SCIENTISTS BUILT TINY ROBOTS POWERED BY MUSCLES AND NERVES
September 19, 2019
A team of engineers just successfully merged biological life with machinery, building tiny sperm-inspired robots that use living nerve and muscle cells to swim around when exposed to light. The new robots aren’t particularly smart — their neural function doesn’t get any more sophisticated than automatically activating their muscles when a light shines on them, according to a press release. But the successful integration of skeletal muscle and stem cell-derived neurons with machinery is a promising sign for the future of the nascent field of soft robotics.
In Case You Missed It: Bannon nailed America’s current geopolitical landscape regarding China…
September 19, 2019
An eloquent and informed delivery of the geopolitical dynamics that mass media won't report on.
Key Points:
- Large western banks in conjunction with China are responsible for deindustrializing the west and bringing western democracies to the brink of bankruptcy.
- Western banks and corporations became the "investor relations" arm of the Chinese regime.
- US corporations have tried to pull their money out of China and China won't release the funds.
- China has pursued a "barbarian management" strategy in which the leaders of threatening tribes are given a taste of the good life, bought out, and then encouraged to neglect the responsibility to their own people.
- Renegotiating NAFTA and other trade agreements enables the US to buffer itself and pivot trade out of China and into more friendly partners that will benefit from capital flows and economic development activities.
- A border adjustment tax is a potential solution to eliminate the tariffs by reorganizing taxation based on location of consumption rather than location of manufacture, thereby reducing incentives for companies to relocate their operations and finances overseas.
- He also gives China a lot of credit - rightfully so - for the many good things they've done for their population and development elsewhere in the world.
The leader of U.S. Space Command recently had meetings with billionaire investors Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson…
September 19, 2019
"I see great advantage in doing that, and I'm excited that they are doing what they are doing, because it's going to pay huge dividends for us as well," he said on the sidelines of the Air Force Association's annual conference.
AI can’t protect us from deepfakes, argues new report – Media manipulation has always required a social and technical fix…
September 19, 2019
To combat this issue, Facebook recently announced that it was releasing a dataset to allow people to test out new models aimed at detecting deepfakes. Startups like TruePic, which use AI and blockchain technology to detect manipulated photos, have started to gain momentum as well. More recently, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) invested in Medifor, which looks at differences in video pixels to determine when something has been doctored. But almost all of these solutions aim to fight manipulation at the point-of-capture (i.e., when a photo or video is taken) or at the detection level (to make it easier to differentiate between doctored and undoctored content)...
Union protesters arrested at Tennessee GM plant…
September 19, 2019
Tensions are rising as a United Auto Workers official says about seven to nine union picketers were arrested for blocking a roadway at a GM plant in Tennessee. The arrests came Wednesday at the Spring Hill plant, according to Local UAW Chairman Mike Herron. Authorities asked the protesters multiple times to get out of the road. Herron said he believes the protesters were afraid trucks might get into the plant.
Pompeo Says U.S. Backs Saudi ‘Right To Defend Itself’ Following Meeting with Mohammed bin Salman…
Says Saudi oil attacks an 'act of war' by Iran, not Yemen rebels...
September 19, 2019
Met with #Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman today to discuss the unprecedented attacks against Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. The U.S. stands with #SaudiArabia and supports its right to defend itself. The Iranian regime’s threatening behavior will not be tolerated.
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) September 18, 2019
Trump Says ‘It’s Crazy’ to Spend $13 Million Per Inmate at Guantánamo…
September 19, 2019
But he would not say whether he would consider closing the prison at Guantánamo. “We’re looking at a lot of things,” he said without elaborating. Instead, he pointed out that his predecessor tried and failed to shutter the prison. “Look, President Obama said that Guantánamo Bay would be closed, and he never got it done.”
The president’s comments came in reaction to a report in The New York Times tabulating the expense of housing the 40 prisoners remaining at Guantánamo, who include the men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. According to the report, the government spent more than $540 million last year to hold the prisoners, including pay for the military guards, the cost of the war court and related construction expenses.
Queens activist to challenge AOC in Democratic primary…
September 19, 2019
Badrun Khan, who officially filed her candidacy in July, announced her campaign on Wednesday, according to The Hill. When asked about the new challenger, Ocasio-Cortez told the site,“I just focus on delivering for my district and doing the best job. I try not to focus too much on other folks in the field”... Khan, who is from New York, was raised by Bengali-born parents.
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On Tuesday, The Post reported how an anti-Ocasio-Cortez “Stop The AOC” political action committee survey of Democrats in her Bronx-Queens 14th District found she’s susceptible to challengers. The survey, found that 47% of Democrats in the 14th Congressional District view her favorably and 29% unfavorably, with 24% unsure.Scientists have invented a robotic device called eNose that can sniff out particles in the breath of patients with advanced lung cancer and then recommend the best treatment strategy. It’s a quicker alternative to previous methods, which required processing tissue samples…
September 19, 2019
BEWARE: Kroger has expanded a partnership with California-based Apeel Sciences, a company that has developed a way to slow the rate at which produce rots, doubling and even tripling the shelf life of produce like limes and avocados…
Something To Think About: Apeel is a Bill & Melinda Gates and Rockefeller Foundation-backed start-up...
September 19, 2019
Apeel says that every plant has a “peel” or natural protective layer that protects it from spoilage. The company added that their “plant-derived technology” is able to provide the produce with an extra later of protection that “slows the rate of water loss and oxidation” which they say is the primary cause of rot.
The company uses a thin “peel” of edible plant-based material that is applied to the surface of the produce, slowing down the rate at which the food ripens and rots...
The following is a snippet taken from Apeel's FAQ page:
What Is Apeel Made Of? Apeel is made of plant-derived materials — lipids and glycerolipids
The functions of lipids include storing energy, signaling, and acting as structural components of cell membranes. So you WILL be storing fat, unnatureally.
Is Apeel Safe To Eat?...it is designated FDA GRAS or “Generally Recognized As Safe.”
Can I Wash Apeel Off? You could likely remove some of Apeel with water and scrubbing, but it’s unlikely that you’d be able to remove all of it without damaging the fruit.
Anyone know where to find out what specifically is in Apeel's solution? "plant derived lipids and glycerolipids" seems intentionally unspecific. In 5 years we'll probably find out it's really detrimental for humans like everything else.
14 Doctors Among 25 People Charged in $150 Million Healthcare Fraud Scheme…
September 19, 2019
-- Navid Vahedi, 40, of Los Angeles; Vahedi's pharmacy, Fusion Rx Compounding Pharmacy; and marketer Joseph S. Kieffer, 39, of Los Angeles, who are charged in a fraud and kickback scheme. Vahedi and Kieffer allegedly paid commissions to marketers and some patients to obtain medically unnecessary compounded drugs to allow Fusion Rx to bill health care providers for those compounded drugs, many of which were reimbursed at rates much higher than average medications. To encourage patients to continue seeking the compounded drugs, Fusion Rx allegedly failed to collect co-payments from patients... To avoid the scheme being uncovered in an audit, they also allegedly directed Fusion Rx staff to use gift cards to pay the patients' co-payments for them so that it would appear they made the required co-payments, resulting in $17 million in losses to health care providers.
HUD’s Lynne Patton is issued warning for violating Hatch Act …
September 19, 2019
Patton, a HUD regional administrator for New York and New Jersey, used her official government Twitter account to promote political tweets and displayed a red “USA” hat sold by the Trump campaign in her office. The OSC issued Patton a warning letter after determining that both activities violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive branch officials from certain political activity while on duty. But the office cleared her of two other alleged violations, involving a tweet defending HUD Secretary Ben Carson and an appearance at an oversight hearing featuring Michael Cohen.
study finds contaminants in US drinking water could lead to nearly 100,000 cases of cancer among people who drink it for a lifetime…
September 19, 2019
Contaminants like arsenic or radium have no smell, color, or taste, making them nearly impossible to identify without a test. In some cases, a single water system could carry multiple contaminants. Public water supplies in California's Central Valley, for instance, have been known to harbor both nitrates and trihalomethanes, a group of chemicals associated with an increased risk of rectal, colon, and bladder cancers.
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The watchdog Environmental Working Group set out to quantify this risk among tap water drinkers in the US. The researchers looked at 22 cancer-causing chemicals that were found in US drinking water from 2010 to 2017. Based on this data, they determined that water pollutants could lead to more than 100,000 cases of cancer among people who consume them for life.SpaceX wants to beam internet across the southern U.S. by late 2020…
September 19, 2019
This would mean launching thousands of satellites to provide broad band in an operation they call star link...
IBM will soon launch a 53-qubit quantum computer…
September 19, 2019
The new system, which is scheduled to go online in the middle of next month, will be the largest universal quantum computer available for external use yet... The fact that IBM is now opening this Quantum Computation itself, of course, is a pretty good indication about how serious the company is about its quantum efforts. The company’s quantum program also now supports 80 partnerships with commercial clients, academic institutions and research laboratories...
South Korea confirms first swine fever outbreak…
September 19, 2019
South Korea on Tuesday (Sept 17) reported its first cases of African swine fever, becoming the latest country hit by the disease that has killed pigs from China to North Korea, pushing up pork prices worldwide. Five pigs found dead at a farm in Paju, a city near the inter-Korean border, were confirmed to have been infected with the virus, an official with Seoul's agriculture ministry told AFP. "At this point, it's too early to confirm if the case stemmed from the North," the official added.
EPA to slap San Francisco with violations related to homeless population…
September 19, 2019
President Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Wednesday that within a week, his administration will slap San Francisco with a notice of environmental violations related to the city’s homelessness problem... Trump said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will give San Francisco a notice related to the “tremendous” amount of pollution flowing into the ocean from the city’s storm sewers, Reuters reported. He also said hypodermic needles also littered the sewers there and were polluting the sea. Trump did not mention the source of the information.
Caesarean babies have different gut bacteria, microbiome study finds. C-section babies pick up more hospital bacteria than those born vaginally, research shows…
September 19, 2019
Previously it was thought that babies’ microbiomes might be shaped by bacteria that they swallow while in the birth canal. But the latest findings revealed that the microbiome of vaginally delivered newborns did not come from vaginal bacteria but from the mother’s gut – presumably picked up at the moment of birth. This calls into question the practice of swabbing babies born by C-section with vaginal bacteria straight after birth.
Babies are sterile when they are in the womb, but as soon as they are exposed to the outside world they begin taking in bacteria, which rapidly colonises the gut. By six to nine months, the differences between the two groups had levelled out...
Tokyo Power Executives Found Not Guilty in Fukushima Disaster Trial…
September 19, 2019
At the Tokyo District Court, former Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 79, along with Ichiro Takekuro, 73, and Sakae Muto, 69, both former vice presidents, had argued they could not have foreseen the massive tsunami that crippled the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and caused core meltdowns. All three pleaded not guilty to the charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury, arguing that the data available to them beforehand was not reliable.
The three were indicted for failing to implement tsunami countermeasures leading to the deaths of 44 people — including patients forced to evacuate from a hospital — as well as for injuries sustained by 13 people in a hydrogen explosions at the plant.