Month: September 2023

Categories
Health

Decide denies request to dam

Judge denies request to block

A pharmacist holds a bottle of the drug Eliquis, made by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, at a pharmacy in Provo, Utah, January 9, 2020.

George Frey | Reuters

A federal judge on Friday declined to block the Biden administration from implementing Medicare drug price negotiations, upholding for now a controversial process that aims to make costly medications more affordable for older Americans.

Judge Michael Newman of the Southern District of Ohio issued a ruling denying a preliminary injunction sought by the Chamber of Commerce, one of the largest lobbying groups in the country, which aimed to block the price talks before Oct. 1.

That date is the deadline for manufacturers of the first 10 drugs selected for negotiations to agree to participate in the talks.

The Chamber sued the Biden administration in June, arguing that the drug negotiations violate the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the separation of powers.

“As to Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, they have demonstrated neither a strong likelihood of success nor irreparable harm. Consequently, their request for immediate preliminary injunctive relief…is denied,” Newman, a nominee of former president Donald Trump, wrote in his 28-page order.

But Newman also declined to grant the Biden administration’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit entirely.

Instead, he asked the Chamber to amend its complaint by Oct. 13 to clarify certain details in the case.

Newman also gave the Biden administration until Oct. 27 to renew its motion to dismiss the case.

He said “a final determination on standing issues will be made following a short (60-day) discovery period and—assuming they are filed—renewed motions to dismiss.”

The ruling from Newman is a blow to the pharmaceutical industry, which views the process as a threat to its revenue growth, profits and drug innovation.

President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which passed in a party-line vote last year, gave Medicare the power to directly hash out drug prices with manufacturers for the first time in the federal program’s nearly 60-year history

The Chamber, which represents some companies in the industry, and drugmakers like Merck and Johnson & Johnson filed at least eight separate lawsuits in recent months seeking to declare the negotiations unconstitutional. But the Chamber’s suit was the only one seeking a preliminary injunction. 

Michael Newman, U.S. District Court Judge Ohio

Source: U.S. District Court

The Chamber’s lawsuit argues that the program violates drugmakers’ due process rights under the Fifth Amendment by giving the government the power to effectively dictate prices for their medicines.

The Chamber said an appeals court established a precedent that when the government sets prices, it must provide procedural safeguards to ensure a company receives a reasonable rate and fair return on investment. It stems from the 2001 case Michigan Bell Telephone Co. v. Engler, according to the Chamber.

The Medicare negotiations do not provide these safeguards and impose price caps that are well below a drug’s market value, the Chamber argued.

“There is a very, very high risk, maybe a guarantee, but certainly a very, very high risk, that this regime will result in prices that are unfair,” Jeffrey Bucholtz, an attorney for the Chamber, told judge Newman during a hearing earlier this month.

He added that drugmakers either must agree to the price the government sets, or face an excise tax of up to 1,900% of U.S. sales of the drug.

But lawyers for the DOJ said during the hearing that the program was far from compulsory. Drugmakers can choose the alternative to those two options: Withdraw their voluntary participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, according to attorney Brian Netter. 

“The measure of relief here is for manufacturers to decide whether they want to stay in the program under the terms that are on offer,” Netter said. “If they choose not to, that’s their prerogative.”

The other suits are scattered in federal courts around the U.S.

Legal experts say the pharmaceutical industry hopes to obtain conflicting rulings from federal appellate courts, which could fast-track the issue to the Supreme Court. 

Medicare covers roughly 66 million people in the U.S., according to health policy research organization KFF. The drug price talks are expected to save the insurance program an estimated $98.5 billion over a decade, the Congressional Budget Office said. 

In August, the Biden administration unveiled the 10 drugs that will be subject to the first round of price talks, officially kicking off a lengthy negotiation process that will end in August 2024. The reduced prices for those initial medications won’t go into effect until January 2026.

That includes blood thinners from Bristol-Myers Squibb and J&J, and diabetes drugs from Merck and AstraZeneca. It also includes a blood cancer drug from AbbVie, one of the companies represented by the Chamber of Commerce. 

Categories
Sport

Deion Sanders and Colorado aren’t slowing down off Oregon loss

Deion Sanders and Colorado aren't slowing down off Oregon loss

  • Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior WriterSep 29, 2023, 07:00 AM ET

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    • Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
    • 2-time Sports Emmy winner
    • 2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year

BOULDER, Col. — Deion Sanders does not need to coach football.

It’s true. He doesn’t. He has money in the bank and did long before he signed his current $6-million-per-year contract with the University of Colorado. If he wanted, he could go back to being a television analyst. He could write another book. He could star in another reality show. He could do like every other living sports legend and cash in on memorabilia shows every weekend, signing Falcons, Niners, Cowboys, Braves and Yankees jerseys, one of his six Sports Illustrated covers or maybe one of the CDs recorded with MC Hammer back in the day.

But instead, he has chosen to keep plowing on what is perhaps the most difficult and certainly the most nonstop round-the-clock-and-calendar job in collegiate athletics, the head coach of a publicly backed state flagship FBS Power 5 university football program.

“People ask me all the time, ‘How you doing, man?’ and my answer is simple,” the 56-year old College Football Hall of Famer explains. “I’m doing great. I just ain’t sleeping because in this job there’s no time for sleep.”

In only one month on the sidelines at Colorado, Sanders has not only served as de facto CEO of a nearly $51 million corporation (that was prior to his arrival, the 2023 numbers will be much larger than that) he has become the front porch salesman of a $21 billion university, been involved in one very public spat with a rival coach (and nearly pushed into another), spurred an almost 900 percent increase in Buffaloes merchandise sales and generated the highest college football TV ratings for ABC in six years.

Call him Prime Time. Call him Neon Deion. Call him Coach Prime. No matter what nickname you prefer, monikers and catch phrases on t-shirts (Sanders applied for five trademarks just this week) have all become little more than garnish for this latest iteration of the man who electrified Florida State as a three-sport athlete in the 1980’s and put the same charge into the NFL and MLB in the ’90s. Now, nearly two decades after hanging up his cleats for good, he is the face of college football in 2023. The man who could have cashed in on NIL like perhaps no other before or since. The man who could have teleported onto any roster of his choosing via the transfer portal. Now, he is the man who is helping today’s kids navigate it all. Prime Time at exactly the right time.

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Oh, by the way, his team is also 3-1. Even with a completely overhauled roster, that is a miraculous about-face for a program that won only one game and was ESPN’s runaway Bottom 10 champion one year ago. However, after a stunning 3-0 start, that “1” was dropped like an anvil on Wile E. Coyote’s head last weekend. A 42-6 loss at Oregon immediately herded the Buffs out of the Top 25 and brought in those who have been barking at Sanders since the days of big hair and Zubaz.

“When I came out the womb I was booed,” Sanders said Tuesday when asked how he deals with haters. “I don’t have a message for detractors. I don’t take my time to respond and to defend myself. Why would I do that? I’m giving you a microphone if I’m doing that. I’m giving you solace that you’re in my life. I don’t care. I really don’t. It’s been that way all my life, so you would think that I’m used to it. I’m not new to this, I’m true to this. And I’m going to keep going. So, I’m good with that, man. I’m good with that. This is a comfortable place for me.”

Now, for you youngsters out there, it feels like you’re owed an explanation. You have likely spent the last month, at the very least that last quote, wondering, “Why are my parents and grandparents so worked up — good and bad — about this dude coaching at Colorado?”

The answer can be found a few paragraphs ago. Sanders as a Seminole was the guy who stood face mask to face mask with Jimmy Johnson’s Miami Hurricanes and didn’t blink. He once dug in his heels at the base of Clemson’s Hill like Captain America facing the entire Thanos army, slapping his chest pad and taunting the Tigers as they touched Howard’s Rock and ran toward him…then broke off a 77-yard punt return for a TD in torrential rain. He won conference championships in baseball and track on the same day.

He played in the Super Bowl and the World Series, the only man to do so. He collected two Super Bowl rings, eight Pro Bowl invites and an NFL Defensive Player of the Year award. He did indeed record an album with MC Hammer (download “Must Be The Money,” trust me) and made cameos on everything from Moesha to Walker, Texas Ranger. He was the voice of Sega Genesis football. And everyone’s Sunday evening on the couch was spent watching a show that shared his name, NFL Prime Time, on ESPN when Chris Berman and Tom Jackson would narrate the video of every Sanders interception, pick-six, kick return and TD catch (yes, he played both ways from time to time) with a chant of “Prime Time…Prime Time…PRIME TIME!”

So, yeah, Gen Z, what your elders are trying to tell you, whether they are high stepping through the living room or pointing a middle finger at College GameDay in Boulder, is that Deion Sanders somehow went viral before the internet was a thing, when that term still only applied to diseases.

Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

But now, Sanders finds himself battling his own medical conditions. His toes were already mangled from all those years running up and down sidelines and baselines. In September 2021, after a routine procedure to fix those old injuries, a much worse condition was discovered, circulation problems that led to the amputation of two toes and the removal of some leg muscle tissue to limit the circulation damage. He had just started his second season as head coach at Jackson State, an HBCU in Jackson, Mississippi, and was forced to miss three games. When TV cameras aired the images of a suddenly old-looking Neon Deion, stuck in a hospital bed with a full gray beard, it was downright shocking to those who had witnessed him at the height of his athletic superpowers.

For Sanders, it was also revelatory.

“When your body breaks down, it is a reality check like no other,” he recalled in December 2022, days after accepting the Colorado job. “For anyone, it is a reality check. But for me, who as a younger man made my whole world from what this body could do, that was more than a reality check. That was a vulnerability check. As you get older, you know you have to rely more on the muscle of the mind, but when your other muscles don’t work for you anymore, the need to work that mind muscle, you realize you need to get on with that. Start impacting lives with that.”

That he had taken the job at Jackson State was already a step no one saw coming, explained by Sanders only as “a collect call from God of which I had no choice but to accept the charges.” His first Tigers team went 3-2 in the pandemic-shortened spring schedule of 2021. The next two years it went 23-3 with a pair of Celebration Bowl appearances.

“What I will always remember about Deion at Jackson State is him out there cutting the grass on his own lawn mower that he brought from home,” recalls Emmitt Smith, who played against Sanders in college as a Florida Gator and with him as a Dallas Cowboys teammate. “That’s him, man. I think it is easy to focus on Prime Time and the show and the soundbites, but you don’t get to where he has been without working so hard. I know what people saw him do at an HBCU made people think, should I have gone there? I know I did. And I know Deion did. Now new kids will.”

Smith, and nearly every other former teammate of No. 21, love to talk about the Deion Sanders evolution. See: The infamous story about Sanders when he arrived in Dallas in 1995, as described by Jeff Pearlman in his 2008 book “Boys Will Be Boys.” Sanders frustrated defensive coordinator Dave Campo their very first time together in a position meeting room by pointing to the video screen and saying, “Hey, Coach, I got that dude right there. Wherever he goes, I go. All that Cover 2 stuff you’re talking about, y’all work that out.”

That guy who was once allergic to film study, now keeps real-time spreadsheets on how much time his players spend watching film. He explained that on Tuesday, within the context of a question about freshman corner Cormani McClain’s lack of playing time, despite being Colorado’s most-ballyhooed offseason signee, a five-star prospect who flipped from Miami.

Colorado fans soak in the Buffs’ win over Nebraska after storming Folsom Field. Ron Chenoy/USA TODAY Sports

“Study and prepare. Be on time for meetings, show up to the dern meetings,” Sanders said. ‘Understand the scheme. Understand what we are doing as a scheme, want to play this game, desire to play this game, desire to be the best in this game, at practice, in the film room and on your own time. You do know I check film time from each player so I can see who’s preparing? That’s not just about Cormani. If I don’t see that, you would be a fool to put somebody out there who’s not prepared. Can’t do it, won’t do it.”

Again, it’s Sanders, so social media and local sports talk radio immediately became a tug of war between those ripping the coach for calling a kid out publicly (and not for the first time) and those who applauded Sanders for calling out a five-star and doing so without fear of alienating potential future signees.

The reality is McClain might have to play against No. 8 USC on Saturday because Colorado’s secondary is banged up. The latest to suffer is also a Sanders. The middle of Deion’s five children, safety Shilo Sanders had to be hospitalized due to urinating blood upon the team’s return home from Oregon. Younger brother Shedeur is the team’s quarterback, little sister Shelomi is on the Colorado women’s basketball team, and they are all documented by big brother Deion Jr., the man behind the camera of all those viral Colorado athletic department social media posts this season.

“Even though we got the ‘L’ (against Oregon) I don’t consider it a loss when I get to watch my sons not only play on the field, I get to watch my son film everything and edit it and put it out and make people insecure around the country about their staffs, and then I get to see my daughter come in my office and take a nap on the couch,” Sanders said Tuesday. “I’m living a wonderful double life here as a father and coach. I’m loving every minute of it.”

So, what does a 56-year-old lifelong lightning rod teach to a house and locker room full of Gen Z’ers who are new to all the noise that continuously rolls over Colorado football like, well, a boulder? It’s the luxury tax one must pay when they become the new Georgetown Hoyas, Fab Five or — sorry FSU fans — The U.

“It’s not about them, it’s about us, everywhere we go,” he explained Tuesday. “Even in your families you’re going to have detractors, naysayers, you have doubters even in your dern family. You guys are all shaking your heads, like, ‘Yeah, my aunt, she ain’t no good,’ and, ‘Yeah, my sister, she’s ignorant.’ You know I’m telling the truth. Because it’s going to be like that. God would always allow somebody to be in your path that has a disdain or dislike for you. It’s up to you to keep going.”

And there it is. Our answer. Because, no, Deion Sanders does not need to coach football. Honestly, Prime Time wouldn’t have wanted to. He wasn’t patient enough. We learned that during some of his pre-coaching educational and business failings.

But this is Coach Prime. The one with the grey hairs, the bad feet, the constant cautionary tales and all those catch phrases. Neon Deion made mistakes. Coach Prime wants to make sure these kids, especially his own, don’t do the same. You can love Deion Sanders. You can hate Deion Sanders. Plenty do, always have and always will. But his efforts are inarguably admirable, his words are always honest and the college football world is a hell of a lot more interesting with him in it. He knows that. That’s why he can’t walk away.

Also, winning football games is still fun.

“I don’t stop. I keep going. I don’t have stop in me. Not whatsoever, man.”

Categories
Technology

Paris-based Mistral releases first generative AI mannequin — and it’s completely free

Paris-based Mistral releases first generative AI model — and it’s totally free

Europe’s startup contribution to the generative AI bonanza, Mistral, has released its first model. Mistral 7B is free to download and be used anywhere — including locally. 

French AI developer Mistral says its Large Language Model is optimal for low latency, text summarisation, classification, text completion, and code completion. The startup has opted to release Mistral 7B under the Apache 2.0 licence, which has no restrictions on use or reproduction beyond attribution.

“Working with open models is the best way for both vendors and users to build a sustainable business around AI solutions,” the company commented in a blog post accompanying the release. “Open models can be finely adapted to solve many new core business problems, in all industry verticals — in ways unmatched by black-box models.” 

They further added that they believed the future will see many different specialised models, each adapted to specific tasks, compressed as much as possible, and connected to specific modalities.

Mistral has said that moving forward, it will specifically target business clients and their needs related to R&D, customer care, and marketing, as well as giving them the tools to build new products with AI. 

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“We’re committing to release the strongest open models in parallel to developing our commercial offering,” Mistral said. “We’re already training much larger models, and are shifting toward novel architectures. Stay tuned for further releases this fall.”

Do not expect a user-friendly ChatGPT web interface to engage with the made-in-Europe LLM. However, it is downloadable via a 13.4GB torrent, and the company has set up a Discord channel to engage with the user community. 

European funding record for startups

Paris-based Mistral made headlines in June when it became the reportedly largest ever seeded startup in Europe, raising €105mn in a round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. While it may seem as if an almost insurmountable amount of work has happened over the past three months, one should take into consideration that the company’s three founders all came from Google’s DeepMind or Meta. 

The 7.3 billion parameter Mistral 7B reportedly outperforms larger models, such as Meta’s 13 billion parameter Lama 2, and requires less computing power. Indeed, according to its developers, it “outperforms all currently available open models up to 13B parameters on all standard English and code benchmarks.” 

“Mistral 7B’s performance demonstrates what small models can do with enough conviction.”

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Science

Professor William Happer IPA lecture – The Campaign Towards Carbon Dioxide – September 2023 • Watts Up With That?

The Green Energy Future Is Arriving Faster Than You Think — Or Not • Watts Up With That?

Institute of Public Affairs

In September 2023, Princeton University’s Emeritus Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, William Happer, spoke to an audience in Brisbane, Australia about the crusade against carbon dioxide and integrity in climate science.

Professor Happer is one of the world’s leading scientists and climate realists, having made extensive contributions to the debate about climate science. He has played a vital role in ensuring there is integrity in climate science and the community is exposed to information and arguments that many major institutions in our society seek to silence or censor.

The Institute of Public Affairs was proud to host Professor Happer on a tour around Australian where he spoke to audiences in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
To learn more about the IPA’s research visit www.ipa.org.au

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Entertainment

Tupac Shakur Demise: Man Arrested in Connection to Deadly 1996 Capturing

Tupac Shakur Death: Man Arrested in Connection to Fatal 1996 Shooting

Nearly 30 years after the death of Tupac Shakur, new details are emerging in his murder case.

On Sept. 29, Las Vegas police arrested Duane Keith “Keefe D” Davis, 60, in connection with the 1996 killing, law enforcement sources told NBC News. No charges have been filed as of yet. A joint press conference on the matter from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the Clark County District Attorney’s Office is set to take place at 3:30 p.m.

E! News has reached out to authorities for comment and has not heard back.

Over the summer, NBC News obtained a search warrant confirming police had raided Davis’ home seeking items related to the death of Tupac—who was killed in a drive-by shooting in Vegas in September 1996.

The “All Eyez on Me” artist, who was only 25 years old, was riding in a car with Marion “Suge” Knight when they stopped at a red light. During this time, a Cadillac pulled up next to them and opened fire. Tupac suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died from his injuries a week later.

Categories
Technology

Begin exploring your loved ones tree on Ancestry without cost, right now

Start exploring your family tree on Ancestry for free, today

Ancestry.com

This content was produced in partnership with Ancestry.com.

Ever felt curious about your genealogy and ancestry? Want to know where you came from, how your family tree stacks up, and if you have any relatives out there that you don’t know about? Of course, we’re boiling it down to just the basics here because there’s so much more you can learn about yourself and your history, but the point is, now’s the perfect time to take the leap. Ancestry® is offering a 14-day free trial to help you get started on your personal history journey. In case that wasn’t clear, you can try the platform for 14 days, totally free. There’s no promotional code needed. Just sign up on Ancestry as a new subscriber, and you’ll get your 14 days. You’ll get direct and accurate insights from your DNA, including ethnicity, personal traits, family history, and so much more. It’s like cracking open an egg to peer inside, only you’re taking a look at your entire lineage. It’s certainly exhilarating, and if you’ve ever been curious about where you come from and knowing your origin story, well, here’s your chance.

Why you should try Ancestry and explore your lineage

Research your Ancestry for free with trialAncestry.com

If you’ve ever been curious about where you come from, and we mean where you really come from, as far back as you can go, this is your time to shine. With

, and through the Ancestry platform, you can find the stories that led to you. From family history records to special DNA features — like ethnicity — to personal inheritance, traits, and beyond, there are few limits to what you can learn and see about your family’s history. You can even see if your ancestors were featured in print newspapers in the past. How cool is that?

Explore the origins of your last name, find out what your ancestors were like and how they lived, or start an entire family tree tracing back your roots, it’s all up to you. Imagine finding an uncle, cousin, or even sibling.

Normally, you’d have to pay to get started, but Ancestry has activated a 14-day trial for all new customers. It means you can head on over there and start exploring your history for no cost. Plus, after that trial, you’ll save up to $60 on the first six months of your membership. What does it entail? You’ll be able to make discoveries on Ancestry about your history, special collections, and records. You’ll also learn from something called “Ancestry Hints,” which provides you with quick, customized searches and info on your family tree — helping you to expand your personal knowledge. You can also organize, preserve, and share your family tree online, and access advanced tools, like the option to upload photos, anecdotes, and stories.

You’ll be able to connect with millions of other Ancestry members to collaborate. For example, you can ask for help during your searches, share ideas, make discoveries together, and even find relatives that you never knew you had. We’re barely scratching the surface here, there’s so much more. But for now, the most important thing to take away is that you can get started today for free. There’s no reason not to, you can learn a lot about yourself and your family, and honestly, you never know what you’ll find! How exciting.

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Categories
Health

Schott Pharma shares climb in Frankfurt debut

Schott Pharma shares climb in Frankfurt debut

Schott Pharma debuted on the Frankfurt stock exchange on Thursday at 30 euros per share, trading well above analyst expectations. Shares of the company were up 10% in the first minutes.

The medical vial manufacturer set its final offer price at 27 euros ($28.37) per share Wednesday, after the company announced a range of between 24.50 and 28.50 euros on Sept. 18, giving it a valuation of up to 4.1 billion euros.

Going public with a part of the company’s shares was “a strategic decision,” Schott Pharma CEO Andreas Reisse told CNBC on Thursday.

“The main reason is that we have the possibility to access … the capital markets, that was the main driver for the decision,” Reisse said.

He added that Schott wanted to “have the same means as [the] competition,” even as there are no current plans for raising extra capital or moving ahead with mergers and acquisitions.

The company said it would list 34,641,362 shares in total, including over-allotments.

Schott Pharma said sales were up 8.4% year-on-year for the first nine months of the 2023 fiscal year, hitting 670 million euros ($704 million) over the period.

The company produces vials for mRNA vaccines, diabetes and obesity drugs and counts BioNTech and Moderna among its clients. Schott Pharma has production and sales units across 33 countries.

Schott Pharma produces in Germany and has “invested heavily” in the country, Reisse said, despite recent concerns over the welfare of Europe’s largest economy.

“Germany is definitely not the most easy place to produce … It has to be high value products and this has to be highly automized … Then I would say you can still invest in Germany, then it’s also a good place,” Reisse told CNBC.

The group said it will retain a majority stake in the company following the completion of the IPO and plans to use money raised through the listing to “further accelerate the Group’s growth and support its green transition.”

The Schott Pharma IPO is only the third new listing on the Frankfurt stock exchange this year and is expected to be one of the largest in the history of Germany.

Categories
Science

Colliding Moons May Have Created Saturn’s Rings

Colliding Moons Might Have Created Saturn's Rings

If we could wind the clock back billions of years, we’d see our Solar System the way it used to be. Planetesimals and other rocky bodies were constantly colliding with each other, and new objects would coalesce out of the debris. Asteroids rained down on the planets and their moons. The gas giants were migrating and contributing to the chaos by destroying gravitational relationships and creating new ones. Even moons and moonlets would’ve been part of the cascade of collisions and impacts.

When nature crams enough objects into a small enough space, it breeds collisions. A new study says that’s what happened at Saturn and created the planet’s dramatic rings.

The research is “A Recent Impact Origin of Saturn’s Rings and Mid-sized Moons,” and it’s published in The Astrophysical Journal.” The lead author is Luis Todorow, a Research Fellow at the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow.

Saturn’s rings are so iconic that even schoolchildren can identify them. Astronomers have puzzled over them for a long time, trying to figure out how they formed and when. We know they’re mostly made of ice, but a consensus for their formation has been hard to reach.

This study, conducted by NASA and its partners, says a collision between two icy moons is responsible, and the debris is still circling the planet.

We don’t have to wind the clock back too far to find the impact the research identifies. It occurred only a few hundred million years ago, maybe even more recently than that. The research team says that it was triggered by “resonant instabilities in a previous satellite system.”

The research is based on detailed simulations of Saturn and its system of moons (it has 146 confirmed satellites) and rings.

NASA’s Cassini mission laid the groundwork for this research. The spacecraft spent more than ten years in the Saturn system. One of its main discoveries was that the gas giant’s rings and moons are not very old in astronomical terms. The larger ones are probably old, and their cratered surfaces are a clue to their ages. But some of the planet’s smaller moons are likely much younger.

An annotated picture of Saturn’s many moons captured by the Cassini spacecraft. Image Credit: By Kevin Gill from Los Angeles, CA, United States – Saturn – September 9, 2007 – Annotated, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=131463918

A moon’s distance from its planet plays a role in this. The gravitational struggle between a planet and its moon tends to drive moons away. Earth’s Moon is receding a tiny yet measurable amount each year. Some research shows that if the moons nearest to Saturn’s rings were old, they would’ve been pushed away by now. Since they’re still there, they must be young.

But it’s not that cut and dry because the smaller inner moons also have cratered surfaces.

Saturn’s moon Mimas is covered in craters, including the dramatic Herschel crater that gives the moon its “Death Star” nickname. But it’s close to Saturn. What’s going on? Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

So Saturn is still mysterious.

Adding to the intrigue is our fascination with icy moons. Saturn’s moon Enceladus, as well as other moons like Jupiter’s Europa, contain vast oceans underneath icy shells. They’re prime targets in the search for life, so their histories have elevated importance. If two of them collided to form Saturn’s rings, what does it all mean?

“There’s so much we still don’t know about the Saturn system, including its moons that host environments that might be suitable for life,” said Jacob Kegerreis, a research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center and one of the paper’s co-authors. “So, it’s exciting to use big simulations like these to explore in detail how they could have evolved.”

There’s abundant research into Saturn’s rings. One study in 2022 proposed that there used to be an additional moon between Iapetus and Titan. The moon’s presence helped the Saturn system form a resonance with Neptune, and that drove Saturn’s obliquity. As the system became more destabilized, the moon grazed Saturn, the planet’s powerful gravity tore it to pieces, and the debris formed the icy rings while also kicking Saturn out of the resonance. This evidence supports a young age for Saturn’s rings, perhaps only 100 million years old.

This new research is in the same vein, but instead of a single moon getting torn apart by Saturn, two moons experience a high-speed impact that destroys them both.

An artist’s conception of two bodies smacking into each other. A collision like this could’ve formed Saturn’s rings. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The researchers performed simulations with the powerful Distributed Research using the Advanced Computing (DiRAC) supercomputing facility at Durham University’s Institute of Computational Cosmology in the UK. It’s dedicated to particle physics, astronomy, and cosmology. The team used the powerful computer to model collisions between precursor moons in the Saturn system.

The Roche Limit governs a critical part of the relationship between a planet and its moons. It’s the minimum distance a moon can approach its planet without being torn apart by the planet’s gravity. Saturn’s rings are inside the Roche Limit, and beyond that limit, planets can form from debris. So debris beyond the Roche Limit wouldn’t last long because the material would likely coalesce into new moons.

That’s basically what happened, according to this research. An ancient collision between two moons created a shower of debris inside Saturn’s Roche Limit. The massive planet’s powerful gravity prevented the debris from forming a new moon, so the debris formed into rings. The team performed almost 200 simulated collisions, each one with different masses, velocities, and angles of impact. In a wide range of scenarios, material settled into rings around Saturn, inside its Roche Limit.

“This scenario naturally leads to ice-rich rings,” said Vincent Eke, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics/Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University and a co-author on the paper. “When the icy progenitor moons smash into one another, the rock in the cores of the colliding bodies is dispersed less widely than the overlying ice.”

This is a strong point of the study. Icy moons still have rocky cores, and other scenarios can’t explain why there would be almost no rock in Saturn’s rings. The simulations show that only a negligible amount of rock from the collisions finds its way inside the Roche Limit, which matches the icy nature of Saturn’s rings.

This would’ve been a messy process that played out over time. The study shows there would’ve been a lot of debris from the collision and that it would’ve impacted other moons, which may have led to collisional cascades.

“Furthermore, more than a Mimas mass of material—and even more than an Enceladus mass in some cases—is placed onto crossing orbits with present-day Mimas, Enceladus, and Tethys (and Titan), facilitating the possibility of a collisional cascade to further distribute material across the system,” the paper states.

It would’ve taken a long time for things to settle down. But what caused it?

Everything in the Universe is in motion, and every object exerts a gravitational force on other objects. In our Solar System, the Sun’s mass dominates. So even though Saturn is almost 1.5 billion km (932 million mi) away from the Sun, the star’s gravity still affects things.

The Sun’s gravitational input at that distance is small, but it can build up in orbital resonances. Eventually, things can become destabilized, and Moons are driven from their circular orbits into elongated and tilted orbits. Saturn is rich in moons, so it’s only a matter of time until their orbits cross, and that causes a high-speed impact and the resulting cloud of mostly icy debris.

Saturn’s moon Rhea has something to tell us about this collision scenario. It’s Saturn’s second-largest moon, and its orbit is significant. It’s just beyond the point where these orbital resonances would affect it. Since moons tend to drift away from their planets, Rhea should’ve crossed this threshold of resonance eviction recently. That would’ve messed with its orbit, but its orbit is circular and flat. This supports the moon’s recent formation.

Saturn’s moon Rhea, as imaged by the Cassini-Huygens space probe. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

But if Rhea formed recently, it clouds some of our thinking about Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus and its potential for life. How old is Enceladus? Did it form only a few hundred million years ago, maybe even more recently? If so, that’s not enough time for life to appear, as far as we understand it.

Saturn and its rings and moons are a fascinating system. There are so many factors at work that scientists struggle to come up with definitive explanations. The Cassini mission showed us that the rings are likely much younger than thought, somewhere between 10 million and 100 million years old. These simulations support that idea, though they’re not conclusive.

“We conclude that the impact of two destabilized icy moons is a promising scenario for the recent formation or rejuvenation of Saturn’s rings and reaccretion of mid-sized moons,” the researchers say in their conclusion.

But more research is needed before we can rule out other scenarios.

“Future work on the long-term evolution of the orbit-crossing debris, combined with further and more detailed modelling of collisions between both icy moons and smaller fragments, will help to constrain the implications of this scenario for Saturn’s rings, its moons, their craters, and other surface environments,” they write.

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Sport

Fantasy basketball – New fantasy values for Lillard, Vacation, Ayton and Nurkic

Fantasy basketball - New fantasy values for Lillard, Holiday, Ayton and Nurkic

  • Andre Snellings, ESPNSep 27, 2023, 05:40 PM ET

Game on!

While the NBA season doesn’t officially tip off until Oct. 24, basketball stepped squarely into football season and made its presence felt with Wednesday’s blockbuster three-team deal involving the Milwaukee Bucks, Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers.

The Deal:

Bucks receive: Damian Lillard
Trail Blazers receive: Jrue Holiday, Deandre Ayton, Toumani Camara, draft considerations
Suns receive: Jusuf Nurkic, Grayson Allen, Nassir Little and Keon Johnson

Perfect fit in Milwaukee

If there were two players in the NBA that seem born to play together, it is Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard.

The most dominant interior presence in the league and one of the best long-range shooters the league has ever seen.

Both with the type of throwback, David vs. Goliath, us-against-the-world attitude that is rare in today’s NBA.

Both having spent the last decade putting their smaller market teams on the NBA map.

Instead of either/both going to large markets, both will now work together to try to get the Bucks their second championship in the last 50-plus years. Super exciting stuff.

But it doesn’t stop with the Bucks.

Phoenix and Portland both address big needs

The Suns, already having made two huge splashes in 2023 to bring Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal to town to play with budding MVP candidate Devin Booker, just filled their main weakness by adding quality, starting-caliber young players to their otherwise older, extremely thin lineup.

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And the Trail Blazers accomplished their goals in trading Lillard, bringing back an proven young big man talent in Ayton to join their young core of perimeter players while also adding one of the better veteran leaders in the league to help mentor their franchise point guard in waiting, Scoot Henderson.

There is a lot to unpack here, and the NBA nerd in me is buzzing right now. But let’s take a look at this from a fantasy and betting perspective.

The Bucks are the new betting and fantasy juggernaut of the East

I’ve had the Bucks as my preseason betting favorite in each of the last three seasons, which has resulted in one championship (2021) but two early playoffs exits as they have dealt with injuries, particularly to All-Star second option Khris Middleton.

The team has been built around the dominance of Giannis attacking the rim on offense, with Middleton and Holiday as the two secondary scorers and a strong defense built around Giannis, Holiday and Brook Lopez. The biggest weakness on the team has been lack of consistent volume shooting outside of Middleton, so his injury absences have hit the team particularly hard.

Enter Lillard, whose shooting/scoring has been enough to almost single-handedly keep the Trail Blazers relevant in the Western Conference playoff race for the last decade.

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Holiday and Allen were the Bucks’ starting backcourt last season and averaged a combined 23.0 FGA per game. Lillard has averaged 19.8 FGA for the past eight seasons, and likely takes up much of that shooting volume himself. Presumably he and Giannis should both be able to shoot at high enough volume to approximate just under their previous scoring volumes, perhaps with both in the upper 20s instead of low 30s.

Middleton will need his shots too, but he was already shooting less after his knee issues, and now becomes firmly a third option. The other Bucks are all role players, 3-and-D types that should be able to knock down open looks even at low volumes.

Lillard likely has an additive impact on the Bucks’ team assists, in particular from Giannis. Lillard has averaged 7.6 APG in the last four seasons, roughly similar to the 7.4 APG Holiday produced for the Bucks last season. Lillard has some upside to improve, with Giannis as both a finisher and a defense-warper that gets teammates open looks when opponents build their wall to stop him.

Lillard also helps increase Giannis assist numbers, because when they run their pick-and-roll/pop two-man game or when Giannis drives and kicks, he’ll be passing to one of the best shooters of all time to make his passes more efficiently into assists. In addition, Lillard’s presence warps defenses as well, so the opposing defensive wall will have cracks that either Giannis can exploit or leaves their teammates even more wide open.

On the fantasy hoops front, Giannis remains a top-2 prospect. Lillard’s fit with the Bucks moves him back up into the early second/late first round fantasy draft range. Middleton’s value is down from what it was two seasons ago, but higher than his injury plagued last season to settle into the 50-75 range. Lopez and Bobby Portis don’t have their fantasy values impacted all that much by the deal.

The Suns’ new pieces make the team work better

As I wrote in my trade response piece from earlier this summer, when the Suns traded for Beal, the team clearly still had moves to make because they had become extremely imbalanced. Each of Booker, Durant and Beal are incredible volume-scoring perimeter talents but there is only one ball and they lacked any sort of size or depth around them.

What’s more, incumbent fourth-best-player Ayton was a big man that needed to score to be effective. Last season, Ayton averaged 13.2 FGA and 1.4 combined steals and blocks per game. Nurkic doesn’t require as many shots and is more active on defense, averaging 9.9 FGA and 1.8 combined steals and blocks per game over the last three seasons. This is a much better fit for the new-look Suns, and allows more space for their best players to all get as close to individual maximization as possible.

On the fantasy hoops front, the prospects for Booker, Durant and Beal don’t change all that much with this deal. Nurkic’s doesn’t change significantly either, but if he’s able to concentrate more on defense and rebounding it could give him a slight boost. He remains on the fringe of my top-100.

The Trail Blazers just fast-forwarded the rebuild

Portland could get the biggest fantasy basketball mover in the deal in Ayton. He averaged 18.0 PPG on 58.9 FG% and 76.0 FT% with 10.RPG last season and has clear, achievable 20-10 upside as soon as this season. But, he was never going to get the shots in Phoenix to come close to 20 PPG with Durant and Beal in town.

After averaging 18.7 PPG on 13.8 FGA in the 53 games before Durant made his Suns debut, Ayton averaged only 12.5 PPG on 9.9 FGA in the eight games Durant played in the regular season and 13.4 PPG on 11.1 FGA during the playoffs. Add Beal to the mix, and I had Ayton projected for by-far the lowest scoring average of his career this season in the very low double-digits.

Not anymore.

The Trail Blazers are building for the future, and Ayton fits perfectly with their 25-and-under brigade including 19-year-old incoming franchise point guard Scoot Henderson, 24-year-old Anfernee Simons and 20-year-old Shaedon Sharpe. While Ayton and incumbent power forward Jerami Grant are both score-first bigs, there should be more shots available with Lillard’s departure. And Grant is a poor rebounder, meaning Ayton should be able to vacuum the boards. And he should be motivated to hustle more on defense than when he was in Phoenix, because he should be a much bigger part of the offense on a consistent basis. Win-win.

The biggest fantasy hoops question mark for the Trail Blazers is whether they decide to keep Holiday, and if so how he fits in with what they want to do. In recent years we’ve seen star veteran point guards fit well on rebuilding teams, teaching them to win through their professionalism and experience. Chris Paul with the Oklahoma City Thunder comes to mind.

If the Trail Blazers go that route, Holiday could eat into what was presumed to be a full load of minutes for rookie Henderson. Holiday’s numbers would also probably go down, because his minutes and load would be lesser in splitting the guard minutes with Henderson and Simons. If, on the other hand, the Trail Blazers stick with a youth movement and trade Holiday again, their young players would go back to maximum minutes expectations and Holiday’s output would depend on where he ultimately lands.

It is rare in today’s NBA to see a trade where every team involved gets what they are looking for, but on every level this deal appears to be that case. Each team improved in the area that they wanted, the two contending teams improved their odds to win, and the fantasy prospects for all involved largely hold constant or improve. Win-win-win.

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Entertainment

Blac Chyna Gushes Over New Romance With Derrick Milano

Blac Chyna Gushes Over New Romance With Derrick Milano

Blac Chyna, also known as Angela White, is opening up about her newfound romance with songwriter Derrick Milano. As The Shade Room previously reported, the couple debuted their relationship earlier this week.

RELATED: WATCH: Tokyo Toni & Blac Chyna Emotionally Celebrate Chyna’s One Year Of Sobriety On The ‘Tamron Hall Show’

Blac Chyna Speaks On The “Best Thing” About Her “Power Couple” Relationship With Derrick Milano

The 35-year-old mother of two shared an exclusive statement with PEOPLE on Wednesday. White confirmed that she and Milano, also known as Derrick Gray, are indeed a “power couple.”

“You won’t be able to say power couple without mentioning Angela White & Derrick Gray!” White told the outlet.

Additionally, she touched on how her and Milano’s relationship came to be.

“They always say don’t go looking for love, let love find you. In…  this case love found us,” the mother of two explained. “I know that might sound cliche, but hey, it be like that sometimes.”

White provided more insight while explaining that the “best thing” about her relationship with Milano is their “friendship.” The 35-year-old explained that their “long talks, consistency, support, love, trust, and faith” is essentially what made their relationship “what it is.”

The Mother Of Two Explains The Components Of A “Successful Relationship”

As White’s statement continued, she explained that God’s timing is “always right.” Additionally, the 35-year-old shared that “when it comes to love, you have to have faith in GOD and each other.” However, White believes it’s “always” important for couples and individuals to prioritize “God first.”

Furthermore, the mother of two also spoke about the role of “vulnerability” and “communication” in relationships.

“Being able to be around somebody in your most vulnerable state plays a huge role in a successful relationship,” the 35-year-old explained. “Not to mention how important communication is to express to each other feelings, emotions, & honesty.”

Lastly, White explained that her and Milano’s individual goals also support their relationship.

“As you know, I’m very involved in my career & vision just as much as Derrick is,” White shared. “When I win ‘WE WIN’ when he wins, ‘WE WIN.’”

Before concluding, White explained that she and Milano “love it here” and “value” their relationship. Additionally, White revealed that her mother, Tokyo Toni, “loves” Milano.

Blac Chyna & Derrick Milano Made Things “Instagram Official” Amid Her Celebrating One Year Of Sobriety

Blac Chyna’s insight into her relationship with Milano arrives just days after the couple made their Instagram debut earlier this week. At the time, White shared a photo of her and Milano gazing into each other’s eyes.

A brief caption accompanied the photo.

“❤️X🙏🏽 @derrickmilano”

Milano also followed up with his own photo of him and Chyna. His post also featured a brief caption.

“It hits different when you find your best friend & lover at the same time. ♾️🧩 Love you Angela 🤞🏾❤️”

Since then, Milano has also praised Chyna as one of his “favorite ladies,” posting a photo of his girlfriend alongside his mother and sister.

“My mom is always gonna be there to support! She went & got me a full-size banner of all my achievements to stand beside me on stage during my class. I love my mom so much & I know my moms proud of me. ❤️ Swipe left to see my favorite ladies 😍”

White’s new relationship arrives amid her recent celebration of one year of sobriety, as reported by The Shade Room. The 35-year-old documented the occasion as a guest on ‘The Tamron Hall Show’ earlier this month. During her appearance, White detailed how she was able to accomplish the milestone and was even surprised by her mother, Tokyo Toni.

Roomies, please join us in sending continued support and congratulations to Blac Chyna, aka Angela White!