Features

PONTIMIA PASTURE, Switzerland — Using a powerful torch, Aliki Buhayer-Mach momentarily drenches a nearby mountain top in light, straining to see if wolves are lurking in the shadows.

If the predator were to get past the electric wires stretched around this high-altitude pasture in the Swiss Alps, the 57-year-old biologist knows “it would be a massacre”.

She and her 60-year-old husband Francois Mach-Buhayer — a leading Swiss cardiologist — have settled in to spend the night watching over some 480 sheep grazing in the remote mountains near the Italian border.

The pair of unlikely herders are among several hundred people volunteering this summer through OPPAL, a Swiss NGO seeking a novel way to protect wolves, by helping chase them away from grazing livestock.

“Our goal is that by the end of the summer season, the livestock are still alive... and the wolves too,” OPPAL director Jeremie Moulin told AFP.

He co-founded the organisation three years ago in a bid to help promote and improve cohabitation between wildlife and human activities, at a time when swelling wolf populations had emotions running high.

“I think this project helps enable dialogue,” Moulin said.

After being wiped out more than a century ago, wolves have in recent decades begun returning to Switzerland, like several other European countries.

Since the first pack was spotted in the wealthy Alpine nation in 2012, the number of packs swelled to around two dozen by the start of this year, with some 250 individual wolves counted.

Nature preservation groups have hailed the return, seeing it as a sign of a healthier and more diverse ecosystem. 

But breeders and herders decry soaring attacks on livestock, with 1,480 farm animals killed by wolves in Switzerland last year alone.

In response, Swiss authorities, who in 2022 authorised the cull of 24 wolves and regulation of four packs, last month relaxed the rules for hunting the protected species.

And with news of wolf attacks on livestock dominating the summer headlines, the Swiss Farmers’ Union has urged more hunting permits to be issued to take advantage of the laxer ordinance. 

“Rangers alone will not be enough to bring exponentially growing wolf populations back under control and reduce them to a manageable density,” it said.

Moulin said he understands the farmers’ frustration.

“For them, the wolf obviously represents a large additional workload,” he said, adding that OPPAL aimed to help sensitise the broader population to the challenges, and also provide some relief.

Up to 400 volunteers will take part in OPPAL’s monitoring programme this summer, spending nights camped out in mountain pastures, watching over grazing sheep and calves.

Aliki and Francois joined from the start, and now do two five-day stints in various locations each summer.

“It’s our vacation time,” Francois said, looking around the desolate spot, reached after a four-hour drive from Geneva and a nearly two-hour hike up a steep, rocky path.

At 2,200 metres above sea level, temperatures quickly plunge as the sun sets.

Using a tarp, the couple have created a lookout shelter, equipped with camping chairs, thermal blankets and a propane coffee maker to get them through the night. 

They have also pitched a small tent where one could theoretically rest as the other keeps watch, but acknowledge they have barely used it.

All through the frigid night, they take turns scanning the horizon with thermal, infrared binoculars every 15 minutes for signs of animals moving towards the flock of resting sheep, their bells chiming softly in the darkness. 

“You have to look often, and you have to look well,” Aliki said, “because the wolf can see us in the darkness and knows when to try its luck. And when it moves, it moves extremely fast”.

To frighten off a wolf, “you can’t be all that scared yourself”, Francois said, explaining how he and Aliki two nights earlier had chased away wolves three times in a few hours. 

“It takes two people,” he said. “One keeps an eye on the wolf with the binoculars, and the other runs towards the beast with the torch... and a whistle”.

It is an athletic endeavour, running up mountain sides in the dark, tripping over rocks and molehills, he said. “But it is magical.” 

Moulin said OPPAL volunteers on average chase off wolves once every 20 nights, with 32 such events registered last year.

Shepherd Mathis von Siebenthal appreciates the effort.

“It is such a big help,” he said after delivering the flock to Aliki and Francois for the night.

“If OPPAL were not here, I would be always... thinking if the wolf is coming or not,” said the 36-year-old German national with a tanned, weathered face.

“Like this, I can go to sleep.” 

After a long, cold, uneventful night under a sky of shooting stars, Aliki said she was looking forward to getting rest at the mountain refuge about a kilometre away.

“The last two hours are the worst,” she said bleary-eyed.

“Between 4am and 6am we dream of nothing but morning, coffee, and sleep.”

NEW YORK — Andrew Martinez was not born into a New York bagel empire and didn’t start baking the Big Apple’s quintessential ring of doughy goodness until he was in his 40s.

Yet, the Queens-born Martinez, his wife Ashley Dikos and their growing business, Bo’s Bagels, are regularly mentioned among the top producers of the ring-shaped bread products, a breakfast and lunch staple.

For Martinez, his ascent into the bagel elite is a happy accident.

“Sometimes I walk in here and say, ‘I can’t believe this is my life,’” Martinez told AFP. “This is New York. It’s incredibly difficult to succeed here.”

Martinez’s unexpected road to the bagel big leagues began in 2014 when the longtime restaurant industry professional found himself stuck in the hospital for two months, nourished with a feeding tube.

Martinez decided the first thing he would do when healthy again was to eat a classically delectable New York bagel, with its crusty exterior and dense, chewy interior. 

But upon returning to his Harlem home, he realised there were no decent bagel shops within walking distance.

Annoyed at needing to take the subway to get his fix, Martinez began researching the bread. Bagels, he learned, originally arrived in New York’s Jewish neighbourhoods on the Lower East Side thanks to Polish immigrants. 

Reading whatever he could find about the boil-and-bake process and picking the brains of experts, Martinez experimented for about six months before producing something resembling the bagels of his youth.

“People eat with their memories,” he said. “I was dreaming about the bagels I ate when I was a kid in Queens, and that’s the flavour I was looking for.”

Thinking bigger

His culinary quest began to expand, however, when Martinez served the bagels to family members who urged him and Dikos to think bigger.

Small-scale catering morphed first into a farmers market stall; then in 2017 the couple opened Bo’s Bagels — a 110-square-metre retail space on a corner of 116th Street in West Harlem near several African restaurants.

Consumers have lined up at the door from the start, but the couple admits the journey has included some comical missteps. 

Before their first farmers’ market weekend, Martinez and Dikos converted their kitchen into a production factory, putting hundreds of unbaked bagels in the refrigerator the night before.

But after a two-hour nap, they awoke to find a growing, yeast-fuelled ball had popped the fridge door open. 

“It was just one giant blob of dough,” recalled Dikos.

The couple were forced to postpone their market debut, instead working well into the night to cut the ruined dough into pieces small enough to fit in the trash chute without raising the suspicions of apartment staff.

Labour of love

Creating great bagels begins about 48 hours before baking, when flour, yeast and water are combined and set out overnight. 

Other key steps include an overnight refrigeration to slow the fermentation process and about a two-minute boil.

Not all New York bagelmakers go through this painstaking process — and it shows, industry experts say. 

“There are a lot of mediocre bagels,” said Sam Silverman, chief executive of the trade group BagelUp.

Silverman nonetheless considers this a golden era for bagels, with legacy names such as Ess-a-Bagel and Utopia Bagels jostling with newcomers, like Bo’s, who fill a surprising number of “bagel deserts” across the city’s five boroughs.

No green bagels

Bo’s, which has won raves from the Food & Wine and Eater websites, credits its success to a scrupulousness in following time-tested processes, an avoidance of cheap ingredients and a throwback approach to a crustier, smaller bagel.

The Harlem store produces about 3,000 bagels a day, an output that will be at least doubled when Bo’s opens a second shop later this year in Washington Heights, another neighbourhood with few bagel options. 

The couple eventually plans to open shops outside New York.

While Martinez was the driving force behind the original recipe, the Michigan-born Dikos has taken the lead on some options including the cinnamon raisin variety.

Pleasing traditionalists is central, but the couple has also embraced some newer flavours such as the blueberry and three-cheese bagels that were first made popular outside New York.

“Nowadays you have to provide a lot of variety for all the different kinds of people,” said Dikos.

The couple are not opposed to gluten-free bagels, though they have yet to develop a recipe that measures up, she said.

But they shun “gimmicks” — so there will be no green bagels on St. Patrick’s Day.

A thoroughly better appointed, equipped and designed vehicle than it has ever been since its 2002 introduction, the Kia Sorento has over the years evolved from a more traditional and rugged compact SUV to a contemporary on-road oriented mid-size crossover with a big emphasis on comfort, design, and tech.

Launched in 2020, the fourth generation Sorento includes the featured HEV model incorporating a small, but powerful combustion engine and electric motor for confident performance, refined delivery and frugal fuel consumption.

Distinctly dramatic

Distinctly more stylised than before, the new Sorento ditches its predecessors’ swept back style for a distinctly more dramatic and overtly aggressive design featuring a wide and hungry take on Kia’s signature tiger nose grille, more jutting bumpers and tailgate spoiler, recessed, heavily browed headlights and sculpted surfacing. Upright and assertive, it also features a clamshell bonnet, and sharper and more sophisticated vertically-oriented rear lights, but nevertheless retains a subtle link predecessors in profile, with the use of a similar rear quarter glasshouse outline and pillar rake.

Driven by a turbocharged 1.6-litre direct injection four-cylinder engine developing 177BHP at 5,500rpm and 195lb/ft torque throughout 1,500-4,500rpm, the Sorento HEV’s combustion engine is further complemented with an electric synchronous motor developing 59BHP at 1,600-2,000rpm and 194lb/ft torque at 0-1,600rpm. With a healthy combined system output of 227BHP at 5,500rpm and 258lb/ft throughout a broad 1,500-4,400rpm band, the Sorento HEV is a confidently capable performer, and can propel its 1.8-tonne mass through the 0-100km/h acceleration benchmark in 8.5-seconds.

Confident cruising

In its element on the highway and through fast B-roads, the Sorento HEV proved muscularly versatile in accumulating speed when on the move, and can accelerate through 80-120km/h in 5.8-seconds. Comfortable and well-suited as a long distance cruiser, the Sorento HEV effortlessly directs its combined output in this application, with its regenerative brakes having enough opportunity to recharge its batteries. Returning moderate 6.35l/100km combined cycle fuel consumption, the Sorento HEV can meanwhile attain up to 120km/h in electric mode and a top speed of 193km/h.

Responsive from standstill and imbued with gutsy low and mid-range torque that underwrites its power accumulation, the Sorento HEV tackles inclines with assured confidence. However, high power and heavy load driving on steep inclines in a sustained and prolonged manner would be expected to quickly deplete its batteries, as is almost always the case with hybrids, which rely on off-throttle and braking kinetic energy recovery. The Sorento HEV’s 6-speed automatic gearbox meanwhile operates in smooth and sufficiently quick fashion through ratios and in manual mode shifting.

Smooth operator

Pulling through wind resistance with confident ease, the Sorento HEV is smooth, refined and flexibly builds speed. Dispatching distances with comfort and quiet, the Sorento HEV proved firm yet forgiving over highway and in town imperfections and well-absorbed moderate bumps and potholes, even with its low profile 235/55R19 tyres. Settled and stable at speed, the Sorento HEV rides with a more buttoned down manner than the wafty quality of its Kia K8 HEV large saloon sister, with which it shares its drive-train. 

Tidier and more direct in its dynamics than expected of its class, the Sorento HEV’s steering it light and accurate, if not particularly feelsome, while turn-in grip and rear road-holding on exit are reassuring, as driven in moderate conditions. Stable through sweeping corners, the Sorento HEV feels settled and comparatively well-controls body lean. Also offered with all-wheel-drive for improved traction, the Sorento HEV, however, impressed in being more responsive to throttle lift-off than many turbocharged hybrid vehicles, which are often more reluctant to wind down from high revs.

Cavernous comfort

Spacious and comfortable inside, the Sorento’s cabin has a thoroughly modern and upmarket, if perhaps busy, flavour, and uses pleasant textures, decent material and a stylised design. It incorporates centre controls that are framed between air vents, and which is echoed by the centre console design. It also features a thick sporty steering wheel and an upright wall comprised of digital instrument cluster and large infotainment screen. Well-equipped with a multitude of convenience, comfort, infotainment, safety and other features, the Sorento certainly has a high tech ambiance.

With big well-adjustable seats providing good comfort and an accommodating driving position, the Sorento also offers good front visibility. Mid-row eating is similarly good and includes decent headroom for adults, while its third row seats are useable, if not especially spacious. Allowing for good cabin access through its doors, the Sorento meanwhile also delivers good cargo carrying capacities, from a minimum of 356-litres with all seven seats up, to a cavernous van-like 2,138-litre maximum when the rear two rows are folded down.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Engine: 1.6-litre, turbocharged transverse 4-cylinders, & synchronous electric motor
• Bore x stroke: 75.6 x 89mm
• Valve-train: Direct injection, DOHC, 16-valve, continuously variable valve timing
• Gearbox: 6-speed automatic, front-wheel-drive
• Gear ratios: 1st 4.639:1; 2nd 2.826:1; 3rd 1.841:1; 4th 1.386:1; 5th 1:1; 6th 0.772:1
• Reverse/final drive: 3.385:1/3.51:1
• Petrol engine power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 177 (180) [132] @5,500 rpm
• Electric motor power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 59 (60) [44.2] @1,600-2,000rpm
• Combined power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 227 (230) [169] @5,500rpm (estimated)
• Petrol engine torque, lb/ft (Nm): 195 (265) @1,500-4,500rpm
• Electric motor torque, lb/ft (Nm): 194 (264) @0-1,600rpm
• Combined torque, lb/ft (Nm): 258 (350) @1,500-4,400rpm (estimated)
• 0-100km/h: 8.6-seconds
• 80-120km/h: 5.8-seconds
• Top speed (EV mode): 193km/h (120km/h)
• Fuel consumption, combined: 6.35l-litres/100km
• Fuel capacity: 70-litres
• Battery: 270V lithium-ion, 60Ah
• Track, F/R: 1,651/1,661mm
• Minimum ground clearance: 174mm
• Approach/break-over/departure angles: 16.8°/15.1°/21.3°
• Headroom, F/M/R: 1,023/993/934mm
• Leg room, F/R: 1,051/1,033/751mm
• Shoulder room, F/R: 1,501/1,475/1,346mm
• Turning circle: 11.55-metres
• Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/multi-link
• Brakes: Ventilated discs, 325mm
• Tyres: 235/55R19

By Rania Saadi
Rapid Transformational Therapist and Clinical Hypnotherapist

Why do some kids bully, while others are bullied? And what is the effective approach to addressing this behaviour? Understanding the underlying reasons behind why some children engage in this behaviour is crucial to effectively addressing and responding to this distressing issue.

Survival mode

To best understand the dynamics of the bullying group, let’s go back to the beginnings.

We come to this world seeking connection, and we do our best to avoid rejection. This fear of rejection has its roots in the days of tribal life, when people used to go out hunting for food; they had to do it in groups, for safety purposes.

And in the unfortunate circumstance that someone was left out, this person was risking being attacked by a wild animal, starving, or even dying of thirst. Being part of a group was wired into our brains millions of years ago and is attached to the very primitive need for survival.

Valued and accepted

For this reason, a child’s most powerful need is to connect and belong to a group. This need starts at an early age and develops further in teenage years. If they can belong and fit into a group, children believe that they are valued and accepted within their community.

The group is the “tribe” and teenagers need to belong, in order to feel connected and “safe”. One of the ways this happens, is when the “group” finds one person to exclude and they bond over that. In other words, the members of the bullying group connect by rejecting someone. And this is where peer pressure comes into play. Feeling pressured to bully someone to fit in a group is very common amongst children and teens.

At home

Studies indicate that most bullies are bullied at home, affecting, therefore, their worth and self-esteem. These bullied children will then go on and try to boost their value and self-esteem by putting someone else down.

In most cases, children may resort to bullying as a means of exerting power, seeking validation, or coping with their own insecurities or frustrations. It is important to point out that understanding the intention behind this behaviour does not make it excusable or acceptable; but it rather gives us a new perspective that allows us to respond in a more comprehensive and thoughtful way.

The bully chooses another child to pick on, who usually shares the same insecurities and low self-esteem; an easy target to mirror a bully’s own frustration and lack of confidence. 

Thank you for sharing

One thing to teach your kids is that bullies cannot hurt them unless they believe everything they say and let it all in. And the best way to block whatever a bully is saying is by saying repeatedly: “Thank you for sharing.” This magical phrase has the power of bursting the bullies’ bubbles, stopping them in their tracks because their words no longer had any effect whatsoever.

This been said, it is important to understand that both parties, the bully and bullied suffer from selfesteem issues. It is never too late to help them both through counselling, therapy and other means.

We must also remind ourselves that the “bully” is actually a child and working with him to regain his lost confidence and self-worth, is the first step to helping the bully transform and let go of this kind of behaviour. What most people don’t realise is that when they label a child, they limit this child. To them, this label becomes a blueprint, a belief about themselves. Through labelling, we restrict the child in that role, where there is nowhere to go from, but to perform behaviours proving and reflecting that inner self-belief that we all helped ingrain.

By implementing strategies that focus on awareness, empathy and intervention, we can help children develop healthier coping mechanisms, foster a culture of respect and acceptance and ultimately reduce the incidence of bullying in our schools and communities.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

WASHINGTON — US surgeons who transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a brain dead patient said on Wednesday the organ was still working well after a record 32 days — a significant step in the quest to close the organ donation gap.

The latest experimental procedure is part of a growing field of research aimed at advancing cross-species transplants, testing the technique on bodies that have been donated for science.

There are more than 103,000 people waiting for organs in the United States, 88,000 of whom need kidneys.

“We have a genetically edited pig kidney surviving for over a month in a human,” Robert Montgomery, director of the New York University Langone Transplant Institute, told reporters. “I think there’s a very compelling story that exists at this point that I think should give further assurances about starting some initial studies... in living humans.”

Montgomery carried out the first genetically modified pig kidney transplant to a human in September 2021, followed by a similar procedure in November 2021. There have since been a handful of other cases, with all the experiments running for two or three days.

While previous transplants have involved body parts with up to 10 genetic modifications, the latest had just one: in the gene involved in so-called “hyperacute rejection”, which would otherwise occur within minutes of an animal organ being connected to a human circulatory system.

By “knocking out” the gene responsible for a biomolecule called alpha-gal — a prime target for roving human antibodies — the NYU Langone team were able to stop immediate rejection.

“We’ve now gathered more evidence to show that, at least in kidneys, just eliminating the gene that triggers a hyperacute rejection may be enough along with clinically approved immunosuppressive drugs to successfully manage the transplant in a human for optimal performance — potentially in the long-term,” said Montgomery.

They also embedded the pig’s thymus gland — which lies around the neck and is responsible for educating the immune system — in the kidney’s outer layer.

Adam Griesemer, of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, added that this practice allowed immune cells in the host’s body to learn to recognise the pig’s cells as its own, preventing a delayed rejection.

Both of the patient’s own kidneys were removed, then one pig kidney was transplanted, and started immediately producing urine. 

Monitoring showed that levels of creatinine, a waste product, were at optimal levels, and there was no evidence of rejection.

No evidence of pig virus

Crucially, no evidence of porcine cytomegalovirus — which may trigger organ failure — have been detected since the transplant, and the team plan to continue monitoring for another month.

The research was made possible by the family of the 57-year-old male patient, Maurice “Mo” Miller, who was found unresponsive in his bathroom in July. Doctors determined he had an aggressive form of brain cancer, and would not wake up.

“Though my brother cannot be here, I can say with confidence he would be proud of the fact in the tragedy of his death, his legacy will be helping many people live,” his sister Mary Miller-Duffy told reporters.

In January 2022, surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical School carried out the world’s first pig-to-human transplant on a living patient — this time involving a heart. He died two months after the milestone, with the presence of porcine cytomegalovirus in the organ later blamed.

The donor pig in these experiments came from a herd from Virginia-based biotech company Revivicor. The herd was approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a source of meat for people with hypersensitivity to the alpha-gal molecule, an allergy caused by tick bites.

These pigs are bred, not cloned, meaning the process can be more easily scaled.

Early so-called xenotransplantation research focused on harvesting organs from primates — for example, a baboon heart was transplanted into a newborn known as “Baby Fae” in 1984, but she survived only 20 days.

Current efforts focus on pigs, which are thought to be ideal donors for humans because of their organ size, their rapid growth and large litters, and the fact they are already raised as a food source.