Remedy and accountability a decade after the Marikana massacre

August 16th, 2022 marked the 10th anniversary of the Marikana Massacre in Rustenburg, South Africa. This was the worst incident of mass killing by police since the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 in the heyday of the Apartheid regime. In the first days of August 2012, workers at Lonmin plc, a platinum group metals mining company, went on a wildcat strike demanding a minimum salary of 12500 Rand, circa 800 USD, per month and protesting against the poor living conditions they and their families where subjected to in the Marikana vicinity, an area 100 km north of Johannesburg where the mine is located. As days passed, tension escalated leading to the killing of ten people, including three non-striking workers, two security guards, three striking workers, and two police officers. Various attempts to facilitate negotiations with striking workers were turned down by Lonmin management. Instead, Lonmin managers actively engaged in communications with senior political leaders, police officers, and state mining officials to frame the situation as one that required strong and decisive police intervention

Influence of dietary lipid sources on sensory characteristics of broiler meat

________________________________________________________________________________ Abstract A study was conducted to determine the influence of different dietary lipid sources and inclusion levels on sensory characteristics of chicken breast meat. Eight isoenergetic (15.1 MJ AME/kg DM) and isonitrogenous (223 g CP/kg DM) diets were formulated, using high oleic sunflower oil (HOSO), sunflower oil (SO), fish oil (FO) and tallow (T) at 30 g/kg and 60 g/kg inclusion levels. Eight hundred, day-old Ross 788 broiler males were randomly allocated to the eight treatments (n = 100) and further subdivided into four replicates/treatment (n = 25). All birds receive a commercial starter diet for the first 14 days, where-after the experimental diets were fed for 28 days. At 42 days of age, three birds/replicate (n = 12/treatment) were randomly selected, weighed and slaughtered at a commercial abattoir. Breast muscles were removed from the chilled carcasses (4 °C) and de-skinned. Meat samples were wrapped in aluminium foil and steamed (200 °C) before cutting into smaller pieces (2.5 cm 3 ) and served to the respondents (n = 75) of a consumer panel. Each respondent tasted eight meat samples while completing a nine-point hedonic scale questionnaire. Meat samples of the HOSO treatment were preferred, while FO samples were the least acceptable to the respondents. These results suggested that dietary lipid sources could be used to manipulate sensory characteristics of broiler breast meat according to consumer preferences. _______________________________________________________________________________

Revival of the magnetar PSR J1622-4950: observations with MeerKAT, Parkes, XMM-Newton, Swift, Chandra, and NuSTAR

New radio (MeerKAT and Parkes) and X-ray (XMM-Newton, Swift, Chandra, and NuSTAR) observations of PSR J1622-4950 indicate that the magnetar, in a quiescent state since at least early 2015, reactivated between 2017 March 19 and April 5. The radio flux density, while variable, is approximately 100x larger than during its dormant state. The X-ray flux one month after reactivation was at least 800x larger than during quiescence, and has been decaying exponentially on a 111+/-19 day timescale. This high-flux state, together with a radio-derived rotational ephemeris, enabled for the first time the detection of X-ray pulsations for this magnetar. At 5%, the 0.3-6 keV pulsed fraction is comparable to the smallest observed for magnetars. The overall pulsar geometry inferred from polarized radio emission appears to be broadly consistent with that determined 6-8 years earlier. However, rotating vector model fits suggest that we are now seeing radio emission from a different location in the magnetosphere than previously. This indicates a novel way in which radio emission from magnetars can differ from that of ordinary pulsars. The torque on the neutron star is varying rapidly and unsteadily, as is common for magnetars following outburst, having changed by a factor of 7 within six months of reactivation.Comment: Published in ApJ (2018 April 5); 13 pages, 4 figure

The 1.28 GHz MeerKAT DEEP2 Image

We present the confusion-limited 1.28 GHz MeerKAT DEEP2 image covering one qb » ¢ 68 FWHM primarybeam area with θ = 7 6 FWHM resolution and s = m - n 0.55 0.01 Jy beam 1 rms noise. Its J2000 center position α = 04h 13m 26 4, δ = −80° 00′ 00″ was selected to minimize artifacts caused by bright sources. We introduce the new 64-element MeerKAT array and describe commissioning observations to measure the primary-beam attenuation pattern, estimate telescope pointing errors, and pinpoint (u, v) coordinate errors caused by offsets in frequency or time. We constructed a 1.4 GHz differential source count by combining a power-law count fit to the DEEP2 confusion P(D) distribution from 0.25 to 10 μJy with counts of individual DEEP2 sources between 10 μJy and 2.5 mJy. Most sources fainter than S ∼ 100 μJy are distant star-forming galaxies (SFGs) obeying the far-IR/ radio correlation, and sources stronger than 0.25 μJy account for ∼93% of the radio background produced by SFGs. For the first time, the DEEP2 source count has reached the depth needed to reveal the majority of the star formation history of the universe. A pure luminosity evolution of the 1.4 GHz local luminosity function consistent with the Madau & Dickinson model for the evolution of SFGs based on UV and infrared data underpredicts our 1.4 GHz source count in the range -5 log Jy 4 [ ( )] S

The MeerKAT Galaxy Cluster Legacy Survey: I. Survey overview and highlights

Please abstract in the article.The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), the National Research Foundation (NRF), the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, US National Science Foundation, the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the DSI/NRF, the SARAO HCD programme, the South African Research Chairs Initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation.http://www.aanda.orghj2022Physic

Remedy and accountability a decade after the Marikana massacre

August 16th, 2022 marked the 10th anniversary of the Marikana Massacre in Rustenburg, South Africa. This was the worst incident of mass killing by police since the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 in the heyday of the Apartheid regime. In the first days of August 2012, workers at Lonmin plc, a platinum group metals mining company, went on a wildcat strike demanding a minimum salary of 12500 Rand, circa 800 USD, per month and protesting against the poor living conditions they and their families where subjected to in the Marikana vicinity, an area 100 km north of Johannesburg where the mine is located. As days passed, tension escalated leading to the killing of ten people, including three non-striking workers, two security guards, three striking workers, and two police officers. Various attempts to facilitate negotiations with striking workers were turned down by Lonmin management. Instead, Lonmin managers actively engaged in communications with senior political leaders, police officers, and state mining officials to frame the situation as one that required strong and decisive police intervention

The effect of lipid saturation on nutrient digestibility of layer diets

A study was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary lipid saturation on nutrient digestibility of layer diets. Five isoenergetic (12.6 MJ AME/kg DM) and isonitrogenous (170 g CP/kg DM) diets were formulated using different lipid sources at a constant 30 g/kg inclusion level. The control n-3 diet was formulated using a blend (50 : 50) of linseed- and fish oil, while fish oil (polyunsaturated n-3), sunflower oil (polyunsaturated n-6), high oleic acid (HO) sunflower oil (monounsaturated n-9) and tallow (saturated fatty acid) were used as other supplementary lipid sources. The five dietary treatments were randomly allocated to the two hundred (200) individually caged Hy-Line Silver-Brown laying hens (20 weeks of age) (n = 40/treatment). Experimental diets were provided to the birds on an ad libitum basis for a 22 week period (from 20 to 42 weeks of age). At 42 weeks of age, six hens per treatment (n = 6 replicates/treatment), were randomly selected to partake in a digestibility study over a 7 day period using the total collection technique. The polyunsaturated n-6 treatment resulted in the lowest crude protein digestibility, whereas the saturated fatty acid treatment resulted in the lowest fat digestibility. Furthermore, the polyunsaturated n-3 diet resulted in the highest dietary AME (13.29 MJ/kg DM) and AMEn (12.74 MJ/kg DM) content.Keywords: Apparent metabolizable energy, feed intake, mono-, polyunsaturated fatty acid