A beer pioneer, South Africa's first Black female brewery owner trains a new generation
'When you are brewing you must constantly check your mixture,' Nxusani-Mawela instructs them. 'We are looking for a balance between the sugar and the grains.'
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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
What to know about the CEO caught embracing an employee on the jumbtron at a Coldplay concert
LONDON (AP) — A routine moment of crowdwork at a Coldplay concert went viral last week when a couple tried to avoid the spotlight after they were caught hugging on the jumbotron. Internet sleuths quickly figured out that they were the CEO and chief people officer of a little-known tech company called Astronomer. The snippet of video set the internet alight, fueling a wave of memes and drawing attention to the erosion of privacy in public spaces. Here are some things to know: What happened at the concert During the concert on Wednesday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, lead singer Chris Martin asked the cameras to scan the crowd for his 'Jumbotron Song,' when he sings a few lines about the people the camera lands on. A man wearing a birthday sash was up first. Two people in banana costumes were highlighted. But in between, something unexpected happened. For several seconds, a couple was shown on the big screen. They were cuddling and smiling, his arms wrapped around her, as she leaned back into him. When they saw themselves on the big screen, her jaw dropped, her hands flew to her face and she spun away from the camera. He ducked out of the frame, as did she. 'Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy,' Martin joked. It didn't end there. Who was involved After the video went viral, the internet got to work. Online sleuths rapidly figured out that the man was Andy Byron, chief executive officer, while she was Kristin Cabot, the chief people officer — in other words, the head of human resources. Astronomer, based in New York, provides big companies with a platform that helps them organize their data. The company at first said little about the incident. In response to an initial inquiry from The Associated Press, Astronomer's spokesman said only that a statement attributed to Byron that circulated online immediately after the incident was a 'fake from a clearly labeled parody account.' The company later confirmed the identities of the couple in a statement to AP. What happened to the CEO In the hours after the video went viral, Byron's name was at one point the most searched term on Google. Astronomer eventually addressed the situation, announcing in a LinkedIn post that Byron had been placed on leave and that the board of directors had launched a formal investigation. The company said a day later that Byron had resigned, and that its cofounder and chief product officer, Pete DeJoy, was tapped as interim CEO while it searches for Byron's successor. 'Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,' the company said in its post on LinkedIn. Most concert venues warn attendees that they can be film ed It's easy to miss, but most concert venues have signs informing the audience that they could be filmed during the event. Look for them on the walls when you arrive and around the bar areas or toilets. It's common practice especially when bands like to use performances for music videos or concert films. The venue in this case, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, also has a privacy policy online which states: 'When you visit our location or attend or participate in an event at our location, we may capture your image, voice and/or likeness, including through the use of CCTV cameras and/or when we film or photograph you in a public location.' Once captured, a moment can be shared widely In the internet age, such videos — or ones taken on someone's smartphone — can quickly zip around the world. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. This video rocketed around social media, as people speculated about why the couple dodged the camera. Empathy for the pair and their families was mixed with plenty of snarky commentary and countless memes, with the fake statement from the chief executive generating a lot of additional vitriol. And news reports said that Byron's LinkedIn account was disabled after it was flooded by a wave of comments. 'It's a little bit unsettling how easily we can be identified with biometrics, how our faces are online, how social media can track us — and how the internet has gone from being a place of interaction, to a gigantic surveillance system,' said Mary Angela Bock, an associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin's School of Journalism and Media. 'We are being surveilled by our social media. They're tracking us in exchange for entertaining us.' _____ AP Business Writer Wyatte Grantham-Philips contributed to this report from New York.
Toronto Star
4 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Bees have some ways to cope with a warming Earth, but researchers fear for their future
WILLIAMSPORT, Ohio (AP) — Sweat covers Isaac Barnes's face under his beekeeper's veil as he hauls boxes of honeycomb from his hives to his truck. It's a workout in what feels like a sauna as the late-morning June temperatures rise. Though Barnes was hot, his bees were even hotter. Their body temperatures can be up to 27 degrees Fahrenheit (about 15 Celsius) higher than the air around them. As global temperatures rise under climate change, scientists are trying to better understand the effects on managed and wild bees as they pollinate crops, gather nectar, make honey and reproduce.
Winnipeg Free Press
4 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Bees have some ways to cope with a warming Earth, but researchers fear for their future
WILLIAMSPORT, Ohio (AP) — Sweat covers Isaac Barnes's face under his beekeeper's veil as he hauls boxes of honeycomb from his hives to his truck. It's a workout in what feels like a sauna as the late-morning June temperatures rise. Though Barnes was hot, his bees were even hotter. Their body temperatures can be up to 27 degrees Fahrenheit (about 15 Celsius) higher than the air around them. As global temperatures rise under climate change, scientists are trying to better understand the effects on managed and wild bees as they pollinate crops, gather nectar, make honey and reproduce. They noticed flying bees gathering nectar avoided overheating on the hottest days by using fewer but harder wingbeats to keep their body temperature below dangerous levels, according to a study published last year. Scientists also say that bees — like people — may also cope by retreating to a cooler environment such as the shade or their nest. 'Just like we go into the shade, or we sweat or we might work less hard, bees actually do the exact same thing so they can avoid the heat,' said Jon Harrison, an environmental physiologist at Arizona State University and one of the study's authors. But that means the bees aren't able to do what they normally do, said Kevin McCluney, a biology professor at Bowling Green State University. 'They're not going out and getting more nectar. They're not mating. They're not doing the things that bees would otherwise do,' McCluney said. Heat is just one challenge for critical pollinator Generally, most bees are heat-tolerant, but as the climate warms, some experts think their ability to fend off disease and gather food might become harder. And habitat loss, increased use of pesticides, diseases and lack of forage for both managed and wild bees are all listed as potential contributors to the global decline of bees and other pollinators. 'If you're not well-fed, and your body is intoxicated with pesticides and you have lots of diseases in your body, you're going to be less heat-tolerant than if you were healthy,' said Margarita López-Uribe, a pollinator health expert at Pennsylvania State University. Earlier this year, preliminary results from the annual U.S. Beekeeping Survey found that beekeepers lost almost 56% of their managed colonies, the highest loss since the survey started in 2010. Almost all of the managed honeybee colonies in the U.S. are used to pollinate agricultural crops such as almonds, apples, cherries and blueberries. Fewer pollinators can lead to less pollination and potentially lower yields. 'It's a very fragile system if you think about it,' López-Uribe said. 'Because if something goes wrong, you have these super high-value crops that won't get enough bees for pollination.' Losing hives at Honeyrun Farms Back at Barnes' hives in Ohio, thousands of honeybees fly around as he gathers boxes to take back to his farm for honey production. Nearby, a couple of his bees land on milkweed flowers, a rare bit of plant diversity in an area dominated by corn and soybean fields. For Barnes, who operates Honeyrun Farm with his wife, Jayne, one of the challenges heat can pose to his 500 honeybee hives is fending off parasitic mites that threaten the bees. If temperatures get too hot, he can't apply formic acid, an organic chemical that kills the mites. If it's applied when it's too hot, the bees could die. Last year they lost almost a third of the 400 hives they sent to California to help pollinate commercial almond groves. Barnes thinks those hives may have been in poor health ahead of pollination because they were unable to ward off mites when it was hot months earlier. 'Dead hives aren't pollinating the almonds,' he said. 'It's a real ripple effect that stems back from the heat in the summertime.' Sometimes the heat helps. Here in Ohio, Barnes' hives last summer produced a bumper crop of honey as they feasted on nearby soybean nectar as the plants bloomed in the heat. Still, the lack of diverse plants for bees to forage in an area dominated by corn and soybean fields isn't ideal. And even the native blooms are appearing erratically, Barnes said. In autumn, his bees search for food on goldenrod, but those blooms are appearing later. And even then, he has supplemented his hive with additional food to keep them healthy into the winter. 'Every single plant that blooms is something that the bee can use,' Barnes said. 'And every single plant is affected by climate change.' Research that may aid bees is in peril It's only in the last decade that people have become aware of the magnitude of the pollinator decline globally, said Harrison, of Arizona State University. Data is limited on how much climate change and heat stress is contributing to pollinator decline. 'It's a relatively new focus for biology,' he said. 'I think it's super important, but it's not being studied a ton.' The Trump administration's proposed budget would eliminate the research program that funds the USGS Bee Lab, which supports the inventory, monitoring and natural history of the nation's wild bees. Other grants for bee research are also in jeopardy. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said America's pollinators are in 'grave danger,' and he'll fight for the federal funding. Pollinators contribute to the health of the planet, the crops we grow and the food we eat, he said. 'Rather than taking bold action to protect them, the Trump administration has proposed a reckless budget that would zero out funding for critical research aimed at saving important pollinators,' he said in a statement to The Associated Press. Harrison said his research on this topic would come to a halt if cuts are made to his federal funding, and it would be more difficult in general for scientists to study the disappearance of bees and other pollinators and improve how they prevent these losses. Not being able to manage these pollinator deaths could cause the price of fruits, vegetables, nuts, coffee and chocolate to jump or become scarce. 'Hopefully, even if such research is defunded in the U.S., such research will continue in Europe and China, preventing these extreme scenarios,' said Harrison. ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
