Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

Ex Input:
A University of Iowa study shows the state’s contribution to the Gulf dead zone spiked 47 percent to 618 million pounds in 2016, based on five-year running annual averages. “Just based on water quality data, I think we can say we’ve not made much progress over the past 20 years in terms of nitrogen,” said Chris Jones, a research engineer at the UI’s IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering. Environmentalists say the study raises new questions about the effectiveness of Iowa’s approach to improving water quality and its reliance on voluntary ag compliance. “We’ve been pouring state and federal money into cutting nutrient pollution for decades, and this highlights the fact that the voluntary approach is not working,” said Jennifer Terry, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council. “We’re not headed in the right direction. ... We need to follow the lead of other states and pass some environmental laws that will actually reduce loads and result in cleaner water,” Terry said. The Des Moines Register reports that the news comes as Iowa marks the five-year anniversary of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, a plan designed to cut by 45 percent the nitrogen and phosphorus levels that leave Iowa and feed Gulf hypoxia — or the dead zone. Oxygen levels within the zone are so low that marine life can no longer survive, threatening the Gulf’s seafood industry. Most of the nutrient losses come from farming, although the strategy also targets losses from urban wastewater and industrial operations. Last year, Iowa invested $420 million in those water quality improvements, including helping farmers plant cover crops, build terraces and tackle other conservation practices that hold nutrients in place. But farmers expanding their drainage tile systems — along with increasing hog, cattle and chicken feeding operations, which provide manure to fertilize crops — likely outweigh those conservation efforts, UI scientists say. The nutrient reduction practices “being implemented are a tiny, tiny portion of what needs to be done, and it’s occurring in a system that’s changing,” Jones said. “We appreciate all that is being done with nutrient management and conservation farming. Unfortunately, we’re just impacting too few acres with too few practices,” added Larry Weber, executive associate dean for UI’s College of Engineering. Jones wrote the study with Weber and Keith Schilling, another UI research engineer. Increased nutrient pollution in water creates problems for people and animals beyond the dead zone. High phosphorus levels can lead to toxic algae blooms that can befoul lakes, rivers and streams, potentially killing pets and making people ill. And the federal government limits the amount of nitrates in drinking water to 10 milligrams per liter. Higher levels can be fatal to babies under 6 months old. Increased levels translate to higher costs for utilities for nitrate removal. “We need a dramatic increase, a rapidly-scaled up increase in conservation practices and more funding,” said Cindy Lane, the Iowa Environmental Council’s water program director. Schilling said the study shows that targeting nutrient reduction investment in Iowa can have a significant impact downstream. “Iowa has a dominant role in this Gulf hypoxia issue,” Schilling said. “Let’s invest the resources here, where we really need it. “If we solve Iowa, we solve the Gulf,” he said. The UI study gives Iowans new information in the fight to reduce the nitrogen levels that flow from the state into the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, which make their way to the Gulf of Mexico. Looking at Iowa Department of Natural Resources data from 23 monitoring stations, the study shows Iowa on average over the past 18 years contributed 29 percent of the total nitrogen headed to the Gulf from the Mississippi-Atchafalaya river basin. The river basin is a massive watershed that includes all or part of 31 states. Iowa’s nitrogen impact was even greater in other watersheds. The state averaged 45 percent of the nitrogen levels going into the Upper Mississippi River basin, and 55 percent of the nitrogen going into to the Missouri River basin. “When you look at the entire Missouri (River) watershed, our land comprises 3.3 percent of the total area ... and Iowa contributes nearly 12 percent of the water,” Jones said. But “we contribute 55 percent of the nitrate,” he said. “The way that pencils out is that the amount of water coming from Iowa has seven times more nitrates than the rest of the Missouri River watershed,” Jones said. If Iowa’s contributions were removed, the Missouri River would have little nitrogen contributions in some years. “We really need to take seriously the Missouri River’s contribution as a driver for Gulf hypoxia,” Jones said. The growing concentration of livestock feeding operations in western Iowa might account for Iowa’s large contribution to the Missouri River nitrate levels, the scientists said. “People tend to dismiss livestock influences, but maybe there’s more to it than people give credit it for,” Schilling said, adding that it would require more study to determine the impact. Iowa’s nitrogen levels, based on running five-year annual averages, have been above the 2003 value for 10 consecutive years, the study says. The scientists say 2003 was the first year the five-year rolling average could be calculated, with data that starts in 1999. The goal of the Gulf Hypoxia Task Force, made up of federal, state and tribal leaders, “will be very difficult to achieve if nitrate retention cannot be improved in Iowa,” the report said. The task force, with Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig as chairman, seeks to reduce the dead zone to 1,900 square miles by 2035. The deadline was extended from 2015. Last year, the dead zone set a record, which, at 8,776 square miles, was more than four times the goal size. The report says about 90 percent of Iowa’s nitrogen levels “can be sourced to the 72 percent of the state’s land area that is in crop cultivation.” Iowa, an agriculture powerhouse, is a national leader in corn, soybean, pork, egg and beef production. “This intense production of carbohydrates and protein has resulted in the state being a leading contributor” to the nitrogen loads and Gulf hypoxia, the report said. Naig said farmers understand the important role they play in improving water quality and are scaling up efforts across the state “as we move from demonstration projects to larger, watershed-scale implementation projects. “We recognize that there is still a lot of work to be done, but we are on the right path,” said Naig, who adds farmers are working with more than 250 partners in 65 rural and urban demonstration projects. The UI scientists doubt that increased cropping is the reason for the increased nitrogen impact. Iowa’s cropped area has increased only 4 percent over the past 18 years, while other states’ farmed land has climbed 21 percent, particularly in Minnesota, North and South Dakota and Kansas. About 85 percent of Iowa’s acres are farmed, making it the fifth-highest in the nation, based on the 2012 U.S. Agriculture Census, so there are few acres left that can be brought into production compared with other states. “Iowa’s decline in the share of the region’s soybean area was especially pronounced, dropping from 18.6 percent in 1999 to 14.5 percent in 2016,” the report said. “One would expect our (nitrogen) contributions relative to the other areas would be diminished,” Jones said. “But the opposite has occurred.” Jones said it’s led the scientists to consider other factors. The scientists doubt that Iowa farmers are using significantly more fertilizer. “When we look at nitrogen sales data, it might change a little year over year. But on a per acre basis, that hasn’t changed a lot since 1990,” he said. And with little increase in corn and soybean acres, the scientists speculate that Iowa’s increased nitrogen levels could be coming from more drainage tiles. Or farmers could be using more manure as fertilizer from animal feeding operations. Without Iowa, the Gulf’s overall nitrate loads would have declined 43,400 tons over 18 years, based on five-year running annual averages, the scientists’ data show. Instead nitrate loads grew by 52,000 tons. “It’s pretty clear these loads from the Ohio basin have to be declining,” Jones said. “A lot that is coming from Indiana.” That state’s high level of cover crop adoption by farmers could be the reason, he said, and should be studied. Cover crops such as cereal rye slow the rate of water runoff, reduce erosion and improve soil fertility. Iowa also needs to honestly discuss the impact that drainage tiling has on nitrogen losses, Jones said. Iowa doesn’t collect data on how much underground drainage runs through the state, although officials estimate about 9 million acres are drained through tile. Environmentalists believe the number is much higher. Underground drainage tile helps improve yields by quickly removing excess water from fields. Iowa’s tiling system consists of a network of drainage lines that feed into large pipes. The massive network, first constructed in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, turned once swampy lands into some of the nation’s most productive farmland. But water quickly carried away by the tiling system misses cleansing that would naturally occur by filtering through soil or the roots of trees, shrubs and grasses in riparian buffers along streams. Des Moines Water Works unsuccessfully sued drainage districts in three north Iowa counties in 2015, claiming underground tiles funneled high levels of nitrates into the Raccoon River, a source of drinking water for 500,000 central Iowa residents. “We acknowledge that it’s important to track implemented conservation, and we encourage that,” Jones said. “But we also need to have the courage to talk about these things that drive the system in the other direction.” Terry said Iowa is “one of the most heavily tiled states in the nation,” and its 110-year-old law regulating the practice does little to protect water quality. ___ Information from: The Des Moines Register, http://www.desmoinesregister.com

Ex Output:
Study: Iowa nitrogen pollution in the water is getting worse.


Ex Input:
As the world mobilizes to battle the virus, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan have been relatively successful in curbing the spread so far. But a surge in imported cases in recent days has raised alarm that those efforts could rapidly unravel. “In many countries the number of confirmed cases can be described as explosive,” Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam told a  press briefing on Tuesday. “If we don’t adopt some strict measures...I’m afraid all precaution efforts done in the past two months would be wasted.”  The latest tally from mainland China, the original epicenter of the coronavirus, showed 21 new confirmed cases on Monday, of which 20 involved infected travelers arriving from abroad, mostly Chinese nationals. Hong Kong said most of the recent confirmed cases in the past two weeks were imported. In Taiwan, 24 new cases up to Tuesday were all imported, while South Korea had 44 new infections involving infected travelers as of Sunday. Singapore confirmed 17 new infections on Monday, its biggest daily jump in cases, with 11 of those imported. The rush to flee virus hotspots in Europe and the United States has pushed up the price of flights. A ticket from London  to Hong Kong was going for up to HK$50,000 on Monday night as people tried to get to the city before it imposed tougher restrictions. “It is safer home than in Britain as the policy to contain the outbreak under Boris Johnson is doubtful,” said Ling, a Cambridge University student after landing in Hong Kong wearing a surgical mask and rubber gloves. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Britain rose to 1,543, up from 1,372 the day before, the health ministry said on Monday. The British death toll rose to 55. Four of Hong Kong’s 157 confirmed coronavirus patients have died, while more than 3,200 people have died from the disease in mainland China, the highest number of fatalities. Measures in China, Hong Kong and Singapore, include city-wide lockdowns, border tightening, contact tracing efforts and strict social distancing. The virus has already taken a heavy economic toll, especially in mainland China and global financial hub Hong Kong, so any rise in new cases could be devastating. Hong Kong on Tuesday toughened measures on travelers, requiring 14 days of quarantine for those entering the city as of midnight on Thursday, and joined Singapore in advising against all non-essential travel. China said all inbound, non-transit travelers to Beijing need to be isolated for 14 days at designated quarantine venues, mostly hotels in the city. Macau, the world’s biggest gambling hub, on Tuesday banned the entry of all non-residents, a move likely to have a significant impact on the already struggling casino industry. How seriously authorities in Asia take the virus battle has been underscored by punishments meted out or threatened to those who violate quarantine rules or give false information about their whereabouts or travel history. Taiwan said those who do not follow home isolation or quarantine rules could be fined between T$100,000 and T$1 million (US$ 3,300- US$33,000), and has advised people not to travel abroad at all. “We held firm to block the first wave of infection, but a new wave is coming, so everyone should cooperate with disease prevention efforts,” Taiwanese Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told  a news conference on Monday. While the imported infections in mainland China are still modest in number - 143 cases so far - authorities are concerned that virus carriers could trigger a second wave. The first imported case was reported in late February in the northwestern Ningxia region involving a traveler flying in from Iran. More cases quickly arrived from Iran, a hotspot with nearly 15,000 infections so far, followed by the first infected travelers from Italy in the first week of March. Soon, the infected were spotted on flights from countries including Spain, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand entered the list this week.

Ex Output:
Asia prepares for coronavirus boomerang wave as residents return home.


Ex Input:
In this file photo, participants of the Mars500 experiment, which simulates a 520-day flight to Mars, pose for a picture before entering a confinement module to start their mission in Moscow June 3, 2010. The crew comprises of (L-R): Alexey Sitev, Wang Yue, Romain Charles, Sukhrob Kamolov, Diego Urbina and Alexander Smoleevskiy. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin The $15-million Mars500 experiment aims to answer one of the big questions of deep-space travel: could people endure the stresses of a voyage of more than six months to the Red Planet? The six male volunteers from Europe, China and Russia are not exposed to weightlessness or solar radiation, but in just about every other way life inside the 550-cubic-meter mock spaceship in Moscow resembles that of a real space flight. Clothed in blue jumpsuits, the would-be astronauts take daily urine and blood samples, eat rations like those of real astronauts and do not shower often. Communication with the outside world comes with a 20-minute lag and the crew have faced power outages and other impromptu glitches. Halfway through, two crew members donned 32-kg (70-pound) spacesuits to clomp about in a dark sand-filled container meant to imitate the surface of Mars. “The research we have points to levels of high stress,” said Igor Ushakov, the head of the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems which runs the “spaceship.”   “The most difficult thing for them was being starved of information.”   Psychologists fear a return to the noise and activity of ordinary life will come as a shock to the crew, and plan a period of rehabilitation. “The key principle is to take it step by step to return them to the world which they left,” Ushakov told Reuters. A previous 420-day experiment ended in drunken disaster in 2000, when two participants got into a fistfight and a third tried to forcibly kiss a female crew member. But Mars500 is being hailed as a success. The emergency exit remained sealed and it proved an unexpected publicity coup for the European Space Agency, a collaborator on the project. “It was not designed to be a PR thing but I think it naturally evolved to be quite a positive and comprehensive advertisement for what we might eventually do next,” ESA’s head of human space flight operations Martin Zell told Reuters. With video cameras tracking the crew everywhere but the toilets, Mars500 has been likened to a scientific reality show. To kill time, China’s Wang Yue practiced calligraphy, France’s Romain Charles strummed his guitar and together the crew, aged from 28-38, played karaoke, chess and Nintendo Wii. The elaborate pretence of their imaginary spaceflight includes four days’ quarantine after they “return.”   “Folks who get close to us will need to go through a small medical examination, so we don’t catch a cold!” Italian Diego Urbina tweeted earlier this month. In another tweet, he said he most yearned for “family, calling my friends, bumping into strangers, going to the beach.”   Over 100 different experiments have crowded in on the Mars500 project, with researchers of every stripe interested in scrutinizing the men. Space officials say space technology is still decades away from being able to land astronauts on the Red Planet, more than 35 million miles (56 million km) away across the solar system. NASA unveiled $10 billion plans last month to build a huge deep-space rocket to carry astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit after 2017, but space-faring nations are still debating whether to target a mission to the Moon, an asteroid or Mars. Among real-life astronauts, support for Mars500 has been tempered by some skepticism. Space veteran Sergei Krikalyov, who has spent a record 803 days in orbit, told Reuters: “It’s useful but, sitting here on Earth, it won’t solve real problems of long human exposure in space.”   But the crew has won praise. “I can’t help but applaud the fact that six people would go ahead and do something like this,” said U.S. astronaut Mark Polansky, who heads NASA operations at Russia’s Star City training center outside Moscow. “It’s really giving up a lot to pretend that you are on you’re way to Mars.”

Ex Output:

Fake Mars mission to open hatch on 520 days isolation.