On Thursday, British authorities charged a pair of climate change activists for vandalizing Stonehenge, a prehistoric megalithic structure on a chalk plateau known as the Salisbury Plain.
Authorities are charging Just Stop Oil’s Rajan Naidu, 73, of Gosford Street, Birmingham, and Niamh Lynch, 20, of Norfolk Road, Bedford, with destroying or damaging an ancient protected monument, and intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance following the incident. Naidu and Lynch are accused of spraying orange powder paint on the iconic monuments on June 19th. The pair are due to appear in the Salisbury Magistrates’ Court on December 13th for their initial hearing.
“Thankfully, there appears to be no visible damage but that’s in no way saying there hasn’t been harm, from the very act of having to clean the stones to the distress caused to those for whom Stonehenge holds a spiritual significance,” said English Heritage chief executive Nick Merriman told CNN.
Naidu and Lynch are not the first activists from Just Stop Oil to go through the British penal system. Activist Roger Hallam is serving a 5-year-sentence for blocking traffic on London’s M25 in 2022. Speaking with Salon last month, Hallam argued that because we burn so many fossil fuels that overheat the planet, we’re in a “complete crisis of the whole basis of how we make decisions, and the short-termism and the irrationality and immorality of those decisions.”
Another Just Stop Oil spokesman, climate scientist Alex De Koning, told Salon in February that “if any of us are to survive the climate crisis, things need to change. However, fossil fuel companies and those in power who thrived out of the broken system that has got us into this mess refuse to [change.] They are fighting to keep themselves on top and using their considerable wealth and influence to repress any who take them on.”
Stonehenge is believed to have been constructed during the prehistoric era. It is composed of sarsens and bluestones, all of them aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice.
Gulls are everywhere, but most people see them as pests, taking for granted their remarkable variety and beauty. Many people think of gulls (“seagull” is not a technical term) as nothing more than obnoxiously screeching birds, swooping for food while leaving white fecal messes behind. Instead of being adored, gulls tend to be more of a punchline. If one agrees with the Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland that “eagles are seagulls with a good hairdo,” then gulls are eagles in desperate need of a quality PR machine.
“The Gull Guide: North America” is a book for people who agree that gulls deserve better than their unflattering reputation. Written and partially photographed by Amar Ayyash — host of the website anythinglarus.com and organizer of America’s largest gull-watching event, the annual Lake Michigan Gull Frolic — “The Gull Guide” is full of vivid and detailed photographs of the gulls themselves.
Just as importantly, it is organized in an easily digestible format for newcomers: First we are taught how to identify different types of gulls, and then the different gull species types are divided into small tern-life and hooded gulls, Larus gulls, Herring gulls and various hybrids.
Salon spoke with Ayyash about his book, which was released on Oct. 29th.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
First, what made you take an interest in gulls?
Just their accessibility, their boldness, their identification challenges. I find it intriguing and I thought, you know, this could be something I could busy myself with.
Now in this book, I will be honest, I find that many of these gull species look interchangeable. I don’t want to sound like I’m prejudging these birds, but they’re not like peacocks where it is easy to tell them apart on sight. How do you do it?
Just exposing myself to the variation, knowing the different age groups helps, knowing that some are two-age groups, some have three-age groups, and some have four-age groups. I’ve had a lot of practice.
The popular conception of gulls is not the most flattering. In the movie “Finding Nemo,” gulls are depicted constantly saying “Mine!” and being described as “rats with wings.” What do you think of this popular conception of the bird?
I think it’s funny! Gulls are kind of an interesting group because some of them are among the most coveted bird species on a bird list. Others are at your ordinary parking lot, or are at a dock begging. I’m aware of the interesting labels that they get. But “rats with wings” is an interesting one. I haven’t heard that one actually.
Rats are very intelligent and resourceful. Would you say that describes gulls?
Absolutely! I think there’s something about gulls — and just creatures in general that are able to eat what we eat — where we find that kind of threatening, for an organism to be able to survive in our habitat and eat everything that we need. So resourcefulness, that definitely is one of [the traits of intelligence].
When I think of gulls and the fact that they’re able to thrive in human habitats, how do you think they’re able to do that when so many other species — especially bird species — are floundering because of human activity?
It’s a hundred percent related to diet. They’re generalists, they’re omnivores, and so you can put a gull pretty much anywhere. We have gulls that feed on crabapple trees. We have gulls that feed on flies. We have gulls that feed on trash. We have gulls that feed on fish. We have gulls that feed on anything you put in front of them. Short of poison, they’ll thrive.
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Do you think it is their digestive systems? Is it their scavenging habits, their social behavior? What is it that makes them so resilient?
Probably everything you just mentioned there. Their ability to scavenge, their ability to feed, the flocks that alert one another to food sources. Their agility. Their ability to live in different habitats, whether it be the sea or a beachfront or parking lot or a rooftop. It’s difficult to think of places where gulls can’t survive.
Now I, as a child, whenever I would go to the beach, I used to love walking up to gulls and seeing how close I could get to touch them before they would fly away. Do you have advice for other children who are fascinated by gulls and want to learn about them?
The beach is a great place to do it. I think that’s where most people see their first gulls. Just step back and take some time to observe them and see their social interactions, and how they’re feeding and how they’re behaving. I can’t imagine a world where there were no gulls at the beach, where there were no gulls on the docks in the marina. Just step back and take some time to watch them and enjoy their behaviors, and I think you’ll find them fascinating.
Do you plan on doing more writing about gulls or is this book the peak of your interests?
At some point there’s going to be an advanced skull ID guide for the diehards that take it to the next level. I’m currently working on some identification papers that are going to be published in different journals. So the writing continues, the research continues, the passion continues. I hope.
There is a lot to be learned still with gulls and anybody who is thinking about getting into gulls. There is so much that your average citizen scientist can contribute to our knowledge of gulls. Just by observing them and noting what you’re observing, you don’t have to be a professional ornithologist or biologist. They’re accessible. Everybody can just get out there and watch them and try to appreciate the variation of their plumage.
Have you witnessed anything climate change-related impacts on gulls?
There are gulls migrating earlier or later than usual, probably by three to four weeks at this point. Some species are moving late or too early. There are species that are nesting farther and farther south that were once thought of residing around the Arctic Circle that are now starting to breed farther and farther south, mainly due to ice melting in the north.
When the Leonids fly across the sky, stargazers know that the comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle is nearby. Every year, the iconic meteor shower offers a spectacular show… and expertssay this weekend is going to be particularly special.
Between November 3rd and December 2nd, but especially during the weekend of November 16-17, the Leonids will be unusually easy to see and appreciate, according to the American Meteor Society. Between the night of November 16th into the early hours of November 17th, and then again from late dawn November 17th into early November 18th, Technically speaking, the Leonids are nothing more than pieces of ice, rock and dust that turn into streaking flashes of light as they burn up in the atmosphere and Tempel-Tuttle makes its annual journey around Earth. The 2.24 miles-diameter comet also eventually orbits the Sun, although this takes 33 years.
The flashy meteor show occurs because our planet travels in a nearly opposite direction as 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, the meteors crash into our planet’s atmosphere. In ideal conditions, the Leonids may produce about 15 meteors per hour in 2024.
“Once every 33 years or so, the ‘lion roars,’ as Leonid meteors seem to rain down from the Sickle asterism of the constellation Leo,” writes David Dickinson of Universe Today, who has seen the Leonids up close, when explaining why this particular Leonids meteor shower could be memorable. The trails left by the soon-to-be-visible Leonids were laid down centuries ago, such as in 1633 (which yielded a storm in 2001) and 1733 (which is believed to have caused a Leonid meteor storm in 1866). Earth is not expected to encounter any new dense clouds of debris until 2099, so when 55P/Tempel-Tuttle returns in 2031 and 2064, it may not bring meteor showers with it.
ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods has a message for President-elect Donald Trump: Do not pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord. Speaking to The New York Times from a United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, Woods said that “we need a global system for managing global emissions. Trump and his administrations have talked about coming back into government and bringing common sense back into government. I think he could take the same approach in this space.”
While Trump consistently denies basic facts of climate science, such as that humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions are primarily responsible for global heating, Woods argued that he should instead create incentives for fossil fuel companies to transition to clean energy while still earning large profits.
In contrast to Woods’ advice, Trump promises to significantly cut funding for environmental regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He has also pledged to fire thousands of civil servants unless they pledge to be loyal to him, as well as scrub references to climate change from government documents.
“As I stated before the election, a second Trump term, which includes implementation of Project 2025, is the end of climate action as we know it, this decade,” University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann told Salon earlier this month. “And if Trump dismantles our democracy, as many fear will be the case, and the world’s greatest power, the U.S., becomes — in essence — a petrostate, it’s game over for climate action full stop for the foreseeable future, unless the rest of the world unites and takes bold action, including potentially the most punitive possible sanctions against the United States.”
When molecular biologist Francis Crick tripped on the psychedelic drug LSD in 1953, his mind famously pulled together all of his previous research on human DNA to conceive of the image of a double helix. More than seven decades later, mathematician Robert Monjo believes he has discovered a similarly significant double helix — but this time not as the structure of human DNA, but as the structure of spacetime itself.
“Our study completes the work of Albert Einstein in his attempt to relate gravity and electromagnetism forces in the same geometric theory,” Monjo, a professor of mathematics at Saint Louis University in Spain, told Salon. While it may seem like an odd coincidence for spacetime to follow an analogous engineering blueprint as the human body, Monjo argues this is perfectly logical.
“The actual connection between physics and molecular biology is that curvature and torsion are the most probable solutions (minimum energy when forces are acting) for particle paths and for designing stable structures,” Monjo said. “The simile with the DNA is more a metaphor but in some way, there exists the connection as mentioned for solving paths.”
Working with Dr. Rutwig Campoamor-Stursberg and mathematics colleague Álvaro Rodríguez Abella, Monjo performed extensive algebraic and other mathematical calculations — much of it drawing from existing research on theoretical physics — in order to arrive at their conclusions. Their study was published in the journal General Relativity and Gravitation in October.
Monjo’s theory helps unify scientific concepts of Newtonian gravity with our knowledge of electromagnetism. Einstein was convinced that such a unified theory exists, and during his own lifetime demonstrated that his theory of relativity applies to Newtonian mechanics as well as other important concepts involving electromagnetism, optics, electric and magnetic circuits.
“That was already a first unification of the transformations of mechanics, since until then physics were considered two different worlds,” Monjo explained, contrasting physicist Isaac Newton’s concepts of physics with those advanced by a similarly foundational physicist, James Clerk Maxwell. “Einstein then generalized his idea to the relativity of the gravitational force (General Relativity, in 1915-1916) and worked more than a decade to improve it, but he was unable to finish the work for the electromagnetic force. Our work addresses precisely that point: we can perform transformations of motion so that gravity and electromagnetism can be deduced from the same equation of spacetime.”
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Dr. Djordje Minic, a professor of physics and particle and string theory at the University of Texas at Austin, isn’t so sure about these conclusions. He noted that teleparallel gravity — the conceptual unified theory imagined by Einstein — has “various problems,” starting with local Lorentz symmetry, or the theory that in physics the laws are the same for all observers moving relative to each other.
“Saying that matter interactions all come from the metric of classical spacetime means, at least naïvely, that quantum spacetime — whatever that means empirically — does not really have any role, or that the foundational questions in quantum theory are simply irrelevant in quantum theory of gravity and matter,” Minic said. Matter is quantum as we know, and if matter comes from the spacetime metric then, what happens to the observed distinction between quantum and classical correlations – for example quantum probabilities interfere, classical do not.”
“Now, the authors say that spacetime coordinates are matrices, but what does that mean for the experimentally tested Standard Model whose quantum fields live in classical spacetime?” Minic went on. “What is the consequence of this approach for the observed vacuum energy (cosmological constant) and the observed masses of elementary particles?” The term “vacuum energy” refers to the energy background that permeates the entire universe, within or outside of a vacuum. A cosmological constant is a famous part of Einstein’s General Relativity theory, and refers to an arbitrary constant that is present in all related field equations. Finally elementary particles are protons, electrons, neutrons and all other particles that are smaller than an atom.
While the authors argue that spacetime coordinates are matrices, Minic said “I do not see any deep consequences of that statement! What happens to quantum correlations in that matrix valued spacetime? Do they satisfy the quantum Bell bound? How is the quantum probability computed? Is the Born rule still valid? Are there any new testable predictions?”
The Bell theorem refers to how entangled electrons are predicted by quantum mechanics, making them non-local — often referred to as “spooky action at a distance.” The Born rule bridges the math of quantum theory to the outcomes of experiments, which makes the field a legitimate scientific discipline in the first place. It seems this new theory of the universe still has a lot to explain. Minic instead argued that the quantum theory behind Einstein’s gravity and standard model for matter is gravitized quantum theory.
“In this approach the currently fixed geometry of quantum theory, tied to the Born rule for quantum probabilities, becomes dynamical, in analogy with dynamical spacetime metric of general relativity,” Minic said. “This ultimately connects to metastring theory, an intrinsically non-commutative and phase-space-like formulation of string theory.” Their approach attempts to illuminate a cosmological constant as well as the properties of leptons and quarks.
“There is a new prediction that has to do with intrinsic triple (and higher order) quantum interference and a dynamical Born rule that can be experimentally tested,” Minic said. “In general, we need experiments in quantum gravity, not just theories. With experiments, we will have real science, which is what we all want in our quest to understand the universe a bit better and a bit more completely.”
In contrast to Minic, Dr. Avi Loeb, a theoretical physics professor at Harvard University, praised the paper as “highly technical and offers a novel mathematical way to describe interactions among particles in a unified geometric way, including gravity and electromagnetism.” Adding that its results can be used to create a new unification scheme of quantum mechanics and gravity, Loeb said the deeper significance of the double helix structure isthat it “is simply a mathematical result that has nothing to do with biology. The fact that it appears here and in the human DNA is a remarkable coincidence.”
Now in this book, I will be honest, I find that many of these gull species look interchangeable. I don’t want to sound like I’m prejudging these birds, but they’re not like peacocks where it is easy to tell them apart on sight. How do you do it?