Author: IGIHE

Ingredient of life found around infant Sun-like stars

{Two teams of astronomers have harnessed the power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to detect the prebiotic complex organic molecule methyl isocyanate [1] in the multiple star system IRAS 16293-2422. One team was co-led by Rafael Martín-Doménech at the Centro de Astrobiología in Madrid, Spain, and Víctor M. Rivilla, at the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri in Florence, Italy; and the other by Niels Ligterink at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and Audrey Coutens at University College London, United Kingdom.}

“This star system seems to keep on giving! Following the discovery of sugars, we’ve now found methyl isocyanate. This family of organic molecules is involved in the synthesis of peptides and amino acids, which, in the form of proteins, are the biological basis for life as we know it,” explain Niels Ligterink and Audrey Coutens [2].

ALMA’s capabilities allowed both teams to observe the molecule at several different and characteristic wavelengths across the radio spectrum [3]. They found the unique chemical fingerprints located in the warm, dense inner regions of the cocoon of dust and gas surrounding young stars in their earliest stages of evolution. Each team identified and isolated the signatures of the complex organic molecule methyl isocyanate [4]. They then followed this up with computer chemical modelling and laboratory experiments to refine our understanding of the molecule’s origin [5].

IRAS 16293-2422 is a multiple system of very young stars, around 400 light-years away in a large star-forming region called Rho Ophiuchi in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer). The new results from ALMA show that methyl isocyanate gas surrounds each of these young stars.

Earth and the other planets in our Solar System formed from the material left over after the formation of the Sun. Studying solar-type protostars can therefore open a window to the past for astronomers and allow them to observe conditions similar to those that led to the formation of our Solar System over 4.5 billion years ago.

Rafael Martín-Doménech and Víctor M. Rivilla, lead authors of one of the papers, comment: “We are particularly excited about the result because these protostars are very similar to the Sun at the beginning of its lifetime, with the sort of conditions that are well suited for Earth-sized planets to form. By finding prebiotic molecules in this study, we may now have another piece of the puzzle in understanding how life came about on our planet.”

Niels Ligterink is delighted with the supporting laboratory results: “Besides detecting molecules we also want to understand how they are formed. Our laboratory experiments show that methyl isocyanate can indeed be produced on icy particles under very cold conditions that are similar to those in interstellar space This implies that this molecule — and thus the basis for peptide bonds — is indeed likely to be present near most new young solar-type stars.”

{{Notes}}

[1] A complex organic molecule is defined in astrochemistry as consisting of six or more atoms, where at least one of the atoms is carbon. Methyl isocyanate contains carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the chemical configuration CH3NCO. This very toxic substance was the main cause of death following the tragic Bhopal industrial accident in 1984.

[2] The system was previously studied by ALMA in 2012 and found to contain molecules of the simple sugar glycolaldehyde, another ingredient for life.

[3] The team led by Rafael Martín-Doménech used new and archive data of the protostar taken across a large range of wavelengths across ALMA’s receiver Bands 3, 4 and 6. Niels Ligterink and his colleagues used data from the ALMA Protostellar Interferometric Line Survey (PILS), which aims to chart the chemical complexity of IRAS 16293-2422 by imaging the full wavelength range covered by ALMA’s Band 7 on very small scales, equivalent to the size of our Solar System.

[4] The teams carried out spectrographic analysis of the protostar’s light to determine the chemical constituents. The amount of methyl isocyanate they detected — the abundance — with respect to molecular hydrogen and other tracers is comparable to previous detections around two high-mass protostars (i.e. within the massive hot molecular cores of Orion KL and Sagittarius B2.

[5] Martín-Doménech’s team chemically modelled gas-grain formation of methyl isocyanate. The observed amount of the molecule could be explained by chemistry on the surface of dust grains in space, followed by chemical reactions in the gas phase. Moreover, Ligterink’s team demonstrated that the molecule can be formed at extremely cold interstellar temperatures, down to 15 Kelvin (-258 degrees Celsius), using cryogenic ultra-high-vacuum experiments in their laboratory in Leiden.

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This research was presented in two papers: “First Detection of Methyl Isocyanate (CH3NCO) in a solar-type Protostar” by R. Martín-Doménech et al. and “The ALMA-PILS survey: Detection of CH3NCO toward the low-mass protostar IRAS 16293-2422 and laboratory constraints on its formation,” by N. F. W. Ligterink et al.. Both papers will appear in the same issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

One team is composed of: R. Martín-Doménech (Centro de Astrobiología, Spain), V. M. Rivilla (INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy), I. Jiménez-Serra (Queen Mary University of London, UK), D. Quénard (Queen Mary University of London, UK), L. Testi (INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy; ESO, Garching, Germany; Excellence Cluster “Universe,” Germany) and J. Martín-Pintado (Centro de Astrobiología, Spain).

The other team is composed of: N. F. W. Ligterink (Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics, Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands), A. Coutens (University College London, UK), V. Kofman (Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics, The Netherlands), H. S. P. Müller (Universität zu Köln, Germany), R. T. Garrod (University of Virginia, USA), H. Calcutt (Niels Bohr Institute & Natural History Museum, Denmark), S. F. Wampfler (Center for Space and Habitability, Switzerland), J. K. Jørgensen (Niels Bohr Institute & Natural History Museum, Denmark), H. Linnartz (Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics, The Netherlands) and E. F. van Dishoeck (Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands; Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Germany).\

Source:Science Daily

June 9, 2017
Monkey see, monkey do, depending on age, experience and efficiency

{Capuchin monkeys learn best-payoff ways to open fruit from others}

Wild capuchin monkeys readily learn skills from each other — but that social learning is driven home by the payoff of learning a useful new skill. It’s the first demonstration of “payoff bias” learning in a wild animal, and could inform whether and how animals can adapt to rapidly changing conditions, for example due to climate change or reintroduction of species from captive breeding.

“When animals learn, they can learn very quickly,” said Brendan Barrett, a graduate student in animal behavior at the University of California, Davis, who led the study, published June 7 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. “What are the psychological mechanisms animals use to learn?”

Barrett worked with a population of capuchin monkeys in northwest Costa Rica that was part of a 27-year study by UCLA professor Susan Perry. Capuchins are interesting because they have sophisticated social behaviors, and the kin relationships and early developmental histories of these monkeys were known.

“They explore their world, harvesting food from it,” Barrett said. That includes coming up with new ways to open and harvest hard-to-access fruits and seeds. Unusually for monkeys, capuchins will tolerate other monkeys watching them as they open fruit.

Among the possible hypotheses: Monkeys conform with the group majority; they follow what experienced animals do; they learn from parents or close relatives; or they learn from their own experience.

Barrett and colleagues studied learning strategies in the monkeys by observing how they learned to open the fruit of the Panama tree. The nuts inside these large fruits are well-protected by a hard shell covered in gooey exudate and lined on the inside with stinging hairs.

Typically, a group of monkeys familiar with the fruit will have worked out their own way to open them, Barrett said. That makes it hard to figure out how monkeys learned the technique. Instead, the researchers were lucky enough to find a group of monkeys that had split off from a larger group in 2003 and moved to an area that had no Panama trees. Some of the older animals had experience with different ways of opening the fruit, and some had no experience at all.

High payoff, rapid learning

The researchers found that overall, most monkeys adopted the most efficient technique for opening the fruit — the method with the highest payoff.

“We found that the most efficient technique could spread very quickly through the group, in as little as two weeks,” he said. Even older monkeys that had already mastered one opening technique would pick up another that was more efficient by watching others, Barrett said.

The monkeys used a mix of learning by observation and individual experience to figure out how to open the fruit, they found. Older monkeys tended to rely on their own experience, while younger ones paid more attention to how other animals opened the fruit.

Some monkeys settled on their own technique, even if it wasn’t quite as efficient, but the options they tried were still guided by watching other monkeys.

The study shows that “payoff-bias” learning — guided by which technique is more efficient — may be more widespread in wild animals than previously thought, Barrett said. Understanding how animals learn skills could be important, for example, when considering how to reintroduce captive-bred animals to the wild, or moving a population into a new habitat.

Source:Science Daily

June 9, 2017
Inyenyeri Signs Landmark Deal with World Bank to Scale Renewable Energy Company in Rwanda

{On June 8th, 2017 the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (“IBRD”), acting as the trustee of the Carbon Initiative for Development Fund (“Ci-Dev”) announced its commitment to buy 600,000 “carbon credits” from Inyenyeri, a Rwandan Social Benefit Company, resulting from the Inyenyeri Improved Cookstove Project. }

The Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement (“ERPA”) commits the World Bank to purchase 600,000 carbon credits between now and December 2023 and provides an option for the World Bank to purchase another 400,000 carbon credits.

Ci-Dev provides performance based payments against delivery of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) to support projects that improve and increase energy access in low income countries using clean and efficient technologies. Along the way, it will generate valuable lessons in how reducing greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2, can generate tangible development benefits for local communities, like cleaner air, improved safety, and financial and time savings.

Yasser El-Gammal, Rwandan Country Manager at World Bank, commented that: “Like in many other sectors, Rwanda is again innovating in finding unconventional solutions to development problems. This new cooking system promises to significantly reduce health hazards amongst rural populations as well as help save the forests wealth in Rwanda. This experiment promises to be a model that can be replicated across much of sub-Saharan Africa”.

Inyenyeri, a Rwandan fuel-utility company, has developed an innovative model that provides even the poorest households access to a clean cooking solution. Inyenyeri produces sustainable wood pellets, that, when paired with the cleanest biomass cookstove, reduces wood required for cooking by 80-90% compared to traditional cooking methods.

This combination allows the company to crowdsource wood from rural families, who in exchange receive the Fuel+Stove system for no cash, and sell the system to urban households at a lower cost than cooking with charcoal. This Fuel+Stove system will significantly contribute to preventing death and disease, deforestation, and climate change caused by household air pollution.

Based out of Gisenyi, Inyenyeri is eager to scale quickly, leveraging future Ci-Dev revenues to provide 150,000 households with a clean cooking solution by 2020.

Eric Reynolds, CEO of Inyenyeri, informs that: “The monetary value of this contract has already catalyzed a series of significant developments for Inyenyeri and Rwanda. Three years of due diligence by the Ci-Dev team has given many current and new stakeholders a great measure of confidence in our innovative business model.”

Inyenyeri has already used the future revenue stream from the ERPA as collateral to secure an €8,000,000 loan facility from Althelia Climate Fund and FMO, the Dutch development bank which intends to share the facility with ACF. Inyenyeri aims to serve 2+ million households in Rwanda.

Reynolds adds that “the revenue from carbon finance can bring many tens of millions of dollars back to Rwanda to be invested in modern pellet plant infrastructure and ultra-clean gasification stoves. This can also create thousands of Green Jobs.”

By Jean d’Amour Mugabo

June 9, 2017
Iran: Trump’s reaction to deadly attacks is ‘repugnant’

{Foreign minister Javad Zarif rejects statement by US president that Iran fell victim ‘to the evil they promote’.}

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called US President Donald Trump’s reaction to deadly attacks in Tehran “repugnant”, as intelligence officials said that the five attackers were Iranians who had fought for ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

At least 16 people were killed on Wednesday in attacks claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, as suicide bombers and gunmen targeted the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini – leader of the 1979 revolution – in the capital, Tehran.

“Repugnant [White House] statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients. Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship,” Zarif tweeted on Thursday.

He was responding to a statement released by Trump’s press secretary’s office, which took the opportunity of an attack to make a point that “states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote”.

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The White House statement, which mentioned how Iranian people were “going through such challenging times”, came as the US Senate advanced legislation that would impose new sanctions on the Islamic Republic, partly for what the bill described as Iran’s “support for acts of international terrorism”.

What kind of “terrorism” these statements refer to remains vague. Trump has long accused Iran of backing “terrorism” and has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between the Iranian government and major western powers.

Trump’s comments also brought criticism from Iranians on social media, who recalled their government’s offers of support and candlelit vigils held in Iran after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York.

“Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while they’re down. Classy,” tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst.

{{Attackers fought for ISIL}}

More than 40 people were also wounded in Wednesday’s attacks.

A statement by the intelligence ministry issued on Thursday said that the men who carried out the twin attacks had left Iran to fight for ISIL in the Iraqi city of Mosul, as well as Raqqa, in Syria – the armed group’s de facto capital – before returning last summer.

It identified the men only by their first names, saying they did not want to release their last names owing to security and privacy concerns for their families.

The assault marks the first attacks claimed by ISIL in Iran.

Iranian security officials counter that it is their regional rival Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, that is responsible for funding and spreading the ideology that most closely resembles ISIL’s.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard weighed Saudi Arabia of being behind Wednesday’s attacks.

“The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack,” the Revolutionary Guard said in a statement, referring to Saudi Arabia.

The statement also said that the “spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged”.

Source:Al Jazeera

June 8, 2017
Blast at Indian fireworks factory kills 25

{Massive explosion goes off as workers were making firecrackers at factory in Madhya Pradesh state.}

At least 25 people were killed and several others were injured in an explosion at a fireworks factory in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, police said on Thursday.

The blast occurred on Wednesday afternoon when a blaze engulfed the factory in Balaghat district.

Dozens of workers managed to escape unhurt as firefighters brought the fire under control in two hours.

“The blast was so powerful that its sound could be heard five kilometres from the site,” Balaghat Police Chief Amit Sanghi said.

Another five were being treated for burns and smoke inhalation, while the condition of two was critical.

Police said the cause of the blast was not immediately known and was being investigated.

READ MORE: Manufacturing discontent: India’s workers in crisis

However, it was likely triggered after a worker may have callously tossed a lit cigarette butt in the premises.

“The rescue operation is over now. We have cleared the place and thankfully no one is trapped inside,” local administrative chief Bharat Yadav told the AFP news agency from the site of the blast.

Police have lodged a criminal case against the factory owner.

Shivraj Singh Chauhan, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, announced a compensation of around $3,000 for the families of the deceased.

India has a huge demand for firecrackers, which are used in religious festivals and weddings.

Workplace accidents are common in Indian fireworks factories, where inadequate safety standards and lax enforcement of regulations have led to horrific deaths.

Local media reported that at least 11 people were killed in similar accidents in Madhya Pradesh in April.

Source:Al Jazeera

June 8, 2017
Storm kills several, displaces thousands in Cape Town

{Winter storm unleashes heavy rain and wind on South African city, displacing thousands already coping with drought.}

{At least eight people have been killed and thousands displaced in the South African city of Cape Town after the worst storm in three decades storm unleashed heavy rains and high winds.}

The storm, which hit on Tuesday and Wednesday, fanned fires and forced evacuations of some residents who were already having to cope with the region’s worst drought in a century.

In Cape Town and surrounding areas, victims included four people who died in a fire caused by lightning, three who died in another fire and one who was killed when a home collapsed, disaster management officials said.

“This wind is blowing very, very strong, causing the fire to spread extremely rapidly,” Clinton Manuel, the fire chief of Knysna, a town east of Cape Town, told African News Agency.

Eleanore Bouw-Spies, Knysna’s mayor, described the fires as the worst in decades.

Additional firefighters have been sent to the town on Thursday as fires continued to rage, officials said.

James Styan, a spokesman for the Western Cape local government, said between 8,000 and 10,000 people have been evacuated from their homes due to the fires.

He added that officials were “cautiously optimistic that no further evacuations” would be needed in the area.

The “mother of all storms”, as it has been called by local media, hit more two weeks after a drought disaster was declared in the area.

‘I’m scared to stay’

Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from Cape Town, said the problem “isn’t simply because of the weather, but also because of the poor state of housing of so many people living in the area”.

Thousands of people have been left homeless, according to Western Cape officials, with the millions living in shanty towns the hardest hit. Many had already been displaced in March when their homes burned down due to a period of prolonged drought.

“I’m scared to stay in my house because of wind,” Cape Town resident Unati Sigcau told Al Jazeera.

“Also the rain, that’s why I moved here with my child. We’re scared to stay in my shack,” she added from a shelter in Cape Town.

On social media, #CapeStorm and #KnysnaFire trended in the country with many sharing photos and video of the storm, as well as urging residents to aid those who have been displaced.

The storm also forced President Jacob Zuma, who was in the city, to cancel a scheduled speech at an international media conference in Durban, a city on the Indian Ocean coastline, his office said.

The South African military said it had placed a helicopter on standby to help with any emergency evacuations in Western Cape province, which includes Cape Town.

Schools were also closed on Wednesday due to the storm.

The South African Weather Service said high winds were expected in the region into Thursday.

While the storm provided some relief for a severe drought, officials said sustained rainfall over several years is needed in a city whose reservoirs are at low levels.

Cape Town recently announced restrictions on water use.

On Wednesday, authorities urged residents to capture rain from the storm in containers for flushing toilets and other needs.

Source:Al Jazeera

June 8, 2017
Al-Shabab fighters storm military base in Somalia

{Somalia’s militant Islamist group al-Shabab says it has carried out a major assault on a military base in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.}

Its fighters killed 61 government troops and seized 16 vehicles in the dawn raid, the group said.

A Puntland government minister has denied the high death toll, but did not give separate casualty figures.

The al-Qaeda-linked group has carried out several big attacks on military bases in Somalia.

In January, it said it had killed 50 Kenyan soldiers in an assault on their base in Kolbiyow town in the south of the country.

Kenyan troops are part of an 18,000-strong African Union (AU) force helping the UN-backed government tackle al-Shabab in Somalia.

In the the latest attack, the militants withdrew after more than three hours of fighting with government forces, residents told the BBC.

The attack took place on the base near the remote Galgala Mountains, about 70km (43 miles) from the port city of Bosaso.

Confirming the attack, Puntland Security Minister Abdiaziz Hirsi said that an investigation was under way and details would be given later.

The Galgala Mountains are a stronghold of al-Shabab, but a faction of militants broke away in 2015 to affiliate themselves with the Islamic State group.

Source:BBC

June 8, 2017
Nyundo health center accused of selling milk for children suffering from malnutrition

{Nyundo Health Center in Rubavu district is accused of misallocating and selling milk reserved for children less than five years suffering from malnutrition.}

Kayitesi Epiphanie, a mother form Nyundo sector where the health center is located has told IGIHE that the matter has persisted for long.

“Misallocation of milk for malnourished children has persisted for long at the health center. The matter is publicly known but nothing is done to address it. A person was two days ago caught red handed going to sell the milk from Nyundo health center,” she said.

One of employees working at Nyundo health center revealed on condition of anonymity that the case exists.

“It has been considered a routine to sell milk for malnourished children at Nyundo health center. We tried our best to fix the problem but the health center’s management are negligent leading to persistence of the problem,” he said.

The executive secretary of Nyundo sector, Tuyishime Jean Bosco said they are aware that milk meant to feed children with malnutrition is sold and one of the culprits was caught at the gate smuggling it out of the health center.

“We were informed that milk for children suffering from malnutrition is sold. We later apprehended a woman, one Nyirabizimana getting out the health center with milk she received from the distributor at the health center,” he said.

The mother caught red handed explained she had received the milk to take to a patient. She was caught with a full carton of milk.

Each child is supposed to drink two liters at the health center per week.

The coordinator of the milk distribution program at the health center declined to comment on the issue and the director of the health center was not available by the press time.

June 8, 2017
Over 30,000 TIGists undocumented

{The Ministry of Justice (MINIJUST) has revealed that over 30,000 convicts in Community Service for Prisoners (TIG) went missing and have no information of their whereabouts.}

This was revealed yesterday during a consultative meeting bringing together officials from the judiciary sectors and senators from political commission and good governance in discussions concerning Community Service for Prisoners. }

It was disclosed that 84,896 people were handed punishment of Community Service for Prisoners but only 48,758 completed the punishment, 403 are continuing service, 352 died while 4,043 convicts fled the Community Service for Prisoners.

Some of them escaped having started community service while over 30,000 never appeared in TIG.

The Rwanda Correctional Service Commissioner General sent files of 1000 among the missing people to MINIJUST, prosecution and police to be tracked and returned for finalization of their punishment.

Evode Uwizeyimana, the Minister of State in charge of Constitutional and Legal Affairs in MINIJUST explained that escapees include people convicted in Gacaca courts.

“We have reported over 30,000 people who went missing and others were in some cases handed punishments in absentia and have since never appeared. We have reported the matter to concerned bodies to hunt and return those people to finalize TIG,” he said.

“They were convicted but not held in custody. So, we had no rope tied to them barring their movements. They have escaped but concerned bodies are hunting them because their files are available,” he said.

The president of senate political commission and good governance, Jean Nepomuscѐne Sindikubwabo said that the matter of missing convicts is complicated and requires enough efforts to be brought back to finalize punishment.

June 8, 2017
USAID celebrates successes of a Rwf12.4 billion Institutional Capacity Building Project

{The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) yesterday celebrated the successful completion of a five-year program to improve organizational development for Rwandan civil society organizations and select Government of Rwanda institutions. The program, called the Human and Institutional Capacity Development Project in Rwanda (HICD/R), invested Rwf12.4 billion in institutional capacity building and provided training for over 1,747 Rwandan citizens. The event was held at the Kigali Marriott Hotel.}

“This USAID-funded program was an incredible success. Our underlying goal was to help Rwandan institutions fulfill their mandates and provide the highest level of service, and we can proudly announce that we achieved this goal,” said USAID Mission Director Jason Fraser.

Over the life of the five-year project, HICD/R conducted over 170 training sessions, and supported the foundation of a community of practice devoted to professionals interested in the field of performance improvement. HICD/R aided 11 civil society organizations working in the fields of agriculture, health, education, and reconciliation, and four Government of Rwanda institutions: the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), the Capacity Development and Employment Services Board (CESB), the Rwanda Management Institute (RMI), and the National Women’s Council (NWC).

For these organizations HICD/R provided training on the best ways to ensure quality services, obtain funding, develop long-term strategies, and collect and analyze accurate data. As a result, the organizations now have improved financial management, leadership, strategic and monitoring and evaluations plans, and human resource and governance standards to better deliver important services to Rwandans.

The closing celebration included reflections on what the project meant to participants, a cultural performance, and a multi-media highlight of the program. USAID presented certificates of completion to the institutions who partnered with the project, to celebrate the transformation of their workplaces through implementing various performance improvement initiatives.

The Government of Rwanda has embraced performance improvement by charging Permanent Secretaries, Director Generals and other senior level government officials with championing performance improvement methods as part of Rwanda’s development agenda. Today, Rwanda is quickly becoming a hub for performance improvement technologies in Africa. As part of HICD/R’s contribution, Rwanda now boasts the continent’s highest concentration of Certified Performance Technologists—a professional credential of the International Society for Performance Improvement—a sign of the growing interest for performance improvement in the country.

June 8, 2017