Former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday promised an “era of action†to battle racial inequality, including racism in the criminal justice system, and called for Congress and local governments to immediately move to reform police departments and tactics.
Biden also harshly criticized President Donald Trump for his inflammatory and frequently racist rhetoric following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. Floyd’s death has led to days of protests and riots across the country, during which police departments have often deployed tear gas and violence.Â
“Look, the presidency is a big job. Nobody will get everything right. And I won’t either,†Biden said from Philadelphia’s City Hall. It was first time leaving his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, in months because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“But I promise you this: I won’t traffic in fear and division,†he added. “I won’t fan the flames of hate. I will seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued this country — not use them for political gain.â€
Biden acknowledged creating an equal justice system would take more than a single term in office, but he said Congress should “immediately†pass “real police reform,†including legislation to ban police chokeholds, legislation to improve oversight and accountability, a ban on transferring military weaponry to police departments and the creation of a uniform standard for when police officers can deploy force.
So far, Congress has taken little action in response to Floyd’s death and the resulting protests.
Biden also said “every police department in the country†should undertake a review of their hiring and training processes.
“More police officers meet the highest standards of their profession,†he said. “All the more reason why bad cops should be dealt with severely and swiftly.â€
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South Africa has proved to be a world-leader when it comes to lockdown policy. Initially lauded for a swift entry in Level 5 restrictions, a prolonged period at Alert Level 4 soon followed, meaning that Mzansi had experienced one of the longest ‘hard lockdowns’ on the planet. But could Ramaphosa soon swing to Level 1?
Cyril Ramaphosa reveals Level 1 discussions
It would mark an exceptional turnaround for South Africa, despite many remaining fearful of COVID-19’s continued spread. The president is walking a nigh-on impossible tightrope, where the threat of both disease and economic hardships threaten the lives of millions. But on Sunday, Cyril hinted that a swift shift through the gears had been discussed by the scientists working alongside his administration:
“[The medical scientists who have been advising the National Coronavirus Command Council] also said once we went through Level 5 and Level 4, the lockdown has served its purpose. In fact, what they were also advising was that you could quite easily go to Level 1. We moved to Level 3 as a ‘middle road’ solution.â€
Cyril Ramaphosa
John Steenhuisen puts pressure on the president
Now, these comments have set alarm bells ringing across South Africa. John Steenhuisen has reacted with particular ferocity, questioning why Ramaphosa felt the need to compromise, despite ‘following the science’. The DA leader has used this admission to push for the immediate implementation of a lighter lockdown:
“It is unconscionable that the ANC government opted to move South Africa to Level 3, even as some scientists advised a move to Level 1 and called lockdown a “blunt instrumentâ€, in the words of President Ramaphosa himself. The ANC is using people’s lives and livelihoods as pawns in their internal chess games.â€
“The appropriate response is to protect the high-risk group and let the vast majority of South Africans get back to work with an appropriate set of safety protocols in place, to produce the tax revenue necessary to fund health, education and social grants. Infections here have risen even with a hard lockdown.â€
John Steenhuisen
Either deep naivety or outright dishonesty is behind Ramaphosa’s claim that level 3 is a middle road between the advice of South African scientists and the World Health Organisation (WHO). – @jsteenhuisen#day68oflockdown
As well as scientists and fellow politicians, the data analysts also believe that the next logical step South Africa should take is a move to Level 1. Nick Hudson, who represents Pandemic ~ Data and Analytics (PANDA), says that there is less risk in easing lockdown laws than previously believed.
“It has become abundantly clear in our country as in others that lifting lockdowns do not result in the feared resurgence of cases and deaths that the WHO and various modelling teams have predicted. In fact, 230 000 citizens have already been charged for contravening lockdown regulations, instilling a culture of lawlessness.â€
“We urge the president not to risk further harm to the economy by opting for a gradual reduction to Level 2, but instead to reduce the lockdown to Level 1 as the next step. We trust the request will receive due consideration and would appreciate a possible date at which we can present our critical findings.â€
Nick Hudson of PANDA
What Ramaphosa will have to consider
The decision ultimately rests with Cyril Ramaphosa and the NCCC, though. And, as we’ve learned during our last two transitions through lockdown, a wild flurry of debate amongst members of Cabinet often precedes the move into another lockdown level. Convincing ministers who are a little more conservative about relaxing certain measures promises to be a very difficult task.
It took just over five weeks to move from Level 5 to Level 4, with another five weeks before entering Level 3. Should the coronavirus infection rates remain stable, the case for moving to Level 1 at the earliest possible opportunity will be strengthened. But with a peak of the disease set for either late winter or September, the next move will have to be the most carefully-plotted one yet.
(LONDON) — People in Britain from ethnic minorities have died in larger relative numbers with COVID-19 than their white compatriots, according to a study by British health authorities published Tuesday. But it didn’t answer the biggest question: Why?
The Public Health England study found that people of Bangladeshi ethnicity had about twice the risk of death of white Britons.
It also found that “accounting for the effect of sex, age, deprivation and region … People of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Other Asian, Caribbean and Other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50% higher risk of death when compared to White British.â€
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said it was inarguable that “being black or from a minority ethnic background is a major risk factor.â€
“People are understandably angry about injustices … this pandemic has exposed huge disparities in the health of our nation,†he told lawmakers in the House of Commons.
The study didn’t account for factors such as obesity and other conditions that increase the risk of death with COVID-19, or for the jobs done by those who died.
Those are major considerations. The report said “an analysis of over 10,000 patients with COVID-19 admitted to intensive care in U.K. hospitals suggests that, once age, sex, obesity and comorbidities are taken into account, there is no difference in the likelihood of being admitted to intensive care or of dying between ethnic groups.â€
The study also looked at risk based on other factors including sex and occupation, and found that working-age men were twice as likely to die as working-age women.
“There is much more work to do to understand the key drivers of these disparities, the relationships between the different risk factors and what we can do to close the gap,†Hancock said.
“Black lives matter, as do those of the poorest areas of our country which have worse health outcomes, and we need to make sure all of these considerations are taken into account, and action is taken to level-up the health outcomes of people across this country,†he added.
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Tube-dwelling creatures that spent
their lives cemented to the shells of clamlike brachiopods over 500 million
years ago may be the earliest known parasites.
“Parasitism is an integral part of
life on Earth, but it’s been hard to determine when it emerged,†says Tommy
Leung, a parasitologist at the University of New England in Armidale,
Australia. But, he says, it likely arose early, in part because today
“practically every living thing has some kind of parasitic thing living on or
in them, even down to parasites themselves.â€
Sometimes, scientists get lucky and
find parasites preserved
with their hosts in amber (SN: 12/10/19). But usually parasites don’t fossilize well because their
bodies are often small and soft, Leung says. And even if two organisms happen
to be entombed in the same fossil, it can be difficult to discern whether their
relationship was parasitic, mutualistic or somewhere in between. Fossils of tongue worms from 425 million years ago represent a clear early example
of parasitism, but previously found older fossils from the Cambrian only hint
at possibly parasitic relationships.
Now, a 512-million-year-old
bed of tube-encrusted brachiopods in Yunnan, China offers compelling
evidence of a parasite-host relationship, Zhifei Zhang, a paleontologist at
Northwest University in Xi’an, China and his colleagues report June 2 in Nature
Communications.Â
In a tan-colored outcropping in southern
China, researchers discovered thousands of brachiopods clustered together.
Hundreds of them had numerous tubelike, tapered structures affixed to the
exterior of the shells. Those structures were arrayed like the spines of a fan
with the mouthlike parts positioned along the open edge of a shell. The tubes
appeared only on brachiopods, never alone or associated with other fossils,
suggesting that the organism couldn’t survive on its own.
This 512-million-year-old fossilized brachiopod is encrusted with tubes that may be the remnants of ancient parasites. Scientists think that the tubelike organisms stole food from the mouths of filter feeding brachiopods.Zhifei Zhang/Northwest Univ.
This 512-million-year-old fossilized brachiopod is encrusted with tubes that may be the remnants of ancient parasites. Scientists think that the tubelike organisms stole food from the mouths of filter feeding brachiopods.Zhifei Zhang/Northwest Univ.
The brachiopods were likely filter
feeders, catching whatever food happened to drift into their open shells. Zhang
and his colleagues hypothesized that these tubes might have snatched food from
the edge of the shell before the brachiopod could eat it, making them
kleptoparasites.
If that were true, tube-covered
brachiopods should be lighter than their tube-free brethren, since they’re
getting less food. The researchers estimated the mass of brachiopods with and
without tubes, finding that the tube-free brachiopods were almost always
heavier than their tube-laden brethren, though the number of tubes didn’t have
any effect.Â
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The study “demonstrates these
organisms had an intimate association,†says Leung, who wasn’t involved in the study. But he
isn’t so sure that the relationship was antagonistic. If the relationship were
truly parasitic, brachiopods with more tubes should be worse off, he says, but
that wasn’t the case. While brachiopods with tubes were smaller, Leung says
this might not reflect a cost of parasitism. Instead, the tube creatures might just prefer to
affix to smaller shells.
Whether a relationship is parasitic or not can depend on the ecological context. Tube-laden clams might become stressed by tubes only if food becomes scarce. Or, perhaps tubes catch food too small for the brachiopods anyway. “With these kinds of relationships, the answer isn’t always that this is good or bad,†Leung says. “Interactions are usually more complicated than that.â€
This article was originally published by Sarah Wray on Cities Today, the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders. For the latest updates follow Cities Today on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, or sign up for Cities Today News.
By 2026, more than a million drones could be carrying out retail deliveries, up from 20,000 today, according to new analysis from Gartner.
Drones have played a part in the response to the coronavirus pandemic and this could speed their longer-term adoption in a wider range of areas. City leaders have a key role to play in adoption and deployment, Pedro Pacheco, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner, told Cities Today.
During the COVID-19 crisis, drones have been used to deliver medication and test samples in remote locations in Ghana, Rwanda, Chile and Scotland. From today, drones will deliver personal protective equipment and supplies to frontline teams in Charlotte, North Carolina, after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted a waiver to not-for-profit Novant Health. The initiative is part of the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s (NCDOT’s) Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Pilot Program (IPP). Unmanned aerial vehicles have also been used in several cities around the world to monitor compliance with virus-related safety measures as well as to spray disinfectant in India and China.
These uses could demonstrate how drones can enable faster transportation of goods and how, along with other robot deliveries, they could disrupt transport and mobility beyond COVID-19, Pacheco said.
Last year, DHL launched drone operations to tackle last-mile delivery challenges in urban areas of China. DHL claims the service reduces delivery time from 40 to eight minutes for an eight-kilometer distance and can save costs of up to 80 percent per delivery, with reduced energy consumption and a lower carbon footprint compared with road transportation.
“Autonomous drones offer lower cost per mile and higher speed than vans in last-mile deliveries,†said Pacheco. “When they deliver parcels, their operational costs are at least 70 percent lower than a van delivery service.†The estimates are based on several studies, assume a level of scale and include a safety co-efficient to make the figures more conservative, he said.
City implications
With a number of emerging applications for drones in cities, there are several issues for city planners and officials to consider. Pacheco notes that regulation remains one of the main roadblocks to the adoption of drone technology.
“In the US and China there have been fast-track approvals to use drones for COVID-19-related purposes,†he commented. “Even if these work on a regime of exception, they do open the door for a lot more in the future. This is an opportunity to show regulators, organizations and even citizens that drones, including delivery drones, are a very useful solution for several critical missions, which can only accelerate future adoption.â€
Cities also need to address the privacy issues related to drones. A Paris court recently suspended the use of drone surveillance to monitor compliance with COVID-19 measures, citing privacy concerns. The Westport Police Department in Connecticut also dropped plans to pilot drones to enforce social distancing and detect COVID-19 symptoms following concerns from citizens and civil liberties groups.
Privacy and no-fly zones “should be captured by cities or governments centrally and enforced onto drone operators,†Pacheco commented.
Cities also have a role to play in security and making sure drones and their cargo are not victims of vandalism or theft, and officials will need to consider making space available for drone package pick-up and drop-off points, Pacheco added.
Los Angeles’ police chief is facing calls to resign after he cast blame on looters for the death of George Floyd, a sentiment he retracted and apologized for shortly after.
“His death is on their hands, as much as it is on those officers’,â€Â Chief Michel Moore said Monday at a news conference while speaking out against violence and destruction during citywide protests.
Moore returned to the lectern minutes later to walk back what he had said.Â
“I misspoke when I said his blood was on their hands, but certainly their actions do not serve the enormity of his loss and cannot be in his memory,†he said.Â
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Police officers arrest a protester in Lost Angeles on Sunday during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd, who died last week in Minneapolis after a white police officer knelt on his neck.Â
“What his name should stand for is the catalyst for change,†Moore added. “I regret the remarks of that characterization but I don’t regret, nor will I apologize to those out who are out there today committing violence, destroying lives and livelihoods and creating this destruction.â€
He repeated this retraction on Twitter hours later, calling his comments “terribly offensive.â€
“Looting is wrong, but it is not the equivalent of murder and I did not mean to equate the two. I deeply regret and humbly apologize for my characterization,†he said.Â
While I did immediately correct myself, I recognize that my initial words were terribly offensive. Looting is wrong, but it is not the equivalent of murder and I did not mean to equate the two. I deeply regret and humbly apologize for my characterization.
— Chief Michel Moore (@LAPDChiefMoore) June 2, 2020
His apology appeared to do little for some of his critics, however, who ordered him on social media to resign.
Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died on May 25 after a white police officer in Minneapolis pressed his knee onto his neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyd laid restrained and unarmed on the ground, and three other officers who were present did not intervene. He had been arrested over allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at a store.Â
Bystanders took video that shows Floyd crying and saying he can’t breathe. He then appears to lose consciousness and his body is lifted onto a gurney.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore addresses protesters over the weekend.Â
Protests have erupted across the country, with demonstrators seeking racial reform and justice for Floyd and the other Black people who have been killed by police.
“We call for an END to systemic racism that allows this culture of corruption to go unchecked and our lives to be taken,†the Black Lives Matter movement tweeted over the weekend as protesters rallied across the country.
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Genetic clues extracted from slivers of the famous Dead Sea
Scrolls are helping to piece together related scroll remnants and reveal the
diverse origins of these ancient texts, including a book of the Hebrew Bible.
The scrolls are made of sheepskin and cow skin, which retain
DNA from those animals. Analyzing that DNA represents a new way to figure out
which of the more than 25,000 Dead Sea Scroll fragments come from the same animals,
and thus likely the same documents, say molecular biologist Oded Rechavi of Tel
Aviv University and his colleagues.
Researchers estimate that the Dead Sea Scrolls were written between the third century B.C. and the first century A.D., during what’s known as the late Second Temple period. That was a critical time in the development of Judaism and the emergence of Christianity. “Our results demonstrate the heterogeneity inherent in Second Temple Judaism, which formed the matrix for [early] Christianity,†says Tel Aviv University Biblical scholar and study coauthor Noam Mizrahi.
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The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of about 1,000 ancient
manuscripts, including the earliest known versions of books of the Hebrew Bible
and non-biblical religious, legal and philosophical documents. Most scrolls and
scroll fragments were found between 1947 and the 1960s. The largest set of
finds comes from 11 caves near Qumran, a site located in the Judean desert on
the Dead Sea’s northwest shore.
Many researchers have surmised that scrolls from the Qumran
caves reflect the beliefs of a
small Jewish sect that broke from mainstream Judaism and settled in Qumran
(SN: 11/17/17). But DNA evidence in the new study suggests that ideas in
those documents also extended beyond the Qumran community.
DNA gleaned from Dead Sea Scroll pieces, many of which were found in caves such as this one near a site called Qumran, has yielded clues to the geographic spread of ideas and beliefs in those ancient manuscripts.Shai Halevi, Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority
Rechavi’s group obtained DNA from minuscule bits that either
fell off or were removed from 26 Dead Sea Scroll fragments. Those samples
contained no writing.
After excluding DNA left by people who had handled the
scrolls, the scientists identified DNA of animals used to make the ancient parchments.
All fragments were made of sheepskin except for two made from cow skin.
Comparisons of mitochondrial DNA, typically inherited from
the mother, and nuclear DNA, inherited from both parents, enabled the
researchers to identify close or distant relationships among sheep used to make
the scroll fragments. The researchers assumed that fragments from closely
related sheep were more likely to come from the same document than those from
distantly related sheep or from cows.
Studies of the texts had previously suggested that many
Qumran scrolls display spellings and other features of a writing tradition
particular to a small group of scribes, and the genetic evidence supports that
proposal. Seven of eight fragments containing writing previously classed as
part of that “Qumran scribal practice†came from closely related sheep,
suggesting that those fragments represent manuscripts that had originated in
the same place.
“For the first time, this theory [of a Qumran scribal
practice] has been supported by independent ancient DNA research,†says
Biblical scholar and linguist Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Tov is past editor in chief of what’s now the Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project.
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Four Qumran fragments from the Hebrew Bible’s book of
Jeremiah likely came from two different versions of that book, the
investigators find. Two sheepskin fragments belonged to one book and two cow
skin fragments belonged to another. Cows couldn’t have been raised in the
parched Judean desert, so cow skin scrolls must have been produced elsewhere,
Mizrahi says.
Scholars had already noted that the style of writing on the
cow fragments differed from that on other pieces from the book of Jeremiah.
DNA findings also indicate that a non-biblical text about
religious practices known as the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice was popular beyond
Qumran. Fragments from three copies of this text found in two Qumran caves were
made from skins of closely related sheep. But a fragment from another copy
found at Masada, about 55 kilometers south of Qumran, came from a genetically
separate line of sheep, suggesting that people there assembled their own copy
of the text.
Distinctive sheep DNA from a Qumran fragment of the biblical
book of Isaiah suggests it came from outside Qumran at a site that’s yet to be
identified.
When it comes to standing up for animal rights and environmental issues, Anushka Sharma has always led from the front and made a difference. In the run-up to World Environment Day, that falls on June 5, Anushka is urging the people of India to treat all plant and animal species with equality.
The superstar has come forward to support actress Bhumi Pednekar’s initiative Climate Warrior that is trying to raise awareness on several important issues plaguing our climate through a campaign called ‘One Wish For The Earth’. Bhumi’s campaign will see Bollywood’s biggest thought leaders come forward to discuss climate justice. The platform will see the stars urge citizens to take climate change seriously and, along with them, also do their bit to protect the planet.
Anushka says, “My wish for Earth is, I wish that we would treat the plant and animal species to be just as significant a part of nature as the human species. We should treat all animal and plant species with kindness and equality. I wish we would not treat them as a means to an end because at the end of the day we are all one. I am a climate warrior. Are you?â€
• Radio 3/Wigmore Hall’s lunchtime concert series of live recitals began on 1 June and runs throughout the month. Watch or listen at 1pm BST each day or catch up on demand. Full listings here.
Stephen Hough performs in the opening concert in the Radio3/Wigmore Hall lunchtime concert series. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
•A secondBang on a Can Marathon will be live-streamed on Sunday 14 June from 3-9pm EST (8pm-2am BST). There will be 25 live performances from musicians in the US, Canada, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Scotland, Italy, Ireland and Japan, plus ten world premieres of newly commissioned works. The concert will begin with a performance by Rhiannon Giddens, and concludes with a performance by Terry Riley, live from Japan.
• Outstanding young artists are live-streaming concerts from their homes via recitalstream.org, that features two or three new events each week. Check the schedule for the next concert.
Operas and concerts on demand
Moses und Aron, staged by Komische Oper Berlin in 2015, streaming on OperaVision from 12 June.
• [NEW] Glyndebourne Open House virtual season launched on Sunday 24 May – the day the festival should have opened, and features a different opera streamed from the festival’s archive each week. Currently streaming is Jonathan Kent’s production of Don Giovanni, followed on 7 June by Nicholas Hytner’s staging of Così fan tutte.  Check the website for details and for upcoming streams.
•A new online film, The Goldberg Variations: Meditations On Solitude features poetry read by Sir Simon Russell Beale, Bach’s Goldberg Variations performed in an arrangement for strings by the Ysaÿe Trio, and photographic artworks by Kristina Feldhammer. It’s ticketed, but on a “pay what you want†basis; 20% of proceeds will be donated to the Royal Society of Musicians.
•The Royal Opera House is streaming a new ballet or opera production on its Facebook and YouTube channels (then available on demand for several weeks). A stunning 2009 revival of Richard Eye’s Traviata with Renee Fleming, Joseph Calleja and Thomas Hampson is currently on offer. Joyce DiDonato in Massenet’s Cendrillon is currently streaming, Puccini’s Il trittico comes online on 5 June, and David McVicar’s much-loved staging of The Magic Flute on 19 June. More ROH content is available on Marquee TV (see below).
Symphonie Fantastique performed by the Aurora Orchestra at the proms 2019 Photograph: Mark Allan
• Watch one of the highlights of last year’s Proms season – the Aurora orchestra’s imaginative and thrilling staging of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. The performance opened the orchestra’s new Aurora Play series that will see new content each week alongside introductions by conductor Nicholas Collon and other special guests.
•Scottish Opera’s world premiere production of Anthropocene by Stuart MacRae and Louise Welsh is available until mid-July via OperaVision. Read our four-star review here.
Wagner’s Parsifal, in a staging for Opera Ballet Vlaanderen Photograph: Aanemie Augustijns
The iconic CD cover images for the Bach Cantatas series by the Monteverdi choir and English Baroque Soloists
•The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their acclaimed Bach Cantata Pilgrimage with a new cantata every Sunday on their YouTube channel, selected to match the liturgical calendar. The series kicked off with BWV 67 Halt im Gedächtnis Jesum Christ, composed for the first Sunday after Easter, and first performed on 16 April 1724. It’s audio only, but EBS leader Kati Debretzeni has recorded a lovely introduction, and there’s listening notes from John Eliot Gardiner. There’s plenty of other music to explore on the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra’s YouTube channel, including Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, recorded in 2017 in Venice’s historic Teatro La Fenice, and his Vespro della Beata Vergine recorded in the Palace of Versailles.
• There’s a new concert each night – the “concert du jour†(available for 24 hours only) – plus a great selection of on-demand content from thePhilharmonie de Paris, including Samstag, from Stockhausen’s Licht opera cycle, and Hans Krása’s children’s opera, Brundibar – plus jazz, chamber music and masterclasses. A well-designed search facility helps you navigate the wide variety of music.
Stockhausen’s Samstag aus Licht staged by le Balcon, in June 2019 at the Philharmonie de Paris
• Each evening at 7.30pm EST, New York’s Metropolitan Operais also streaming a past production from its award-winning Live in HD series. Each opera is available to stream, free, for 23 hours. More details on Twitter @MetOpera.
•Violinist Isabelle Faust live-streamed a solo Bach recital on 5 April from Leipzig’s Thomaskirche, the church where JS Bach was Kapellmeister from 1723 until his death in 1750. The spine-tingling 60-minute concert is on Arte.tv, free to view until 4 July.
• Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestrahas a huge array of past concerts to watch, organised by composer (including a Beethoven and a Mahler symphony cycle), by conductor (well represented are former chief conductors Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansonsand, Daniele Gatti, Andris Nelsons and Ivan Fischer ( women on the Concertgebouw podium are conspicuous by their absence), and soloists. There are also conducting masterclasses, portraits of the orchestra’s members, and documentaries – enough to keep you engaged for weeks to come.
• The Bavarian State Opera (Bayerische Staatsoper) is livestreaming a chamber music concert each Monday evening, which is then available on demand for a fortnight. The first, featuring Christian Gerhaher, the Schumann Quartet, and pianist Igor Levit was watched by almost 50,000 live. Check the schedule here.
• The EU-wide Early Music Day was, of course, online-only this year but featured livestreamed concerts that can all be watched on demand alongside plenty of previous concerts and shorter performances. Don’t miss Steven Devine’s performance of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues on the harpsichord at the York Early Music Centre, or if you need a lift, Bach’s Toccata and Fugue (other Baroque composers are available) arranged for four very nimble-fingered recorder players.
• The Gstaad Menuhin Festival and Academy has an online space where you can watch performances, backstage interviews and masterclasses from previous festivals. Registration is required, but this will also enable the non-German speakers among us to access the English-language version of the written content.
•Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal’s Intermission series features a regularly updated selection of past concerts each available for two or three days.
•Deutsche Oper Berlin has a regularly changing programme of past productions available on demand. Check for details.
• Arts and culture streaming platform Marquee TV is offering a 14-day trial period, giving free access to a huge range of theatre and ballet productions and a large and varied collection of operas that includes most of Glyndebourne festival’s recent productions (from Brett Dean’s Hamlet to Jonathan Kent’s glorious staging of Purcell’s Fairy Queen, bonking bunnies and all). Other must-sees include Arvo Pärt’s Adam’s Passion, and Opera North’s award-winning production of Jonathan Dove’s children’s opera, Pinocchio, and one of the greatest opera events of the last decade: Aldeburgh festival’s outdoor production of Peter Grimes, staged on the beach where Britten’s opera is set. Registration (and thus credit card details) are required to activate the free trial period, but you can cancel anytime.
Opera North’s semi-staged Ring Cycle with Andrew Foster-Williams (Gunther); Mats Almgren (Hagen) and Mati Turi (Siegfried) Photograph: Clive Barda/CLIVE BARDA/ ArenaPAL
•Opera North’s acclaimed semi-staged Ring cycle from 2016 is available on its website. The 2017 production of Trouble in Tahiti is available via Now TV and Sky on-demand services, and, on operavision (more of which below) you can watch its production of Britten’s Turn of the Screw, recorded live on 21 February 2020.
• The Teatro Massimo in Palermo has several concerts and recent opera productions recorded live available to watch on demand. At the time of writing the operas include Madame Butterfly, La Traviata, a Barber of Seville (check out the witty animated opening) and a Cav and a Pag. And there’s more to come, we are promised.
•The Teatro Regio’sYouTube channel, Opera on the Sofa, is making available past productions from the historic Turin theatre. The opening offering is Nabucco, staged last February, and there’s also Madama Butterfly, La Sonnambula and a Carmen.
•Vienna State Opera is making a different opera available to watch each day via its streaming platform. There’s also a large archive of previous ballet and opera productions that can be watched with a subscription.
• Many UK organisations live stream concerts and make them available via YouTube or other channels. Check out Wigmore Hall, which has a huge selection of its past chamber music concerts free to watch, or try the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s YouTube channel or Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
• Part of its new portal, Lincoln Center at Home, the New York arts venue is posting on Facebook past concerts from its Live from the Lincoln series. Highlights include Jaap van Zweden conducting the New York Philharmonic in Mahler 5 or Joshua Bell’s Seasons of Cuba. Check for regular additions.
• The Academy of Ancient Music’s streaming Sunday sees a new concert uploaded each week that you can watch on its YouTube channel. Scotland’s Dunedin Consort has a recent all-Bach programme on Facebook, recorded at Washington DC’s Library of Congress.
• The London Mozart Players’ “At Home†series features a daily changing selection of imaginatively-curated streams, workshops, family-friendly broadcasts and even live recitals. Check its YouTube channel or its website.
•The London Symphony Orchestra is streaming full-length concerts on Sunday and Thursday evenings on its YouTube channel. Each performance will be available up to midnight (UK time) on the day of broadcast, and thereafter on streaming site Stingray Classica (currently offering a free 30-day trial).
• [NEW] Chineke! Orchestra’s concert (Coleridge-Taylor, Bruch and Beethoven) from Sunday 23 February 2020 has just been made available on YouTube. It was filmed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, conducted by Fawzi Haimor, and featured Tai Murray as soloist.
Easter music
•English Touring Operahas uploaded its staging of Bach’s St John Passion which premiered in London on 5 March 2020 and had been due to tour across the UK featuring local choirs. The broadcast weaves together footage of the live performance at the Hackney Empire, with 90 individual video contributions made by choir members in isolation from Cumbria to Cornwall who were due to participate in performances across the country.
• An abridged version of Bach’s oratorio St Matthew Passion, with Streetwise Opera (who work with people affected by homelessness)and The Sixteen, is available to watch on YouTube. It was filmed live at Campfield Market, Manchester, in March 2016.
• The Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s Sunday Sounds series features a different RSNO musician performing from their home live at 3pm. Watch on its website, on Facebook or YouTube. There’s also new concerts from previous years made available to watch each Friday online or on the Glasgow orchestra’s YouTube channel.
• Outstanding young artists are livestreaming concerts from their homes on impressive new platform, Recital Stream.Concerts are then available on demand for a fortnight. It’s free, but donations – that go direct to the performers – are welcome.
The Kanneh-Masons performing at the 2019 Royal Variety Show Photograph: Matt Frost/ITV/REX/Shutterstock
• [NEW] What’s lockdown life like in Nottingham with Britain’s most musical family (or at least surely a prime contender for the title)? Have a peek inside the Kanneh-Mason household with regular Facebook livestreams featuring short performances from cellist Sheku and his siblings. Don’t miss their scratch chamber orchestra arrangement of the first movement of Beethoven’s third concerto – a work that Isata had been due to perform at the Royal Albert Hall on 18 April.
• Violinist Elena Urioste and her pianist husband Tom Poster are posting short clips each day of their performances of anything from Mozart to Messiaen, Nat King Cole to nursery rhymes. Don’t miss the Come on Eileen/Toxic/Baby Shark mashup, or their themed costumes to match the music. Send in your requests, and drop in to #UriPosteJukeBox to brighten your day. Wonderful stuff.
‘Welcome to my living room’ – violinist Daniel Hope and pianist Christoph Israel livestreaming the first Hope from Home concert Photograph: PR
• Violinist Daniel Hope’s hugely successful Hope at Home series has come to an end but you can catch all 30+ episodes on demand via the ARTE Concert website.
• Every evening at 6.30pm BST there’s a live organ recital from Worcester Cathedral on Facebook Live.
• PianistIgor Levit has now finished his two month run of nightly house concerts on Twitter (52 concerts), but you can still catch up with his wonderful series of mini recitals.
• Cellist Yo-Yo Ma is playing short pieces that give him comfort and is posting them regularly on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Search hashtag #SongsofComfort.
• Fellow cellist Gautier Capuçon, on lockdown in Paris, is posting daily doses of Bach on Twitter.
• And Alisa Weilerstein has embarked on a #36daysofBach project – each day a different movement of Bach’s six Cello Suites will be streamed on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Dogs will act instinctively to protect their owners (Credits: Getty Images)
Dogs are hardwired to help their human owners, new research claims.
In a new study, researchers found dogs will instinctively try to help people in distress, even without emergency training.
Until now, little research has been done on why dogs will rush to aid someone in trouble – in spite of many people expecting this behaviour from our canine companions.
Psychologists Joshua Van Bourg and Clive Wynne, of Arizona State University’s canine science laboratory assessed how likely 60 pet dogs were to rescue their owners. None of the dogs had training in such an endeavour.
In the main test, each owner was confined to a large box equipped with a light-weight door, which the dog could move aside. The owners feigned distress by calling out ‘help,’ or ‘help me.’
The owners were coached so their cries for help sounded authentic.
In addition, owners were not allowed to call their dog’s name, which would encourage the dog to act out of obedience, and not out of concern for their owner’s welfare.
Prof Van Bourg said: ‘About one-third of the dogs rescued their distressed owner, which doesn’t sound too impressive on its own, but really is impressive when you take a closer look.
‘That’s because two things are at stake here. One is the dogs’ desire to help their owners, and the other is how well the dogs understood the nature of the help that was needed.
The scientists explored this factor in control tests, something which had not been done in previous studies.
In one control test, when the dog watched a researcher drop food into the box, only 19 of the 60 dogs opened the box to get the food. More dogs rescued their owners than retrieved food.
More dogs rescued their owners than retrieved food (Credits: Getty Images/EyeEm)
Prof Van Bourg said: ‘The key here is that without controlling for each dog’s understanding of how to open the box, the proportion of dogs who rescued their owners greatly underestimates the proportion of dogs who wanted to rescue their owners.
‘The fact that two-thirds of the dogs didn’t even open the box for food is a pretty strong indication that rescuing requires more than just motivation, there’s something else involved, and that’s the ability component.
‘If you look at only those 19 dogs that showed us they were able to open the door in the food test, 84% of them rescued their owners.
‘So, most dogs want to rescue you, but they need to know how.’
In another control test, the researchers looked at what happened when the owner sat inside the box and calmly read aloud from a magazine. They found that four fewer dogs, 16 out of 60, opened the box in the reading test than in the distress test.
The fact that dogs did open the box more often in the distress test than in the reading control test indicated that rescuing could not be explained solely by the dogs wanting to be near their owners.
During the three scenarios, the researchers spotted behaviour which indicated stress, such as whining, walking, barking and yawning.
Prof Van Bourg said: ‘During the distress test, the dogs were much more stressed. When their owner was distressed, they barked more, and they whined more. In fact, there were eight dogs who whined, and they did so during the distress test. Only one other dog whined, and that was for food.’
In the second and third attempts to open the box during the distress test didn’t make the dogs less stressed than they were during the first attempt. That was in contrast to the reading test, where dogs that have already been exposed to the scenario, were less stressed across repeated tests.
Lassie was right after all (Picture: Getty)
Prof Wynne added: ‘What’s fascinating about this study is that it shows that dogs really care about their people.
‘Even without training, many dogs will try and rescue people who appear to be in distress – and when they fail, we can still see how upset they are.
‘The results from the control tests indicate that dogs who fail to rescue their people are unable to understand what to do – it’s not that they don’t care about their people.’
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