AFP

More than 200 Extinction Rebellion activists, some dressed as clowns, attempted to blockade central Zurich on Monday in a bid to force the Swiss government to heed the environmental movement’s climate demands.

XR urged its activists to return every day at noon to block traffic at three key strategic points in Switzerland’s financial capital, including a bridge and the crossroads of the city’s main shopping street.

Students and senior citizens were among those who descended on Zurich from across the wealthy Alpine nation, unfurling banners and stretching out large sheets of blue plastic symbolising the oceans suffocating with rubbish.

Others installed a ship daubed with climate crisis slogans, “because we are all in the same boat”, one activist said.

“We have children and are worried about their future,” said Genevieve, a teacher from Neuchatel who came with her physicist husband.

“We are a little afraid of being arrested because this is the first time we have taken part in civil disobedience.” 

A retired humanitarian, who did not wish to give her name, said that the prospect of being arrested “does not scare me”, adding that “everything else, at the political level, did not work”. 

In June, XR petitioned the Swiss government asking it to “officially” recognise the climate emergency and mandate a citizens’ assembly on “climate and ecological justice”, warning that its activists were otherwise prepared to engage in civil disobedience. 

After an hour, the police ordered activists to retreat to designated areas to clear the way for trams on Zurich’s main shopping street.

A police statement later said 134 people were booked then released. 

The operator of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany — criticised by some Western countries as a geopolitical weapon — said Monday it had begun filling the pipeline with gas.

The latest step pushing the Baltic Sea pipeline to completion comes as Europe faces an energy crisis with natural gas reserves at a low level and energy prices surge. 

“The gas-in procedure for the first string of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has started,” Nord Stream 2 AG said in a statement.

“This string will be gradually filled to build the required inventory and pressure as a prerequisite for the later technical tests,” said the Switzerland-based company, which is owned by a subsidiary of Russian gas giant Gazprom. 

It said it would publish more information about “further technical steps in due time”. 

Nord Stream 2 has for years divided European capitals and raised tensions between the bloc and Washington.

The pipeline diverts supplies from an existing route through Ukraine and is expected to deprive Europe’s ally of an estimated one billion euros ($1.2 billion) annually in transit fees from Russia.

Ukraine — in conflict with Russia since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea — has warned Europe that Nord Stream 2 could be used by Moscow as a geopolitical pressure vice.

When Gazprom announced last month that construction was complete, Kiev vowed to continue lobbying against the project “even after the gas is turned on.”

Gas prices in Europe around the same time were skyrocketing in anticipation of higher winter demand and the International Energy Agency urged Russia open the taps.

Moscow has said that it is waiting for Nord Stream 2 to come online before delivering more gas, but said the pipeline would help combat surging gas prices in Europe. 

Running from Russia’s Baltic coast to northeastern Germany, the underwater, 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) pipeline follows the same route as Nord Stream 1, which was completed over a decade ago.

Like its twin, Nord Stream 2 will be able to pipe 55 billion cubic metres of gas per year to Europe, increasing the continent’s access to relatively cheap natural gas at a time of falling domestic production.

Germany, Europe’s top economy, imports around 40 percent of its gas from Russia, and Berlin believes the pipeline has a role to play in the country’s transition away from coal and nuclear energy.

The world’s airlines pledged to reach “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050 on Monday even as a trade group forecast profit losses from the pandemic extending into next year.

“For aviation, net zero is a bold, audacious commitment. But it is also a necessity,” Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), told top airline executives meeting in Boston.

“The important decision that we must make today will secure the freedom to fly for future generations.”

The promise comes ahead of the United Nations climate change conference (COP26) in Britain amid rising public clamor for action.

IATA represents 290 member airlines comprising 82 percent of pre-pandemic global air traffic, and its pledge follows the lead of Europe’s aviation industry which has embraced the European Union’s emissions goals.

The new commitment comes 12 years after IATA unveiled its first plan to reduce airline CO2 emissions by 50 percent by 2050 compared to 2005 levels.

But Walsh told the gathering that the industry must take more forceful action given the urgency of the problem.

The airline industry currently accounts for about three percent of global emissions. To reach the net zero goal, it will need a steady ramp-up of renewable jet fuel, other efficiency improvements and the use of carbon capture storage and offsets.

Proof of the industry’s good faith, Walsh assured, is that airlines “invested hundreds of billions of dollars in more fuel-efficient aircraft,” with fleet fuel efficiency improving by over 20 percent in a decade.

The dramatic tightening of the mid-century targets did not require a vote, in accordance with IATA statutes, but was adopted by consensus as no member raised a firm objection that would have blocked the move.

The meeting nevertheless saw Chinese airlines stress that the 2050 objective was inconsistent with the goal adopted by the government in Beijing, which aims for carbon neutrality by the year 2060.

– More losses ahead –

“Many in this room — individually or in groups — have already taken this step,” Walsh told the executives.

“For others, this will be an additional challenge at a very difficult time,” with the industry hard hit by global effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier Monday, IATA offered its latest accounting of red ink facing the industry in the wake of the pandemic.

Global airlines will lose an estimated $51.8 billion this year and another $11.6 billion in 2022, according to the group’s forecast.

Walsh described the shortfall as “enormous,” but said the industry is “well past the deepest part of the crisis.”

The recovery varies by region, with North America the only area projected to generate positive profits in 2022.

Europe is forecast to remain in the red, with losses of $9.2 billion in 2022, compared with a loss of $20.9 billion expected this year. The region’s carriers will see a recovery in intra-European travel, but long-haul travel will remain limited, IATA said.

Carriers in the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa are all expected to see smaller losses in 2022 compared with this year.

IATA projected that total passenger numbers of 3.4 billion in 2022, similar to 2014 levels, but below the 4.5 billion in 2019.

“People have not lost their desire to travel, as we see in solid domestic market resilience. But they are being held back from international travel by restrictions, uncertainty and complexity,” said Walsh, adding that more governments see vaccinations “as a way out of this crisis.”

Around 300 Extinction Rebellion activists, some dressed as clowns, attempted to blockade central Zurich on Monday in a bid to force the Swiss government to heed the environmental movement’s climate demands.

XR urged its activists to return every day at noon to block traffic at three key strategic points in Switzerland’s financial capital, including a bridge and the crossroads of the city’s main shopping street.

Students and senior citizens were among those who descended on Zurich from across the wealthy Alpine nation, unfurling banners and stretching out large sheets of blue plastic symbolising the oceans suffocating with rubbish.

Others installed a ship daubed with climate crisis slogans, “because we are all in the same boat”, one activist said.

“We have children and are worried about their future,” said Genevieve, a teacher from Neuchatel who came with her physicist husband.

“We are a little afraid of being arrested because this is the first time we have taken part in civil disobedience.” 

A retired humanitarian, who did not wish to give her name, said that the prospect of being arrested “does not scare me”, adding that “everything else, at the political level, did not work”. 

In June, XR petitioned the Swiss government asking it to “officially” recognise the climate emergency and mandate a citizens’ assembly on “climate and ecological justice”, warning that its activists were otherwise prepared to engage in civil disobedience. 

After an hour, the police ordered activists to retreat to designated areas to clear the way for trams on Zurich’s main shopping street.

They were eventually let out, one by one.

Dozens of Greenpeace activists blocked a Shell oil refinery in the Dutch port of Rotterdam with boats on Monday in protest against fossil fuel advertising.

Campaigners from the environmental group used a sailing ship, kayaks and rubber dinghies to obstruct the entrance to the refinery, AFP journalists said.

Dutch police later arrested 22 activists and removed a group of protesters who had climbed onto an oil tank and unfurled slogans.

Greenpeace and 20 other groups have launched a petition calling on the EU to ban advertising and sponsorship by fossil fuel companies. 

“The action is to shine a light on the need to ban fossil fuel ads and sponsorship,” Silvia Pastorelli, one of the lead organisers of the protest, told AFP.

“We do it against Shell because they are one of the worst Greenwashers.”

The protest began when Greenpeace’s yacht, Beluga II, dropped anchor in front of the entrance to several refineries including one belonging to the Anglo-Dutch oil giant.

Campaigners blocked the port with a barrier made from four floating cubes emblazoned with fossil fuel company adverts collected from around Europe.

“I grew up reading signs about how cigarettes kill you, but never saw similar warnings in petrol stations or fuel tanks,” activist Chaja Merk said.

“It’s frightening that my favourite sports and museums are sponsored by airlines and car companies.”

Greenpeace International chief Jennifer Morgan pointed out that the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland was less than a month away.

But “Europe is buzzing with how to increase fossil gas production that would lock us into more emissions, when we need to break this dependence,” she said.

A Dutch police spokeswoman said they had acted against the protest because “shipping traffic was blocked. That is really out of the question.”

They arrested 22 people and fined 32 others.

Shell criticised the protest, saying that the demonstrators were “illegally on our property”, according to the Dutch ANP news agency.

US scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian on Monday won the Nobel Medicine Prize for discoveries on receptors for temperature and touch.

The duo’s research, conducted independently of each other in the late 1990s and 2000s, is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of diseases and conditions, including chronic pain.

Julius, who in 2019 won the $3-million Breakthrough Prize in life sciences, said he was stunned to receive the call from the Nobel committee early on Monday.

“One never really expects that to happen,” he told Swedish Radio. “I thought it was a prank.”

Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival, the Nobel Committee said, and underpins our interaction with the world around us.

“The groundbreaking discoveries… by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates have allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world,” the Nobel jury said.

“In our daily lives we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses initiated so that temperature and pressure can be perceived? This question has been solved by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates.”

– Chili pepper inspiration –

Julius, 65, was recognised for his research using capsaicin — a compound from chili peppers that induces a burning sensation –- to identify which nerve sensors in the skin respond to heat.

The human body generates heat in response to inflammation, so we can protect the affected area and allow it to heal.

Julius told Scientific American in 2019 that he got the idea to study chili peppers after a visit to the grocery store.

“I was looking at these shelves and shelves of basically chili peppers and extracts (hot sauce) and thinking, ‘This is such an important and such a fun problem to look at. I’ve really got to get serious about this’,” he said.

Patapoutian’s pioneering discovery was identifying the class of nerve sensors that respond to touch.

“In science many times it’s things we take for granted that are of high interest,” Patapoutian told the Nobel Foundation website.

Touch receptors were “the big elephant in the room: we knew they existed, we knew they did something very different than how most other cells communicate with each other, which is through chemicals.”

Julius, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco and the 12-year-younger Patapoutian, a professor at Scripps Research in California, will share the Nobel Prize cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.1 million, one million euros).

The pair were not among the frontrunners mentioned in speculation ahead of the announcement.

– Peace Prize favourites –

Pioneers of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which paved the way for mRNA Covid vaccines, and immune system researchers had been widely tipped as favourites.

While the 2020 award was handed out during the pandemic, this is the first time the entire selection process has taken place under the shadow of Covid-19.

Last year, the award went to three virologists for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus.

The Nobel season continues on Tuesday with the award for physics and Wednesday with chemistry, followed by the much-anticipated gongs for literature on Thursday and peace on Friday before the economics prize winds things up on Monday, October 11.

Speculation on potential Peace Prize winners has ranged from the Belarusian opposition to climate campaigners such as Sweden’s Greta Thunberg.

Literary circles have been buzzing with speculation that the Swedish academy could choose to rectify an imbalance with the literature prize that has seen Europe and North America dominate since 2012.

In total, those two regions account for 95 of 117 literature laureates.

Blue Origin on Monday confirmed William Shatner, who starred as Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series, will fly to space October 12 aboard the company’s crewed rocket, becoming the oldest ever astronaut.

“I’ve heard about space for a long time now. I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle,” said the 90-year-old Canadian actor in a statement.

The science fiction television show aired for only three seasons starting in 1966, but was hugely influential in popular culture and has spawned more than a dozen movies and several spin-off series.

It was notable for the utopian vision of its creator Gene Rodenberry, who imagined a future where by the 23rd century humanity had put aside its divisions and united with other peaceful space-faring civilizations.

Shatner, as Kirk, commanded the U.S.S. Enterprise on a five-year mission “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

His actual voyage to space will be far shorter: about 10 minutes, in a flight that will take the crew just beyond the Karman line, 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea-level. They’re also unlikely to encounter alien foes such as Klingons.

If successful, Shatner will become the first Star Trek actor to reach the final frontier — with the important caveat “while living.”

The ashes of fellow Star Trek actor James Doohan, who played the Enterprise’s chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, were smuggled aboard the International Space Station in 2008 and remain under its floor cladding, according to the space tourist who carried out the plot devised by the actor’s son.

– Work culture allegations –

Blue Origin also announced the identity of the remaining passenger, Audrey Powers, the company’s vice president of mission and flight operations.

Powers worked as an engineer for almost a decade before becoming a lawyer, Blue Origin said. 

As a guidance and controls engineer, she was a flight controller for US space agency NASA with 2,000 hours of console time in mission control for the International Space Station Program.

They will join Chris Boshuizen, a former NASA engineer and co-founder of Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, a co-founder of clinical research platform Medidata Solutions, on the sub-orbital flight.

The news comes as Bezos’s company is under a cloud of allegations relating to a “toxic” work culture with rampant sexual harassment.

The claims, firmly rejected by Blue Origin, were outlined in a lengthy blog post signed by Alexandra Abrams, the company’s former head of employee communications, last week.

The post said it also represented the views of 20 other workers and ex-workers in various divisions who wanted to remain anonymous.

Abrams and her co-authors further alleged the company had a pattern of decision-making that prioritized speedy rocket development over safety, and that several of them would not feel safe in the company’s New Shepard spaceship.

Blue Origin responded by saying Abrams was dismissed two years ago after warnings over issues involving US export control regulations, adding it would investigate any new claims of misconduct.

Bezos, one of the world’s wealthiest men, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and paying customer Oliver Daemen flew into space on Blue Origin’s first crewed flight on July 20 from the company’s base in west Texas.

What signals spark in our bodies when we experience the fiery heat of a chili pepper or feel the sudden pressure of a tap on the shoulder?

While scientists had long ago figured out the mechanisms for sight and smell, the way in which touch, heat and cold trigger a response in the nervous system remained a mystery until research by this year’s Nobel Medicine Prize winners.

Thanks to their work we understand how temperature and touch are converted into electrical impulses sent through the body — a crucial mechanism for perceiving and surviving the world around us.   

It has also opened up the possibility of new treatments for a range of diseases.    

– Too hot to handle –

Biochemist and molecular biologist David Julius has used a range of natural substances to examine how the sensations of pain and temperature are transmitted to the brain. 

Working at his laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, Julius has looked at toxins from tarantulas and the chemicals producing the nose-tingling burn of horseradish and wasabi. 

But it was his research in the 1990s to solve the “riddle” of what exactly happens when the body is exposed to capsaicin, the molecule that produces the hot sensation caused when we eat or touch chili peppers, that was singled out by the Nobel committee.  

His team created a database of millions of DNA fragments from genes within sensory neurons, which were known to react to pain, heat and touch. 

They then located the gene that made cells specifically sensitive to capsaicin.

Further investigation revealed that a type of protein on the outer tip of sensory nerves, which they called the TRPV1 ion channel, responds both to the “heat” in chilies and to high temperatures. 

When activated this receptor “sends the electrical signal from the periphery –let’s say, your lips or your eye, wherever you feel the hot chili pepper — and it takes the signal to the spinal cord,” said Julius in a 2019 interview with Scientific American. 

The signal is then relayed by different neurons up to the brain, “where you perceive it as being something noxious and painful” he said. 

Julius and his colleagues have since identified another receptor that reacts to cold, as well as the “wasabi receptor”, which responds both to the pungency of the Japanese condiment and is also involved in pain linked to inflammation.

– Prodding –

Working around the same time at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, Ardem Patapoutian was searching for specific receptors activated by mechanical stimuli such as pressure and touch.

He identified a type of cell that emitted a measurable electric signal whenever an individual cell was poked with a micropipette. 

“We literally poked the cell while recording its electrical current,” he told BrainFacts in a 2020 interview. 

He then launched an arduous process of elimination, looking for a gene linked to the possible receptor.  

To do this the researchers inactivated dozens of candidate genes one by one to see which one was responsible for the cell’s sensitivity to touch. 

The team called the previously unknown “mechanosensitive ion channel” Piezo1, after the Greek word for pressure, and they have since identified a second receptor Piezo2. 

Patapoutian said finding these receptors is like finding “a doorknob”, which could open up the understanding of pain or touch. 

“So, the receptor is like the first entry point — it allows you to open the door and start investigating what’s in this room,” he told BrainFacts. 

While there is still a lot to learn about these protein receptors, the discovery has “exploded this field of research”, Bertrand Coste, who conducted the studies with Patapoutian, told AFP.

– Painkillers? –

Coste said another crucial step is to find the receptors that detect the types of touch that cause pain, which would be “fantastic therapeutic targets” for chronic or inflammatory pain.

Pain itself plays an important role — from telling us when to pull away from something hot, to letting us know when we have suffered an injury. 

Julius told the Scientific American that some early pharmaceutical research into using the receptors had produced unwelcome side effects, like decreasing people’s ability to tell when something is too hot. 

But he said he hoped that identifying the specific mechanisms for these sensations would help lead to the development of painkillers that do not rely on opiods, which can have wide ranging effects on the body and lead to addiction. 

Blue Origin on Monday confirmed William Shatner, who starred as Captain James T. Kirk in the original Star Trek series, will fly to space October 12 aboard the company’s crewed rocket, becoming the oldest ever astronaut.

“I’ve heard about space for a long time now. I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle,” said the 90-year-old actor in a statement by Jeff Bezos’s space company.

The science fiction television show aired for only three seasons starting in 1966, but was hugely influential in popular culture and spawned several movies and spin-off series.

It was notable for the utopian vision of its creator Gene Rodenberry, who envisaged a society where humanity had put aside its divisions and united with other peaceful space-faring civilizations.

Shatner, as Kirk, commanded the USS Enterprise on a five-year mission “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

His actual voyage to space will be far shorter — about 10 minutes, in a flight that will take the crew just beyond the Karman Line 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the Earth.

Blue Origin also announced the identity of the remaining passenger, Audrey Powers, the company’s vice president of mission and flight operations.

They will join Chris Boshuizen, a former NASA engineer and co-founder of Planet Labs, and Glen de Vries, a co-founder of clinical research platform Medidata Solutions, on the sub-orbital flight.

The news comes as Bezos’s company is under a cloud of allegations relating to a “toxic” work culture with rampant sexual harassment.

The claims, firmly rejected by Blue Origin, were outlined in a lengthy blog post signed by Alexandra Abrams, the company’s former head of employee communications, last week.

The post said it also represented the views of 20 other workers and ex-workers in various divisions who wanted to remain anonymous.

Abrams and her co-authors further alleged the company had a pattern of decision-making that prioritized speedy rocket development over safety, and that several of them would not feel safe in the company’s New Shepard rocket.

Bezos, the world’s wealthiest man, his brother Mark, aviation pioneer Wally Funk, and paying customer Oliver Daemen flew into space on Blue Origin’s first crewed flight on July 20.

Dozens of Greenpeace activists blocked a Shell oil refinery in the Dutch port of Rotterdam with boats on Monday in protest against fossil fuel advertising.

Campaigners from the environmental group used a sailing ship, kayaks and rubber dinghies to obstruct the entrance to the refinery, AFP journalists said.

Dutch police later arrested 17 activists and removed a group of protesters who had climbed onto an oil tank, Greenpeace said.

Greenpeace and 20 other groups have launched a petition calling on the EU to ban advertising and sponsorship by fossil fuel companies. 

“The action is to shine a light on the need to ban fossil fuel ads and sponsorship,” Silvia Pastorelli, one of the lead organisers of the protest, told AFP.

“We do it against Shell because they are one of the worst Greenwashers.”

The protest began when Greenpeace’s yacht, Beluga II, dropped anchor in front of the entrance to several refineries including one belonging to the Anglo-Dutch oil giant.

“I grew up reading signs about how cigarettes kill you, but never saw similar warnings in petrol stations or fuel tanks,” activist Chaja Merk said.

“It’s frightening that my favourite sports and museums are sponsored by airlines and car companies.”

Greenpeace International chief Jennifer Morgan pointed out that the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland was less than a month away.

But “Europe is buzzing with how to increase fossil gas production that would lock us into more emissions, when we need to break this dependence,” she said.

Neither Shell nor Dutch police made any immediate comment.