instruction:
Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
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Paragraph: Not applicable. The cost of olive oil is not in question. The story only cited a 41% lower risk of stroke but didn’t give the actual numbers of how many versus how many in the different groups. That may give an inflated sense of benefit or risk reduction. Not applicable. Unlike the LA Times piece, WebMD rurns to an editorial writer and two other independent experts to evaluate the evidence. It mentioned that this was an observational study but didn’t explicitly define that or why that’s a potential limitation. No disease-mongering of stroke in the story. Great sourcing – with 3 independent voices besides the study authors. The story ends, appropriately, with this: “Keeping blood pressure controlled, not smoking, exercising regularly, and eating a healthy diet that is low in salt and rich in fruits and vegetables can also help reduce stroke risk.” Not applicable. The availability of olive oil is not in question. The relative novelty of the study’s focus was clear in the story. It’s clear that the story did not rely on a news release. Claim: Olive Oil Linked to Reduced Stroke Risk
answer:
An added nice touch was the discussion of the possible etiology of the olive oil effect (e.g., inflammation). Overall, a solid summary. When an observational study points to a statistical association between one factor and one outcome, it is important to explain why that doesn’t necessarily mean that one factor caused that one outcome. This story did a better job of that than its LA Times competition.


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Paragraph: A recent count found 350 million purple sea urchins on one Oregon reef alone — more than a 10,000% increase since 2014. And in Northern California, 90% of the giant bull kelp forests have been devoured by the urchins, perhaps never to return. Vast “urchin barrens” — stretches of denuded seafloor dotted with nothing but hundreds of the spiny orbs — have spread to coastal Oregon, where kelp forests were once so thick it was impossible to navigate some areas by boat. The underwater annihilation is killing off important fisheries for red abalone and red sea urchins and creating such havoc that scientists in California are partnering with a private business to collect the over-abundant purple urchins and “ranch” them in a controlled environment for ultimate sale to a global seafood market. “We’re in uncharted territory,” said Scott Groth, a shellfish scientist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. “You can’t just go out and smash them. There’s too many. I don’t know what we can do.” The explosion of purple sea urchins is the latest symptom of a Pacific Northwest marine ecosystem that’s out of whack. Kelp has been struggling because of warmer-than-usual waters in the Pacific Ocean. And, in 2013, a mysterious disease began wiping out tens of millions of starfish, including a species called the sunflower sea star that is the only real predator of the ultra-hardy purple urchin. Around the same time, the purple urchins had two excellent breeding years — and with no predators, those gametes grew up and are now eating everything in sight. “You can imagine all of these small urchins growing up, each one of them looking for food, desperate for food. They’re literally starving out there,” said Steven Rumrill, lead shellfish expert at Oregon’s wildlife agency. “I’ve seen some big-scale fluctuations in the populations of sea stars and urchins, but never on this magnitude.” Scientists are not yet sure if climate change is responsible for the sea urchin explosion, but they suspect it plays a role in the cascade of events that allowed the purple urchins to boom. And kelp, already under siege from warming waters, is not as resilient as it once was, said Norah Eddy, an associate director at the Nature Conservancy California’s oceans program. “We’re going to see climate change as a big driver of changes in kelp forest as we move forward, and we are already seeing that,” said Eddy, who is leading an effort to use drones to map and monitor Northern California’s last remaining kelp forests. The devastation is also economic: Until now, red abalone and red sea urchins, a larger and meatier species of urchin, supported a thriving commercial fishery in both states. But 96% of red abalone have disappeared from California’s northern coast as the number of purple sea urchins increased six fold, according to a study released this week by the University of California, Davis. Last year, California closed its red abalone fishery, which poured an estimated $44 million into the coastal economy per year, and Oregon suspended permits for its 300 abalone divers for three years. The commercial harvest of red sea urchins in California and Oregon also has taken a massive hit. “That’s a huge economic loss for our small coastal communities,” said Cynthia Catton, a research associate with the University of California, Davis Bodega Marine Lab. “In California, there were 30,000 to 40,000 participants in (the abalone) fishery every year for decades, and for the first time ever that fishery had to close.” And while the purple urchins have eaten themselves into starvation as well, unlike other kelp-dependent creatures, the species can go into a dormant state, stop reproducing and live for years with no food. That means the only way to restore the kelp is to remove or destroy the purple urchins. Scientists estimate that in Oregon alone, it would take 15 to 20 years to remove all 100 million pounds (45 million kilograms) of purple urchins recently surveyed on just one large reef. While urchins are in starvation mode, the edible part — known as roe — shrivels, making them commercially worthless. Against this backdrop, conservationists, commercial urchin harvesters, scientists and private interests are coming together with an unusual plan: Pay underemployed red sea urchin divers to collect the shriveled, but living, purple sea urchins and transfer them to carefully tended urchin “ranches” to be fattened up for sale to seafood markets around the world. One company, Urchinomics, is already working on urchin ranching projects in Japan, Canada and California and sees a future where the overwhelming demand for wild urchin roe is replaced by a taste for human-raised purple urchins collected from the seafloor, allowing kelp forests to rebound. “We’re turning an ecological problem into an ecological opportunity and an economic opportunity,” said Brian Takeda, the Urchinomics CEO. “It’s the first time we’ve ever had an economic incentive to get these destructive urchins out of the water.” In Oregon, red urchin divers are a tiny artisanal collective, but they are also exploring ways to try to turn the glut of destructive purple urchins to their advantage. Oregon’s urchin fishery had a boom year last year, when red urchins were scarce in California but before their purple cousins had spread north. Now, they too are hurting. Rumrill, the shellfish expert from Oregon, supports efforts to harvest excess urchins but strikes a less optimistic note when it comes to saving the kelp. “That’s a promising technique. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking that we’re going to solve this large-scale ecological problem, this literal perfect storm of events, by eating our way out,” he said. “It’s just too big a problem.” ___ Chea reported from Mendocino County, California. ___ Follow Gillian Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus . Claim: Swarm of sea urchins wreaks destruction on US West Coast.
answer:
Tens of millions of voracious purple sea urchins that have already chomped their way through towering underwater kelp forests in California are spreading north to Oregon, sending the delicate marine ecosystem off the shore into such disarray that other critical species are starving to death.


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Paragraph: The practice is prevalent in 28 African countries and parts of the Middle East and Asia, notably Yemen, Iraqi Kurdistan and Indonesia. There are several types including partial or total removal of the genitalia and narrowing of the vaginal opening. It is usually arranged by other women in the family for girls between infancy and 15, and performed by traditional cutters who use anything from razor blades to scissors or tin can lids. The United Nations passed a resolution in December urging countries to ban the practice that an estimated 100 to 140 million girls worldwide have been subjected to, putting them at risk of serious physical and psychological problems. But participants at an international meeting in Rome said new laws needed to be accompanied by education and discussion in traditional communities to help dispel misleading myths. “Religious leaders have to be involved, primarily Muslims and those from traditional religions. Opinion leaders have to be on board in this fight,” Benin’s Family and Social Affairs Minister Fatouma Amadou Djibril said. “We can uphold traditions but we have to find ways to replace this kind of practice with different rituals,” she said. People often believe the practice is required by religion, but it is not mentioned in the Koran or any other religious text. Speakers at the Rome meeting said it was crucial to inform and educate the women who were perpetuating the practice, often because they worry they will be punished by ancestors in the afterlife for not performing it on relatives. “We need to explain to the women, because they don’t understand how it can be prevented - it has such important societal implications,” Ivory Coast Health Minister Raymonde Coffie Goudou said. “The traditional practitioner who uses the knife has value, she has a reputation, she is a woman with a role in the village - we have to understand her to deal with this,” she said. The practice can cause severe bleeding, pain, shock, recurrent urinary tract infections, cysts and infertility. It increases the risk of labor complications and newborn deaths. The procedure itself can prove fatal. Speakers said cross-border cooperation and enforcement was also crucial for eradicating the practice, because cutters often move to countries where legislation is less strict so they can carry on working unhindered. Female genital mutilation has been banned by 20 of the 28 countries that practice it in Africa as well as many industrialized countries. But enforcement is usually weak and prosecutions are rare. Claim: Ministers urge religious chiefs to oppose genital mutilation.
answer:

Religious leaders must convince women carrying out female genital mutilation that it is not required by scripture and it can cause infection, infertility or even death in young girls, African ministers said on Monday.