#University of Science and Technology of China

[thatshuffle]

A point-to-point long-distance quantum key distribution (QKD) over a distance of 1,002 km has been achieved by scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and their collaborators from Tsinghua University, Jinan Institute of Quantum Technology, and Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), CAS. This milestone not only sets a new world record for non-relay QKD but also provides a solution for high-speed intercity quantum communication. The results were published in Physical Review Letters on May 25th.

QKD is based on the principles of quantum mechanics and enables secure key distribution between two remote parties. When combined with the "one-time pad" encryption method, it can achieve the highest level of security for confidential communication. However, the distance of QKD has been limited by factors such as the channel loss and system noise.

The twin-field QKD (TF-QKD) using sending-or-not-sending (SNS) protocol was demonstrated in the experiment, improving the relation between the key rate and channel transmittance from a linear η to its square root η. Therefore, it can achieve a much longer secure distance than traditional QKD protocols.

To achieve long-distance QKD, the research team collaborated with Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable Joint Stock Limited Company (YOFC) and used ultra-low-loss fiber based on pure silica core technology, which achieved a maximum attenuation of 0.16 dB/km. SIMIT developed ultra-low-noise superconducting single-photon detectors.

By implementing multiple filters at temperatures of 40 K and 2.2 K to suppress dark counts caused by thermal radiation, the noise of the single-photon detectors was reduced to around 0.02 cps. Furthermore, the team also developed a dual-band phase estimation scheme to avoid the spontaneous Raman scattering noise, reducing the system noise to below 0.01 Hz.

Based on the aforementioned technological developments, the team achieved TF-QKD over a record distance of 1,002 km, with a key rate of 0.0034 bps. This work not only verifies the feasibility of the SNS-TF-QKD scheme at extremely long distances but also demonstrates that this protocol can achieve high key rates in many practical scenarios.

The success of this study holds significant implications for the advancement of secure quantum communication. It opens up new possibilities for long-distance quantum key distribution and paves the way for the realization of high-speed intercity quantum communication networks.

[joytherabbit]

[jcmarchi]

Study: Transparency is often lacking in datasets used to train large language models

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/study-transparency-is-often-lacking-in-datasets-used-to-train-large-language-models/

Study: Transparency is often lacking in datasets used to train large language models

In order to train more powerful large language models, researchers use vast dataset collections that blend diverse data from thousands of web sources.

But as these datasets are combined and recombined into multiple collections, important information about their origins and restrictions on how they can be used are often lost or confounded in the shuffle.

Not only does this raise legal and ethical concerns, it can also damage a model’s performance. For instance, if a dataset is miscategorized, someone training a machine-learning model for a certain task may end up unwittingly using data that are not designed for that task.

In addition, data from unknown sources could contain biases that cause a model to make unfair predictions when deployed.

To improve data transparency, a team of multidisciplinary researchers from MIT and elsewhere launched a systematic audit of more than 1,800 text datasets on popular hosting sites. They found that more than 70 percent of these datasets omitted some licensing information, while about 50 percent had information that contained errors.

Building off these insights, they developed a user-friendly tool called the Data Provenance Explorer that automatically generates easy-to-read summaries of a dataset’s creators, sources, licenses, and allowable uses.

“These types of tools can help regulators and practitioners make informed decisions about AI deployment, and further the responsible development of AI,” says Alex “Sandy” Pentland, an MIT professor, leader of the Human Dynamics Group in the MIT Media Lab, and co-author of a new open-access paper about the project.

The Data Provenance Explorer could help AI practitioners build more effective models by enabling them to select training datasets that fit their model’s intended purpose. In the long run, this could improve the accuracy of AI models in real-world situations, such as those used to evaluate loan applications or respond to customer queries.

“One of the best ways to understand the capabilities and limitations of an AI model is understanding what data it was trained on. When you have misattribution and confusion about where data came from, you have a serious transparency issue,” says Robert Mahari, a graduate student in the MIT Human Dynamics Group, a JD candidate at Harvard Law School, and co-lead author on the paper.

Mahari and Pentland are joined on the paper by co-lead author Shayne Longpre, a graduate student in the Media Lab; Sara Hooker, who leads the research lab Cohere for AI; as well as others at MIT, the University of California at Irvine, the University of Lille in France, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Olin College, Carnegie Mellon University, Contextual AI, ML Commons, and Tidelift. The research is published today in Nature Machine Intelligence.

Focus on finetuning

Researchers often use a technique called fine-tuning to improve the capabilities of a large language model that will be deployed for a specific task, like question-answering. For finetuning, they carefully build curated datasets designed to boost a model’s performance for this one task.

The MIT researchers focused on these fine-tuning datasets, which are often developed by researchers, academic organizations, or companies and licensed for specific uses.

When crowdsourced platforms aggregate such datasets into larger collections for practitioners to use for fine-tuning, some of that original license information is often left behind.

“These licenses ought to matter, and they should be enforceable,” Mahari says.

For instance, if the licensing terms of a dataset are wrong or missing, someone could spend a great deal of money and time developing a model they might be forced to take down later because some training data contained private information.

“People can end up training models where they don’t even understand the capabilities, concerns, or risk of those models, which ultimately stem from the data,” Longpre adds.

To begin this study, the researchers formally defined data provenance as the combination of a dataset’s sourcing, creating, and licensing heritage, as well as its characteristics. From there, they developed a structured auditing procedure to trace the data provenance of more than 1,800 text dataset collections from popular online repositories.

After finding that more than 70 percent of these datasets contained “unspecified” licenses that omitted much information, the researchers worked backward to fill in the blanks. Through their efforts, they reduced the number of datasets with “unspecified” licenses to around 30 percent.

Their work also revealed that the correct licenses were often more restrictive than those assigned by the repositories.   

In addition, they found that nearly all dataset creators were concentrated in the global north, which could limit a model’s capabilities if it is trained for deployment in a different region. For instance, a Turkish language dataset created predominantly by people in the U.S. and China might not contain any culturally significant aspects, Mahari explains.

“We almost delude ourselves into thinking the datasets are more diverse than they actually are,” he says.

Interestingly, the researchers also saw a dramatic spike in restrictions placed on datasets created in 2023 and 2024, which might be driven by concerns from academics that their datasets could be used for unintended commercial purposes.

A user-friendly tool

To help others obtain this information without the need for a manual audit, the researchers built the Data Provenance Explorer. In addition to sorting and filtering datasets based on certain criteria, the tool allows users to download a data provenance card that provides a succinct, structured overview of dataset characteristics.

“We are hoping this is a step, not just to understand the landscape, but also help people going forward to make more informed choices about what data they are training on,” Mahari says.

In the future, the researchers want to expand their analysis to investigate data provenance for multimodal data, including video and speech. They also want to study how terms of service on websites that serve as data sources are echoed in datasets.

As they expand their research, they are also reaching out to regulators to discuss their findings and the unique copyright implications of fine-tuning data.

“We need data provenance and transparency from the outset, when people are creating and releasing these datasets, to make it easier for others to derive these insights,” Longpre says.

“Many proposed policy interventions assume that we can correctly assign and identify licenses associated with data, and this work first shows that this is not the case, and then significantly improves the provenance information available,” says Stella Biderman, executive director of EleutherAI, who was not involved with this work. “In addition, section 3 contains relevant legal discussion. This is very valuable to machine learning practitioners outside companies large enough to have dedicated legal teams. Many people who want to build AI systems for public good are currently quietly struggling to figure out how to handle data licensing, because the internet is not designed in a way that makes data provenance easy to figure out.”

[spacenutspod]

Astronomy Daily's Year-End Extravaganza! This episode of Astronomy Daily is packed with exciting space news, marking the end of 2023 with a bang!

Dream Chaser Takes Flight: Get ready for the first flight of Sierra Space's Dream Chaser spacecraft in 2024! Learn about its environmental testing and its role in transporting astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.

Long March Reaches New Heights: China's Long March 5th rocket sets a new record with its extended fairing, boosting its capacity to carry larger payloads like the Yao-Gon 41 remote sensing satellite.

Listening to the Stars: Delve into the fascinating world of asterosysmology, where astronomers "listen" to the vibrations of stars to measure their distances with incredible accuracy. This technique helps calibrate data from ESA's Gaia mission and opens doors to understanding our place in the universe.

Bonus: Catch up on SpaceX's upcoming Falcon Heavy launch carrying the mysterious X-37B space plane and learn about its potential role in testing new space technologies.

For more Astronomy Daily the Podcast and to sign up for the daily newsletter, visit www.astronomydaily.io

[xtruss]

Washington Will Grow Increasingly Agitated As Its ‘Whack-A-Mole’ Containment Policy Exhausts

— Ding Gang | August 02 2023

Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

Many people enjoy playing the arcade game Whack-A-Mole. This game is characterized by the fact that, although you will get a high score in the allotted time, there will never be a complete victory, and the game seems to come to its end once the player is exhausted.

Washington's "Whack-A-Mole" containment policy is similar to a race against time, but time is clearly not on its side. The US is increasingly agitated by the exhaustion of such a policy.

China's manufacturing breakthroughs in various aspects are snowballing. The US is now facing not just one or a few major competitors, but rather a multitude of middleweight players that have quickly upgraded to heavyweight status.

Breakthroughs have occurred, from low-end toys and small electric appliances to high-end medical and mechanical equipment. Some of these breakthroughs are chip-related, but many more are chip-unrelated or use chips that China can manufacture independently.

I doubt whether the US has the "stamina" to continue to deal with the new battlefields popping up in all directions and engage in the no-end "war of science and technology."

According to the Biden administration's containment policy, there should be three phases: Firstly, deal a heavy blow to China's chip manufacturing, then restrain China's high-tech breakthroughs and development for a considerable period; and finally, enable the US to buy enough time to consolidate its global high-tech dominance and dominate the global market.

But time was not under Washington's control, and this containment policy has soon become exhausting.

Let's look at these new Chinese manufacturers that have emerged.

Firstly, China's production of new energy vehicles has had a significant impact on the global market. Some individuals in the US have expressed concerns that if not regulated, Chinese-made cars will dominate the streets of America. This is due to China's superior technology, such as advanced batteries, and their competitive pricing, which makes it challenging for the US to keep up.

Another area where China has shown technological superiority is the Chinese-made BeiDou system. The US National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board has warned that "GPS's capabilities are now substantially inferior to those of China's BeiDou."

Chips are what the US has stuck with and what it has a lot of. Still, Americans now fear China's massive investment in low- and mid-range chip manufacturing will eventually monopolize the entire market.

They believe that China would eventually isolate the high-end and make a breakthrough by encircling the low and mid-range. China is expected to soon be able to mass-produce 28nm chips, one of the most widely used worldwide and the most needed by the global manufacturing industry, including the US.

Of course, the US' biggest worry is whether China can independently develop and produce 5G chips. Will Huawei's upcoming phones be loaded with 5G chips? It's not confirmed yet, but speculation is already flying around, making Washington anxious. Some in the US Congress have chanted for stepping up comprehensive sanctions against Huawei.

More anxiety ensues.

China's breakthroughs in aircraft manufacturing, shipbuilding, high-speed rail, robotics, electronics, medical device manufacturing, agricultural technology, and many others will continue to grow, and the supply chains will expand in the coming years.

China's manufacturing breakthroughs to the high-end are inevitable at this stage. The US' containment has stimulated China to focus more on the high-end of the market and pay more attention to the low-end, mid-range innovation path.

The US has already experienced a period of explosive development, similar to what China is currently going through. Thanks to the information technology revolution, Washington has taken the lead in chip technology, computer usage, search engines, social media, big data and cloud computing. This wave of innovation has now reached China.

If the US attempts to hinder every innovation in Chinese manufacturing or any product that creates a dominant impact in the market and restricts those supply channels, Washington would need to excel in all manufacturing sectors.

However, achieving this objective is impractical. The politicians in Washington are relentlessly pursuing this unreachable aim. Let's see how things will develop.

— The Author is a Senior Editor with People's Daily, and currently a senior fellow with the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China.

[dlyarchitecture]

[mindblowingscience]

A team of chemists and materials scientists at the National University of Singapore, working with colleagues from Manchester University, in the U.K., and Guangdong University of Technology, in China, has developed a type of sponge made of graphene oxide and chitosan, that can be used to extract gold from electronic waste. In their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes how they made their sponge and how well it worked during testing.

Continue Reading.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Climate change is political but it’s “not the imaginary politics of universal consensus,” he writes in the book’s pithy prologue, nor the “anti-politics of miraculous technological salvation”. It’s also “not the end of the world”. Instead, it’s a struggle between “actually existing people over actually existing crises with actually existing differences, interests, and prospects. Climate change is about power.” Politicians in the global north rarely talk this way. They think of climate as an “on/off switch”. “‘We’re doing some climate’”, says Chaudhary, mimicking them, “‘would you prefer we do nothing?’”. But there are two large clusters of “doing something”, both of which Chaudhary examines. The first is what he calls “rightwing climate realism”. This encompasses a “broad spectrum”, from those who favour “slower climate mitigation and adaptation” to climate barbarism, but it’s ultimately about concentrating, preserving and enhancing existing political and economic power. That is why Chaudhary is insistent that, when we think of climate policies, we must pay attention to plans for borders and policing, too. He considers Joe Biden a type of rightwing climate realist. Among the US president’s most important climate policies is not just the Inflation Reduction Act but the US National Security Strategy, Chaudhary argues. “It is insanely jingoistic,” he says. It describes, for instance, out-competing China. If that’s the framework, he argues, we’re doomed, “because US-China cooperation is vital”. Ultimately, rightwing climate realists know there will be “instability” and “they are preparing for it”. That they will be successful is not only “plausible and possible, but probable,” he says. That is why the second avenue of “doing something”, composed of “the rest of us”, is so important. Chaudhary advocates for “leftwing climate realism”, which accepts the science, not because it’s a discipline “beyond impugning” but because it’s quite clear that there are ecological limits on this planet. We need a slower life, he argues; a circular economic system, where firms compete for the same amount of finite profit and the state dominates certain sectors. This will be good for the planet and for people, producing “a world relieved from social, economic, and ecological despair and exhaustion”.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Two-faced solar panels can generate more power at up to 70% less cost

Researchers have built a new kind of two-faced (bifacial) panel. They used single-walled carbon nanotubes as both front and back electrodes. These tubes are just 2.2 nanometers across. That is slightly thinner than a strand of human DNA. A piece of paper is thicker than 45,000 nanotubes stacked on top of each other. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications, and the team included Surrey scientists working with colleagues at the University of Cambridge, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xidian University, and Zhengzhou University, China. Dr. Jing Zhang, research fellow at Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute, said, "Our bifacial cells can harvest sunlight from both front and back panels. This generates more energy and depends less on which angle the light hits them.

Read more.

[bpod-bpod]

Growing Nervous

Regeneration after damage of the central nervous system is limited. This study finds that suppressing activity of a gene called Lipin1 leads to significant regrowth of sensory and motor nerve axons (the signal-transmitting projections) after spinal cord injury

Read the published research article here

Video from work by Weitao Chen, Junqiang Wu and Chao Yang, and colleagues

Biomedical Research Institute, Shenzhen Peking University–The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Medical Center, Shenzhen, China

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), September 2024

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

Some interesting science analyzed

BY BROOKS LEITNER

Imagine lying back in an enclosed chamber where you bask for 90 minutes in a sea of pure oxygen at pressures two to three times that felt at sea level. This is the world of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), a technology that’s been around for decades and is now being explored as a possible treatment for Long COVID.

"The silence on the inside is deafening at first,” says John M.,* who has undergone dozens of HBOT treatments for his persistent Long COVID symptoms. Fortunately, there is a television outside the chamber in view, and it is easy to communicate with the provider if needed. While the potential protocol is still being refined, patients may undergo up to 40 HBOT sessions to address some of the most problematic, lingering symptoms of this complex condition.

HBOT is a therapeutic process that has been widely used to treat such conditions as decompression sickness in scuba divers, carbon monoxide poisoning, and diabetic foot ulcers. In HBOT, the body is exposed to 100% oxygen, a significant increase from the 21% oxygen concentration we typically breathe. The therapy takes place in an enclosed chamber where the air pressure is elevated above normal levels. The combination of high-pressure and high-oxygen conditions enhances the amount of oxygen that can reach the body's tissues. The hope is that this therapy can provide the same relief and healing to people with Long COVID that it does for those with other conditions.

According to John M., HBOT was the first treatment that helped with his sleep and reduced his heart palpitations. “At one point after hospitalization, my Long COVID symptoms were so bad that I could barely walk or talk. HBOT was a great tool that really assisted with my recovery,” he said. John added that he hopes the medical community will achieve a better understanding of how HBOT can help relieve suffering for patients with Long COVID and that more research will increase access to this innovative therapy.

Does HBOT improve Long COVID symptoms? One key observation from the work of Inderjit Singh, MBChB, an assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine (YSM) specializing in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine, is that Long COVID patients often experience debilitating fatigue. Based on Dr. Singh’s previous Long COVID research, the exhaustion is thought to be linked to the muscles’ inability to efficiently extract and utilize oxygen.

To picture how HBOT might work, you can think of your muscles as engines sputtering, struggling to get the fuel they need. If oxygen is the gas that fuels the muscles, it’s as if you are trying to complete your daily routine while the gas tank is running on “empty.” By aiming to directly address this oxygen utilization impairment, HBOT may be a potential solution.

A systematic review by researchers at the China Medical University Hospital noted that HBOT could tackle another major factor in the Long COVID puzzle: oxidative stress. This relates to the body's struggle to maintain balance when harmful molecules, known as free radicals, run amok, causing chronic inflammation.

Research co-authored by Sandra K. Wainwright, MD, medical director of the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Wound Healing at Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut, suggests that HBOT, with its high-oxygen environment, might dampen this chronic inflammation by improving mitochondrial activity and decreasing production of harmful molecules. Other potential benefits of HBOT in the treatment of Long COVID may include restoration of oxygen to oxygen-starved tissues, reduced production of inflammatory cytokines, and increased mobilization of hematopoietic stem cells—primary cells that transform into red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.

HBOT for Long COVID: Current and ongoing research Several small-scale reports have indicated that HBOT is safe for patients with Long COVID.

To address this question, a trial that followed the gold standard of modern medical research—a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind design—assigned 73 Long COVID patients to either receive 40 sessions of HBOT or a placebo of only 21% oxygen. The study observed positive changes in attention, sleep quality, pain symptoms, and energy levels among participants receiving HBOT. In a longitudinal follow-up study published in Scientific Reports, the authors at the Tel Aviv University found that clinical improvements persisted even one year after the last HBOT session was concluded. In a second study, the same authors focused on heart function, measured by an echocardiogram, and found a significant reduction in heart strain, known as global longitudinal strain, in patients who received HBOT.

In another study, 10 patients with Long COVID underwent 10 HBOT treatments over 12 consecutive days. Testing showed statistically significant improvement in fatigue and cognitive function. Meanwhile, an ongoing trial at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has reported interim safety results wherein almost half of the Long COVID patients in the trial reported cough or chest discomfort during treatment. However, it was unclear whether HBOT exacerbated this symptom or if this adverse effect was due to the effort of participation by patients suffering from more severe Long COVID symptoms.

Is HBOT currently available as a treatment for Long COVID? For HBOT to become a mainstream treatment option for Long COVID, several critical priorities must be addressed. First, there is currently no established method for tailoring HBOT dosages to individual patients, so researchers must learn more about the specific features or symptoms that indicate potential benefits from HBOT. At the same time, we need to identify factors that may be associated with any adverse outcomes of HBOT. And finally, it’s important to determine how long these potentially beneficial effects last in a larger cohort. Will just a few HBOT trials be enough to restore patients to their baseline health, or will HBOT become a recurring component of their annual treatment regimen?

For now, HBOT remains an experimental therapy—and as such is not covered by insurance. This is a huge issue for patients because the therapy is expensive. According to Dr. Wainwright, a six-week course of therapy can run around $60,000. That’s a lot to pay for a therapy that’s still being studied. In the current completed studies, different treatment frequencies and intensities have been used, but it’s unclear how the treatment conditions affect the patient’s outcome.

“I have had some patients notice improvements after only 10 or 15 treatments, whereas some others need up to 45 treatments before they notice a difference,” notes Dr. Wainwright. “I think that HBOT is offering some promising results in many patients, but it is probably a strong adjunctive treatment to the other spectrum of things Long COVID patients should be doing, like participating in an exercise, rehab, and nutritional program.”

Dr. Singh notes that “a major challenge for research is the heterogeneity of Long COVID. It is hard to determine which symptoms to treat and enroll patients into trials based on them.”

Perhaps treatments that target multiple issues caused by Long COVID, like HBOT, may help overcome this challenge.

*Not his real name.

Brooks Leitner is an MD/PhD candidate at Yale School of Medicine.

The last word from Lisa Sanders, MD: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is just one of the many existing treatments that are being looked at to treat Long COVID. We see this with many new diseases—trying to use a treatment that is effective in one set of diseases to treat another. And there is reason for optimism: We know that HBOT can deliver high levels of oxygen to tissues in need of oxygen. That’s why it’s used to treat soft tissue wounds. If reduced oxygen uptake is the cause of the devastating fatigue caused by Long COVID, as is suggested by many studies, then perhaps a better delivery system will help at least some patients.

Studies referenced:

bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-023-08002-8

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8806311/

www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-53091-3

www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15565-0

www.frontiersin.org/journals/medicine/articles/10.3389/fmed.2024.1354088/full

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11051078/#:~:text=Proposed%20Mechanism%20of%20HBOT%20o

[iama1ice]

싸이퍼%!

CYPHER is a coed Kpop group under HYBE Labels. The group debuted in 2022, with the mini-album ‘You In My Blurred Memories’.

The members consist of Alice, Lina, Junhui, Mae and Romy, all from various countries.

The fans particularly praise the members for writing and composing all of their songs, but also the lore of the group. The members come from a dystopian, futuristic world.

There, the possibility of going to other universes thanks to technology and science was considered. The members tried it, hoping to find a brighter world.

Through their comebacks, they show us their quest to find a better reality, never succeeding to find the right one.

차올라 달이 딱 좋은 timing 이건 비밀이야, 쉿, 우리만의 한밤의 party, 널 끌어당김 어쩌니? 내게 뺏겨버린 환심

October 5th, 2000

Alice (me)

Main rapper, lead dancer, visual, fotg

French-English

Rep emoji; 🪼

Rep colour; light blue

Boyfriend; Hong Joshua

5th gen it-girl

5th gen trendsetter

Youngest idol to receive a ‘best songwriter’ award

Lina

December 26th, 2002

Main vocalist, sub dancer, leader

French

Rep emoji; 🦊

Rep colour; pink

Single

Nation's crush

5th gen leader

Junhui

December 17th, 2004

Lead rapper, lead dancer, visual, center

Chinese

Rep emoji; 🕷️

Rep colour; dark blue

Boyfriend; Park Sunghoon

5th gen it-boy

China's pride

Mae

August 21st, 2005

Main dancer, lead vocalist, visual

Dutch-American

Rep emoji; 🐶

Rep colour; purple

Boyfriend; Niki

Nation's pick

Kpop's main dancer

Romy

December 28th, 2005

Lead vocalist, lead dancer, youngest

Hungarian-French

Rep emoji; 🦉

Rep colour; dark red

Girlfriend; Yunjin

Hungarian icon

5th gen's baby

Thank you for reading 🫶

This dr was my first ever shared (the others don't have tumblr so I can't tag them) and that's how I met some of my best friends so I love it particularly

This is shifting content so none of it applies for the reality we are currently in, anti-shifters dni and block me pls

Some things such as when the 5th gen is different, I am aware of that

That's it I think

🤍

[joytherabbit]

[elbiotipo]

y'know, I think a lot of why people really get into "we should focus on solving problems here instead of dreaming of space" is as a reaction to rich nutcases who convince themselves of shit like "if I put humanity on mars that's better than paying taxes or solving hunger right". so I kinda can't blame the sentiment sprouting and growing beyond its most useful context but it's also kinda like... when did we let rich nutcases take over that entire conversation anyway? they don't even actually succeed at getting into space at all, national space agencies are still winning every single time there

Rich assholes aren't ever gonna "solve world hunger", that's another big fallacy. If someone like Bezos or Musk tried to donate all their money into "solving world hunger" they would either get kicked from their companies, or create agrobusiness megacorporations and being from Argentina I'm well aware on how they work.

But I digress. The reason why there is so much private interest in space lately is because there are market forces pulling up there, and those market forces exist, in my opinion, because there is a future in space. Because there are recent technological changes (most notably reusable rockets) that are creating new possibilities from communication to manufacturing to mining to tourism, there is a lot of potential in space. Not to mention the drive to understand how the universe works, which I think is a worthwhile endeavor on itself.

Why are countries like China also investing so much in space? Because that's where the future is. China has plans for space-based solar panels, international lunar bases, and space science and research. You don't hear much about that, do you? Why would China invest so much in space, just to compete with other countries? No, it's because there are real tangible benefits, from the scientific to the technological to the purely economical, into having a strong space industry.

The USSR knew about this. Much of the Space Race was also a weapons race, this is a sad fact. But when you read about so many of the experiments in Saluyt and Mir, most of them were from the perspective of securing a real presence in space that could bring benefit to people on Earth. From Earth imaging (now mostly done by satellites, to communications, to outright manufacturing. Same with lunar base plans. It all had the intention of not only stroking egos, but bringing real benefits to Earth and building steps into a permanent human presence in space. This wasn't utopian, and in fact, it was military meddling (much like corporatization in the US right now) that prevented the Soviet space program to reach even greater heights.

But my point here is that there isn't only a "wacky billionarie ego trip" push here. Space exploration can and will benefit the people of Earth, and becoming an interplanetary and one day interstellar society will be a great accomplishment. We are in the technological threshold to achieve this, and I believe that as society progresses through class struggle, space exploration will be a pride of a united and peaceful world, something, much like art, much like sports, much like science, much like those things humans do because we can, we can all participate and appreciate.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

New SpaceTime out Friday

SpaceTime 20240920 Series 27 Episode 114

Did dwarf planet Ceres originate in the asteroid belt?

A new study has raised fresh questions about the origin of the dwarf planet Ceres – the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

A galactic mystery about Dark matter and stars finally solved

Astronomers have overturned the longstanding idea that stars and dark matter are interacting in inexplicable ways.

China's secretive spaceplane returns to Earth

China's highly secretive reusable experimental spacecraft has successfully returned to Earth following a 268-day orbital mission.

The Science Report

Using cruciferous vegetables to lower high blood pressure.

Study shows larger bumblebees fly faster, but that middle-aged bees fly longer and further.

Study shows dogs can remember the names of objects two years after learning them.

Skeptics guide to Wycliffe Well - the UFO capital of Australia!

SpaceTime covers the latest news in astronomy & space sciences.

The show is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts (itunes), Stitcher, Google Podcast, Pocketcasts, SoundCloud, Bitez.com, YouTube, your favourite podcast download provider, and from www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com

SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

SpaceTime daily news blog: http://spacetimewithstuartgary.tumblr.com/

SpaceTime facebook: www.facebook.com/spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime Instagram @spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime twitter feed @stuartgary

SpaceTime YouTube: @SpaceTimewithStuartGary

SpaceTime -- A brief history

SpaceTime is Australia’s most popular and respected astronomy and space science news program – averaging over two million downloads every year. We’re also number five in the United States.  The show reports on the latest stories and discoveries making news in astronomy, space flight, and science.  SpaceTime features weekly interviews with leading Australian scientists about their research.  The show began life in 1995 as ‘StarStuff’ on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) NewsRadio network.  Award winning investigative reporter Stuart Gary created the program during more than fifteen years as NewsRadio’s evening anchor and Science Editor.  Gary’s always loved science. He studied astronomy at university and was invited to undertake a PHD in astrophysics, but instead focused on his career in journalism and radio broadcasting. Gary’s radio career stretches back some 34 years including 26 at the ABC. He worked as an announcer and music DJ in commercial radio, before becoming a journalist and eventually joining ABC News and Current Affairs. He was part of the team that set up ABC NewsRadio and became one of its first on air presenters. When asked to put his science background to use, Gary developed StarStuff which he wrote, produced and hosted, consistently achieving 9 per cent of the national Australian radio audience based on the ABC’s Nielsen ratings survey figures for the five major Australian metro markets: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth.  The StarStuff podcast was published on line by ABC Science -- achieving over 1.3 million downloads annually.  However, after some 20 years, the show finally wrapped up in December 2015 following ABC funding cuts, and a redirection of available finances to increase sports and horse racing coverage.  Rather than continue with the ABC, Gary resigned so that he could keep the show going independently.  StarStuff was rebranded as “SpaceTime”, with the first episode being broadcast in February 2016.  Over the years, SpaceTime has grown, more than doubling its former ABC audience numbers and expanding to include new segments such as the Science Report -- which provides a wrap of general science news, weekly skeptical science features, special reports looking at the latest computer and technology news, and Skywatch – which provides a monthly guide to the night skies. The show is published three times weekly (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and available from the United States National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio, and through both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

[mysterious-light]

Kaishin happy thoughts (m27 spoilers)

Since Kaishin didn't grow up together I wonder if the Westermarck effect will be that potent. Well in any case the taboo against cousin relationships is mainly due to genetic disorders of offsprings which isn't an issue for kaishin. So ignoring the first instinctual reaction, logically there's no harm for two males. Maybe socially there will be discrimination (?/or not as lethal bc it's legal in Japan) but at the moment it doesn't seem like the public in the dcmk universe knows about the two family's relations. Yusaku and Toichi do seem to like keeping secrets so I guess kaishin can do the same.

Delusion: If kaishin does want kids (AU) they can probably get haibara to fix any genetic defects (gene editing technology is possible now in fact it's already been done -like the twin babies in China and they're still fine) and the dc universe seem to have much more advance science anyways (shrinking drugs). Apparently defects from this is pretty low but around the same chance as pregnancy of female over 40yr. Is genetic diversity needed as much for kaishin they seem to have pretty different strengths and weaknesses aside from their similarities. DC cousin relationship might be more chill bc of other cousin canon ships.

Or perhaps Heisei Kaishin and Reiwa Kaishin are two entities now (lol).

Kaito will swiftly tell shinichi it's fine with his 400IQ and shinichi would need to take some time to consult with Haibara--> Happy ending

Just some personal ramblings .