Friday, guys. Today's video is going to be a little bit different than what we normally do. Normally on Fridays we do a story time. And last Friday we started our series in the Devil's Family with Part 1. We will pick up with that series next week, but today, or rather this evening, I am going to be a special guest on the reveal report with George Iceman and Jesse's voter. Most of you know that I have been on the reveal report once before when we did a deep dive into Glam's Castle, a topic we had already covered on this channel many months ago. For this deep dive, George asked me if I would dig into Anton LeVe. And boy am I glad that he did. There is so much more to Anton LeVe's story than we've been told. Now I will place a link to the reveal report's YouTube channel down in the description box below so that you can join us tonight as well. I believe we're going to be going live at 7 30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. If that is not the correct time, then I will place the correct time on the community tab before we go live. And yes, you heard that correct. It will be a live show, so you are free to type in questions and comments during the show. I also want to give out a very very very special thank you to all of our new patrons.  I am humbled and very very grateful for all of you. I literally cannot say thank you enough. Now because this show is a little bit different than the normal story time show, I won't have a credit reel. So for some of you that joined Patreon this week, your name will appear in the credits on Monday's Monday Mystery. I've already filmed that, but a few of you have joined since I filmed the Monday Mystery, so your names will appear on Wednesday's show of next week. If you are at the producer level on Patreon, please send me your businesses or your website, social media, whatever it is that you want me to promote for you. That's part of being a producer. Your support goes a long way in helping us run this channel, so therefore this channel is going to do what we can to support you as well. If you're in the $10 and up bracket, make sure you're sending me in some stories that you want me to cover on this channel. If the story you send in is a little bit too risky for YouTube at the moment, I will contact you back to find a new story, but I'll probably put the risky story to the side to do later once all of our regulations and boundaries will say have lifted. Now I want to again give a little bit of a sneak peek into Anton Lavey before the show tonight, because there again is so much more to Anton Lavey than we have been led to believe. If you are like me, you probably think of Anton Lavey as a big living cartoon character. From the outside looking in, he seems just like a man who was pretty gothic, who kind of made a mockery of his own self and therefore seemed a little bit harmless. He did attract a lot of celebrities, but if you watch like the mainstream narrative of Anton Lavey, many people believe that the celebrities associated with Anton Lavey were doing that for publicity stunts. Let me tell you friends, they were not doing it for publicity stunts. Now a lot of these stories with celebrities and their connections to Anton Lavey, we will be covering on the reveal report tonight, not this morning, but tonight. So let's talk a little bit about who Anton Lavey was for those who don't know who he was. Anton Lavey was born Howard Stanton Levy on the 11th of April 1930 in Chicago, Illinois. According to the mainstream narrative, he was born into a very secular Jewish family. When Lavey was young, his family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and he ended up attending high school just north of San Francisco. According to the legends, he dropped out at 16 years old in order to basically join the circus. You see, it is stated that Anton Lavey was extremely musically talented, which we will talk about tonight because there is a possibility that he has a granddaughter or daughter out there that everybody knows that is also very musically talented. But again, you'll have to join us tonight for that. Anton Lavey would do musical performances allegedly for the circus, and his whole story was that while he was working for the circus, he would see these quote unquote good Christian men coming into the circuses and basically making a mockery of themselves and acting in really rowdy ways. Then they would turn around the next day and go to church on Sunday, where they would pretend to be holier than thou. Anton would go on to say that this really greatly affected him and his view on Christianity. In fairness, I do know what he's talking about. Sometimes it seems that the most fundamentalist of Christians probably have the most to hide. Judge not least ye be judged, right? However, many people think that this whole story of him joining the circus at 16 might be a fabrication. In my opinion, doesn't really matter because I questioned the inception of Anton Lavey from the very beginning. Since I've looked over his whole story, I do believe that he was placed where he was placed for a very specific reason by the powers that be. You guys know who those powers are that I am referring to. In 1948, at just 17 years old, Anton Lavey traveled down to Los Angeles where he started playing music in certain nightclubs and burlesque clubs. The story goes that he ended up having an affair with Marilyn Monroe basically while he was working in these nightclubs. Allegedly, he was working for the Mayan Theater where Marilyn Monroe, according to the story, was also working. But the theater claims that she never worked for them. So there is some haziness there along with that story. However, he will end up having a very publicized relationship with Jane Mansfield, which again, we'll get into more tonight on the reveal report. Jane Mansfield was like the counterpart to Marilyn Monroe during this time. In 1950, Anton Lavey headed back to San Francisco. He ended up enrolling into a community college where he studied criminology. This was also around the time of the Korean War. My grandfather was actually a medic in the Korean War. The story goes that Anton Lavey registered himself into this community college to avoid the draft. Again, I don't know if this is true or not. I wasn't around then. But I do know historically people have figured out ways to dodge the draft. And if you don't know what the draft is, the draft was something the government would do, not just the American government. There were a lot of governments that did this that would force young men to enroll into the military, especially during wartime, to basically draft it, be forced to go off and be a part of these big wars. We don't have it anymore here in America, but it was really big, especially during the Vietnam War. You'll hear a lot of stories about what they call draft dodgers. A lot of them ran off to Canada, all sorts of stories about young boys trying to avoid going off to war, basically. Anton Lavey claims that he worked for the San Francisco Police Department with his criminology major as a photographer and as a psychic medium. In fact, it seems that Anton Lavey made quite a living for himself as a psychic medium before founding the Church of Satan. In 1951, Anton Lavey married his first wife, Carol Lansing. She was only 15 years old at the time. And in 1952, Anton Lavey and Carol Lansing welcomed their first child and their only child, not Anton Lavey's only child, but their only child, Carla. Around this time, Anton Lavey allegedly becomes friends with the writers of the horror and fiction magazine Weird Times. By 1960, allegedly, Anton Lavey was having an affair with a woman named Diane Hegerty. So he divorces Carol Lansing and creates a life with Diane. They never get married, but they do stay together for about 24 years. Out of all of his partners, she seems to be the most prominent. In 1963, their daughter, Zena, was born. She happens to look a lot like Taylor Swift, eerily like Taylor Swift, which we will talk about tonight on The Reveal Report. If you saw the episode with Janine from Terror by Janine and Tom Numbers that we did a few days ago, you probably saw me ask a question regarding that relationship and we'll get more into it tonight on The Reveal Report. At this point, Anton Lavey becomes like semi-famous in San Francisco. He's very recognizable. He's still performing in bars and nightclubs at night. Obviously, he's doing a lot of paranormal stuff all over the city, and he happens to drive around the city in a hearse. He also has the reputation for throwing crazy parties, and at this point, he had a pet black leopard named Zoltan. He would go on to have a pet lion down the road. On Friday nights, Anton Lavey started to give lectures on the occult. These lectures cover topics like cannibalism, vampirism, werewolves, aka shape-shifting, you know, all that fun stuff that we're now learning might not be fiction. This is around the time that Anton Lavey starts to go by Anton Lavey. As I said earlier, he was born with the name Howard. I guess you can't really be a mystical paranormal church of Satan runner with the name like Howard. On the evening of April 30th, 1966, Anton Lavey was giving his usual lecture on the occult, but at this point, he decided to shave off all of his hair. This was supposed to be in the tradition of the ancient executioner, which makes you kind of wonder what his role was in some of these ceremonies and rituals that weren't videotaped that they did in his church. This was also the night that he declares that the church of Satan is founded. Anton claims that this is a faith based on carnal needs of man to be selfish.  Anton Lavey also declares 1966 to be year one or Anno Satanis, the year one of the age of Satan. Anton Lavey, as I said in the beginning of this episode, in my opinion before studying him, reminded me a lot of a cartoon character. He was very eccentric, very theatrical, and with this type of personality he did start to film a lot of his antics. He would recreate rituals that were performed by the Knights Templar, Voodoo, and Norse practices. He started to teach people magic. He also started to perform weddings and funerals. He also started working on the Satanic Bible. Now I'm going to read to you the nine statements of the Satanic Bible. Again, we will get more into this with George and Jesse tonight on the reveal report because I've never practiced the occult. There is a limit to my understanding when I review this stuff. So I'm probably going to kick the ball over to them tonight when we get to this topic to have them kind of fill in the blanks that maybe I've missed. So the nine Satanic statements are Satan represents indulgence, not abstinence. Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams. Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypercritical self-deceit. Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasting on ingrates. Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek. Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires. Satan represents man just as another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all fours because of this divine spiritual and intellectual development has become the most vicious animal of all. Satan represents all of the so-called sins as they all lead to physical, mental, and emotional gratification. And Satan has been the best friend of the church has ever had as he has kept it in business all these years. I have to admit to you guys when I first read that, last one, number nine, I literally laughed out loud. I thought that was really funny and it's kind of true. So yeah. And as we know, the Christian churches themselves are also been infiltrated and corrupted too. So there's a deeper meaning to that but I did find that quite humorous when I first read it. Now on February 1 of 1967, Anton Leves had his first satanic wedding. This was between journalist John Raymond and NYC socialite Judith Case. Leves is now called the Black Pope. At three years old, Leves' daughter Zena is baptized to the left-handed path of Satan. This is recorded onto an album called The Satanic Mass that you can still look up on YouTube today and listen to. Now Zena seems to be the child out of all three of his children that he is going to utilize the most. And again, we're going to get into that tonight on the reveal report. Zena's mom, Diane, also considered herself to be a sorcerer and the co-founder of The Church of Satan with her dad Anton Leves. Let's just say Zena herself has had a very rough life. In 1975, Michael Aquino becomes the editor of The Church of Satan newsletter. We have heard a lot about Michael Aquino in these last few years. In my opinion, he's a very, very, very dangerous man. Michael Aquino would eventually leave The Church of Satan to form his own subset of Satanism and this was called the Temple of Set. Michael Aquino claims to have invoked Satan when he felt Leves was not doing Satanism right. He also claims that Satan showed him a special text that nobody else has seen. Michael Aquino is now the Satan's chosen one and he's going to reveal to him this hidden text that's called Coming Forth by the Night. He also claims that in this moment of invoking Satan, that Satan revealed to Michael Aquino that Satan's real name is Satan but set, which was an Egyptian God's name. These temples of set have now been established all over the United States. Michael Aquino is also a political scientist as well as a military officer. He has been accused of doing some really bad things with human beings in this dark group of people, which again we're going to elaborate on with the reveal report tonight. In 1984, Diane Hagerty and Leves split and she actually files a restraining order against him. There's not a whole lot of detail as to why she filed a restraining order against him but the claims their daughter Zina would go on to make makes you really wonder what was happening in that house before she left. Then we see the entrance of Blanche Barton and she becomes Anton Leves' final partner. She was born Sharon Lee Densley on October 1, 1961 so she is younger than his oldest daughter Carla. Just going to put that out there. In 1993 Anton Leves and Blanche Barton have their son. This is Anton Leves' third and final child. They name him Satan Xerces Camachi Leves.  That's disgusting. Leves did appear in her book called The Secret Life of a Satanist. Now there's not a whole lot out there about their son Satan. He's what 10 years younger than me so he would be what like 27, 28 today and that's okay. You know I don't blame him for not really having a social media presence or if he does have a social media presence it might be under another name because naming your child Satan is rather unfortunate. Now I have some speculations about their son Satan and his relationship with their dad that I will be talking about tonight on The Reveal Report. Again not going to get into that right now. This is just a sneak peek but again these are just my speculations. Some of the stuff we can't really prove is just kind of connecting the dots. Now Anton Leves died on the 29th of October 1997. He died of a pulmonary edema. He was 67 years old. That's still pretty young. After he died we do get into a bit of family drama. On November 7th 1997 so a few days after he passed away Carla Leves which is again his oldest daughter held a press conference to announce her father's passing. Carla announced that she and her stepmother Blanche Barton who is 10 years younger than Carla would be co-high priestess and would co-run the church of Satan. Barton had already tried to take that role from Satan the high priestess role before Anton Leves died but he kind of corrected it. You see Xena had been in that role before the middle child Xena the girl that he really used but Xena fled from the church of Satan in 1990 which again we'll get to later on tonight with the reveal report. A few days after this press conference where Carla announced that she and her like Suno's stepmother would kind of co-run the the family business will say Barton then magically found this like handwritten letter from Leves claiming that everything he had all of his royalties everything was supposed to go to Barton and their son basically icing out Carla and Xena the other two children. Now again this was conveniently a handwritten letter that Barton just happened to find. Well Carla took it to court and contested it and of course the court ruled in Carla's favor so after Carla contested this fake will and a settlement was reached basically ruling in Carla's favor all the Leves belongings would be divided amongst his three children equally which is fair. This also included all the money and royalties however Barton was given the church of Satan so Carla then went and opened up the first satanic church on Halloween of 1999 so she was basically like eff you I'm just going to go open up my own church because I'm actually Anton Leves daughter so I could probably draw a bigger crowd than you can blanch. The same year Barton tried to raise about four hundred thousand dollars to save what they called the black house. This was the house that Anton Leves was famous for owning in San Francisco yes it was all black this is where a lot of his ceremonies took place all that kind of stuff it is stated that potentially that was his parents house and he just kind of took it over and then painted a black and made it kind of a spectacle. Anyway Blanche did not she could not raise the four hundred thousand dollars so they ended up tearing down the state tore down the house and now their condos there so some interesting information about Anton Leves he heavily supported eugenics and it was somebody else who heavily supports eugenics. He allegedly hated rock music and metal music which seems weird to me because he was you know especially with metal like if you're the founder of the church of Satan don't you think you should actually like metal music? He also allegedly hated hard drugs really wasn't into like party substances well certain party substances he might have been into another party substance that we'll talk about again tonight. He was also a consultant on the film Rosemary's Baby and allegedly he played the role of Satan that impregnates Rosemary. If you haven't seen that movie it's a pretty dark movie it gives me the creeps when I watch it even before the great awakening started happening and we started realizing that this stuff's real it still really creeped me out. Rosemary's Baby was directed by Roman Polanski whose wife Sharon Tate will go on to lose her life by the followers of Manson on August the 8th of 1969. Now something very interesting is that Jay Sebring was in the house with her he also lost his life he was a celebrity hairstyle and a really good friend of Sharon Tate apparently they dated before she married Roman Polanski and he allegedly was a member of the church of Satan. Susan Atkins who was one of the people there in the Manson family had also previously played a vampire in one of Levet's shows so she also knew Levet. So there's some strange connections and strange ties to that story which again will elaborate on tonight as well with George and Jesse. Now about a year ago I did a story about a haunted house down in Savannah this house is 432 Avercorn Street I will put a link to that video down in the description box below if you have not seen it this house was built around the year 1868 over a burial site it is in an area called Calhoun Square it is known for being a location for child A-B-U-S-E for a triple H-O-M-I-C-I-D-E again we have to be very careful about what we say and many many disappearances many people have claimed that this house is actually a portal to hell and it is rumored that Levet tried to purchase it to be the location of the church of Satan on the east coast there's also a strange tie that many of his followers have to Lacey Peterson if you're not from America you might not be familiar with this case her body was found in the bay she was pregnant her husband is now currently incarcerated and is sitting on death row for her leaving this world we'll just say but many people speculate that he might actually be innocent and this might be the doings of potentially some members of Levet's organization there's also a curse around again Jane Mansfield that we spoke about earlier which we'll go into detail tonight Jane Mansfield again was the counterpart to Marilyn Monroe she was part of the church of Satan and she had a very weird accident that took her off the earth plane if you know what I'm saying again there's a whole idea of this curse around her that apparently Levet put on her we'll go into that tonight there's a lot of stuff there we're also going to go deeper into what they call the satanic panic of the 1980s the mainstream story is that it was all just a big like bunch of baloney and a lot of this like satanic stuff wasn't really happening which now we know it probably was at this point before Xena had left the church of state and she was the church of satan's spokesperson where she had to go out and basically gas like the situation and make it seem like it was ridiculous and all the church of satan was was just a religious organization where humans were humans and nothing more now again Xena would go on to leave the church of satan and disconnect from her family and go on to kind of whistle blow on certain activities which we'll get into tonight and of course tonight we will also talk about taylor swift so that's all we're going to go over this morning I just kind of wanted to give you guys a debriefing of who this person was because I know many people especially those that maybe don't live in the united states aren't familiar with Anton Levet if you can please join us tonight on the reveal report so we can get into the real juicy stuff the real meat and potatoes of his story george and I have been texting a lot this week back and forth about this situation and about what I have found in his confirmation on certain things and Anton Levet's story again is nothing like what they've told us it is in my opinion this man was not harmless in my opinion this man really believed what he practiced and he practiced it with an iron fist and in my opinion he was willing to do anything for satan so once again please join us tonight none of this stuff is meant to scare you at all it's just meant to wake us up as we know the best is yet to come and as we believe a lot of this stuff has already been cleaned up by the by the good guys by the powers that be on the good side but the more we continue to expose certain activities and talk about it openly with everybody the less likely it is for this for these types of activities to spring up in the future all right guys I will leave you on a positive note remember Jesus told us our two commandments were to love thy God with all their heart and to love each other as he has loved us I look forward to seeing you all tonight on the reveal report if you can't join us tonight I know that the reveal report saves all of their lives so you can go back and rewatch it on the channel once it's already been put up on the channel's display homepage and I want to say a very special happy birthday to my niece Jacqueline she's turning seven today I cannot believe she's seven I'm going to see her a little bit later before I go on the reveal report to have some good old fun and tomorrow the 26th I believe is David Zuflick's birthday so if you're on the dark outpost make sure to send him some happy birthday wishes all right guys I hope you have a wonderful day I'll see you tonight thank you so much to Josh McKay for doing our music if you would like to purchase the opening song there's a link down in the description box below kind of like iTunes where you can purchase the full song and thank you again to Todd Roderick for helping me get this video out to you guys I love you all and I will see you tonight


Hi, I'm Rob Randall, Chief Executive Officer of ACARA. As part of the National Assessment Program, ACARA has responsibility for the full cohort NAPLAN program. We are all students in Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 undertake literacy and numeracy assessments. We also have responsibility for the NAP sample assessment program. Since 2003, these assessments have been delivered to a sample of schools across Australia each year on a three-year rolling cycle. The tests look at Science Literacy, Civics and Citizenship and Information and Communication Technology or ICT Literacy. Later this year, approximately 12,000 Year 6 and Year 10 students from over 600 schools across the country will sit the NAP ICT Literacy Assessment online. I'd now like to pass to Michelle Robbins, ACARA's NAP sample assessment program manager to walk you through some more information about the NAP ICT Literacy tests. This year, in October and November, approximately 12,000 Year 6 and Year 10 students from across Australia will take part in a National Sample Assessment in Information and Communication Technology Literacy, otherwise known as ICT Literacy. 655 schools have been carefully selected using a two-stage stratified sampling methodology. So what does that mean? This methodology guarantees the representative nature of the sample, one that is able to deliver results that are valid and reliable. Schools are selected from all states and territories and sectors, including government, Catholic and independent. So what is ICT Literacy? ICT Literacy is about ensuring our young people develop the skills and competencies required to keep up with and adapt to new and changing technologies. We all know how prevalent and how significant computers and mobile devices are in today's world. We also know that the uptake of new technologies and applications is rapid and that our students are highly adept at keeping up with the latest offerings. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other forms of social media play such a pivotal role in our students' lives. Do we really know how well our students are able to perform other skills related to ICT? Can our students access information via the web using critical thinking skills? Do they know how to use information in an ethical and responsible manner? Are they aware of the importance of respecting intellectual property? Can our students organise and manage information using software that is commonly available in schools and in workplaces? And importantly, are students able to effectively communicate their understandings with different audiences for different purposes? During the ICT Literacy Assessment, students will be presented with a number of modules which have been carefully designed to reflect real-world experiences with technology. Both teachers and senior educators have been engaged in the review of these questions to ensure that the assessment is suitable for both year 6 and year 10 students. As part of the assessment, we will be asking students to complete a short questionnaire to gauge their usage and experiences with ICT. In 2011, we conducted the same questionnaire and there were some interesting findings. For instance, did you know that only 2% of year 6 students and 1% of year 10 students surveyed do not have a computer or a device at home? And did you know that almost 60% of year 6 students and 80% of year 10 students use computers at home almost every day? Compared to 2005, these figures have increased dramatically. It will be very interesting to see the findings from this year's assessment. As you know, technology is increasingly shaping the world in which we live. And becoming ICT literate is now an essential 21st century skill. Its importance cannot be underestimated if we are to ensure that our students are fully able to participate in society and engage as responsible global citizens. Akara would like to thank the many teachers and principals across Australia for ensuring that the technical readiness checks have been completed and for preparing their students for test day later this year. If you'd like to know more about these assessments, please take a moment to read the information leaflets that are now available on Akara's NAP website. Thank you.


Organic agriculture plays a great role in the agricultural system because it uses a huge agricultural waste manure and recycles it back to the land and grows crops. So that's a huge service that organic agriculture is playing in the agricultural system. Also, organic farmers are planting cover crops and the cover crops are helping to build soil and to fix nitrogen and that is an environmentally friendly thing to do and it also helps to grow crops. So those aspects of using compost and using cover crops are really beneficial to agriculture as a whole. And there are conventional growers that use cover crops as well and there are conventional growers that may use manure related fertilizers as well. But since organic agriculture is based on these things, certainly a lot of it gets used on organic land. So there are benefits then in terms of soil building and reduction of soil erosion, reduction of runoff of soluble nitrates, so those things are all good. The thing that makes it more complicated though is that there is a limited amount of manure available in the U.S. and in the world. And if you look at the USDA's estimates of how much manure is produced in the U.S. and how much of that is recoverable, a relatively small fraction of the total agricultural land could be fertilized with manures and that number, maybe it's somewhere between 10 and 20% of the land at best, could be fertilized using manures. So what that means is that organic agriculture, even under the most optimistic scenarios, isn't going to be able to be used on all the land, at least in terms of using manure as a fertilizer. The other aspect of using manure is that one, it's important to turn it into compost so you don't have weed seeds or human pathogens going into the field. And that process of making compost and spreading compost or buying compost is expensive. If I run the numbers it costs about $220 an acre to apply 10 tons of compost here in California and that compares maybe to about $100 an acre if you wanted to apply synthetic nitrogen. So it's not the most economic place, but it's doing other things. It's building soil, it's providing food for the microbes, it's building up the microbes. It has its benefits, but it has its costs as well. I think it certainly would right now, as an organic grower, if you have a nematode problem, you can do a number of things. You can rotate your crops and plant crops that are resistant to nematodes or you could have fallow periods which helps to reduce nematode populations as well. But if you want to keep producing, certainly the best strategy is to be planting nematode resistant varieties. And on the student farm here we select a number of varieties because they have nematode resistance. Now the funny thing is that there are some hybrid varieties that plant breeders and seed companies have a lot of energy into that have a variety of treatments that are beneficial including resistance to nematodes. And these seeds are fairly expensive and also are in the really traditional red slicer or canning tomato kinds of varieties that sell the most. If you have heirloom varieties or other kinds of open pollinated varieties that the seed companies haven't been that interested in, then basically you don't have any resistance to nematodes. And the gene for nematode resistance is well characterized. And there's a plant breeder on campus who has been working with that gene in processing tomatoes and he somewhat jokingly once said to me, oh you know I could put that gene into 20 heirloom varieties in three months and have those varieties available for people to use. And he could do that but of course he didn't do that because there are all kinds of regulatory issues associated with that. But it would be a very simple solution that the gene is available in tomato plants. And so it's really a matter of using a tomato gene and putting it into other tomatoes so more varieties have resistance to nematodes. And of course that gene could be put into other plants as well, peppers, whatever the crop is in order to provide nematode resistance. And what that does, it allows you to grow crops without having to fumigate your ground or apply soil or apply other pesticides to the soil in order for the crop to be healthy in the row. And organic growers can't do that but that's presumably in my mind one of the reasons that conventional growers continue to use soil fuel against and other chemicals in the soil is because they have a problem of like nematodes that are challenging to control. So the more alternatives you have to chemical solutions, the better it is for the environment and the more accessible these tools are to get a variety of growers to reduce pesticide use. The organic standards have allowed a variety of plant-based insecticides, including rocanone, but they've banned some others like nicotine-based insecticides. And the reason for the banning of the nicotine was that it was thought to be just too toxic to mammals in order to really fit into the model of organic. And as far as rocanone goes, it does have some possible health impacts on people. And that alone may be a very good argument for forbidding its use in organic agriculture. But that's not the only reason that you would allow or deny use of a pesticide. One of the things that rocanone does do is that it breaks down very quickly. It also is a fairly broad-spectrum pesticide, which is not ideal. It is one of the few plant-based materials that organic growers can use that have an impact on a variety of pests. If it were me personally, I don't spray a great deal. And in fact, in all the years of organic farming, I've never sprayed rocanone. Because I made a choice that my pest population wasn't bad enough that I should spray it. Or there were alternative things like pyrethrum-based insecticides, or BT, or depending on what the pest was, something else that I could spray. So I can't defend rocanone on a health basis. And maybe that's something that the National Organic Standards Board should look more closely at, to see that it really does fit into the organic model. I think that makes sense. I think it's important for consumers to understand that all farmers, whether they're organic farmers or conventional farmers or gardeners, everybody has some kind of challenge with pest and disease. And often they're very difficult to control. And that's why all farmers use some method of pest control and disease control. And it's also important to consider that the dose makes a poison. And that's more important than whether it was considered to be natural dug up from the ground or extracted from flowers. Those can be very toxic compounds. And sometimes synthetic compounds are not very toxic. So that's something that we would like to see a certified, sustainable type of label that would actually base. As Raoul said, so we're actually looking at toxicity of compounds rather than if they were gathered from nature or synthesized. Because that's really the part is the toxicity. And also whether farmers are using other types of integrated management approaches that might be as effective or complementary. Well, plant breeding is definitely a form of genetic improvement, which is a form of genetic alteration. So everything we eat three times a day, breakfast, lunch or dinner is made from crops that have been genetically altered in some manner. And there are many, many methods of genetic improvements. So 10,000 years ago, it was very primitive domestication, collecting seeds, replanting, selecting, replanting. And there was a acceleration in the last 100 years or more than 100 years using hybridization and crossbreeding between different species. There are many types of approaches, embryo rescue, mutagenesis. That's why in the book we like to use the word genetic engineering because it's a little bit more clear in the sense that genetic engineering, you can put, for example, bacterial gene into a cotton plant. And so we use the term genetic engineering to be a little bit more clear. But everything we eat has been genetically altered in some manner. And I think what's important for consumers to know is that there are risks of unintended consequences no matter what type of genetic alteration you use. So for example, if you use a method called mutagenesis, which is you take seeds and you dip them in a carcinogenic solution that induces mutation, the farmers, the breeders will then take that seed, plant them out, look for those that have traits of interest and then use that to do breeding. And what you end up with are often very interesting new traits, but you also end up with hundreds of uncharacterized mutations. Now, the food that's produced from that is not going to cause cancer, it's perfectly safe. However, there's a risk of unintended consequences in the sense that one of the other, you may have mutated another gene that changes something about the crop. And so that is a method that's considered by the National Academy of Sciences to be the highest risk of unintended consequence compared to any other method of genetic alteration. And a higher risk as compared to genetic engineering, even putting a bacterial gene into a cotton plant. And the reason is that when you put a bacterial gene in a cotton plant, the gene is very well characterized, and so you know exactly what you're getting. So for example, organic agriculture allows seeds developed through mutagenesis, but they don't allow seed developed through genetic engineering. So there's no correlation between whether a particular method is certified organic or not in terms of risk of unintended consequences. Another example is hybridization, which has been used since the 1920s. And this is where breeders can take two different varieties and make a pollination. And then what they do is they sell the seed to farmers. And farmers really like that because these hybrid seeds make the plant more resistant or perhaps higher yielding. They have hybrid vigor. So hybrids are very, very popular. However, the farmer can't really replant the seed. They can replant the seed, but then when they harvest that seed, it has lots of different traits. So they don't actually recover the hybrids of the parent. So for that reason, farmers go every year to the seed company to buy their seed. And that is a process that was developed long before genetic engineering. And it also is something organic farmers use. So that's something sometimes that consumers aren't aware of hybrids as well. Well, supposedly the BT organism, we apply it to a plant, is viable for about 24 hours in sunlight. And then it starts to break down rapidly. And one, it's no longer effective. But two, it's no longer the material that it was. I'm not sure what the breakdown products of it are. But they're teenage proteins.  But that said, the BT bacterium itself is a soil-borne bacteria that was found in the soil. And people spraying it are exposed to it. And it has a mode of action that doesn't impact mammals. The BT that we spray can kill a relatively small range of butterfly and moth pests. And that's it. So the toxicity of the material is low no matter how it's used. It's low if it's used as a spray and it's low if it's used in a plant. Because it doesn't impact mammals. You know, I don't think that is going to happen. Many people are buying organic because it doesn't have genetically engineered seed. And so I think it's kind of perhaps important for people to have a place to go. So what we advocate really is a new agriculture. It's certified sustainable that uses the best agro-ecological approaches and the best most appropriate seed technologies. Of course it makes sense to have genetically engineered seed in organic agriculture because it's the same goal, which is an ecologically based system of farming. But I'm afraid that too many people have heard that there is something dangerous about genetically engineered crops and it would be very difficult to change the organic label in the United States and abroad at this time. Yes, it would be difficult to change. But at the same time it would be very interesting if there were genetically engineered plants allowed in organic agriculture. Because one, I think it might open things up for research to be focused more on organic pests. So genetically engineered plants could be developed specifically for organic problems. And I think that would be beneficial for organic overall. It would improve yields and reduce losses to pests. So it's a very interesting opportunity. But it's one that is very likely not going to be taken up because of the, one, USDA national standards, organic standards prohibit the use of genetically engineered plants. And I think that the organic community as a whole still has enough doubts that they're not going to support that. And it's true that somewhere down the road if there were insect past or disease past or nematode past or some other past that was viral past that was so severe that it was impacting organic agriculture on a wide scale. Maybe that's an opportunity for genetically engineered solutions. But in the short run that's not likely to happen. But what we do hope happens though is that growers, that conventional growers who are interested in farming more sustainably will not only use genetically engineered plants, but will use some of the organic farming practices like crop rotations and cover crops and increasing the biodiversity in their field. Doing a number of those things which will make an impact on agriculture to make it more sustainable system. And in an absolute benefit to agriculture set that those kind of changes may be more important. I mean it's funny to realize that despite the impact of organic agriculture on our society in a land sense it's still less than 1% of the agricultural land in the U.S. The way it spins out is that 6% of vegetable crops are organic and 4% of fruit crops and then when you get to the field crops it's fractions of 1% of corn or rice or soybeans are actually organic. So while allowing genetically engineered crops to be used in organic agriculture would help organic getting that other 99% of the land to use more sustainable farming practices along with genetic engineering is going to have a much bigger impact overall. We really feel strongly that when we are considering new methods for agriculture or old methods that we consider the three pillars of sustainable agriculture which are the social, economic and environmental impacts. And we believe that rather than be distracted on how a seed has been developed that we should ask whether we can produce safe and nutritious food. We need to ask if farmers can make a good living. We need to ask if we can enhance soil fertility and biodiversity and we need to ask if we can reduce harmful environmental inputs such as toxic insecticides for example and we also need to conserve land and water. And we really believe we have the tools and the know-how to greatly enhance the sustainable agriculture but we really need everyone at the table including consumers and farmers and educators like yourselves students that are interested in agriculture and philanthropists and government organizations as well.


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Hello, Demita. We've briefly met before, but today it's an honour to be having a candid conversation with such an esteemed champion of diversity, equity and inclusion. Beat has the Director's Pure Heading Accessibility and DEI Strategy for the American Society of Civil Engineers, and we would refer to it as ASCE, Publications and Standards, to being an imperative part of the Women in AI Collective. Your pioneering efforts are opening doors for underrepresented groups and setting industry benchmarks for inclusive policies and processes. What is rather inspiring to me and I'm sure to everybody else who will be fortunate enough to be listening to your experience and being inspired by it is how you go beyond your professional accomplishments and carry a vision for systematic and systemic change, if we may call it so. Today, not only I, but also the researchers globally are eager to gleaning your insights on the progress being made with respect to DEI, persistent challenges ahead that we are foreseeing and how we might collectively build a more equitable landscape in scholarly communications. Most of all, I would like to emphasise that I'm keen to learn what fuels your passion for this work every day. With several wins along the way, I'm sure your wisdom and triumph is what we're looking for in understanding better and learning more about you today. So, welcome, Damita. Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation to be here. Firstly, congratulations on being a finalist for the top 100 DEI professional award. Well, this nomination only scratch the surface of your achievements. I can only imagine how thrilled you must have felt on seeing your name among such distinguished honorees. What was your first reaction, if may ask, like when you saw your name amongst the finalists? Well, I'll tell you, I received an email about it a few weeks before the announcement, and I thought it was spam. I did not, I didn't believe it. And then I saw a post on LinkedIn and I said, Oh, wow, this is, this is real. You know, I need to pay attention to this. So I was shocked and I was honoured at the same time. It was it's an honour. Over the years, you've held various influential roles within the American Society of Civil Engineers. Have how do you think have these experiences contributed to your expertise in publications and standards especially? And particularly when we talk about the realm of accessibility and DEI strategize? Yes, I've been at ASC for several years and I actually began my career there as a graphic designer. And I was always doing, you know, outside volunteer work related to justice with the National Association for the Advancement of Color People for the National Council of Negro Women. And I'm still a member and I still do work with them as well in my local area. So I was always doing that. But, you know, I was working every day and that wasn't a part of my day to day. You know, I didn't, 20 plus years ago, I didn't know what scholarly publishing was, you know, I was just going to a job. And still to this day, unfortunately, there are many like me that look like me that still don't know what's a career path. And so a lot of what I do wants to bring that awareness to historically excluded communities. And so that that fuels me. I will say, I don't think that I'm an expert because I'm still learning. I learned a lot. I learned something new. I try to learn something new daily. I've been lucky enough to be a member of committees or lead teams that are focused on making the industry more reflective of the public that it serves. Yes, definitely. And like as you speak about ASCE, being a director of the accessibility and DEIA strategy for publications and standards at ASCE, what prompted this transition and how do you envision shaping the accessibility and DEIA landscape within the publications domain, especially the scholarly publications domain, if I may ask. Well, as I mentioned, I was doing DEI work and within ASCE with the Staff Diversity and Inclusion Council, and I was working in publishing technologies. So I kind of had two jobs. And the managing director and publisher of publications and standards Dana Compton saw the need for the dedicated for a dedicated position that was focused on our publications DEIA strategy. And that's how the position came to be. She was she's a visionary and she saw the need. Now I can work with other teams within ASCE. And luckily now I only have the one job. So it's great. I'm more able to focus on on, you know, what fuels me. And DEIA is a part of our publication strategy. And of course, you know, it's a strategy based on ASCE's overall organizational strategy. With that being said, there are several things that I have on my to-do list. And I'm not doing it by myself. Since it's a part of the ASCE publication strategy, it's a part of everyone's job within publications. But I'll share a few things with you. We recently redesigned our online publications website ASCE library. And with the redesign, we realized that usability testing needs to happen to make sure that it is serving our members as we expect it and hope it hope that it will. So that's in progress. We are starting to collect, we'll be starting to collect demographic data on our authors. And that will help us. It will inform our decision-making related to make the make-up of our editorial boards in peer review. We're adding alternative text to our figures and tables to allow screen readers to read aloud content for those that are blind, have low vision or different learning styles. We expect that authors will soon have the ability to add journal article abstracts and languages other than English. The focus is on Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi, French and Chinese. If the author wishes to do that, he or she will be able to do that. The other thing we're working on are graphical abstracts. And those are images that visually represent an article abstract. So a few things going on right now. We also have partnerships with other organizations that are focused on DEIA, such as Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion and Scholarly Publishing and Scholarly Communications, I'm sorry, and the Royal Society of Chemistry's joint commitment for action on inclusion and diversity and publishing. And we also support the UN sustainability goals. We currently support seven of the goals and we'll be adding others. And we're also members of the UN SDG Publishers Compact, which aims to accelerate progress to achieve the SDGs by 2030. So if you want to know more, you can always go to our website, ASCELibrary.org, bash slash accessibility. So we have just a few things I'll mention to you today. There are quite a few, I may say. And it's definitely some commendable work that ASCE is doing on their themselves. But while we are at it, how do you recommend other organizations who may have not completely or holistically, you know, taken efforts in terms of embracing DEIA strategies and approaches? Are there any frameworks or metrics that you recommend that people or organizations may start at a smaller scale, and to probably create a very meaningful impact in future? Hmm. For my experience, assessment is key. Determine where you are and where you want to be. And then you can figure out the middle, figure out the middle and how you can get there. What are your objectives, get your strategies in order, and figure out what success looks like for you and your organization. As far as metrics, there are many DEIA maturity models out there. They are maturity models of tools you can use to assess the effectiveness of your efforts. I will say that the Anti-racism Toolkit for Organizations, my C4 disc has a chapter called Measurement and Metrics, and that's excellent if I say so myself. If you're limited by budget, there are some free assessment tools there. I also like the Race, Equity, and Inclusion Action Guide. That was put up by the Annie EKC Foundation. That's really, really helpful. And if someone wants to read a book, I'm reading a book right now called Racial Justice at Work, Okay. Practical Solutions for Systemic Change by the Winters Group. One of the chapters talks about DEIA work being transformational, people focused and emotional, therefore complex and sometimes polarizing. But within that chapter, you know, it provides helpful models. And as the title says, you know, practical solutions and actions that anyone can do. So really helpful. Sure, I'm sure they will be. And like when you work on these projects, and you know, when you work on strategizing certain solutions or approaches in terms of DEIA, were there any lessons that you've learned so far from your leadership experiences that may have shaped in terms of your approach that you take in strategizing DEIA? So I've always thought of this work in a particular way, you know, I think of it like a train, right? Some people board the DEIA train and get off at the next stop. Some state run for a few stops. Others stay on for the duration and some just don't get on at all. Right. That's fine.  It's difficult. I'll tell anyone that's doing this work to take a break if you need it, take a break as long as you need it. And as I mentioned before, assess, assess, assess where you are. The data will allow you to move forward. It will tell you what you need to stop doing and what you should continue doing. You don't have to do one large thing all the time. You know, those small steps, that will end up being impactful over time. So don't think it, you know, I always tell people you can do something that small, it may affect two people. That's still change. Yes, absolutely. Very rightly said. And I completely agree with what you just said, in terms of even smallest of your efforts would make a really long lasting and an effective, you know, impact on someone who has somehow stumbled upon a resource or your approach in any which way. And as I mentioned earlier, your initiatives and efforts with respect to approaches certainly have no limits. While you are being humble and saying that it's just a little thing that you're doing, but I'm sure it is, you know, impacting a lot of humans around us. One such thing that acts as a testament that we've already discussed earlier, and you also recommended for people and organizations to look forward to is the C4 disk anti-racism toolkit involving over 60 volunteers. I would like to understand how would you say has this project contributed to addressing systemic racism within scholarly publishing organizations? And what impact do you see? And do you hope to see for it to make in the future?  I don't think either of us realized what we were taking on at the beginning of that project. You know, it was a lot, but we had a great group of volunteers. They were wonderful. They were engaged, dedicated. I learned a lot from each of them and it was an experience that I was lucky to have and I'll always value it. And we did have a lot of fun. The toolkit was actually written by a multi-racial group of industry professionals and it's intended to help individuals at all levels within the scholarly publishing industry. The goal is to help them implement inclusive policies, procedures, and norms. The goal of the another goal was to provide actionable items for organizations in their journey. That's why it's broken down into small chapters. You don't have to read the entire toolkit at once. And within those, there are five chapters within those five chapters are several sections within them. So you can take, you know, bite-sized pieces and implement them in your organization. Can I mention some of the other toolkits? Sure, sure. Okay, so that toolkit is the second in a series that's called the Toolkits for Equity. And I would recommend that you read those toolkits as well. They are the anti-racism toolkit for allies, which was actually the first one. The anti-racism toolkit for organizations was the second one. And the anti-racism toolkit for Black indigenous and people of color was the third one in that series. The other two resources I want to mention quickly are the guidelines for inclusive language and images and scholarly communications and the toolkit for disability equity. All of these resources were created by C4Disk, all volunteers, all great work. There's another guideline coming out in the next few months related to editorial peer review. And last thing I'll say about the toolkits right now is that they can be adapted by other industries. We want people to customize them for their own use. There's a CCBY license so you can copy and redistribute the material in any format you wish. You can build on it. But C4Disk will ask that you do not customize the content so it does not, you know, we don't want you to dilute the language or alter the spirit in which it was originally written. So we want it to be adapted, but please keep the spirit of the product. Absolutely, absolutely. And the messaging I believe should not be, you know, disturbed at any stage of it being kind of propagated across different areas probably. Like for our listeners and our audiences across the globe, would you give a little more information as to are these toolkits openly accessible? Do they need to subscribe? Do they need to be a part of the C4Disk community? Can you give some more information on that? You do not need to be, I will say, I'll say two things. It is open to anyone that wishes to access the content. And the second thing is if you see something on the C4Disk, you don't have to be a member of C4Disk to volunteer for any committee. So please, if you feel, if you see a project and it speaks to you, please sign up for that project. And they do have a community of interest.  I'm a member of the community of interest. The last time we met, we talked about recruitment and retention. So there are a lot of great topics. I think the month before was about creating a safe space for discussion. So a lot of great things going on at C4Disk. Definitely. And I'm sure that this will inspire a lot of organizations as well to put forth some fundamental rules and some kind of strategies so that they are more inclusive and make the scholarly publishing domain or even otherwise more inclusive in terms of the kind of approaches that they take. Like I was saying that, you know, how important it is for like-minded people to come together and drive such forces together and bring a change that again highlights us into getting into the topic of, you know, DIA approaches and the goals that we aim to achieve. When like-minded people come together, a more inclusive structure is formed. That's when we can look for a progressive and a very sustainable kind of, you know, scholarly publishing or overall a very, you know, cultured and, you know, culturally diverse communities, also something that is really essential to bring in people from different geographies, right, to come and speak about similar things. Absolutely. Yes. And when we speak about these DI approaches on an industry-wide level, let's say, so according to you, where are we heading with this progress and what works, what work do you think is still not done or it's yet to be done? According to you, what would that be? I would say accessibility, content access for those without funding for research and content access for those that have disabilities, the people with disabilities. Progress. We, you know, I believe that countries, a lot of publishers believe that countries should and should support authors, researchers, peer reviewers and emerging economies. ASCE especially has a lot that they, we've just launched our early last year and launched our first open access engineering journal called ASCE Open. It only hosts open papers as the name implies, you know, it brings more people into the research conversation because the barriers to the content aren't there. You know, time will allow for open research to grow, but the work is happening and will continue. I've heard from a colleague that the European Mathematical Society, they've been working with research libraries and they've found a way to make all of their research journals open access without the need for other side fees. And so I haven't dug into that, but I think that's wonderful. The work to be done. I think we, I know we have to be more mindful in our content creation. We have to involve people with disabilities in the design process early on and the creation process early on. So speaking of accessibility as one of the primary areas where we need to do a little more progress, we also conducted a global survey just about the beginning of this year. And we found out that a lot of due to funding constraints or due to heavily levied APC, which are the article processing charges, it becomes really difficult for researchers and authors around the world, especially from low income countries to be paying. And in that course, I think we are losing out on some really important research that needs to go out there in the world. So that's, we got some really interesting insights from the survey that we conducted, which we also presented at the East Conference last year and which kind of brought in a lot of perspectives from researchers from different regions wherein we kind of understood how difficult would it be for someone whose research is ready, but due to publishing fund constraints or due to not being able to, you know, publish in the right targeted journal because of the heavily levied APCs, your important research that could potentially create a very big impact in the society and create probably it could be about environmental sciences, which we are in dire need of at the moment, we need research that would lead us into creating a more sustainable atmosphere to live in. So these are certain things, even medical research for that matter, like I'm sure you must be aware of when during COVID-19, there was so many misinformation, there was so many misinformation that was kind of propagated around and people were not really aware of what to and what not to do in that process. So in this process and this area, especially there are certain sensitive areas of understanding and research where people need to be aware more so and I think with more D.I. initiatives and with more established and structured funding opportunities for researchers around the globe, it will be one of the ways to overcome this challenge, right? What do you think about that? I agree. I think that, you know, we do need to have other voices at the table. We are, you know, the world is huge and there are, you know, we the barriers are there, but we're taking things, you know, taking down some of those walls piece by piece and we could only do that as a collective, you know, we could do our part individually, but I think as a collective, we're stronger and we know that this needs to happen and I think and I know it will happen. It is happening. Sure. Like even with smaller organizations taking their bit and, you know, their approach into dealing with this, I'm sure someday even the smallest of organizations or when a lot of people come together, form a collective, that's when the change is to happen. Change will be more impactful. There's certainly so, certainly so, but I do want to let those smaller organizations know that they can do something. They don't have to wait to be a part of a collective. They can do something and certainly through partnerships, such as the ones that I've already mentioned, you know, C4 Desk and World Society of Chemistry, the other organizations, you know, I have recently become a member of a few council, DNI councils, should say DEIA committees, I'm sorry, I'm thinking about ASEE. DEIA committees of other organizations such as the Institute for Potentialing Excellence National Information Standards Organization. So that's a collective that is working to address some of the issues that we see in publishing, to create equity. And so as I mentioned, I'm a new member of these groups and I'm looking forward to the initiative. So we were talking about collectives. Those are two collectives that are working with many organizations to do good work. When we talk about, you know, the future and when we talk about a more sustainable and inclusive future, what future initiatives or projects do you envision in advancing DEIA goals within the scholarly publishing domain? And how do you plan to engage stakeholders in these efforts other than just other than publishing the toolkits or being a part of several selectives? I can talk a little bit about what we've done with the DNI council at ASEE, how we've impacted the culture. And I'll just tell you really quickly how the council came about, you know, we were all at a staff meeting. We were in person, of course, all at a staff meeting about 10 years ago when our executive director was talking about how important DEIA was to the civil engineering profession. And I mentioned to you earlier that I'd done a lot of volunteer work in that space. And I thought it would be something worth investigating at the office, merging my two, you know, passions together, so to speak, and, you know, create a community with a focus on DNI. And the mission of the council is actually to focus understanding dignity and respect among staff and to cultivate an inclusive workforce that reflects all segments of society. Some of the things that we have been able to do, I'll talk about some of the things we've done and what we are currently working on for a minute. And I will say that I believe that the council has had an impact on the culture and that we talk about DEIA more internally. You know, we have those courageous conversations, be it, you know, one-on-one or with the speaker that we've been able to bring in, you know, I've been at ASEA a while and it's been rewarding for me to see this change or this growth in the culture. I won't say change. I'll just I'll say growth in the culture. People are feeling safe, vulnerable. They're not fearing judgment by their peers because I've heard some things and I'm like, wow, you know, they felt really comfortable. And I'm, you know, I'm glad that they felt that comfort there at that comfort level because not everyone is there. And I think that the council had a small part in making that happen. We have an annual diversity day. It's on May 20. It's based on the May 21st day designated by the UN World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. We do it around May 21st every year. We've had we've been doing it for 10 years. Before 2020, we had several in-person events to allow staff to celebrate themselves via via family dish. You know, food always brings people together, right? Personal stories in the virtual space. We've been able to do things a little bit different. We brought in speakers to talk about how to be a DEI champion, technology's role in building equity and opportunity for all and consciously overcoming and conscious bias in the workplace. And so, you know, we didn't that's not the only day, you know, we have education. So we have standing events such as our short story club and real talk, R-E-E-L talk, you know, it's a short film and we have conversation after that. They're hosted by staff and they are on D-I-A related topics. We also have had other events which allow such as unique, Y-O-U unique, allows people to share something about themselves such as a special interest. The goal is always for people to share, celebrate and learn. Yes. And we believe that the work allows us to see that we are more alike than different. We have more in common than not. Myself and the council members believe that the similarities allow us to see ourselves and others and we certainly wouldn't have been able to last for 10 years if we didn't have the supportive leadership and we had that from day one and, you know, that support will continue. And I will also say to folks if you do not have a budget don't let that be your stopping block. Short story club is what we do is have a staff member choose a short story. They send out a mass email and those that want to attend will. We ask that you read the short story beforehand then come to the meeting and have a discussion. So the person that chose the short story is the host for that meeting and will bring some of the thoughts from the story, some background on author. So that isn't like no budget. You don't need a budget to do things like that. So yeah, it's great to have a budget but if you don't it's okay. Yes, I think I absolutely agree when you said that you know comfort like people feeling comfortable within the area of where they are or a group or a collective that they are a part of and these initiatives as you mentioned bring a food of your region or your culture or even discuss short stories because of course we relate most to stories and experiences of people and that is what helps us in connecting, understanding and then trying to improve what we are aiming to. As we conclude today's session what one advice would you share with the scholarly world professionals aspiring to make a positive impact in DEIA strategy? Find a community that will appreciate the passion that you have. I was fortunate during my journey I found colleagues, organizations and friends that you know I was able to learn from, get sound advice from, collaborate with and you know share the passion that I have for this work. I came across a quote recently a few days ago actually and it said I don't know who wrote it but it said go where your energy is celebrated it reciprocated and appreciate it. So I'll share that with the listeners today so I want to thank you for having me here today. I appreciate you sharing a bit of my experience with everyone so thank you all. And thank you so much for giving us your time and it's an honor to be having you you're discussing and having this very important conversation while a lot of people talk about DEI initiatives and the approaches that they would want to take. I'm pretty sure that this podcast and this conversation that we have had today is going to help a lot of researchers and organizations together to actually navigate a roadmap and create a proper approach so that they go ahead and create one.


Everyone, a welcome in Toronto, Canada. Coming the action north of the border, set to go with these passionate Canadian fans. Set to go in Canada, the one and only time. Let's go! You are familiar with my racing career, as you know that back in 2012 in Montreal, Canada, I finished second at my first Canadian Formula One Grand Prix. Always loved going to Canada. Had a great atmosphere there. I've never been to Toronto, so that first one. But Mario, my wife, lives there six months when she was a student. So she's told me all about Toronto, and I'm excited to go there. And let's discover the track together. It's a car, there it is. Beautiful. So yeah, Toronto, we've been... Indica hasn't been there in two years, so it's going to be a challenge for everyone to discover the track, see how the time has changed from what we have. I have done some simulator laps back in India, in the police at the Honda, performance development simulator. But obviously, I've never been driven to track myself. It looks pretty intense, pretty challenging. But I guess the best is that we go and drive it together. OK, if you want to hear, you can actually use a bit of an inside kerb. Pretty bumpy going up to the back straight. We're going to be reaching 180 miles per hour, so 300 kph. Six gear, braking, a pin with a cement patch in the middle. Quite a tricky throttle application here. Brake, left corner. We're going into a very, very long right of the corner. I believe it's one of the hardest of the racetrack. That out. Small kick here on the right. Last corner, very bumpy last corner. Out of the last corner. Starting, finish, fishing line here. Big braking for turn one. You can use some of the inside kerb here. Important to go early on throttle. Big, big, big straight line on the back straight here. 180 miles an hour, top speed. There's a big braking at the end. That's definitely going to be the place where you use your push pass in the race. Braking, a nap in here. Quite a tricky throttle application. There it is. Braking again, left turn here. Now going into that very, very long right corner. I think it's going to be one of the hardest of the track. The car is just going to be understeer all the way onto a kink here towards the last few corners. Left, right, bumpy. Yeah, very bumpy. Left again. And back onto the start, finish line. Onto the back straight.


Ions are charged. Because of this charge an electric field exists around the ion which spreads out evenly in all directions getting weaker as it gets further away from the ion. When the field of a positive ion interacts with that of a negative ion an electrostatic attraction occurs and they're drawn together and this is the basis of an ionic bond. Because the electric field is all around the ion it doesn't matter which direction another ion approaches from. Because of this we say that the ionic bond is non directional. It also means that if other ions approach the original ion they can also be attracted to it and new bonds can be formed as long as the positive and negative ions are arranged alternately. As new ions add to the growing ionic structure they do so in a very regular pattern. This allows them to be packed in as closely as possible which makes the ionic bonds stronger. The result of this is that when an ionic substance is in its solid form the ions are held in a regular fixed 3D arrangement called a lattice. This is what happens when you grow a crystal of salt. Because different ions are different shapes and sizes there isn't a single best way for all ions to pack into a lattice. Each ionic substance has a characteristic way of packing. As more and more ions are added to the lattice the crystals eventually become macroscopic and the shape of the crystal reflects the geometry in which the ions packed. For instance, sodium chloride packs into a lattice called simple cubic and when you grow crystals of table salt you'll see that the predominant shape is a cube. This animation from Viskem illustrates how ions are packed in a sodium chloride crystal. Notice that although they're fixed in place in the lattice they're still vibrating which is a reflection of their kinetic energy. To melt the crystal we heat it up. The hotter it gets the more the ions vibrate. Since the higher temperature means that they have more kinetic energy. Eventually the kinetic energy of the ions overcomes the electrostatic attraction between them and the ionic bonds are broken. The ions now move freely past each other and the salt has become molten or in its liquid state. In contrast to the cubic crystals of sodium chloride the copper ions and sulfate ions in copper sulfate pack into an arrangement called triclinic which doesn't have the right angles of a cube. This means the crystals characteristically grow into lopsided diamond shapes. Note that this is copper sulfate pentahydrate which is the familiar blue form of the salt. This crystal actually includes water molecules among the ions. You can see in the formula that five water molecules are added. While the copper and sulfate ions are still locked in place by ionic bonds the water molecules are held there by weaker intermolecular forces that you'll meet later. Incidentally the study of crystals is called crystallography and played a vital part in much of 20th century chemistry and biology including the discovery of the structure of DNA. So my task for you is a short research task. Borax is a pretty common chemical. It's used in cleaning products and it's also used to make slime. I'd like you to look up the chemical formula and the proper name of borax. I'd like you to see if you can find out the name of the crystal type of borax. And then if you were shown crystals of sodium chloride and borax tell me how could you tell which is which just by looking at them.


Hi, my name is Tracy Takahame Spinoza and it is a thrill for me to be able to come and share these new ideas coming from Neuroscience that impact teaching and I really truly believe that there's never been a better time to be an educator with all of the bad That's happened in the world. There are some really fantastic things coming out of Neuroscience Informing the ways that we can better teach online and I can't wait to share those things with you I teach a course at Harvard University's Extension School called the Neuroscience of Learning It's an introduction to Mind, Brain, Health, and Education and I'm the Associate Editor at Nature Partner Journals on Science of Learning And we're starting to see a whole new series of Research coming in that supports certain types of interactions during these times of being online And I want to share some of those things with you One of the main things that they were really coming to understand is that there is just no cognition without emotion and That attending to social-emotional needs mental health during these times has been really really important, but not just for now It's something that will carry over into the future So what we'll do during this session is we're going to be talking about our changing roles educators We're going to look at that new profile within the context of a transdisciplinary lens of Mind, Brain, Health, and Education And then we're going to talk some tech tools Which tools save us time so that we can attend to the human Aspect of learning. Let the machines do it. Machines do best. Let people do it. People do best And within this talk we will also try to get rid of some of the neuro myths that sort of invade our teaching practice and Try to understand those core principles and tenets, things that are really true about human learning and the brain And what we can leverage within our classroom context, especially taking into consideration Maybe cultural variations and also with this new modality of teaching online actually tells us about teaching and learning Many of you are often faced with trying to manage large group sessions And how is it that we can benefit from actually doing these large group zoom rooms? What are the things that we can learn from as far as technology is concerned related to social contagion the Disinhibition effect, how can we leverage things like breakout rooms for small group interaction and authentic learning? How can you really use the chat to your advantage and low stakes testings? That would be self-corrected so that we can have more time to explain the why behind mistakes as opposed to just the mistakes themselves The use of discussion boards and reflection to enhance learning outcomes All of these things are facilitated in online learning and online context And we'll be going into each of those and how they can benefit your classrooms So there has never been a better time to be a teacher We are putting everything into question right now Doubting a lot of things about policies and large standardized tests and things like that. That's all up for grabs right now So I really believe that online is a way to reach more students to personalize our learning to differentiate through homework For example, and it saves this time in the long run But it is totally new territories and as new learners ourselves We need to be open to these new ideas and see what's going to happen in the future of Education thanks to the nudge we've received from this crisis that we're now living in so Looking forward to talking to you and exchanging ideas If you do have any questions that you would like me to address specifically Please feel free to write me before we meet and I will work your questions into the presentation. Thanks a lot


I rise to make some brief remarks tonight and I'll commence with the news which is on the wires this afternoon that BHP Billiton has shelved its proposed expansion of what would have been the world's largest uranium mine and the largest excavation on the surface of the earth and obviously there's a lot of chatter and analysis around at the moment about why they have done that. It seems to relate mostly to falling commodity prices and the fact that this gargantuan project was always going to be very difficult for the company to get across the line. One of the aspects of it of course though that I think perhaps has escaped analysis thus far is the collapse of the world uranium price since the disaster on the 11th of March in Japan last year at the Fukushima Daiichi plant along Japan specific coast and I can't help but imagine that that must have played some part in the decision by BHP to shelve this project. But I've wanted to know for a very long period of time whether it's the Roxby expansion or the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory what happens to our uranium when it leaves. Where does it go? It's a question that I wish more Australians would ask. It's a question that I wish more politicians would ask because of course what we see are the dollar signs and we very rarely take heed of the danger signs. In the interest of finding out where our uranium ends up I travelled during the winter break and spent a few days in Tokyo and three days in Fukushima Prefecture between Fukushima City which lies about 60 kilometres from the reactor complex and coastal towns to the north of the plant and I found where our uranium goes. Some of it in the form of cesium which is a fission product so it's effectively a broken uranium atom. It's an atom that has been cracked into an uneven and radioactive fragment by neutron bombardment inside a nuclear power plant. Quite a lot of the uranium from Australia appeared to be in the soil in a field that I visited on the edge of a dead village formally known as Itate and when I was there the work crews of a couple of dozen or so in plastic masks and clean suits were working earth moving equipment slowly through this field stripping the top 50 centimetres of soil bagging it in black plastic and then containing it under blue tarpaulins. I have no idea where that material is headed for or even why they were doing it. Some of the uranium from Australia we found even in the form of cesium in Sasaki Kerkos lounge room in Fukushima City where the ambient radiation levels are two or three times what they would be in this chamber or in an ordinary environment anywhere in Australia and this cesium is now part of the subliminal background radiation which these people who were not evacuated will have to live with for as long as they stay in their homes. Some of that uranium from Australia is now buried under a small hill in a park in Minami Soma where I had the good fortune this is a city on the coast that wasn't as badly hit by the fallout from the Fukushima plant as some places that were evacuated. It was terribly damaged by the tsunami that washed through on the 11th of March instantly killing 19,000 people. That uranium now in the form of cesium and other fission products buried under the hill is the result of 16 or 17 months of work in which the city authorities and the local people conducting their own radiation monitoring have stripped the top soil from that park. They've sandblasted the bark from the trees and they've buried the contaminated waste under a small hill in their park because they were worried that their kids had now had 16 months without being able to play outside. They're balancing the risks of long-term chronic radiation exposure with the risks of vitamin D deficiency, depression and the lack of outdoor exercise. Some of that uranium from Australia is in the fish. Some of it is in the food and fresh produce which can now no longer be put onto the market. Some of it is in the horticultural produce. These industries have been destroyed right across the prefecture and what is what has done that I discovered after a lot of time spent with the local people obviously is the result of the disaster that overtook Tohoku on the 11th of March. The wave height at the point where it crossed the coast at the Fukushima Daiichi plant was 14 meters more than twice the size of the seawall that the Japanese utility TEPCO had built to protect the plant and although two of the operators were killed instantly in the impact the rest of them then had to contend with a plant that had had all its power knocked out so although the reactors had closed down as designed an hour before the disaster the the remaining residual decay heat even of the closed down reactors was enough to melt the fuel and set off hydrogen explosions in all four plants that then blew the containment buildings apart and left those crews contending with quite literally a worst case scenario in which they would have had to have pulled back and let the disaster run its course had they done that the Prime Minister now to Khan revealed some months later the Japanese would have had to evacuate the northern half of Honshu Island including Greater Tokyo population of around 30 million people that's how close they came the Prime Minister stormed into TEPCO headquarters on the 15th of March just four days after the disaster with three of the plants in full meltdown and demanded that TEPCO keep their staff on site and do everything that they could to keep through the melted reactor piles covered in seawater less that worst case scenario take place so millions of Japanese not just those in the impact area but right across the country and now aware that but for a different fall of the dice they would have lost their country the Prime Minister that last September told journalists it was a crucial moment when I wasn't sure whether Japan could continue to function as a state that stuff came from here it came from Australia I won't be shedding any tears tonight about BHP's dilemma in terms of their proposed expansion for the world's largest uranium mine I was also very fortunate to attend the launch of the Japanese greens and that is something that I think quite closely mirrors the history of the party here in Australia we are a global party we have members in regional national assemblies around the world and our footprint in South and East Asia is growing all the time and in Japan we're being seen as the answer to a political system that is simply paralyzed the nuclear industry is now openly referred to as the nuclear mafia it's being treated as a self-interested and extremely dangerous organized crime syndicate with very deep roots right to the face of Japanese society I attended the largest demonstration of my entire life on the streets of Tokyo in which the people effectively took back the street and are hoping to take back their country the Japanese are a patient people and the patients has run out things have changed I was really proud to be a part of that launch of the Japanese greens it will cost them something in the order of 60,000 Australian 60 or 70,000 Australian dollars simply to lodge the nomination forms to take part in national elections for every single candidate that they put in the field but I believe they can do it and they know what's at stake and how difficult it's going to be to break into the entrenched power structures that have prevailed in Japan in the post-war era and now brought their country to the brink of ruin but for another tectonic act of random and cruel misfortune they still could lose their country because of course in unit four which was the plant that wasn't operating at the time of the tsunami impact more than 1500 spent fuel rods are still perched quite precariously in a building that has been severely compromised so I hope that the Roxby uranium expansion joins Jabaluka, Akerula, Kungara, Angela Pamela and Toro's doomed Waluuna project as one of the Iranian minds that never was and must never be I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the people who showed me around who took me through the contaminated zones down to the coast and those of the Japanese grains who now have such a task ahead of them but nonetheless I know that they're up to it my deep thanks from from here to you in Japan to Koryama Messiah to Akira Kawasaki to Mary Joyce one of our own from Melbourne to Sasaki Keiko in whose lounge room I learned firsthand exactly what it means to live in an area that wasn't subject to evacuation to Matumoto Namiho to Rikia Adachi and to Mr and Mrs Murakami who told us what it was like on the morning of the or on the afternoon of the tsunami that flattened their entire neighborhood killed everyone in the district completely out of the blue and they told us their story of what it's like to live in a temporary accommodation center not too far from Minami Soma where they have effectively built a traditional Japanese village rebuilt a community of reciprocity and care while they wait for their resettlement I wish BHP well and what I wish the BHP would do is take a look at the writing on the wall and tune its investments more towards the gigantic abundance of free energy that is falling from the sky every single day colleagues there are better ways of shunting electrons down wires than nuclear fission reactors I thank the Chamber