Medicine’s Monkey Deficit

Plus: Europe is putting the hurt on Santa’s coal budget ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

December 19, 2022

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TOGETHER WITH

Good morning… especially to everyone in Argentina.

The 2022 World Cup champion was crowned Sunday, and thanks to another incredible performance by global superstar and Argentina captain Lionel Messi, La albiceleste raised the most coveted trophy in sports.

While the win also cemented Messi atop the Mount Olympus of soccer, his opposite number, France’s Kylian Mbappe, scored a hat-trick in the final, making him only the second man to do so and the first since 1966. There was another big winner, albeit slightly less beloved than the two aforementioned incandescent talents: for all the controversy this World Cup generated behind the scenes, FIFA will still make $7.5 billion in revenue from its tournament in Qatar.

Morning Brief

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The US is desperate for monkeys.

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Europe’s climate goals take two steps forward, one step back.

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AI can write term papers, college should be fun this spring.

Pharmaceuticals

America’s Primate Shortage Hinders Medical Research

The US economy faces yet another painful supply shortage – not microchips but monkeys.

Scientists, who fear they’re falling behind on crucial medical progress, have urged the US government to increase spending on lab monkey breeding programs as a smuggling scandal in Cambodia risks worsening an existing scarcity of little monkeys native to Southeast Asia.

Everybody’s Got Something to Hide…

Last month, US federal prosecutors indicted eight people for their roles in an alleged monkey smuggling ring that supplied simians to research labs in Florida and Texas (we’ll wait for you to read that back). The macaques, which are used to develop vaccines and advance medical research, were allegedly abducted from national parks and other protected areas in Cambodia and taken to breeding facilities where they were provided false export permits. One of the people arrested was actually a wildlife director on his way to a conference on protecting endangered species.

As far as American medical research is concerned, there just aren’t enough monkeys to go around. During the height of COVID, China, which was the US’ biggest supplier at the time – levied an export ban on lab monkeys, causing the price of one primate to triple between 2019 and 2022. A monkey that once went for roughly $5,000 now goes for about $22,000 and the price is expected to increase another 10 grand next year. A barrel of monkeys sure isn’t cheap.

With China now entering yet another wave of Covid outbreaks, fears of a new variant will return, pushing US medical researchers to develop new vaccines without a ready supply of testing subjects:

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Nancy Haigwood, director of the Oregon Primate Research Center, told the Financial Times her group is a year behind on testing and has grant funding sitting on the shelf because she can’t procure enough primates.

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Suppliers Charles River and Inotiv recently warned investors to expect disruption in monkey imports from Cambodia. The US National Primate Research Centers have seven breeding facilities with roughly 25,000 primates, but that’s not nearly enough to meet demand.

“Most years, I can say with confidence that the NPRC barely meets, or are unable to meet in a timely manner, all requests,” Wisconsin primate center director Jon Levine told Mother Jones. “We have been chronically receiving no increases in our budgets, or very modest increases in our budgets, for over 20 years.”

Friends, Not Equipment: Of course, one group is happy to see scientists struggling to get more monkeys. Animal rights organization Peta, which has boycotted animal testing for decades, says the US stinks at breeding monkeys so it’s had to rely on stolen primates. Lisa Jones-Engel, Peta’s senior advisor, said the US should switch to more human testing instead. “We have to stop the monkey experimenters from hijacking the funds needed to implement them.”

– Griffin Kelly

Energy

Brussels Plans New Carbon Border Tax Just as Coal Use Hits Record Levels

A lump of coal will soon cost too much to put in anyone’s Christmas stocking, let alone the misbehaving kid for whom it’s intended.

As the year rolls to an end, the world is about to set a new and certainly unwelcome record for coal consumption. Somewhat serendipitously, on Sunday the European Union — home to much of this year’s coal burning — began finalizing details on a new tax on carbon emissions in trade routes.

Clear the Air

Just over a year ago, 194 countries signed a pledge to decrease coal emissions. But as the old maxim goes: when the global community makes a plan, autocrats laugh. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine fractured the world’s gas and oil supply chains, a disruption exacerbated by subsequent retaliatory sanctions on Russian oil. Short on their favored fossil fuel, much of Europe turned to an even dirtier option to stave off a deadly-serious energy crisis: coal. Meanwhile, massive emerging economies in India, China, and Indonesia increased coal consumption amid rising energy demand.

In all, coal consumption grew 1.2% in 2022 to 8 billion tons, enough to surpass the record set in 2013, according to a report released Sunday by Paris-based energy watchdog the International Energy Agency. It’s expected to increase again next year in much of the world, though experts expect an eventual contraction — especially in Europe — as new renewable energy alternatives come online. In the meantime, the EU is hoping to clear the air by putting in place first-of-its-kind carbon border tax legislation:

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Manufacturers inside the EU are already subjected to an effective carbon tax levied by the body’s stringent Emissions Trading System. Now, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) will require foreign importers to buy “CBAM Certificates” to ensure they pay an equal carbon price as domestic companies.

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The legislation, which will begin in phases in October 2023, applies to everything from aluminum to cement to fertilizers to hydrogen. Brussels says it represents an important step in the EU’s plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 from levels in 1990.

Shots Fired: The race to a sustainable future has produced one nasty byproduct: trade friction. European nations have bemoaned the generous tax incentives for EV battery manufacturing and other future-focused industries offered in the US Inflation Reduction Act. The US, China, and other major economies are now arguing that the new tax is overly protectionist and could hurt their export industries. Forget the coal, it might be time to worry about the cost of stockings.

– Brian Boyle

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Academics

Universities Find Themselves Flat-Footed Against New AI

(Photo credit: Mike MacKenzie/Flickr)

Like the perfect beer pong technique, cutting corners in college is a true liberal art.

But collegiate rule-breakers have never had a tool quite like ChatGPT, an ultra-smart artificial intelligence program that can write convincing, human-like text with just a few quick prompts. In response, universities across the country are scrambling to safeguard the academic sanctity of term papers.

Paper Cuts

Developed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, ChatGPT has been heralded as a breakthrough moment for artificial intelligence. After its release in late November, the program quickly amassed over one million users who can direct it to write jokes, TV episodes, or even compose music, like a polymath grad student. Elon Musk, who is also an OpenAI investor, has called ChatGPT “scary good,” while others have criticized its output as inaccurate and lacking in nuance.

For schools and universities around the globe, ChatGPT raises the stakes in the ever-evolving war against plagiarism:

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Annie Chechitelli, chief product officer at anti-plagiarism software Turnitin, told the FT they are developing a tool to help educators in determining if work has “traces” of the AI tool, warning of a coming “arms race” in the battle to detect cheaters.

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Others have warned of the implications of automation tools that can blunt the development of creative skills. A recent Rutgers study showed how students who relied on Google to answer homework questions performed worse on exams.

Not so Testy: Not everyone views ChatGPT as academic armageddon. Lauren Klein, an associate professor in the Departments of English and Quantitative Theory and Methods at Emory University, is nonplussed: “There’s always been this concern that technologies will do away with what people do best, and the reality is that people have had to learn how to use these technologies to enhance what they do best.” In other words, ChatGPT and its AI ilk may not be as smart as they think.

– Patrick Trousdale

Extra Upside

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Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run ball sold for $1.5 million, half the previous offer.

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‘Stupidity on steroids’: Dave Ramsey blasted US colleges for promoting online gambling to students.

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