(Florida Museum of Natural History) Florida and Georgia archaeologists have discovered the location of Fort San Antón de Carlos, home of one of the first Jesuit missions in North America. The Spanish fort was built in 1566 in the capital of the Calusa, the most powerful Native American tribe in the region, on present-day Mound Key in the center of Estero Bay on Florida's Gulf Coast.

(University of Helsinki) A multidisciplinary research group coordinated by the University of Helsinki dated the bones of dozens of Iron Age residents of the Levänluhta site in Finland, and studied the carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios. The results provide an overview of the dietary habits based on terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems, as well as of sources of livelihoods throughout the Levänluhta era.

(American Friends of Tel Aviv University) The research reveals that hunter-gatherer societies expressed a deep emotional and psychological connection with the animal species they hunted, especially after their disappearance. The study will help anthropologists and others understand the profound environmental changes taking place in our own lifetimes.

(World Scientific) New book explores human's endeavours to measure the age of the Earth -- the biblical story, geology's response, Darwin's contribution, Kelvin's cooling Earth model, and modern science.

(Bentham Science Publishers) Two authors representing environmental geomorphology and historical archaeology collaborated in an investigation that aimed to examine the material culture still evident in urban burial sites with dated, upstanding headstone memorials.

(University of Warwick) 21st century X-ray technology has allowed University of Warwick scientists to peer back through time at the production of the armour worn by the crew of Henry VIII's favoured warship, the Mary Rose.

(Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) What makes our species unique compared to other hominins? High profile genetic, fossil and material culture discoveries present scientists working in the Late Pleistocene with an ever-more complex picture of interactions between early hominin populations. One distinctive characteristic of Homo sapiens, however, appears to be its global distribution. Exploring how Homo sapiens colonized most of the world's continents in a relatively short period could reveal the exceptional capacities of humans relative to other hominins.

(Cell Press) In a study appearing April 30 in the journal Current Biology, scientists tell the story of three 16th century African slaves identified from a mass burial site in Mexico City. Using a combination of genetic, osteological, and isotope analyses, the scientists determined from where in Africa they were likely captured, the physical hardships they experienced as slaves, and what novel pathogens they may have carried with them across the Atlantic.

(Florida Museum of Natural History) More than a thousand years ago, people from across the Southeast regularly traveled to a small island on Florida's Gulf Coast to bond over oysters, likely as a means of coping with climate change and social upheaval.

(University of Maryland) Many historians have claimed the Justinianic Plague (c. 541-750 CE) killed half of the population of Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. New historical research and mathematical modeling challenge the death rate and severity of this first plague pandemic, named for Emperor Justinian I.

There is no special announcement (19:45 HKT on 03.05.2020)

(US Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service) A new freeze-resistant Trichinella species has been discovered in wolverines by Agricultural Research Service scientists and their colleagues. Trichinella are parasites that cause the disease trichinosis (formally referred to as trichinellosis), which people can get by eating raw or undercooked meat from infected animals.

(Arizona State University) Hydrogen is an essential commodity with over 60 million tons produced globally every year. However over 95 percent of it is made by steam reformation of fossil fuels, a process that is energy intensive and produces carbon dioxide. If we could replace even a part of that with algal biohydrogen that is made via light and water, it would have a substantial impact.

(University of Southern Denmark) Investing in the future: Researchers show how cannibalism among the invasive comb jelly enables adults to survive severe conditions at the edge of their ecological range with implications for the use and evolutionary origins of cannibalism.

(Bentham Science Publishers) This comprehensive review presented by researchers from K.S. Rangasamy College of Arts and Science, Tiruchengode, Tamil-Nadu, India, gives readers a brief overview of phytoconstituents, nutritional values and medicinal properties of the plant.

(National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) Researchers will soon have access to the full genomic sequences for 23 marine mammal species preserved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), thanks to an ongoing collaboration between NIST and a scientific consortium called the DNA Zoo.

(University of Washington) By comparing new measurements from NASA's ICESat-2 mission with the original ICESat mission, which operated from 2003 to 2009, scientists were able to measure precisely how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years.

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) Ice sheet losses from Greenland and Antarctica have outpaced snow accumulation and contributed approximately 14 millimeters to sea level rise over 16 years (2003 to 2019), a new analysis of data from NASA's laser-shooting satellites has revealed.

(University of Manchester) An international research project has revealed the highest levels of microplastic ever recorded on the seafloor, with up to 1.9 million pieces in a thin layer covering just 1 square meter.

(Marine Biological Laboratory) Microbial life is bubbling up to the ocean floor along with fluids from deeply buried petroleum reservoirs, reports a team of scientists from the University of Calgary and the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole.

(European Geosciences Union) A new declaration endorsed by EGU and other international geoscience societies affirms the commitment of the Earth, planetary and space science community to support and promote scientific knowledge and research for the benefit of humanity.

(University of Rhode Island) A team of experts, led by a University of Rhode Island researcher, examined how climate change is affecting the ocean environment and found that the changing conditions will likely result in increased fisheries-related conflicts and create new challenges in the management of global fisheries.

(Oregon State University) The world's oceans play a critical role in climate regulation, mitigation and adaptation and should be integrated into comprehensive 'green new deal' proposals being promoted by elected officials and agency policymakers.

Palestinian officials said Friday that Israel is forcing banks in the occupied West Bank to close accounts held by the families of prisoners in Israeli jails to prevent the Palestinian Authority from providing stipends to them. Israel has long objected to the Palestinian Authority's payments to the families of prisoners and those killed in the conflict, including militants, saying it rewards terrorism. The Palestinians view the payments as a social safety net for those living under decades of military occupation.

Chief Justice Patience Roggensack faced backlash for her comment, with some people calling it "elitist" to separate meatpackers from "regular folks."

There aren’t a ton of synonyms for the word “hypocrisy.” I’ve become aware of this problem ever since I began writing about the Tara Reade–Joe Biden situation. I keep gravitating towards phrases such as “despicable hypocrisy,” or “partisan hypocrisy,” or “unconscionable hypocrisy,” but you can only go to the well so often. Really, though, I’m not sure how else to describe the actions of someone like Senator Dianne Feinstein.You might recall that it was Feinstein, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, who withheld Christine Blasey Ford's allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from the Senate so that it could not be properly vetted, in a last-ditch effort to sink the nomination.Feinstein knew that Ford's credibility was brittle -- the alleged victim could not tell us where or when the attack occurred, hadn’t mentioned Kavanugh’s name to anyone for over 30 years, and offered nothing approaching a contemporaneous witness.At first, Feinstein did not want to provide Ford’s name, or a place or time of the alleged attack, or allow the accused to see any evidence against him, denying him the ability to answer the charges.Henceforth this brand of justice could be referred to as “The Joe Biden Standard,” since it’s exactly the kind of show trial the presumptive Democratic nominee promises college kids via Title IX rules.When finally asked about Reade yesterday, Feinstein responded: “And I don’t know this person at all who has made the allegations. She came out of nowhere. Where has she been all these years? He was vice president.”To put this in perspective, when Ford came forward “out of nowhere,” Feinstein said: “Victims must be able to come forward only when they are ready.”What’s changed?During the Kavanaugh hearings Feinstein noted that “sharing an experience involving sexual assault — particularly when it involves a politically connected man with influence, authority and power — is extraordinarily difficult.”Is Biden not a politically connected man with influence, authority, and power? Feinstein is now arguing the opposite: She is saying we should dismiss Reade’s allegations because she failed to come forward against a powerful man earlier.But to answer Feinstein’s question about what Reade has been “up to” the past 27 years: Well, she’s been telling people that Biden had engaged in sexual misconduct. She relayed her story to her former neighbor, her brother, her former co-worker, and at least two other friends. It is also likely that her mother called Larry King Live asking for advice for her daughter the year of the alleged attack.Yesterday a document uncovered by local journalists in California -- somehow missed by Barack Obama’s crack vetting team -- shows Reade’s ex-husband bolstering her claim in 1996 divorce proceedings: “On several occasions [Reade] related a problem that she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in U.S. Senator Joe Biden's office.”The reaction to the divorce papers has been extraordinary. Biden defenders argue that because Reade alleged “sexual harassment” -- a catch-all term used in the 1990s when men were getting away with despicable behavior far more often -- it proves her story has changed. Biden, through his deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield, alleges that “more and more inconsistencies” come up every day.Even if Reade didn't tell everyone everything that allegedly happened every time she mentioned the incident, that doesn’t definitively prove anything. If it did, none of us would have ever heard the name Christine Blasey Ford.Indeed, at time of Ford’s evolving story, there was a slew of journalists taking deep dives into the unreliability of memory and trauma and complexities of relaying assault allegations. I assume that science hasn’t changed in two years.Let’s also not forget that, despite Ford’s inconsistencies, Biden still argued that Kavanaugh should be presumed guilty. Why shouldn’t he?It is also quite amazing to see Biden’s defenders implicitly contending that Reade is only credibly claiming that she was sexually harassed for nearly 30 years, so her story must be politically motivated.Even if we concede that Reade is a wily Sanders operative or Putin stooge, what political motive could Reade possibly have had back in 1993 -- after working for Biden -- to smear the senator? What motive did she have to repeat that story to her family before Sanders was a candidate or Putin was running Russia?By the way, liberals have never argued that political motivations should be disqualifying. Ford came forward, by her own admission, because she did not believe the man who had allegedly assaulted her in high school should be given a seat on highest court in the land. Reade says she doesn’t want a man who allegedly assaulted her -- when he was in his 50s -- to hold the most powerful office in the world.Feinstein, of course, isn’t the only one to engage in this kind of transparent double standard. When asked about Reade, the idealist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said, “I’m not sure. Frankly, this is a messy moment, and I think we need to acknowledge that -- that it is not clear-cut.”Where was all this hand-wringing and caution over the messiness of sexual-assault claims when nearly every Democrat and all their allies in the press were spreading Julie Swetnick’s alleged “gang rape” piece? Nowhere.AOC, whose position on Biden has evolved, invited Ana Maria Archila, the women who had famously cornered a weak-kneed senator Jeff Flake in an elevator and yelled at him about Kavanaugh, to the 2019 State of the Union address. Archila now says, “I feel very trapped.”I bet.People point out that there are numerous sexual-misconduct allegations leveled at Donald Trump. Indeed. If they haven’t yet, news outlets should scrutinize and investigate the credibility of those allegations, as they did for Biden but not for Kavanaugh. But it’s important to remember that Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll was given immediate and widespread coverage on cable news, while Reade reportedly wasn’t asked to tell her story by any major network -- save Fox News -- until this week.Of course, most Biden defenders are being purposely obtuse about the debate -- Mona Charen’s recent column is an excellent example. The problem isn’t that Biden is being treated unjustly, or that he should be treated unjustly; it’s that he is being treated justly by the same people who treat others unjustly. Democrats have yet to explain why Biden is afforded every benefit of the doubt but not Kavanaugh, and not millions of college students.Public figures such as Biden have every right to demand fair hearings and due process. Voters have every right to judge the credibility of both accuser and accused. Many women are victims. Many women are victims who are powerless to prove it. And some women are frauds. You can’t keep demanding that our political system adjudicate similar incidents under two completely differ set of rules. It’s untenable.

The U.S. Navy is in “rough waters” and suffering from leadership failures, the diplomat tapped to be the next Navy secretary told a Senate committee Thursday. Kenneth J. Braithwaite, the ambassador to Norway and a retired Navy rear admiral, faced repeated questions about recent crises that have rocked the service, including the firing of an aircraft carrier captain who urged faster action to fight a coronavirus outbreak on his ship and the subsequent resignation of the acting secretary who fired him. Braithwaite said that Navy culture has been tarnished and trust in the service's leaders has broken down.

SAVANNAH—Gregory and Travis McMichael have been arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault in connection with the February killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Thursday. According to police, the white father and son, 64 and 34, chased Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, after he ran by Travis McMichael’s home in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick on Feb. 23. He was unarmed and jogging at the time. “This is a start towards victory,” Thea Brooks, Arbery’s aunt, told The Daily Beast on Thursday. “This only the beginning though, but this is what we were all hoping for.”The McMichaels said they believed Arbery was a burglar responsible for a series of break-ins in their neighborhood and that they pursued him in their pickup truck while armed with a shotgun and a .357 magnum. The GBI alleges the McMichaels confronted Arbery, and that Travis shot him. A local prosecutor previously indicated a third man, William Bryan, took part in the chase and filmed the incident.‘It’s Murder’: This Shooting of an Unarmed Black Man Is Roiling GeorgiaAt least two shots hit the 25-year-old, the Glynn County Coroner’s Office told The Daily Beast last week.Video that Brooks said depicted her nephew’s death elicited a furious reaction nationwide, and residents of the area protested the initial failure to prosecute a case on Tuesday.“It’s murder. It’s heartbreaking to even look at. The whole city has seen it,” Brooks told The Daily Beast after the video was released this week.The Georgia NAACP echoed her words in a Thursday response to the McMichaels’ arrest: “The murderers of Ahmaud Arbery have been arrested.”Gregory McMichael, a former cop and investigator with a local prosecutor’s office, previously told The Daily Beast he “never would have gone after someone for their color.” He also said the “closest version of the truth” about the incident was captured in a letter effectively clearing him and his son that was written by a prosecutor who recused himself from the case, George Barnhill. McMichael also admitted he had no direct evidence that Arbery was a thief. “But he’s the guy who’s there without permission,” he said from behind the closed front door of his son’s home.The owner of an unfinished home just down the street from Travis McMichael's home, Larry English, told The Daily Beast earlier this week that he had surveillance footage that appeared to show Arbery stopping to look at the foundation of his still-under-construction home. While Gregory McMichael claimed to police that Arbery had been caught on surveillance video, it was not immediately clear what video he was referring to. English told The Daily Beast he had no knowledge of the McMichaels seeing his surveillance footage. McMichael’s ties to law enforcement helped fuel a haze of suspicion around the killing from the beginning. Barnhill was one of two area prosecutors who looked into the incident before recusing themselves. A third prosecutor—District Attorney Tom Durden—sought a GBI probe ahead of the arrests this week.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

Disposable masks can be used more than once, but it's important to make sure the mask isn't carrying coronavirus.

(École de technologie supérieure) The first ever standard for real-time calculation of pollutant emissions allocated to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) was recently introduced, thanks to the work of the IEEE ICT Emissions Working Group Committe, chaired by Mohamed Cheriet, a Professor in the Systems Engineering Department at École de technologie supérieure. Under the auspices of the IEEE Standards Association, the Working Group Committee is made up of researchers from diverse backgrounds and many different countries.

Climate change could mean mosquitoes that can carry diseases like dengue, zika and yellow fever become established in southern Europe within 10 years.

Researchers have engineered bacteria to produce new versions of a potential antibiotic molecule, some with potent antimalarial properties.

Alumni inspired by the scientific response to the SARS outbreak are developing a platform to help researchers collaborate on global challenges.

(George Mason University) Nathan Sleeter, Research Assistant Professor, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM), is directing a project in which RRCHNM will create three classroom simulations based on events from the history of diplomacy for secondary education instructors.

(American Geriatrics Society) The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) and the AGS Health in Aging Foundation today conferred one of their newest honors, the Arti Hurria Memorial Award for Emerging Investigators in Internal Medicine Focused on the Care of Older Adults, on two experts: Rasheeda Hall, MD, a board-certified nephrologist and assistant professor of medicine at Duke University; and Kah Poh (Melissa) Loh, MBBCh, BAO, a board-certified internist, hematologist, and oncologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

(American Geriatrics Society) The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) and the AGS Health in Aging Foundation today announced that two expert researchers--Kavita Dharmarajan, MD, MSc, an assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in N.Y.; and Nazema Siddiqui, MD, MHSc, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.--will receive the 2020 Jeffrey H. Silverstein Memorial Award.

(Kessler Foundation) Andrew Houtenville, Ph.D., research director of the University of New Hampshire's Institute on Disability: 'Unlike the Great Recession and the Great Depression, many workers in the COVID Recession may be 'on temporary layoff' (aka furloughed) and may be recalled, rather than losing their jobs completely. To further investigate this issue, we plan to release a Special nTIDE Report on May 15.'

(American Geriatrics Society) For only the second time in its near 80-year history, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) will award one of its highest honors typically reserved for individuals to West Health, a family of nonprofit organizations dedicated to lowering healthcare costs to enable older adults to successfully age in place.

(American Geriatrics Society) The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) will this year honor past AGS President Todd Semla, PharmD, MS, AGSF, with the prestigious Nascher/Manning Award, given biannually at the AGS Annual Scientific Meeting (#AGS21, to be held next year May 13-15 in Chicago, Ill., following the cancellation of the AGS 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting due to COVID-19).

(Oregon State University) Clinical trial data behind drug dose recommendations for elevated cholesterol and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease illustrate how larger doses may not be worth the extra costs for many types of patients.

(Virginia Institute of Marine Science) New study indicates the increase in rainfall forecast by global climate models is likely to hasten the release of carbon dioxide from tropical soils, further intensifying global warming by adding to human emissions of this greenhouse gas into Earth's atmosphere.

(American Geriatrics Society) The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented pressure on societies worldwide, given the pandemic's rapid, often deadly spread. In health care, the pandemic has raised the pressing question of how society should allocate scarce resources during a crisis. This is the question experts addressed today in a new position statement published by the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (DOI: 10.1111/jgs.16537).

(Crime and Justice Research Alliance) A new study evaluated the effects of legalizing cannabis on police officers' law enforcement efforts in Washington. The study found that officers in that state, although not supportive of recriminalization, had a variety of concerns, from worries about the effect on youth to increases in impaired driving. The study can inform other states' efforts to address legalization.

(University of California - Santa Cruz) Restoration ecologist Karen Holl has a simple message for anyone who thinks planting 1 trillion trees will reverse the damage of climate change: 'We can't plant our way out of climate change.'

(Penn State) A new process to harness multiple disease models for outbreak management has been developed by an international team of researchers. The team will immediately implement the process to help inform policy decisions for the COVID-19 outbreak.

(Clemson University) While the world admires the beauty and fragrance of flowers, most of us are missing out on the extraordinary processes these seemingly delicate life forms are carrying out every moment of the day. Matthew Koski, an assistant professor at Clemson, is not only paying attention, he is advancing his research with a three-year, $455,000 grant from the NSF for a study of flower adaptations titled 'Modifying the floral microenvironment: elevational divergence in floral thermoregulatory mechanisms.'

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