Features

By Daniel Lawler 
and Pierre Celerier
Agence France-Presse

PARIS — Scientists said on Wednesday that they have observed a dying star swallowing a planet for the first time, offering a preview of Earth’s expected fate in around five billion years.

But when the Sun finally does engulf Earth, it will cause only a “tiny perturbation” compared to this cosmic explosion, the US astronomers said.

Most planets are believed to meet their end when their host star runs out of energy, turning into a red giant that massively expands, devouring anything unlucky enough to be in its path.

Astronomers had previously seen the before-and-after effects of this process, but had never before caught a planet in the act of being consumed.

Kishalay De, a postdoc researcher at MIT in the United States and the lead author of the new study, said the accidental discovery unfolded like a “detective story”.

“It all started about three years ago when I was looking at data from the Zwicky Transient Facility survey, which takes images of the sky every night,” De told an online press conference.

He stumbled across a star that had suddenly increased in brightness by more than 100 times over a 10-day period. 

The star is in the Milky Way galaxy, around 12,000 light years from Earth near the Aquila constellation, which resembles an eagle. 

Ice in boiling water

De had been searching for binary star systems, in which the larger star takes bites out of its companion, creating incredibly bright explosions called outbursts.

But data showed that this outburst was surrounded by cold gas, suggesting it was not a binary star system.

And NASA’s infrared space telescope NEOWISE showed that dust had started to shoot out of the area months before the outburst.

More puzzling still was that the outburst produced around 1,000 times less energy than previously observed mergers between stars.

“You ask yourself: What is 1,000 less massive than a star?” De said. 

The answer was close to home: Jupiter.

The team of researchers from MIT, Harvard and Caltech established that the swallowed planet was a gas giant with a similar mass to Jupiter, but was so close to its star that it completed an orbit in just one day.

The star, which is quite similar to the Sun, engulfed the planet over a period of around 100 days, starting off by nibbling at its edges, which ejected dust. 

The bright explosion occurred in the final 10 days as the planet was totally destroyed when it plunged inside the star.

Miguel Montarges, an astronomer at the Paris Observatory who was not involved in the research, noted that the star was thousands of degrees hotter than the planet.

“It’s like putting an ice cube into a boiling pot,” he told AFP.

Morgan MacLeod, a postdoc at Harvard University and co-author of the study, published in the journal Nature, said that most of the thousands of planets discovered outside the Solar System so far “will eventually suffer this fate”.

And in comparison, Earth will most likely end not with a bang but a whimper.

When the Sun expands past Mercury, Venus and Earth in an estimated five billion years, they will make “less dramatic disturbances” because rocky planets are so much smaller than gas giants, MacLeod said.

“In fact, they will be really minor perturbations to the power output of the Sun,” he said.

But even before it gets swallowed, Earth will already be “quite inhospitable”, because the dying Sun will have already evaporated all the planet’s water, MacLeod added.

Ryan Lau, an astronomer and study co-author, said the discovery “speaks to the transience of our existence”.

“After the billions of years that span the lifetime of our Solar System, our own end stages will likely conclude in a final flash that lasts only a few months,” he said in a statement.

Now that astronomers know what to look for, they hope that soon they will be able to watch many more planets be consumed by their stars.

In the Milky Way alone, a planet could be engulfed once a year, De said.

SAN PEDRO, California — Floating in the port of Los Angeles, a strange-looking barge covered with pipes and tanks contains a concept that scientists hope to make waves: a new way to use the ocean as a vast carbon dioxide sponge to tackle global warming.

Scientists from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) have been working for two years on SeaChange — an ambitious project that could one day boost the amount of CO2, a major greenhouse gas, that can be absorbed by our seas.

Their goal is “to use the ocean as a big sponge”, according to Gaurav Sant, director of the university’s Institute for Carbon Management.

The oceans, covering most of the Earth, are already the planet’s main carbon sinks, acting as a critical buffer in the climate crisis.

They absorb a quarter of all CO2 emissions, as well as 90 per cent of the warming that has occurred in recent decades due to increasing greenhouse gases.

But they are feeling the strain. The ocean is acidifying, and rising temperatures are reducing its absorption capacity.

The UCLA team wants to increase that capacity by using an electrochemical process to remove vast quantities of CO2 already in seawater — rather like wringing out a sponge to help recover its absorptive power.

“If you can take out the carbon dioxide that is in the oceans, you’re essentially renewing their capacity to take additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” Sant told AFP.

Trapped

Engineers built a floating mini-factory on a 30-metre long boat which pumps in seawater and subjects it to an electrical charge.

Chemical reactions triggered by electrolysis convert CO2 dissolved in the seawater into a fine white powder containing calcium carbonate — the compound found in chalk, limestone and oyster or mussel shells.

This powder can be discarded back into the ocean, where it remains in solid form, thereby storing CO2 “very durably... over tens of thousands of years”, explained Sant.

Meanwhile, the pumped water returns to the sea, ready to absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Sant and his team are confident the process will not damage the marine environment, although this will require further testing to confirm. 

A potential additional benefit of the technology is that it creates hydrogen as a byproduct. As the so-called “green revolution” progresses, the gas could be widely used to power clean cars, trucks and planes in the future.

Of course, the priority in curbing global warming is for humans to drastically reduce current CO2 emissions — something we are struggling to achieve.

But in parallel, most scientists say carbon dioxide capture and storage techniques can play an important role in keeping the planet livable. 

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) could help to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 as it offsets emissions from industries which are particularly difficult to decarbonise, such as aviation, and cement and steel production.

It could help to tackle the stocks of CO2 that have been accumulating in the atmosphere for decades.

‘Promising solution’

Keeping global warming under control will require the removal of between 450 billion and 1.1 trillion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2100, according to the first global report dedicated to the topic, released in January.

That would require the CDR sector “to grow at a rate of about 30 per cent per year over the next 30 years, much like what happened with wind and solar”, said one of its authors, Gregory Nemet.

UCLA’s SeaChange technology “fits into a category of a promising solution that could be large enough to be climate-relevant”, said Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

By sequestering CO2 in mineral form within the ocean, it differs markedly from existing “direct air capture” methods, which involve pumping and storing gas underground through a highly complex and expensive process.

A start-up company, Equatic, plans to scale up the UCLA technology and prove its commercial viability, by selling carbon credits to manufacturers wanting to offset their emissions.

In addition to the Los Angeles barge, a similar boat is currently being tested in Singapore.

Sant hopes data from both sites will quickly lead to the construction of far larger plants that are capable of removing “thousands of tonnes of carbon” each year.

“We expect to start operating these new plants in 18 to 24 months,” he said.

PARIS — Scientists said Monday they have found a way to use brain scans and artificial intelligence modelling to transcribe “the gist” of what people are thinking, in what was described as a step towards mind reading.

While the main goal of the language decoder is to help people who have lost the ability to communicate, the US scientists acknowledged that the technology raised questions about “mental privacy”.

Aiming to assuage such fears, they ran tests showing that their decoder could not be used on anyone who had not allowed it to be trained on their brain activity over long hours inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner.

Previous research has shown that a brain implant can enable people who can no longer speak or type to spell out words or even sentences.

These “brain-computer interfaces” focus on the part of the brain that controls the mouth when it tries to form words.

Alexander Huth, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas at Austin and co-author of a new study, said that his team’s language decoder “works at a very different level”.

“Our system really works at the level of ideas, of semantics, of meaning,” Huth told an online press conference.

It is the first system to be able to reconstruct continuous language without an invasive brain implant, according to the study in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

‘Deeper than language’

For the study, three people spent a total of 16 hours inside an fMRI machine listening to spoken narrative stories, mostly podcasts such as The New York Times’ Modern Love.

This allowed the researchers to map out how words, phrases and meanings prompted responses in the regions of the brain known to process language.

They fed this data into a neural network language model that uses GPT-1, the predecessor of the AI technology later deployed in the hugely popular ChatGPT.

The model was trained to predict how each person’s brain would respond to perceived speech, then narrow down the options until it found the closest response.

To test the model’s accuracy, each participant then listened to a new story in the fMRI machine.

The study’s first author Jerry Tang said the decoder could “recover the gist of what the user was hearing”.

For example, when the participant heard the phrase “I don’t have my driver’s license yet”, the model came back with “she has not even started to learn to drive yet”.

The decoder struggled with personal pronouns such as “I” or “she”, the researchers admitted.

But even when the participants thought up their own stories — or viewed silent movies — the decoder was still able to grasp the “gist”, they said.

This showed that “we are decoding something that is deeper than language, then converting it into language”, Huth said.

Because fMRI scanning is too slow to capture individual words, it collects a “mishmash, an agglomeration of information over a few seconds”, Huth said.

“So we can see how the idea evolves, even though the exact words get lost.”

Ethical warning

David Rodriguez-Arias Vailhen, a bioethics professor at Spain’s Granada University not involved in the research, said it went beyond what had been achieved by previous brain-computer interfaces.

This brings us closer to a future in which machines are “able to read minds and transcribe thought”, he said, warning this could possibly take place against people’s will, such as when they are sleeping.

The researchers anticipated such concerns.

They ran tests showing that the decoder did not work on a person if it had not already been trained on their own particular brain activity.

The three participants were also able to easily foil the decoder.

While listening to one of the podcasts, the users were told to count by sevens, name and imagine animals or tell a different story in their mind. All these tactics “sabotaged” the decoder, the researchers said.

Next, the team hopes to speed up the process so that they can decode the brain scans in real time.

They also called for regulations to protect mental privacy.

“Our mind has so far been the guardian of our privacy,” said bioethicist Rodriguez-Arias Vailhen.

“This discovery could be a first step towards compromising that freedom in the future.”

VALDIVIA, Chile — In a forest in southern Chile, a giant tree has survived for thousands of years and is in the process of being recognised as the oldest in the world.

Known as the “Great Grandfather,” the trunk of this tree measuring four metres in diameter and 28 metres tall is also believed to contain scientific information that could shed light on how the planet has adapted to climatic changes.

Believed to be more than 5,000 years old, it is on the brink of replacing Methuselah, a 4,850-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine found in California in the United States, as the oldest tree on the planet.

“It’s a survivor, there are no others that have had the opportunity to live so long,” said Antonio Lara, a researcher at Austral University and Chile’s centre for climate science and resilience, who is part of the team measuring the tree’s age.

The Great Grandfather lies on the edge of a ravine in a forest in the southern Los Rios region, 800 kilometres to the south of the capital Santiago.

It is a Fitzroya cupressoides, a type of cypress tree that is endemic to the south of the continent.

In recent years, tourists have walked an hour through the forest to the spot to be photographed beside the new “oldest tree in the world”.

Due to its growing fame, the national forestry body has had to increase the number of park rangers and restrict access to protect the Great Grandfather.

By contrast, the exact location of Methuselah is kept a secret.

Also known as the Patagonian cypress, it is the largest tree species in South America.

It lives alongside other tree species, such as coigue, plum pine and tepa, Darwin’s frogs, lizards, and birds such as the chucao tapaculo and Chilean hawk.

For centuries its thick trunk has been chopped down to build houses and ships, and it was heavily logged during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Scientists excited

Park warden Anibal Henriquez discovered the tree while patrolling the forest in 1972. He died of a heart attack 16 years later while patrolling the same forest on horseback.

“He didn’t want people and tourists to know [where it was] because he knew it was very valuable,” said his daughter Nancy Henriquez, herself a park warden.

Henrique’s nephew, Jonathan Barichivich, grew up playing amongst the Fitzroya and is now one of the scientists studying the species.

In 2020, Barichivich and Lara managed to extract a sample from the Great Grandfather using the longest manual drill that exists, but they did not reach the centre.

They estimated that their sample was 2,400 years old and used a predictive model to calculate the full age of the tree.

Barichivich said that “80 per cent of the possible trajectories show the tree would be 5,000 years old”.

He hopes to soon publish the results.

The study has created excitement within the scientific community given that dendrochronology — the method of dating tree rings to when they were formed — is less accurate when it comes to older trees as many have a rotten core.

‘Symbols of resistence’

This is about more than just a competition to enter the record books though, as the Great Grandfather is a font of valuable information.

“There are many other reasons that give value and sense to this tree and the need to protect it,” said Lara.

There are very few thousands-years-old trees on the planet.

“The ancient trees have genes and a very special history because they are symbols of resistance and adaptation. They are nature’s best athletes,” said Barichivich.

“They are like an open book and we are like the readers who read every one of their rings,” said Carmen Gloria Rodriguez, an assistant researcher at the dendrochronology and global change laboratory at Austral University.

Those pages show dry and rainy years, depending on the width of the rings.

Fires and earthquakes are also recorded in those rings, such as the most powerful tremor in history that hit this area in 1960.

The Great Grandfather is also considered a time capsule that can offer a window into the past.

“If these trees disappear, so too will disappear an important key about how life adapts to changes on the planet,” said Barichivich.

First introduced in 1997 and resurrected again seven years after its ostensible retirement, the fifth “Y61” generation Nissan Patrol’s 2017 Middle East comeback marks a welcome return of a rugged and authentic off-road icon.

Now dubbed the Nissan Patrol Super Safari and beloved by Gulf motorists in particular for its near-legendary durability, extensive off-road ability and high comfort levels, the Y61 has since been sold concurrent with the more modern and refined, if perhaps more softer-edged, “Y62” sixth generation Patrol, circa 2010 onwards.

Reliable reputation

A favourite family car and lifestyle off-roader, the Y61 Patrol’s position as an icon of the Gulf automotive scene is rooted in its extreme durability. 

This is perhaps best exemplified by its popular use as the basis for highly modified uphill sand dune drag racing, where its proverbially “bullet-proof” engine is routinely tuned to in excess of 2,000BHP. 

Playing to such a reputation, the revived Patrol Super Safari has since also spawned more off-road capable factory modified Middle East market Falcon and Gazelle editions. 

If pitched as a resurrection in response market demands in its return for private use, the Y61 has, however, never truly been retired, and remained available for fleet sales to non-governmental international agencies. 

In regular service for use in inhospitable terrain and demanding conditions by such organizations during its 2010-2017 “hiatus”, such vehicles were more basic and utilitarian variants, whereas the revived Super Safari is a more sportily styled and better-equipped variant with extensive and more up-to-date comfort, convenience and tech features.

Refreshingly uncomplicated

Boxy, chunky and upright, the Super Safari’s ruggedly utilitarian styling is virtually unchanged for it revival run, bar for the addition of more muscularly defined wheel arches, slightly redesigned light elements and the addition of two-tone paint, tailgate spoiler and new alloy wheel design. 

With a big glasshouse and low, level waistline allowing for good visibility, the Super Safari’s design is refreshingly uncomplicated and easier on the eye with its horizontal emphasis, airy cabin and low wheel-arch to bonnet height, than more complicated and vertically-oriented modern SUVs.

Renowned for its durability, the Super safari’s thoroughly proven naturally-aspirated large displacement 4.8-litre in-line 6-cylinder engine carries over. Capable of handling huge power upgrades at the hands of aftermarket tuners, the Super Safari’s engine is relatively unstressed in its stock factory state. 

Developing 280BHP at a low-revving 4,800rpm and a more substantial 332lb/ft torque at 3,600rpm on the more generous “gross” rating, as advertised, the Patrol’s engine is, however, estimated to produce perhaps around 248BHP and 310lb/ft by the more widely used ‘net’ rating system.

Ruggedly smooth

A silky smooth “straight six” with a responsive yet relaxed demeanour, the Super Safari’s engine is progressively linear in delivery. 

Pulling well from tick-over to redline, it is confident and capable, if not excessive, but delivers good low-end response, a versatile mid-range and an eager, if low-revving, top-end. 

Driving the rear wheels — under normal conditions — through a smooth shifting 5-speed automatic gearbox, the Super Safari’s engine is perhaps thirsty compared to more modern engines, but nevertheless carries its significant 2.5-tonne estimated heft through 0-100km/h in approximately 10-seconds.

Built on a rugged ladder-frame chassis and riding on multi-link coil spring suspension with good articulation, the Super Safari is designed with off-road ability and durability in mind, and even features an electric-driven winch embedded in the front bumper. 

For traversing rough terrain, the Super Safari features good 215mm ground clearance and 47° side slope and 38.7° grade capability, while short overhangs allow generous 37° approach, 27° ramp and 31° departure angles.

Its off-road abilities are meanwhile underpinned by its tough four-wheel-drive system that includes low range gears and a locking rear differential for more demanding conditions.

Sturdy and spacious

An unassailable off-road beast, the Super Safari nevertheless avails itself well on-road. Tough but comfortably compliant, its suspension and tall tyres provide a cushioned and settled ride quality, making short shrift of big and sudden bumps and potholes. 

In handling and manoeuvrability, the Patrol certainly isn’t a corner carving road racer, but isn’t particularly unwieldy either. It is instead confident, balanced and predictable through corners, and comparatively well contains body roll, while steering is light and user-friendly, if not layered with nuance and feedback.

Confidently planted and stable on highway, the Super Safari has an impregnably sturdy sense of insulated refinement, which extends to cabin quality. 

Airy and spacious, it comfortably seats front and middle row passengers, and features twin side folding third row seats to accommodate a total complement of seven. 

Styling is meanwhile elegantly uncomplicated, with user-friendly controls and instruments, and plenty of storage space. Updated in presentation and materials, the Patrol’s cabin incorporates more contemporary amenities including an infotainment screen system, reversing camera, and automatic climate control.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 4.8-litre, in-line 6-cylinders 

Bore x stroke: 99.5 x 102mm

Valve-train: 24-valve DOHC, variable valve timing

Gearbox: 5-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Drive-train: Locking rear differential, low gear transfer case

Power, HP (kW): 280 (209) @4,800rpm*

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 332 (451) @3,600rpm*

0-97km/h: approximately 10-seconds**

Top speed: 190km/h**

Fuel consumption, city: 17.2-litres/100km**

Fuel capacity: 135-litres

Length: 5,080mm

Width: 1,940mm

Height: 1,855mm

Wheelbase: 2,970mm

Minimum Ground clearance: 215mm**

Approach/ramp/departure angles: 37°/27°/31°**

Grade capability: 38.7°**

Side slope capability: 47°**

Kerb weight: approximately 2,500kg**

Seating capacity: 7

Luggage volume: 668-litres**

Turning radius: 12.2-metres

Suspension F/R: 3-link/5-link, coil springs, anti-roll bars

Brakes: Ventilated discs

Tyres: 275/65R17**

*Gross power and torque

**Estimate

By Dr Tareq Rasheed
International Consultant and Trainer

There are six types of intelligences: analytical, environmental, musical, vocal, social and emotional. In many research articles, including Forbes’s “Are Men and Women Equally Emotionally Intelligent?”, women are classified as more emotionally intelligent than men in terms of empathy, interpersonal relationships and social responsibility; in other words, traits we associate with the general notion of emotion.

Men, on the other hand, lead the way in terms of stress tolerance, self-regard and assertiveness. In leadership (the act of influencing followers to achieve goals), one of the most crucial differences between men and women as leaders is differing traits within emotional intelligence. 

When it comes to emotions, children grow up to be more able to relate with their mothers than with their fathers. This is logical, as it is believed that mothers are primarily responsible for nurturing and caretaking during early infancy. The paternal role differs, as historically fathers would provide the family with financial stability and ensure the necessities of the family were met. These behavioural patterns reflect the way in which we view men and women as leaders.

The main differences concerning men and women as leaders are: 

Women

• Lead by empathy and are relationship- orientated

• Generally employ cooperation and participation

• Motivate the team through the transformational leadership approach according to the American Institute of Psychology, through moral incentives when goal setting

Men

• Lead by logic and assertiveness

• Depend mainly on power in decision-making

• Motivate the team using the transactional leadership approach of reward for successes and penalties for failures

In governmental positions, the trend is to assign women leaders in positions where social and emotional intelligences are core skills for employee-client relations. These include — exterior affairs, social development ministries and in human resource departments, customer relation management. While men would be assigned positions such as military, ministry of interior affairs, police, as well as the departments of finance, legal departments, as examples. While our neuro-anatomies differ in terms of what we bring to leadership positions, it should be noted that women and men are by no means restricted to the aforementioned job roles.

In general, emotional intelligence in leadership can be demonstrated by:

• Enhancing the self-awareness of each team member, and this is done usually in one-to-one sessions between team leader and team member. In motherhood, mothers help their kids to understand themselves and to hone their skills during the school years. Self-awareness is related to knowing the strengths and weaknesses, desires and motivators, fears and worries, and setting targets in life and work

• Helping team members to manage negative emotions easily; negative emotions include anger, sadness, worry, depression and boredom. Again, if we connect with motherhood, mothers are somewhat more capable of helping their kids to manage such emotions than fathers

• Communication with the team; a very crucial skill required for leadership. Leaders that do not master advanced communication skills with their teams will rarely manage to achieve their targets

The United Nations, in its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) for 2030, emphasises in its SDG#5, Gender Equality Basis, specifically the sub-goal SDG 5.5: To ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life. 

Let’s ascertain one thing — both men and women can lead. However, there are major differences in the leadership styles. Women, in principle, implement emotion-based strategies in positions of leadership.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

WASHINGTON — Sorry, "Jurassic Park" and toymakers everywhere.

Tyrannosaurus rex probably did not have those exposed jagged teeth.

The fearsome choppers of arguably the most celebrated of dinosaurs were likely covered by lips when the mouth was closed.

It's not an open and shut case, but that's the conclusion of a team of international researchers whose findings are published on Thursday in the journal Science.

"Animals like T-Rex, theropod dinosaurs, most likely had some sort of lips, like a soft tissue covering on their mouth to cover their teeth," said one of the authors of the study, Thomas Cullen, an assistant professor of paleobiology at Auburn University.

"This is different than what a lot of prior assumptions had been — which was that they looked more like crocodiles, having the teeth exposed when the mouths were closed and having no lips."

To reach their conclusion, Cullen and the other researchers studied a range of different theropods from various museums and followed several lines of inquiry.

They looked at wear patterns, for example, on the enamel of dinosaur teeth and crocodilians, the most closely related animals to theropods alive today.

"We did that because enamel, as some people have been told by their dentists, has to stay healthy and stay hydrated in order to remain healthy," Cullen said. "If it's exposed to air for too long it gets brittle, is more likely to crack or get diseased."

Cullen said the enamel on the outer sides of the teeth of living crocodilians wears down faster than that on the insides because they don't have lips.

"When we looked at enamel thickness on the inside and outside of the teeth in large Tyrannosaurs, they don't show that pattern like a crocodile," he said.

"They show a pattern more like an animal that has lips," he said. "Their enamel thickness is the same on the outer side and on the inner side."

Teeth too big for the mouth? 

The researchers also studied whether T-Rex's teeth may have simply been too big to fit in the dinosaur's mouth, comparing them to a number of present-day lizards that have lips.

"Some of the monitor lizards today have absolutely massive teeth," Cullen said. "It looks almost unbelievable that those teeth could be fully covered in lips and yet they are. 

"And we found that that sort of relationship, that scaling relationship, is almost identical in theropod dinosaurs."

As for how the findings will affect popular depictions of theropods, Cullen said the blockbuster "Jurassic Park" franchise "did a great job at the beginning of trying to stick with what was known at the time".

"But it's gone pretty off the rails since then in terms of any attempt to stick to accurate depictions of dinosaurs," he added.

BANTAKOKOUTA, Senegal — Mohamed Bayoh climbed into the deep, pitch-black hole, hoping to emerge with a nugget that would change his life.

The 26-year-old Guinean is one of thousands of West Africans who have flocked to remote eastern Senegal in search of gold.

The rush for the precious metal has dramatically transformed Bantakokouta, a town on the borders of Mali and Guinea.

The locals numbered just a few dozen two decades ago, now there are several thousand on the back of a floating population of dream-seekers and risk-takers with gold in their eyes.

Over time, their ant-like labour has left the landscape looking like a Swiss cheese.

As far as the eye can see, through the pervasive dusty mist, small huddled groups protected from the sun by makeshift branch shelters haul up spoil scratched from the ground.

Women sit nearby, sorting the rocks into two mounds — a big one for the discards and a much smaller one for the promising samples.

The same scenes are played out every day, with no guarantee of any success.

“Working here is like playing the lottery, you are never sure of winning,” sighed Bayoh, who said he was nonetheless determined to stay put until he gets rich.

Other sites in the gold-rich region have been taken over by mining corporations, sometimes triggering land disputes with local people.

But in Bantakokouta, informal mining has been allowed to carry on.

Diggers stay typically stay for a few months — sometimes just days — to chance their arm, hoping for a lucky strike that will enable them to send money home or start a business.

Bayoh was clear in his objective: To “find a lot of gold”, he said.

“Not a little... a lot. To start another life in Guinea”.

After six months’ gruelling work, he had earned enough to buy two motorbikes. 

One gramme (0.03 of an ounce) of gold — roughly equivalent to 60 grains of rice — brings in 30,000 CFA francs, or about $48.

 Harsh life 

But the risks facing miners are many, from fatal falls and cuts and landslips to use of drugs to dull aches and pains, said Diba Keita, head of a community vigilance committee.

The town itself bears the signs of poverty and transience.

Its alleys are littered with rubbish, and goats and sheep roam untended. The vast majority of the huts are rudimentary constructions, made of bamboo and brushwood.

In his workshop, Souleymane Segda, a 20-year-old from Burkina Faso, put crushed pieces of promising-looking ore through a grinder.

The apparatus takes up most of his room, which has no toilet and doubles as his bedroom. 

The young man is covered in dirt as he sifts through the dust in search of flecks of gold.

The flakes are recovered after washing the dust with mercury — a practice that is banned because of its health and environmental risks, but which remains widespread.

“I can earn up to 50,000 CFA francs a day. I go back home as much as I can and when I’ll have earned enough, I will leave for good,” he said.

Problems 

Bantakokouta has experienced a surge of activities familiar to gold rushes around the world — an influx of stores selling tools and electronic goods, places of worship, a medical post, nightclubs, video gaming rooms... and crime and vice.

“The gold has brought wealth. In the past, we used to go to Mako,” a town 20 kilometres away, said Waly Keita, 63.

He recalled with nostalgia the time when “our mums” used to dig in the river bed, searching for nuggets, while the men went into the bush to hunt and collect honey.

But the gold rush has also brought problems, including “banditry” and “conflict”, he said.

The Senegalese and foreigners generally get on well in Bantakokouta, although flareups do occur.

In 2020 clashes between security forces and Guinean miners resulted in the death of two young men.

In a square a little away from the shops, a young woman in tight blue shorts and a red T-shirt talked on the phone.

“No, it’s not good. It’s not enough. I’m not going to do anything with you,” she said in broken French.

Like dozens of others like her, the young woman had become stranded in the town and had to resort to sex work to survive.

“I don’t like my job,” she said softly, with a look of shame.

“Prostitution has become a major problem,” said Aliou Bakhoum, head of an NGO called La Lumiere (The Light) in the regional capital Kedougou.

“Young women, mainly from Nigeria and often under-age, fall victim to highly organised trafficking.”

He said his association had taken in around 40 girls, some as young as 15, and was helping them to return home. 

Traffickers lured the women with the promise of a job, transported them across West Africa and then pressured them to keep their mouths shut when the truth of their situation emerged.

Security 

The trafficking has prompted the state to beef up vigilance and invest heavily in security and intelligence, a senior administrative official who wished to remain anonymous said.

The authorities have also intensified operations to secure the border with Mali, fearing extremist contagion from its deeply troubled neighbour.

“Eastern Senegal would be a very interesting territory for terrorists, not necessarily for carrying out attacks, but for recruitment and funding,” a Western diplomat said.

“The gold mining sites are ideal for finding frustrated young people who want to earn money, and gold is very easy to hide and trade.”

Bantakokouta has dozens of stalls run by Malians, where gold is bought and then transported illegally across the border.

A 2021 report by the Timbuktu Institute think-tank highlighted the plight of impoverished and frustrated young people as one of the primary causes of radicalisation. 

The Kedougou region suffers from over 25 per cent unemployment, a poverty rate of more than 70 per cent and a worrying school drop-out rate.

As living conditions fall, many young people are tempted to try their luck in the mines. 

But many emerge disappointed, and willing to resort to just about anything.

Among the most evocative and honest of all car segments with its emphasis on undiluted thrills, aggressive designs, feelgood flavours and visceral driving, delivery and sounds, the muscle car started out as an affordable everyman’s answer to exotic European sports cars. A byword for American charm and excess in equal measure, the muscle car saw a resurgence of fortunes during the 2000s as retro automotive designs gained favour. But with the EV age just around the corner and imminent retirement of some segment stalwarts, only one true muscle car remains as an antidote to the unpalatable prospect of tall, heavy and disconnected electric interpretations.

Ford Mustang Dark Horse

The alpha and omega of American muscle cars, the Ford Mustang was first out of the stable when introduced in 1964, and again in 2004 when its fifth generation model reestablished the segment in a distinctly retro-infused fashion. Two decades later with chief rivals set to retire within months — to possibly be replaced by inauthentic EVs later in the future — Ford instead re-commits to the muscle car ethos with a new generation that improves on the combustion engine recipe that has consistently made the Mustang the world’ best selling sports car.

Though guilty of perhaps overextending the Mustang nameplate with its own electric-powered crossover vehicle, Ford has nevertheless continued developing the soon to be outgoing sixth generation Mustang with ever sportier, better handling and more powerful models. However, the introduction of the seventh generation will ensure the survival of “real” muscle cars for enthusiast drivers well into the decade. Built on an evolution of the current model’s platform, the next Mustang also follows similar design cues, but promises to be sharper, more focused and more aggressive, both mechanically and aesthetically.

Set to initially launch with a turbocharged 2.3-liter 4-cylinder Ecoboost engine and two variants of Ford’s naturally-aspirated 5-liter V8 Coyote engine, the first higher performance MK7 Mustang will be the Dark Horse variant, with even more powerful versions arriving later. Expected to produce 500BHP and 418lb/ft, with estimated 4-second 0-97km/h acceleration, the Dark Horse wears a more sinisterly dramatic look and includes standard MagneRide dampers, Torsen limited-slip differential, stiffer suspension, improved cooling, more responsive steering and a choice of 6-speed manual or 10-speed automatic gearboxes.

Specifications

Engine: 5-litre, V8-cylinders

Gearbox: 6-speed manual, rear-wheel-drive, Torsen limited-slip rear differential

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 500 (507) [373]*

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 418 (567)*

Rev limit: 7,500rpm

0-97km/h: 4-seconds*

Length: 4,818mm

Width: 1,917mm

Height: 1,402mm

Wheelbase: 2,718mm

Weight: 1,769kg*

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson strut / integral-link, adaptive dampers

Tyres, F/R: 255/40R19 / 275/40R19

Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170

Set to retire as the longest running modern muscle car since it first arrived in 2006, the third generation Dodge Challenger was arguably the closet to its iconic 1970s forbearer in dimensions, design and disposition. Based on a Mercedes-derived platform from the bygone Daimler-Crysler era, the Challenger remains the largest and most aggressive among its Ford and Chevrolet rivals — if not the sportiest or most agile — and evokes the same palpable sense of menace as it nears discontinuation at the end of the year.

A vast and dramatically aggressive modern muscle car with its broad width, Coke-bottle hips, recessed quad headlights and small glasshouse, the Challenger has spawned numerous and ever more powerful iterations over the years, and dramatically upped the ante with the 707BHP SRT Hellcat variant in 2015. Likely to be supplanted by some EV along the lines of the 2022 Dodge Charger Daytona Concept, the Challenger’s outright power and sound might even be mimicked, but its visceral old school charms and combustion engine appeal cannot be replicated.

Going out with a proverbial bang, the Challenger added the most prodigious evolution of the Hellcat’s supercharged 6.2-litre V8 engine to the roster last month. A swan song variant and the most powerful muscle car ever, the Challenger SRT Demon 170 extensively improves on the 2017 Demon’s 840BHP and even outmuscles Dodge’s 1000BHP 2018 Hellephant crate engine. A street legal drag racer, the Demon 170 develops 1,025BHP at 6,500rpm and 945lb/ft torque at 4,200rpm when running ethanol-infused E85 fuel, and can rocket through 0-97km/h in just 1.66-seconds. 

Specifications

Engine: 6.2-litre, supercharged V8-cylinders

Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, rear-wheel-drive, limited slip differential

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 1,025 (1,039) [764] @6,500rpm*

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 945 (1,281) @4,200rpm*

0-97km/h: 1.66-seconds*

Length: 5,015mm

Width: 2,001mm

Height: 1,459mm

Wheelbase: 2,950mm

Weight: 1,941kg

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbone / five-link, adaptive dampers

Tyres, F/R: 245/55R18 / 315/50R17

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE

Launched in 2015 as a slightly smaller muscle car riding on General Motor’s Cadillac Alpha Platform rather than its predecessor’s Holden-derived Zeta platform, the sixth generation Camaro placed more emphasis on sportier and more agile handling. Styled to accentuate its immediate predecessor’s stylised retro-futuristic design with a seemingly yet smaller glasshouse and more aggressive fascia, the MK6 line-up also included the first downsized turbocharged 2-litre four-cylinder engine Camaro, but is now set to be retired by early 2024, with no heir apparent.

With any next generation Camaro expected to return as a less charismatic EV after a brief hiatus, the current model however bows out with the ZL1 1LE specification as its most powerful variant. Powered by a supercharged 6.2 litre V8 engine developing 650BHP at 6,400rpm and 650lb/ft torque at 3,600rpm, the Camaro ZL1 can is even still available with a proper analogue three-pedal 6-speed manual gearbox. Blasting through 0-97km/h in around 3.7-seconds, the ZL1 is quicker still with the optional 10-speed automatic gearbox.

A welcome — albeittemporary and non-street legal — respite from the march towards electrification, Chevrolet also offer the drag race specification COPO Camaro. With a huge bonnet bulge and rugged 3-speed automatic gearbox, engine options include 470BHP naturally-aspirated 7-litre and 600BHP supercharged 5.7-litre small block V8s, and a lazy 430BHP 9.4-litre big block. But the most powerful features Chevrolet’s naturally-aspirated 10.3-litre big-block V8 ZZ632 crate engine, developing 1,004BHP at 6,600rom and 876lb/ft torque at 5,600rpm.

Specifications

Engine: 6.2-litre, supercharged V8-cylinders

Gearbox: 6-speed manual, rear-wheel-drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 650 (659) [485] @6,400rpm

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 650 (868) @3,600rpm

0-97km/h: 3.7-seconds (estimate)

Length: 4,812mm

Width: 1,905mm

Height: 1,334mm

Wheelbase: 2,811mm

Weight: 1,772kg

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson strut / five-link, adaptive dampers

Tyres, F/R: 305/30R19 / 325/30R19