds weren’t impacted.

This February, a team of scientists was working on Svalbard when irony took hold. Drilling into the soil, they gathered samples of bacteria that proliferate when the ground thaws. These microbes munch on organic matter and burp methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas and significant driver of global warming. Those emissions are potentially fueling a feedback loop in the Arctic: As more soil thaws, more methane is released, leading to more thawing and more methane, and on and on.

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5696151

On 9 July, Austrian parliamentarians passed a highly controversial bill legalising the deployment of state-sponsored spyware, known as the Federal Trojan (Bundestrojaner), to enable the interception of encrypted communications.

The Bundestrojaner bill would give law enforcement agencies the power to install malware on private devices (such as smartphones or laptops) to monitor encrypted messaging applications.

It would do so by amending several laws, including: the State Security and Intelligence Service Act; the Security Police Act; the Telecommunications Act;the Federal Administrative Court Act; and the Judges’ and Public Prosecutors’ Service Act.

The plan sparked widespread concern among privacy advocates, cybersecurity experts, and numerous civil society organisations.

The day before the vote more than 50 organisations, including Statewatch, wrote to legislators.

A joint letter (pdf) called on them to “vote against this dangerous instrument of state surveillance and against a historic step backwards for IT security in the information society.”

Legislators in Austria’s lower parliamentary house, the National Council, voted in favour of the bill, 105 to 71.

The interior minister Gerhard Karner, described it as a “special day for security.” Support for the bill came from the governing parties – the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), and most members of the liberal NEOS party.

Two NEOS MPs, Stephanie Krisper and Nikolaus Scherak, broke ranks to vote against the measure, alongside the Greens and the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ).

On 17 July, the Federal Council – the upper house of the legislature – voted by 40 to 19 not to object to the bill, completing the parliamentary process.

The bill now awaits unanimous approval from the governments of Austria’s nine states before it can become, a constitutional requirement triggered by the inclusion of certain provisions on the administrative judiciary.

Nevertheless, opposition parties and civil society organisations have said they will file legal challenges against the measures.

Government officials insist that the spyware will be restricted to targeting messaging apps and that broader system-wide searches will not be permitted.

However, technical experts have repeatedly warned that such limitations are practically unenforceable in real-world applications.

Spyware with the capability to intercept encrypted communications inevitably provides access to a wide array of personal information stored on the device, including photos, files, emails, contacts, and location data.

Critics note that this effectively bypasses all existing security protections, raising serious questions about the proportionality, necessity, and legality of such intrusive surveillance powers.

The current legislation includes some procedural safeguards, in an attempt to respond to critiques of previous state trojan proposals.

These include an extension of the review period for the Legal Protection Commissioner (from two weeks to three months), and transferring the authority to approve spyware deployment from a single judge to a panel of judges at the Federal Administrative Court.

However, the Legal Protection Commissioner is part of the Ministry of the Interior – the very same ministry that authorises and deploys the spyware – raising significant concerns about impartiality and conflicts of interest.

Furthermore, the intelligence agencies themselves conduct the mandatory trustworthiness assessments for the Commissioner and their deputies, further undermining the potential for effective and independent scrutiny of surveillance activities.

The bill was approved in the National Council despite extensive opposition from a broad range of civil society groups, professional bodies, and public institutions – including bar associations, universities, municipalities, press freedom advocates, and medical organisations.

Following the vote, civil society organisations describing the law as institutionalising state hacking by deliberately exploiting software vulnerabilities.

In a joint statement, they said that the government should be working to close these gaps to protect citizens from cyber threats.

The Bundestrojaner has a long and contentious legislative history in Austria. Initial attempts to introduce similar surveillance powers date back to 2016, but they were repeatedly rejected or delayed due to sustained criticism and concerns about privacy violations.

In 2019, Austria’s constitutional court struck down an earlier version of the law, ruling that surveillance of encrypted communications constituted a serious breach of fundamental privacy rights protected under the constitution.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5708445

Lol, lmao even.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5682397

The Łingít (Tlingít) Elder and subsistence yaaw (herring) fisherman recalled harvesting gáax’w (herring eggs) in his territories before Alaska became a state in 1959. It was a time when yaaw were plentiful and sightings of whales were rare — just a handful at most.

“There was food everywhere,” mused Yanshkawoo, tracing a slow circle in the air with his hand — a gesture toward the abundance the ocean once held. He sat at a crowded café in Sheet’ká (Sitka), his voice calm but thoughtful.

“They had no reason to come into the Sound back then.”

But things changed in 2019, when fishers, researchers and community members began noticing an influx of grey whales, an order of magnitude larger than in previous years.

Just as vast stretches of coastline transforms into a milky blue haze marking the annual yaaw spawn, suddenly, there were more than 150 grey whales sharing the same waters — and sustenance — as the Sheet’ká Ḵwáan (people of Sitka Tribe).

Every spring since time immemorial, Łingít, Haida and Híɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) people, among others, have gathered haaw da.aa (eggs on hemlock boughs) and kelp to share, trade and gift across communities.

Now, an unprecedented number of grey whales have joined the harvest, drawn by the same rich food source.

Full Article (archive link)

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5674661

It took six million years for the forests to return to the level of diversity they had before the meteorite, and the species that slowly grew back were completely different than what came before. Legumes—plants that form symbiotic relationships with bacteria that allow them to fix nitrogen from the air—were the first to appear, and they enriched the formerly nutrient-poor soil. This influx of nitrogen, along with phosphorus from the meteorite’s ash, enabled other flowering plants to thrive alongside the legumes and to displace conifers. As flowering species competed for light, they formed dense canopies of leaves and created the layered Amazon rain forest we know today, which is characterized by a blanket of productivity up top and a dark understory at the bottom.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5673072

These carvings are visible during low tide, as waves gently roll over rocks covered in algae. Experts date them to be at least 500 to 600 years old, although some of the oral traditions state that Native Hawaiians have been in the area for more than 1,000 years. Carved into a sandstone platform, the petroglyphs extend about 115 feet along the shoreline and include abstract shapes and anthropomorphic human figures, some of which are detailed—two of the large figures even have fingers, a rarity in Hawaiian petroglyphs. The tallest figure is more than eight feet tall.

This reemergence is connected to patterns of seasonal weather. From May to November, Pacific storms churn the waters, scouring sand from beaches and occasionally bringing archaeological features that were obscured by sediment into view. Over time, the sand will eventually return, burying the carvings until they reappear during a shift in coastal dynamics once again.

Specialists monitor the petroglyph site, which lies within the grounds of a U.S. Army recreation area. The shoreline itself is open to the public, but complete access to the adjacent property requires military identification. This has created ongoing controversy about how to preserve this part of Hawaii’s cultural heritage and make it more widely available.

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