Bits and Bites from Around the World > Denmark - First country to tax cow farts; Chinese robot with human stem cells in brain

 

Denmark the world’s first country to tax farting cows

Shaun Polczer

Published on: 

26 Jun 2024, 10:14 am

Denmark will be the first country to tax livestock emissionsPhoto Illustration generated by Meta AI

To err is human; to moo bovine.

Denmark will become the first country in the world to begin taxing farmers for Methane emissions from livestock starting in 2030.

Lawmakers agreed Monday to impose a tax of 120 kroner ($25) per tonne of greenhouse gas emitted from livestock, a level that will climb to about $50 by 2035.

The revenues will be pooled into a fund aimed to support the livestock industry’s so-called ‘green transition’.

“We are writing a new chapter in Danish agricultural history,” said farm minister, Jacob Jensen.

Farmer’s protest Files

Added Nicolai Wammen, Denmark’s finance minister: “We know that a CO2 tax model aligned across all sectors gives us the lowest societal costs in total. What we have now done, from industry sectors to agriculture, shows us that an ambitious green transition is possible.”

Denmark is one of Europe’s largest pork producers and a significant producer of beef and dairy as well. According to government statistics, it is home to about 1.5 million cows.

Ruminant animals such as sheep and cattle release methane when digesting food, which about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Some estimates suggest agriculture is responsible for a third of GHG emissions, half which come from animals.

Global livestock emissions 1990-2020Statista

Emissions by livestock sourceResearch Gate

Cows are by far the biggest culprits, producing about 6 tonnes per year.

But EU lawmakers are taking a huge risk; just last week, New Zealand scrapped plans to tax its agricultural emissions after stiff resistance from farmers.

In the EU, farmers have staged massive and often violent protests that have brought traffic to a standstill and sprayed manure in European capitals this year over proposed environmental policies as part of its so-called ‘Green Deal’.

On Monday EU lawmakers in Luxembourg passed a ‘Nature Restoration Law’ — by a slim 1% majority —which aims to restore as much as a third of arable farm land back to a natural state.

Dutch farm group LTO, one of the country’s largest, on Wednesday issued a statement that said they were “concerned and indignant” over the act. It’s significant because the Dutch farmer’s party BBB gained seats for the first time in last week’s EU elections.

Livestock emissions by countryAmerican geophysical Union

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Chinese scientists create robot with brain

made from human stem cells

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• Researchers have developed brain-on-chip technology to train the robot to perform tasks such as gripping objects
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Victoria Bela

Published: 3:00pm, 29 Jun 2024

The robots have an artificial brain as well as a neural chip. Photo: Tianjin University

Chinese scientists have developed a robot with a lab-grown artificial brain that can be taught to perform various tasks.

The brain-on-chip technology developed by researchers at Tianjin University and the Southern University of Science and Technology combines a brain organoid – a tissue derived from human stem cells – with a neural interface chip to power the robot and teach it to avoid obstacles and grip objects.

The technology is an emerging branch of brain-computer interfaces (BCI), which aims to combine the brain’s electrical signals with external computing power and which China has made a priority.

It is “the world’s first open-source brain-on-chip intelligent complex information interaction system” and could lead to the development of brain-like computing, according to Tianjin University.

“[This] is a technology that uses an in-vitro cultured ‘brain’ – such as brain organoids – coupled with an electrode chip to form a brain-on-chip,” which encodes and decodes stimulation feedback, Ming Dong, vice-president of Tianjin University, told state-owned Science and Technology Daily on Tuesday.

BCI technology has gained widespread attention due to the Elon Musk-backed Neuralink, an implantable interface designed to let patients control devices with only their thoughts.

Tianjin University now says its research could lead to the development of hybrid human-robot intelligence.

Brain organoids are made from human pluripotent stem cells typically only found in early embryos that can develop into different kinds of tissues, including neural tissues.

When grafted into the brain, they can establish functional connections with the host brain, the Tianjin University team wrote in an unedited manuscript published in the peer-reviewed Oxford University Press journal Brain last month.

“The transplant of human brain organoids into living brains is a novel method for advancing organoid development and function. Organoid grafts have a host-derived functional vasculature system and exhibit advanced maturation,” the team wrote.

Li Xiaohong, a professor at Tianjin University, told Science and Technology Daily that while brain organoids were regarded as the most promising model of basic intelligence, the technology still faced “bottlenecks such as low developmental maturity and insufficient nutrient supply”.

In the paper, the team said it had developed a technique to use low-intensity ultrasound, which could help organoids better integrate and grow within the brain.

The team found that when grafts were treated with low-intensity ultrasound, it improved the differentiation of organoid cells into neurons and helped improve the networks it formed with the host brain.

The technique could also lead to new treatments to treat neurodevelopmental disorders and repair damage to the cerebral cortex, the paper said.

“Brain organoid transplants are considered a promising strategy for restoring brain function by replacing lost neurons and reconstructing neural circuits,” the team wrote.

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'Women Have Quarter of a Brain’, Saudi Cleric Claims

OMGoodness! Since, in Saudi Arabia it takes the testimony of two women to equal that of one man, I guess we can assume that Saudi men have only half a brain. Aha! That's it! Now I completely understand Islam!

Sheikh Saad Al-Hijri. © أخبار اليو / YouTube

A Saudi cleric has been slated for saying that women don’t deserve to drive because they only have a quarter of a brain. Sheikh Saad Al-Hijri was also banned from performing his religious duties because of his outrageous comments.

Al-Hijri made his brain-numbing remarks at a lecture aptly titled, “The evils of women driving.” Women are banned from driving altogether in the notoriously conservative country, with many jailed for attempting to.

According to the cleric, women only have half a brain to begin with, but, when they attempt to factor shopping into their feeble minds, that halves again and they “end up with only a quarter,” as cited by the Jerusalem Post.

A video of Al-Hijri’s sexist musings was circulated online, provoking a backlash from many in the kingdom who used the hashtag “Al-Hijri says women have a quarter of a brain” to voice their anger.

“She became pregnant with him, gave birth to him, raised him, spent sleepless nights for him until he grew up and now he calls her a woman with a quarter of a brain. He and his like must be banned from appearing anywhere,” wrote one irate user.

“I swear to God those who have a quarter of a brain are you and your likes who handed you platforms to deliver hardline views. It is the woman who raises man and she is the core of success,” said another.

Saudi Arabia, an absolutist monarchy which controversially has seats on the UN Human Rights Council and the Women’s Rights Commission, has long been criticized for the treatment of the kingdom's female population.

Not to worry though, in an apparent move to rectify this the government established a ‘girl’s council’ consisting solely of men who know better.

Obviously, there are many Muslims in the UN.

Now This is Truly Scary

Mind hack: Scientists use magnets to change attitudes 

on immigration, religion

© Tom Tingle / The Arizona Republic / Pool / Reuters

Researchers from the University of York have used magnetic energy to suppress humans’ ‘threat-response’ functions and dramatically change people’s attitudes to immigration.

Psychologists used magnetic force to safely shut down the region of the brain associated with “threat-response functions” and conducted a series of tests where volunteers were asked questions about their beliefs.

Scientists found the people were less likely to have negative views when the magnetic force was applied to the posterior medial frontal cortex, positioned a few inches up from the forehead.

In the study, half of participants were given a low-level placebo-like level of magnetic energy that did not affect their brain, while the other half received enough energy to lower activity in the target area.

Volunteers were then asked to think about death, after which they were asked questions about their religious beliefs and attitudes on immigration.

Researchers from the University of York and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), discovered those whose frontal cortex was temporarily shut down reported 32.8 percent less belief in God, angels or heaven.

Volunteers were screened prior to the investigation to ensure they held religious beliefs.

The participants were also 28.5 percent more positive in their feelings toward an immigrant who criticized their country.

Dr. Keise Izuma said volunteers were reminded about death because people are more likely to turn to ideologies when they think of dying.

“We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death. As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death,” he said.

Volunteers were asked to respond to negative and positive emotional aspects of religion, in particular to rate their belief in the Devil, demons and Hell, in addition to God, angels and heaven.

Participants were also given two essays to read, both supposedly written by immigrants. One essay was extremely complimentary to the host country, while the other was extremely critical.

Scientists found that when the magnetic force temporarily shut down the ‘threat-response’ part of the brain, people were more likely to have positive feelings towards the immigrant who was critical.

We think that hearing criticisms of your group’s values, perhaps especially from a person you perceive as an outsider, is processed as an ideological sort of threat,” said Izuma.

“One way to respond to such threats is to ‘double down’ on your group values, increasing your investment in them and reacting more negatively to the critic.”

“When we disrupted the brain region that usually helps detect and respond to threats, we saw a less negative, less ideologically motivated reaction to the critical author and his opinions,” he said.

UCLA’s Dr. Colin Holbrook, who was lead author of the report, said the findings were “striking.”

“These findings are very striking, and consistent with the idea that brain mechanisms that evolved for relatively basic threat-response functions are repurposed to also produce ideological reactions,” he said.

Unfortunately, the report doesn't say whether, or how long the effect lasted. I'm assuming it lasted only as long as the experiment lasted. Nevertheless, with the incredibly fast advent of multi-cultural tolerance and religious non-tolerance (unless you're Muslim), this finding could lead to some very frightening scenarios. Guess I need some treatment. I wonder if someone has already been applying this to liberal Europeans.

New Alzheimer’s Treatment Fully Restores Memory Function

Of the mice that received the treatment, 

75 percent got their memory function back.

Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients.

If a person has Alzheimer’s disease, it’s usually the result of a build-up of two types of lesions - amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques sit between the neurons and end up as dense clusters of beta-amyloid molecules, a sticky type of protein that clumps together and forms plaques.

Neurofibrillary tangles are found inside the neurons of the brain, and they’re caused by defective tau proteins that clump up into a thick, insoluble mass. This causes tiny filaments called microtubules to get all twisted, which disrupts the transportation of essential materials such as nutrients and organelles along them, just like when you twist up the vacuum cleaner tube.

As we don’t have any kind of vaccine or preventative measure for Alzheimer’s - a disease that affects 343,000 people in Australia, and 50 million worldwide - it’s been a race to figure out how best to treat it, starting with how to clear the build-up of defective beta-amyloid and tau proteins from a patient’s brain. Now a team from the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) at the University of Queensland have come up with a pretty promising solution for removing the former.

Publishing in Science Translational Medicine, the team describes the technique as using a particular type of ultrasound called a focused therapeutic ultrasound, which non-invasively beams sound waves into the brain tissue. By oscillating super-fast, these sound waves are able to gently open up the blood-brain barrier, which is a layer that protects the brain against bacteria, and stimulate the brain’s microglial cells to activate. Microglila cells are basically waste-removal cells, so they’re able to clear out the toxic beta-amyloid clumps that are responsible for the worst symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

The team reports fully restoring the memory function of 75 percent of the mice they tested it on, with zero damage to the surrounding brain tissue. They found that the treated mice displayed improved performance in three memory tasks - a maze, a test to get them to recognise new objects, and one to get them to remember the places they should avoid.

"We’re extremely excited by this innovation of treating Alzheimer’s without using drug therapeutics," one of the team, Jürgen Götz, said in a press release. "The word ‘breakthrough’ is often misused, but in this case I think this really does fundamentally change our understanding of how to treat this disease, and I foresee a great future for this approach."

The team says they’re planning on starting trials with higher animal models, such as sheep, and hope to get their human trials underway in 2017.