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Germany

Court OKs German Ban On PETA's "Holocaust On Your Plate" Ads

SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG, DEUTSCHE WELLE(Germany)

Worldcrunch

The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a German ban on a poster campaign by (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) in Germany, reports Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The campaign used gruesome Nazi concentration camp imagery to evoke the suffering of factory-farmed animals today.

The decision said that limiting PETA’s basic right to express an opinion with its “Holocaust On Your Plate” campaign was justified in view of the “specific context of German history.”

The campaign dates back to 2004, but its implementation was blocked by a Berlin court decision. Deutsche Welle reports that the Central Council of Jews in Germany had sought an injunction against campaign saying that using the pictures trivialized the fate of Holocaust victims. PETA appealed, but the German Constitutional Court upheld the decision.

The decision was welcomed by Central Council's president, Dieter Graumann, writes Deutsche Welle. "To exploit the Holocause to protest against factory farming is absolutely disgusting and unacceptable," said Graumann.

A similar campaign did, however, run in the USA but the posters for the planned German campaign were more explicit. One poster showed naked concentration camp inmates next to pictures of starving cattle. Another juxtaposed piles of human bodies with piles of slaughtered pigs.

PETA has three months to appeal if it chooses to do so.

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Green

Forest Networks? Revisiting The Science Of Trees And Funghi "Reaching Out"

A compelling story about how forest fungal networks communicate has garnered much public interest. Is any of it true?

Thomas Brail films the roots of a cut tree with his smartphone.

Arborist and conservationist Thomas Brail at a clearcutting near his hometown of Mazamet in the Tarn, France.

Melanie Jones, Jason Hoeksema, & Justine Karst

Over the past few years, a fascinating narrative about forests and fungi has captured the public imagination. It holds that the roots of neighboring trees can be connected by fungal filaments, forming massive underground networks that can span entire forests — a so-called wood-wide web. Through this web, the story goes, trees share carbon, water, and other nutrients, and even send chemical warnings of dangers such as insect attacks. The narrative — recounted in books, podcasts, TV series, documentaries, and news articles — has prompted some experts to rethink not only forest management but the relationships between self-interest and altruism in human society.

But is any of it true?

The three of us have studied forest fungi for our whole careers, and even we were surprised by some of the more extraordinary claims surfacing in the media about the wood-wide web. Thinking we had missed something, we thoroughly reviewed 26 field studies, including several of our own, that looked at the role fungal networks play in resource transfer in forests. What we found shows how easily confirmation bias, unchecked claims, and credulous news reporting can, over time, distort research findings beyond recognition. It should serve as a cautionary tale for scientists and journalists alike.

First, let’s be clear: Fungi do grow inside and on tree roots, forming a symbiosis called a mycorrhiza, or fungus-root. Mycorrhizae are essential for the normal growth of trees. Among other things, the fungi can take up from the soil, and transfer to the tree, nutrients that roots could not otherwise access. In return, fungi receive from the roots sugars they need to grow.

As fungal filaments spread out through forest soil, they will often, at least temporarily, physically connect the roots of two neighboring trees. The resulting system of interconnected tree roots is called a common mycorrhizal network, or CMN.

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