Categories
Science

Europe is launching its new robotic arm that can crawl across the Worldwide House Station like a customs worm

The ISS’s robotic arms are some of its most useful tools. The arms, designed by Canadian and Japanese space agencies, were instrumental in moving astronauts and directing modules to one side of the ISS. However, the Russian segment lacked its own robotic arm – until a new one developed by ESA came onto the market last week.

The European Robotic Arm (ERA) will arrive on the ISS on July 29th together with Nauka, the laboratory module to which it is attached outside. With the help of 5 expected spacewalks, the arm will soon be put into operation and begin its first tasks – getting the Naucasus airlock working so that it becomes an integral part of the station and installing a large radiator to cope with the increased pressure Station cooling load.

Scheme of the newly upgraded ISS – including the ERA and Nauka modules (bottom left).
Credit – ESA

Within the framework of these projects, ERA will demonstrate its capabilities. This includes acting like an inch worm and moving hand over hand around the Nauka module. In addition, it is the first arm that can be steered either inside or outside the station and this control enables astronauts and cosmonauts to move up to 8000 kg within 5 mm of a desired location.

In fact, this level of accuracy doesn’t even need to be controlled manually – the ERA is autonomous and can be executed strictly according to written step-by-step instructions. Its seven degrees of freedom and a range of 9.7 meters also allow access outside of its home module. Made from carbon fiber and aluminum, it’s also strong enough to withstand the wear and tear of space and hopefully the effects of debris hitting other arms.

If you want to see the newly upgraded ISS, UT has a video of it.

Such impressive specifications have taken a lot of effort – 14 years of development by 22 companies in seven European countries. But it’s part of a bigger push to move the ISS into a more commercially friendly space, with additional research bays, improved data links, and external research platforms.

ESA’s plan is to use the Columbus 2023 program to make the ISS relevant in its “middle of life” in order to carry out new types of experiments and tests on the station that would be impossible on the earth side. The ERA is certainly a step in that direction, and the upgrades it will enable should make the ISS an increasingly important research location.

Learn more:
ESA – European robotic arm is launched into space
ESA – ERA brochure
Space.com – Europe will shortly bring a new two-handed robotic arm to the International Space Station
Airbus – European robotic arm built by Airbus, ready for space

Mission statement:
Launch of ERA on a Proton rocket on July 21, 2021.
Credit – Roscosmos

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Entertainment

Simone Biles is withdrawing from the final staff occasion of the Olympic Video games in Tokyo as a consequence of a psychological drawback

While Simone Biles dominates every exercise mat she steps on, it was announced Tuesday morning that she will not compete in the final event with Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics.

According to ESPN, Simone returned to the ground with her leg wrapped around her leg after landing her jump on Tuesday, announcing that she was retiring from the last team competition. Team USA Gymnastics Twitter account released an official statement on Simone’s withdrawal, quoting her as having a “medical problem” and later clarifying that she had decided to step back on mental health concerns.

“Simone Biles has withdrawn from the team’s finals due to a medical problem,” the statement said. “It is examined daily to determine medical clearance for future competitions. I think of you, Simone! “

Simone later made it clear that while she wanted to support her team, but didn’t want the stress of the events to affect her physical health, she decided to retire.

“Fortunately no injury and that’s why I took a step back because I didn’t want to do something stupid out there and get hurt,” Simone Biles said during a press conference. “So I thought it would be best for these girls to do the work and do the rest of the work, which they absolutely did. You are now an Olympic silver medalist and should be really proud of yourself. “

“The Olympics have been very stressful overall, in my opinion,” she continued. “Not having an audience, so many different variables play a role. It’s been a long week, it’s been a long Olympic process, it’s been a long year. And I think we’re just too stressed out. We should be having fun out here and sometimes that’s not the case. “

It’s unclear if Simone Biles will be returning to the Olympics, but we’ll keep you updated, Roomies!

Would you like updates straight to your text inbox? Call us at 917-722-8057 or https://my.community.com/theshaderoom

Categories
Sport

A Texas-OU transfer to SEC is not concerning the higher good for school sports activities, however moderately who will get to be one of the best

So, maybe, possibly, probably, OK, pretty likely, Oklahoma and Texas will move to the SEC? The Southwest in the Southeast? The long-desired return of Texas versus Texas A&M, but with perhaps a trade-off of a never-desired burial of Bedlam? The Sooners between the hedges? The Crimson Tide rolling into Austin? All while a Big 12 that was not actually 12, and increasingly not all that Big, now finds itself falling back and digging in its boots to ward off conference raiders hailing from every direction and acronym.

Welcome to the Tomorrowland, er, Todayland, of collegiate athletics, currently being driven like a limousine on a frozen lake by the power brokers of college football — OK, maybe just one power broker (singular) of college football — steered toward a here-and-now future where maps and calendars no longer seem to matter. A new frontier where athletes can jump from one roster to another to improve their situation (but don’t you dare call them free agents) and hire agents to help them find financial backers through name, image and likeness (but don’t you dare call it pay for play). All ultimately vying for a spot in a College Football Playoff poised to expand from four teams to a dozen, a bracket that promises to reward the highest-ranked teams with first-round byes and welcome previously denied outliers with postseason wild-card slots (but don’t you dare say it looks like the NFL).

2 Related

Oh, and all the above is currently governed by a governing body that, over the past month, has joined others in admitting perhaps it doesn’t need to be governing at all. To be fair, the NCAA never ran the CFP. Now it would appear that was merely a training exercise, preparing for a future when it likely won’t run anything else, either.

In the college sports multiverse that has emerged since July 1, it would be cliché to say this isn’t going to be your grandfather’s college football. It won’t even be your father’s, either. Hell, it isn’t the sport any of us knew a week ago, let alone three years ago. No one, no matter what they might think, has any idea what it will be three years from now. And yeah, that includes the people who are making the moves that are forcing the rest of us to move with them.

“What no one can predict, no matter how much they think they can, are the unintended consequences. A lot of us have been doing this a long time and we can all take our best educated guess at what we think will happen when we implement a plan or idea, but until that plan or idea actually happens and we see what happens because of what we ultimately decided to do, no one can honestly tell you what is going to happen.”

Alabama head coach Nick Saban spoke those words on the morning of Wednesday, July 21, during his stint at SEC media days in Hoover, Alabama. He was answering a question about the transfer portal, NIL (name, image, likeness) and the expanded CFP, the transformative trio that has seemingly arrived all at once. At the time, we thought those topics would bring as much change as we would have to handle all at once. We were wrong. A few hours later, at precisely 3:38 p.m., a tsunami was unleashed over the entire college sports world, its epicenter found right there in the Hoover press room, where a Houston Chronicle report revealed Oklahoma and Texas had been asking about the possibility of joining the SEC. Looking back, Saban had to have known about what so many of the rest of us did not. Even if he didn’t, the words of college football’s greatest coach feel prescient at the greatest of levels.

“Look, these changes, they benefit our program at Alabama, there’s no question about it,” said the man who started his college football life as a player and graduate assistant at Kent State and held his first head-coaching gig at Toledo. “But ultimately, we have to ask, are they good for college football as a whole, the game that we all love?”

Let’s be real here. No conference commissioner, university president or athletic director makes any decision after a philosophical pause to ponder, “Hey, is this good for the entirety of college athletics?” No, their moves have been and will always be based on what is best for their conference, their university and their athletic department. That’s the gig. This is a world of people who are competitive by nature. Their goal is to always be No. 1, whether it be wins earned or dollars in the bank. And none of those people are going to lose their jobs in a manner that leaves them screaming as they are escorted out of the building, “I know it wasn’t best for us, but consider college sports as a whole!”

It is not SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s job to worry about the future of the Big 12. His job is to strengthen the SEC and create a better life for its members. Everyone knows this and understands it. Perhaps the biggest part of that job is to stare into a crystal ball that is cloudy at best (see: adding portal/NIL/CFP while subtracting NCAA) and try to foresee the ideal path to survival while also retaining the SEC’s title as the undisputed most powerful alliance in college sports. Any path is most easily bulldozed by applying as much horsepower as possible. Bevo and the Sooner Schooner provide a lot of horsepower. Had it been revealed at a later date that Sankey passed on the possibility of adding Oklahoma and Texas to his conference’s roster, he one day in the not-so-distant future would have been that person being dragged toward the exit while no one was listening to him holler about principles. Whether a handful of 16-team “superconferences” or a 32-team mega-league possibly becomes the new post-NCAA Power 5 (or 4 or 3 or who knows?) society, everyone bestowed with any degree of decision-making abilities must be open to any and every possible idea.

Hey, I co-host a television show on the SEC Network. Adding Texas and Oklahoma wouldn’t exactly be bad for business. But just because a move must be made doesn’t mean it was the right move to make. If those two do indeed join the SEC, there will indeed be consequences, both intended and, yes, Coach Saban, unintended. We have no idea how many dominoes will fall, how long they will keep falling or how many people they will crush as they do. It’ll be like watching the Daytona 500. We know the Big One, the crash that will collect half the cars in the field, is coming. It’s inevitable. It’s only a question of how many teams this potential move takes out, how much money it will cost, how many feelings get hurt and how bad any real injuries might be. We know someone will always win the race, but we never know what they might have to do to get to Victory Lane.

Sankey will understand the analogy. He is a huge auto racing fan. So are most of the college football coaches and administrators of the SEC and Big 12. I know because I’ve talked to them about it. Over the years, they have all asked the same question: “Hey, NASCAR used to be so big. McGee, you worked there. What happened?”

The answer is a cautionary tale. A warning shot. Past as prologue.

I tell them about a sport that was on such a steep growth curve for so long, its leadership went to sleep at the wheel and didn’t realize it. There was so much money coming in via unwavering ticket sales and always-rising TV revenue, it masked years of bad decisions. At some point, the leadership bought into the assumption that their core fan base would always have their backs no matter what they did. So, they abandoned their roots, leaving traditional racetracks and ditching decades-long annual race dates for flashier new facilities in sexier new markets. Then, literally overnight, the economy tanked, and the cash flow stopped. When NASCAR looked up, the cool new fans and cool new markets it worked so hard to woo had moved on to the next cool thing. But the sport had also wandered so far from its base that the old-school fans were nowhere to be found, having departed the less-charming present in search of nostalgia. They were angry Darlington Raceway was empty on Labor Day weekend. Just as college sports fans in Oklahoma and Texas will be angry when they don’t see “Cowboys” on the football schedule or “Jayhawks” on the basketball calendar.

It’s why I have always followed up my NASCAR explanation to the people who run college sports by suggesting they assign their best sports management students to perform a CSI on American auto racing. Or, for that matter, Major League Baseball. No one is immune to the trappings of “Don’t worry, they’ll always need us.” Not even Dale Earnhardt Jr. or the New York Yankees.

Whether you are a fan, sportswriter, player, coach, or even a conference commissioner, we all watch, cover or work in collegiate athletics because, at some point in our lives, at some level, we fell in love with it. And, at some level, we will always love it. Because of that affection, we want it to grow, evolve and survive well into the future so the next generation will love it, too, alongside us as we wear our school colors and sing the alma mater as we beat our oldest, most hated rival.

After all that growing, evolving and surviving, let’s just make sure we can still recognize whatever sport comes out on the other side of it all. And that we still have that old rival to hate.

Categories
Health

CDC is repealing pointers on indoor masks, saying that absolutely vaccinated individuals ought to put on them indoors in Covid hotspots

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to recommend Tuesday that fully vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors in locations with high Covid-19 transmission rates, according to those familiar with the matter.

According to the sources, federal health officials still believe that fully vaccinated individuals represent a very low level of transmission. Still, some people vaccinated could carry higher amounts of the virus than previously thought and potentially pass it on to others, they said.

The CDC is expected to hold a briefing on Tuesday at 3 p.m. ET.

The updated guidelines come before the fall season, when the highly contagious Delta variant is expected to lead to a further surge in new coronavirus cases and many large employers plan to bring workers back to the office. In mid-May, the CDC announced that fully vaccinated people would not need to wear masks in most environments, whether indoors or outdoors.

Continue reading: Americans will need masks indoors as the US is heading for a “dangerous fall” with a surge in Delta Covid cases

Health experts fear that Delta, already the dominant form of the disease in the US, hits states with low vaccination rates. These states are now being forced to reintroduce mask rules, capacity limits and other public health measures that they have largely withdrawn in recent months.

White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that the CDC was considering revising mask guidelines for vaccinated Americans, saying it was “in active consideration”.

“It’s a dynamic situation. It’s in the works, it’s developing like so many other areas of the pandemic, “Fauci, also director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, told CNN. “You need to look at the data.”

The CDC guidelines are just a recommendation, leaving it up to state and local officials to reintroduce their masking rules for specific individuals. But even before the CDC’s expected guidelines on Tuesday, some regions reintroduced mask mandates and notices as Covid cases rose again.

Several California and Nevada counties are now advising all residents to wear masks in public indoor spaces, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not. In Massachusetts, Provincetown officials advised everyone to return to wearing masks indoors after the July 4 celebrations resulted in an outbreak of new cases.

Experts say Covid prevention strategies remain critical to protecting people from the virus, especially in areas with medium to high transmission rates in the community.

Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine advocate who served on advisory boards for both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC earlier this month that the US is still “undervaccinated” and about half the population is not fully vaccinated be .

Even people who are fully protected have cause for concern when it comes to variants of Covid, Offit said. While the vaccines protect well against serious illness and death, they may not protect as well against minor illness or the spread of Covid to others, he said. No vaccine is 100% effective, he noted.

“It is not a bold prediction to believe that SARS-CoV-2 will be circulating in two or three years. I mean, there are 195 countries out there, most of which haven’t received a single dose of vaccine. ”“ Offit said. “Will it still be circulating in the United States? I think that would be very, very likely.”

Israel released preliminary data last week showing that the Pfizer vaccine was only 39% effective against the virus there, which officials attributed to the rapidly spreading Delta variant. Its effectiveness against serious illness and death remained high, the data showed. US and World Health officials said they would look at Israeli research, which was non-peer-reviewed and had few details.

Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson executives have stated that they expect Americans to need booster vaccinations, and Pfizer has announced it will ask the FDA to approve booster vaccinations as it sees signs of waning immunity. Federal health officials say that otherwise healthy people don’t currently require booster doses of the vaccines, although they may recommend it for the elderly or those with compromised immunity.

– CNBC’s Meg Tirrell and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Categories
Science

Previous Faculty Information Suggests Atlantic Hurricanes Are No Extra Frequent Than In The Previous – Watts Up With That?

by Bob Yirka, Phys.org

Researchers from several institutions in the United States have found that the increase in hurricanes that have formed in the Atlantic in recent years is not related to global warming. Instead, they suggest in their article published in Nature Communications that it simply reflect the natural variable weather patterns.

Over the past few decades, scientists studying satellite data have found that the number of hurricanes forming in the Atlantic has increased. Many in the field have suggested that this was due to the effects of global warming. A warming ocean would of course lead to more active atmospheric activity. The problem with this thinking, according to the researchers in this new effort, is that satellite data only dates back to 1972. Prior to that date, hurricane frequency data was usually obtained from eyewitness accounts that omitted many hurricanes that never touched land. In this new study, researchers drew on the old record books to learn more about the frequency of hurricanes in front of satellites.

The ancient data dates back to 1851 and comes from records kept by workers of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The workers had collected data from eyewitnesses on the east coast, along the Gulf of Mexico, islands in the Atlantic, and fishermen venturing out to sea. The researchers then calculated the ratio of hurricanes that never landed in modern times to those that did and worked backwards using modern data along with mathematical techniques to estimate the number of hurricanes by 1860 that were never recorded . They then plotted these numbers on a timeline.

abstract

Atlantic hurricanes pose a great threat to life and property and are an issue of great scientific interest. Historical changes in observational practice have limited the usefulness of keeping records of the frequency of major hurricanes in the Atlantic on a scale of several centuries. In order to evaluate past frequency changes, we have developed a homogenization method for the frequency of Atlantic hurricanes and large hurricanes from 1851 to 2019. We note that the recorded increases in Atlantic hurricanes and the incidence of major hurricanes at the century level, and the associated decrease in the hurricane impact fraction in the United States, are consistent with changes in observation practices and are unlikely to be a true climate trend. After homogenization, increases in basin-wide hurricane and major hurricane activity since the 1970s are not part of an increase at the century level, but rather a recovery from a deep minimum in the 1960s to 1980s. We suspect that internal (e.g., multidecadal) climate variability and the aerosol-induced reduction in major hurricane frequency in the mid to late 20th century have likely masked the century-scale greenhouse gas warming contributions to the frequency of major hurricanes in the North Atlantic.

introduction

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are of great scientific interest and pose a major threat to human life and property around the world1,2,3. Of particular interest are multidecadal changes in the TC frequency that result from a combination of intrinsic variability in the weather and climate system and the response to natural and anthropogenic climate forcings4,5,6,14,15,16,17,18,19, 20,21,22,23,24,25. Although the North Atlantic Basin (NA) is a small contributor to global TC incidence, Atlantic hurricanes (HUs) have been the subject of extensive research, both because of the long-term trajectory and frequency records for this basin, as well as their impact on landing. It is practical and customary to consider Saffir-Simpson Categories 3-5 (maximum sustained winds greater than 50 ms-1) HUs separate from total frequency and refer to them as major hurricanes or MHs. Historically, MHs accounted for ~ 80% of hurricane-related damage in the United States of America (US), although they accounted for only 34% of TC events in the US1.

Globally, models and theoretical arguments suggest that in a warming world the peak HU intensity and rate of intensification should increase, so there is a tendency that the proportion of HU that has high Saffir-Simpson categories (3rd, 4th or 5th) should increase ), in models rises in response to increases in CO2, but the model forecasts with regard to changes in the frequency of MHs in individual catchment areas (e.g. NA) are more mixed6,20,21,22,25,26,27,28,29 , 30. Homogenized satellite-based TC intensity observations since the early 1980s show an increase in the proportion of MH in total TCs in both the NA and worldwide14, and since the 1980s there has also been a documented increase in the proportion of global and NA HU that a rapid intensification 15. Theoretical arguments, model studies and observational analyzes indicate that the overall incidence of TCs and their intensity in the tropics and especially for Atlantic HUs vary differently and can show clear connections to climate factors14,15,25,26,27,28, 29.30, 31.32. There is considerable dispersion in model projections of the 21st century response of both the overall NA HU frequency and the response of the frequency of the most intense NA HUs6,20,21,22,25,26,27,28,29,30. The relationship between the recently recorded, multi-decade changes in NA-HU activity and the HU projections of 21st or non-greenhouse gas forcing16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23.

Has the number of the strongest hurricanes in the North Atlantic changed by a century? Analysis of longer records (ie, dating back to the 19th century) of NA-HU and MH frequencies provide an additional lens by which to interpret both recent changes in HU activity and projections of future hurricane activity. The North Atlantic Hurricane Database Version 2 (HURDAT2; Ref. 33) provides records of NA HU activity dating back to 1851 – a record of nearly 170 years of HU activity. HURDAT2 can be used to study secular changes in aggregated statistics of NA-HU activity, e.g. . The US HU strike record we use includes storms for which either hurricane force or vmax ≥ 33 ms-1 or strong hurricane force or vmax ≥ 50 ms-1 winds from the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico impacted the continental US this record includes storms, where the center did not go ashore.

Due to changed observation practices, there are serious inhomogeneities in this database, which make it difficult to assess long-term changes7,8,9,10,11,12,13. In particular, the monitoring capacity has increased significantly in the last 170 years, so that the probability that an HU will be observed is much higher today than at the beginning of the recording10; the recorded increase in Atlantic TC and HU frequencies in HURDAT2 since the late 19th century is consistent with the effects of known changes in observational practice7,8,9,10,11,12. Estimates of the frequency of major hurricanes can also be influenced by changing observation systems13.

We show here that the recorded increases in NA-HU and MH frequency and the ratio of MH to HU can be understood as a result of previous changes in the NA samples. We build on the methodology and expand the results from Ref. 10 to develop a homogenized record of the catchment-wide NA HU and MH frequency from 1851 to 2019 (see section Methods), this homogenized record shows that the increase in NA HU – and MH frequency is not a continuation of changes on a century scale since the 1970s, but a recovery from a deep minimum in the late 20th century.

This blog post that we covered last month seems to anticipate that paper.

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Entertainment

11 Issues You Did not Know Affected Your Pores and skin & How To Repair Them

We independently selected these products because we love them, and we hope you do too. Shop at E! has affiliate relationships, so we may receive a commission if you buy something through our links. Items are sold by the retailer, not by E !.

Unfortunately, skin care can get complicated. Most of us know what it is like to be so consistent with a routine and use the right products for our skin type to ultimately fret about the (lack of) results. If you do everything right, what goes wrong? There are some factors that you didn’t even know affect your skin that are technically not part of a “skin care routine”, but they are just as important.

Have you ever thought about how sitting in front of a computer screen, driving to work, and even choosing a window seat on a plane can affect your skin? Probably not. What is it like when you put your head on the pillow at night? Again, probably not, you are not even awake after all. Believe it or not, there are so many aspects of our daily lives that affect the way our skin looks and feels. Keep scrolling to learn more about some of these things and what to do about them.

Categories
Science

Perseverance is About to Gather the First Pattern on Mars That May Finally be Returned to Earth

On Feb. 18th, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover landed within the Jezero Crater on Mars. Like its predecessor, Curiosity, a fellow member of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program (MEP), the goal of Perseverance is to seek out evidence of possible life on Mars (past and present). A key part of this mission will be the first sample return ever performed on Mars, where samples obtained by Perseverance will be placed in a cache for later retrieval and return to Earth.

For the past five months, mission controllers at NASA have been driving the rover further from where it landed (Octavia E. Butler Landing Site) and conducting test flights with the Ingenuity helicopter. NASA is now in the midst of making final preparations for Perseverance to collect its first sample of Martian rock. This historic first is expected to begin by the end of the month or by early August and will culminate with the return of the samples to Earth by 2031.

This rock will come from an area known as the “Cratered Floor Fractured Rough,” a 4 km2 (1.5-square-mile) patch of crater floor that may contain Jezero’s deepest and most ancient layers of exposed bedrock. These rocks will also be the most significant sample return since the Apollo astronauts brought rocks back from the Moon. These samples are still teaching us things about the formation of the Earth-Moon System and the evolution of the Solar System.

Still from the interactive map showing the location of the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters, in a recent NASA press release:

“When Neil Armstrong took the first sample from the Sea of Tranquility 52 years ago, he began a process that would rewrite what humanity knew about the Moon. I have every expectation that Perseverance’s first sample from Jezero Crater, and those that come after, will do the same for Mars. We are on the threshold of a new era of planetary science and discovery.”

This time, procuring the first sample of Martian rock will take about 11 days to complete, compared to the 3 minutes and 35 seconds it took Armstrong needed to take the first lunar sample. Unlike the Apollo astronauts, Perseverance needs to receive instructions from mission controllers, subject to a 4- to 24-minute delay. Similarly, the process takes time because it relies on the most complex mechanism ever sent to space, Sampling and Caching System (SCS).

The sequence begins with the rover placing everything it needs from the SCS within reach of the 2 m (7 foot) robotic arm. An imagery survey will follow so the NASA science team can determine where exactly it will take the first sample from and a secondary target site in the same area for what is known as “proximity science.” As Vivian Sun, the science co-lead from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said in a recent NASA press release:

“The idea is to get valuable data on the rock we are about to sample by finding its geologic twin and performing detailed in-situ analysis. On the geologic double, first we use an abrading bit to scrape off the top layers of rock and dust to expose fresh, unweathered surfaces, blow it clean with our Gas Dust Removal Tool, and then get up close and personal with our turret-mounted proximity science instruments SHERLOC, PIXL, and WATSON.”

Once the samples are procured, Perseverance will use its suite of advanced scientific instruments to examine them in stunning detail to learn more about their composition. These include the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC) instrument that will search for evidence of organic molecules that form in the presence of water and could be an indication of life.

This instrument is assisted by the Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering (WATSON), a color camera for taking close-up images of rock grains and surface textures. There’s also the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) that uses an X-ray spectrometer to identify chemical elements at a tiny scale. Perseverance will also use its SuperCam and Mastcam-Z instruments (both located on the rover’s mast) to study the local rocks and soil.

The SuperCam works by firing a laser at the surface of rocks and soils to produce a small plume, which it then examines with cameras and spectrometers to look for signs of organic compounds. The Mastcam-Z, meanwhile, will take high-resolution imagery and video of samples to enable a more detailed examination. Working together, these five instruments will allow for an unprecedented level of analysis of geological materials at the worksite.

Once the pre-coring science is complete, the mission team will give the rover a full Martian day (or Sol) to charge up its batteries for sample collection. This will begin the following day and start with the sample-handling arm within the Adaptive Caching Assembly (ACS) retrieving and heating a sample tube, inserting it into a coring bit, then transferring both to a rotatory-percussive drill on Perseverance‘s robotic arm.

The drill will fill the tube with a core sample, then transfer it and the coring bit back into the ACS to be measured, photographed, hermetically sealed, and stored. Once all the tubes are filled, they will be left behind in a cache that could be picked up by a joint NASA-ESA Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, including an orbiter, lander, rover, and launch vehicle – which could launch as early as 2026.

The next time those samples are observed would be in a cleanroom facility back on Earth, where scientists would inspect them using instruments far too large to send aboard a spacecraft to Mars. However, as Perseverance project scientist Ken Farley (a W.M. Keck Foundation Professor of Geochemistry at Caltech) indicated, no one expects the samples to contain perfectly-preserved fossilized remnants of ancient life:

“Not every sample Perseverance is collecting will be done in the quest for ancient life, and we don’t expect this first sample to provide definitive proof one way or the other. While the rocks located in this geologic unit are not great time capsules for organics, we believe they have been around since the formation of Jezero Crater and incredibly valuable to fill gaps in our geologic understanding of this region – things we’ll desperately need to know if we find life once existed on Mars.”

Nevertheless, having Martian rock and soil samples available for analysis here on Earth will prove invaluable. Like the Apollo Moon rocks, generations of scientists will be able to examine them using increasingly sophisticated instruments to learn more about the formation and evolution of Mars, particularly how it transitioned from being a warmer, wetter environment where life could exist to the extremely cold and dry place it is today.

Most importantly, this research will pave the way for human missions to Mars, where astronaut crews will spend days or even weeks on the surface investigating Mars’ geology, climate, atmosphere, and surface environment. Be sure to check out this video of the Perseverance rover’s Sample Caching System, courtesy of NASA JPL:

Further Reading: NASA

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Sport

USWNT vs. Australia dwell rating, updates, highlights from the 2021 ladies’s olympic soccer match match in group g

The scenario for the US women’s national soccer team is simple: win or draw against Australia in the final game of Group G and secure second place in the group, an automatic place in the quarter-finals and a likely duel against the Netherlands. Australia needs a win to do the same.

If there is a loser in the game, that team will finish third and will have to wait for the other groups to complete later in the day to see if they have one of the two best records for third place. If not, that team will be eliminated. If someone from Australia or the USA qualifies as third-placed team, this team will meet Canada or Great Britain in the quarter-finals.

The USWNT come after a 6-1 win against New Zealand, which followed the shock of a 3-0 defeat by Sweden. Meanwhile, Australia scored all three points with their 2-1 win over New Zealand before losing to Sweden as well, a 4-2 thriller in which striker Sam Kerr scored two goals and missed a penalty that was temporarily taken it would be a 3-3 game.

MORE: Updated women’s Olympic group standings

Sporting News will follow the game live and provide real-time updates, commentary and highlights from the USWNT v Australia Group G final.

USWNT v Australia live ticker

1H 2H final
USA 0 0
Australia 0 0

(All times east)

50th minute: Alex Morgan disappoints with another offside call. The camera pans to Kelley O’Hara, who looks frustrated. But Crystal Dunn just gave it away with another seeking ball that is nowhere near Megan Rapinoe.

46th minute: Second half is running. No changes.

Half time: USA 0, Australia 0

Halftime: Australia were the better side this half, but the Matildas failed to score a breakthrough despite several set pieces and a header that hit the crossbar. The US had two real chances and both came through Alex Morgan, one hitting the net but being overturned because of a narrow offside. The main problem for the USWNT is that the midfield and strikers cannot help maintain real possession and they are outnumbered or under pressure from the Aussie. Australia made more passports, they were more accurate with their passports and won more tackles (see below). We’ll see what tactical changes US head coach Vlatko Andonovski makes at halftime.

HT: USA 0-0 Australia

Shots (OT): 3 (2) – 7 (3)
Ownership: 37 – 63
Duels won%: 40 – 60
Air duels won%: 50 – 50
Total passes: 148 – 250
Accuracy of fit%: 61 – 78
Opp half pass accuracy%: 50 – 52
Tackles% won: 33-73
Fouls: 5 – 3

(Opt.)

– NWSL Analitica (@NwslAnalitica) July 27, 2021

45th minute: The USWNT goes the other way and there is a great through pass for Christen Press, but their first touch takes them far to the left and their shot on goal is weak and makes for an easy save.

44th minute: Becky Sauebrunn of the USA takes a corner after a ball is shot over the top in the path of Kyah Simon. Julie Ertz with a good defensive play in the penalty area to stop Sam Kerr.

43rd minute: Australian Yallop with a shot to the right in the penalty area, which is comfortably intercepted from near. This was preceded by a turnover from Kelley O’Hara on the other side of the field. Australia dominated this half.

38th minute: On the ensuing counterattack from the set piece, Megan Rapinoe chases a ball on the edge of the Australian penalty area, pushes Carpenter to get there and then runs into the goalkeeper. Rapinoe is shown a yellow card.

38th minute: A foul by Sam Mewis leads to another set piece situation and two Australian players get in each other’s way and are not shot.

36th minute: The USWNT has no real estate. Either Australian pressure leads to a giveaway or the passing is over. Crystal Dunn tried to get Sam Mewis behind the defense, but the pass was too long.

34th minute: Australia can’t take advantage of a corner and the USWNT can’t crack the counterattack. It was the theme of the first half here.

33rd minute: In the meantime, Madelen Janogy is adding a second for Sweden. The Swedes play 2-0 against New Zealand.

31st minute: The USWNT scores! Alex Morgan heads a cross from Kelley O’Hara after a short corner, but the flag goes offside. The officers watch for a long time, but no clear and obvious mistake has been found and the sidelong hold. But it was REALLY close.

30th minute: Christen Press runs on the Australian defense with the ball at her feet, but defender Ellie Carpenter takes the ball off. It looked dangerous.

26th min .: Australia wins another ball in the US half with the high press. The ball is back in the USA box, but it has been cleared for the moment. The Americans can’t get this game under control yet.

20th minute: Another Australian set piece. This is a corner and the Matildas get a shot into the blocked box. Except for the inclusion of Alex Morgan, it was all of Australia early.

17.Min .: A header from Australia hits the bar! Up close it looked like she had a beat on that ball, but it was dangerous. It was the late addition, Mary Fowler, with the shot.

15 minutes.: To confirm that the US and Australia are playing for second place, Anna Anvegard set Sweden up 1-0 against New Zealand and they are expected to win Group G. For reasons of competition, both group finals will be held at the same time.

14.Min .: And it’s a third standard Australian situation in the US defensive third. This is passed on to the US goalkeeper Alyssa Naheher.

12.Min .: Another set piece for Australia in the US box. Nothing comes of it. The broadcast flashed a graphic and Australia has 62% of the ownership so far.

8th minute: USA chance – Alex Morgan shakes off the defenders during break and her shot goes straight for the goalkeeper. Looks like she’ll get a chance at those quick runaways today. A pass from Lavelle set them on their way.

6th min .: Teams swap possession at an early stage. No team really holds on to it long enough. Game has not yet calmed down.

1st minute: We’re gone and the USWNT is already in Australia’s half.

3:56 am: Later line-up change from Australia for the striker. This is good news for the US. Foord was a threat in the first two games:

3:50 am: There will be a certain atmosphere in this game. We will see who the children have their roots for:

3:48 am: There are many reactions to Abby Dahlkemper being out and Tierna Davidson taking her place. Although Dahlkemper made mistakes in the first two games, this sub is not about performance, but about resting like any other regular starter:

I’m just saying this now because I know people will say it after the game. Tierra Davidson is the best center-back on the team #USWNT

– Warren Backhus (@warrenbackhus) July 27, 2021

11:40 pm: You probably had to do this a few days ago. Don’t think the boss will appreciate the late news:

USWNT vs. Australia probable lineups

The head coach of the US women’s national team, Vlatko Andonovski, promised further line-up changes to give his players enough rest before the knockout rounds. Central defender Abby Dahlkemper, who has played the full 90 in both games so far, is sitting out and backup striker Lynn Williams forms the squad with 18 players.

As for Australia, the Matildas can’t relax too much in this game. A heavy loss could cost them a place in the quarterfinals if other results don’t go their way. There are only two changes in the starting line-up: midfielder Hayley Raso is in the starting line-up and central defender Alvi Luik is on the bench.

MORE: Lineup of the US Olympic teams

USA

Starters (4-3-3, from left to right): 1-Alyssa Naeher – 2-Crystal Dunn, 12-Tierna Davidson, 4-Becky Sauerbrunn (Capt.), 5-Kelley O’Hara – 3-Samantha Mewis, 8-Julie Ertz, 16-Rose Lavelle – 15-Megan Rapinoe , 13-Alex Morgan, 11-Christians Press

Substitute: 18-Adrianna Franch-GK, 20-Casey Krueger, 6-Kristie Mewis, 9-Lindsey Horan, 10-Carli Lloyd, 7-Tobin Heath, 21-Lynn Williams

Sit out: 22-Jane Campbell-GK, 14-Emily Sonnett, 17-Abby Dahlkemper, 19-Catarina Macario

Australia

Starters (3-4-3, from left to right): 18-Teagan Micah-GK – 4-Clare Polkinghorne, 14-Alanna Kennedy, 12-Ellie Carpenter – 7-Steph Catley, 6-Chloe Logarzo, 10-Emily van Egmond, 13-Tameka Yallop – 11-Mary Fowler, 2- Sam Kerr (Capt.), 17-Kyah Simon

Substitute: 1-Lydia Williams, 5-Aivi Luik, 3-Kyra Cooney-Cross, 19-Courtney Nevin, 21-Laura Brock, 15-Emily Gielnik, 9-Caitlin Foord

Sit out: 22-Mackenzie Arnold-GK, 16-Hayley Raso, 20-Charlotte Grant, 8-Elise Kellond-Knight

This is how you watch USWNT vs. Australia Olympic Soccer

  • Date: Tuesday July 27th
  • Time: 4 p.m. ET
  • TV channel: USA network
  • Spanish speaking television: Telemundo
  • Repetitions: United States Network (10 a.m., 6 p.m. ET), NBCSN (11:45 p.m. ET)
  • Stream: fuboTV, NBCOlympics.com, TelemundoDeportes.com, NBC Sports App and Telemundo Deportes App (with user authentication)

USA vs. Australia will air live on the USA Network and Telemundo at 4 p.m. ET. These channels can be streamed on fuboTV (free 7-day trial version).

MORE: Complete Women’s Olympic Football Schedule

All soccer games are also streamed in the US on NBCOlympics.com, TelemundoDeportes.com, the NBC Sports App and the Telemundo Deportes App – all with user authentication.

Categories
Health

In response to Biden, some qualify for state incapacity assets

US President Joe Biden signs a proclamation on the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as (LR) artist Tyree Brown, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT), former MP Tony Coelho (D-CA), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and House Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) watch in the Rose Garden of the White House on July 26, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Anna Money Maker | Getty Images

President Joe Biden announced Monday that some Americans who have long-term effects from Covid may be eligible for disability resources and federal government protections.

The announcement came as the President celebrated the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act in a speech in the White House Rose Garden with Vice President Kamala Harris. It also happens that the long-term symptoms of the virus, what some refer to as “long covid”, are becoming a major public health problem.

“We are bringing agencies together to ensure that Americans with long Covid who have a disability have access to the rights and resources that are due under the Disability Act,” Biden said during his remarks.

Under the guidance of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice, Covid can for a long time be considered a disability under federal citizenship laws if it “significantly restricts one or more important life activities”.

This means that individuals with prolonged symptoms of Covid leading to disability are entitled to resources and protection from discrimination under state disability laws.

These safeguards include providing additional time for a test for students with difficulty concentrating, assisting with refueling at a gas station for a customer with joint or muscle pain, and allowing a person who is dizzy to be accompanied by a companion animal. Corporations and state or local governments may also need to make other changes to accommodate a person’s long-term Covid symptoms that lead to disability.

An individual assessment is required to determine whether a person with long covid is eligible for such protections and resources according to the guidelines.

Long Covid describes a wide range of new or persistent symptoms that can follow four or more weeks after a Covid infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These include tiredness and exhaustion, joint or muscle pain, loss of taste or smell and fever.

Some people can also suffer damage to multiple organs, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, skin, and brain, according to the CDC. But long Covid symptoms are not consistent and it is not known how many people have the condition.

The Biden government has also released new guidance that addresses the needs of children with long covid who may be disabled. The guide issued by the Ministry of Education describes how schools and public institutions can provide services to children and students with long covid that leads to disability.

Additional efforts to assist Americans with long covid include new guidelines from HHS outlining community-based resources for people with the condition and a new Department of Labor website that includes resources for workers with long covid, such as: B. Information on employee benefits.

Most people who contract Covid recover within a few weeks, but reports of long-term Covid symptoms are increasing among Americans.

Research published by FAIR Health last month found that around 23% of nearly 2 million Covid patients developed at least one “ongoing or new” illness more than four weeks after their initial diagnosis.

Categories
Science

1972 Membership of Rome Finish of world forecast nonetheless on monitor because of local weather change – are you achieved with that?

Guest contribution by Eric Worrall

Apparently, if you adjust a few factors and focus just right, the Limits to Growth of 1972 fits remarkably well into the doomed evolution of our modern world.

Yes, it’s bleak, says an expert who tested the prediction of the end of the world in the 1970s

Sun 25 July 2021 4 p.m. AEST A

A controversial MIT study from 1972 predicted the collapse of civilization – and Gaya Herrington is here to deliver the bad news on July 25, 2021 4:00 p.m. AEST

ONAt a UN sustainability meeting a few years ago, an economic policy officer approached Gaya Herrington and introduced himself. He took her name for a riff on James Lovelock’s Earth-as-Organism-Gaia Hypothesis and remarked, “Gaya – that’s not a name, it’s the responsibility.”

Herrington, a Dutch sustainability researcher and advisor to the Club of Rome, a Swiss think tank, has made headlines in the past few days after authoring a report that appeared to show a controversial study from the 1970s showing the collapse of civilization – apparently – predicted on time.

Amid a cascade of alarming environmental events, from forest fires in the western United States and Siberia to floods in Germany and a report suggesting the Amazon rainforest may no longer act as a carbon sink, Herrington’s work predicted the collapse was about to happen 2040 could come if the current trends held up.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/gaya-herrington-mit-study-the-limits-to-growth

The study, which confirms that we are on the right track for some eco-doom, is available on the KPMG investment bank website.

Update on the limits to growth

Comparison of the World3 model with empirical data

Gaya Herrington

In the 1972 bestseller “Limits to Growth” (LtG), the authors concluded that if global society continued to strive for economic growth, it would experience a decline in food production, industrial production and ultimately population within this century. The LtG authors used a system dynamics model to study the interactions between global variables and use different model assumptions to generate different scenarios. Previous empirical data comparisons by Turner have since shown the closest match with a scenario that ended in a collapse. This study represents a data update for LtG by examining the extent to which empirical data matches four LtG scenarios that span a range of technological, resource and societal assumptions. The research benefited from the improved data availability since the previous updates and included a scenario and two variables that were not part of the previous comparisons. The two scenarios that most closely match the observed data point to a stalemate in welfare, food and industrial production over the next decade, which calls into question the suitability of continued economic growth as a goal of humanity in the 21st century. Both scenarios also point to subsequent decreases in these variables, but only one – where decreases are caused by pollution – shows a breakdown. The scenario that was most closely matched in previous comparisons was not among the two most closely matched scenarios in this study. The scenario with the smallest declines was least in agreement with empirical data; however, the absolute differences were often not yet great. The four scenarios differ significantly more after 2020, which suggests that the window of adjustment to this last scenario is closing.

Read more: https://advisory.kpmg.us/articles/2021/limits-to-growth.html

Of course, the original scenario had to be updated a bit to match the evidence.

1.5 Updates to LtG

Several qualitative reviews of LtG publications have described how dynamics in World3 can be observed in the real world (Bardi, 2014; Jackson & Weber, 2016; Simmons, 2000). Such a review comes from LtG author Randers (2000). Around 1990 it became clear that non-renewable resources, particularly fossil fuels, were more abundant than assumed in the 1972 BAU scenario. Randers therefore postulated that it was not scarcity of resources but environmental pollution, especially through greenhouse gases, that would bring growth to a standstill. This corresponds to the second scenario in the LtG books. This scenario has the same assumptions as the BAU, except that it assumes twice the amount of non-renewable resources. This scenario is called BAU2 and received more attention in the second and third LtG books than the BAU scenario. More natural resources will not prevent the collapse in World3; the cause changes from resource depletion to a pollution crisis.

BAU2 was quantified in a 2015 recalibration study by World3-03 (Pasqualino, Jones, Monasterolo & Phillips, 2015). The results showed that compared to BAU2, society had invested more in reducing pollution, increasing food productivity and investing in services. However, the authors did not compare their calibration to SW, nor did they use their recalibrated version of World3 to run the scenario beyond the present to see if a breakdown was avoided. Therefore, their results cannot be taken as an indication that humanity has done enough to avoid declines, as the authors themselves pointed out.

Quantitative comparisons between LtG scenarios and empirical data were carried out by Turner (2008, 2012, 2014). He compared globally observed data for the LtG variables with 3 of the 12 scenarios from the first book: BAU, CT and SW. Turner concluded that the world data compares favorably to the key characteristics of BAU, and much better than the other two scenarios.

Read more: As above

One of the early criticisms of the original growth limits was the gross simplification. For example, the original limits to growth had a single factor called “pollution” that we should pretend to mean. In the original publication there was an indication that pollution alluded to air pollution, although it was clear that they meant pollution in general, whatever that is.

In this makeover, the pollution is now referred to as Pollution (CO2) and Pollution (plastic). Neither is a real problem.

An even bigger criticism, however, is the arbitrary limitation of the resources available. Bjørn Lomborg wrote a scathing review of The Limits to Growth in 2013, which is very readable and, as far as I can tell, also applies to this remake.

The limits of panic

June. 17.2013
BJØRN LOMBORG

We often hear how the world as we know it will end, usually through an ecological breakdown. Indeed, more than 40 years after the Club of Rome published the mother of all apocalyptic predictions, The Limits to Growth, its basic ideas – though thoroughly discredited – still shape mindsets and influence public policy.

COPENHAGEN – We often hear how the world as we know it will end, usually due to an ecological breakdown. Indeed, more than 40 years after the Club of Rome published the mother of all apocalyptic prophecies, The Limits to Growth, its basic ideas are still with us. But the time wasn’t good.

The Limits to Growth warned humanity in 1972 that a devastating collapse was imminent. But while we’ve had financial panics since then, there haven’t been any real bottlenecks or lost production. Instead, the resources generated by human ingenuity stay way ahead of human consumption.

But the basic legacy of the report remains: we have inherited a tendency to seek misguided solutions to largely trivial problems, while often ignoring big problems and sensible solutions.

The genius of The Limits to Growth was to fuse those worries with the fear that the stuff would run out. We were doomed because too many people would consume too much. Even if our ingenuity bought us some time, we would end up killing the planet and ourselves with pollution. The only hope was to stop economic growth itself, reduce consumption, recycle and force people to have fewer children, which stabilized society at a significantly worse level.

That message still resonates today, even though it was spectacularly wrong. For example the authors of The Limits to Growth predicted that before 2013 the world would run out of aluminum, copper, gold, lead, mercury, molybdenum, natural gas, oil, silver, tin, tungsten and zinc.

Read more: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/economic-growth-and-its-critics-by-bj-rn-lomborg

My question – given that the limits to growth have already proven spectacularly wrong, why is anyone still taking it seriously today?

Our cities today, in rich countries at least, are clean and healthy, with well-controlled pollution, except of course for those cities that are unfortunate enough to be run by politicians who focus more on tackling carbon than basic urban ones Hygiene.

There is no evidence of a hard limit on resources. 71% of the earth are barely touched by the depths of the sea. In a few years, we will have the technology to enormously expand our resource procurement scope.

Beyond the earth, there be even greater riches – the moon, asteroids whose density suggests billions of tons of precious metals, resources beyond all conceivable consumption rates that are just waiting for us to reach out and take them.

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