More Stimulus Checks Should Be Among Biden's Top Priorities, Nearly 80% of Americans Say

Nearly 80 percent of Americans believe that President-elect Joe Biden should prioritize providing the public new stimulus checks after being sworn into office on Wednesday, according to a new poll.

© Chip Somodevilla/Getty President-elect Joe Biden is pictured speaking at the Major Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III National Guard/Reserve Center in New Castle, Delaware on January 19, 2021.

A Morning Consult poll released Tuesday found that 79 percent of respondents believe that the "top" or "important, but lower" economic priority of the Biden administration should be to "provide new stimulus checks." An even larger share, 82 percent, said that the administration should prioritize "additional small business aid" to help businesses continuing to struggle amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden Unveils Huge COVID Relief Plan: What To Know About $1,400 Stimulus Checks 

A call to "extend housing finance policies," potentially including new moratoriums on evictions or foreclosures, was also a popular priority for the incoming president, favored by 72 percent. Additionally, 69 percent said Biden should "increase unemployment benefits," the same percentage that said the administration should supply new "aid to state and local government."

Increasing the "taxes on wealthy" was the next most popular choice, with 65 percent support.

Other economic policy issues that a majority of respondents said should be prioritized included boosting the U.S. manufacturing industry, regulating climate risks in finance, regulating large banks and providing student loan debt relief. The least popular choice to make the list was regulating small or mid-sized banks, which 43 percent of respondents said should be a priority.

The poll was conducted among 2,200 adults in the U.S. between January 8 and January 11. It has a margin of error of plus or minus two percent.

Biden plans to push for $1,400 stimulus checks after taking office, which would bring the total among of recent payments to $2,000 when combined with recently issued $600 checks. The smaller payment was the subject of widespread backlash, prompting a surprise push for the $2,000 checks from President Donald Trump. The outgoing president found a rare point of agreement with congressional Democrats, who also demanded the higher amount, joined by a handful of their Republican colleagues.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) repeatedly blocked a vote on the measure last month. Republicans will lose control of the upper chamber shortly after the Biden inauguration on Wednesday, when new Georgia Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are sworn in.

The title of majority leader will then be transferred to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is unlikely to block voting on new stimulus checks.

Senate Democrats now appear to be united in their support of the new $1,400 stimulus checks and measure is expected to pass Congress, even if the Republicans who supported Trump's call for increased payments change course and oppose the proposal under Biden.

Newsweek reached out to the Biden transition team for comment.

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Nepal team become first to summit Pakistan's K2 

in winter

The climbers made history as they reached the peak of what is known as the "Savage Mountain" where winds can blow at more than 200 kilometres per hour and temperatures can drop to minus 60 degrees Celsius

.

FILE PHOTO: In this file photo taken on August 14, 2019, porters set up tents at the Concordia camping site in front of K2 summit (C) in the Karakoram range of Pakistan's mountain northern Gilgit region. (AFP)

A team of Nepali climbers has made history after becoming the first to summit Pakistan's K2 in winter, singing their country's national anthem as they reached the top.

Dozens of mountaineers have been competing over the past few weeks to summit the world's second-highest mountain, the last peak above 8,000 metres (26,000 feet) to be topped in wintertime.

"WE DID IT," tweeted Seven Summit Treks, a trekking company leading one of the expeditions.

"The Karakorum's 'Savage Mountain' been summited in most dangerous season: winter. Nepalese climbers finally reached the summit of Mt K2 this afternoon at 17:00 local time."

The name "Savage Mountain" comes from the punishing conditions there – winds can blow at more than 200 kilometres per hour and temperatures can drop to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 76 Fahrenheit).

Since the maiden attempt in 1987-1988, just a handful of winter expeditions have been tried on the storied 8,611-metre (28,250-foot) peak in the Karakoram range along the Chinese border.

None had got higher than 7,650 metres until Saturday, when the good conditions allowed the climbers to push ahead.

The 10 Nepali climbers had earlier been spread across different teams, but formed a new group in order to claim the feat in Nepal's name.

'Very special moment'

Despite being famed for their climbing expertise, there has never before been a Nepali climber on the first winter ascent of a peak over 8,000 metres.

One of the triumphant climbers, Nirmal Purja, who is also known as Nimsdai, described it as a "very special moment".

"The whole team waited 10m below the summit to form a group then stepped onto the summit together whilst singing our Nepalese National Anthem," wrote Purja in a social media post.

"We are proud to have been a part of history for humankind and to show that collaboration, teamwork and a positive mental attitude can push limits to what we feel might be possible."


Bravery and strength

At least one of the climbers, Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, had planned to reach the summit without using oxygen.

The news sparked joy throughout Nepal, long used to watching foreign climbers seize the records.

"For decades, Nepalis have assisted foreigners to reach the summits of the Himalayas, but we've not been getting the recognition we deserve," said renowned Nepali climber Kami Rita Sherpa, who has climbed Everest a record 24 times.

READ MORE: Rescue mission for seven climbers stranded on Pakistan peak 'soon'

"The spotlight has always been on foreign climbers. It is wonderful that today on K2 ten Nepalis have made history and shown our bravery and strength."

Nepali guides, usually ethnic Sherpas from the valleys around Everest, are considered the backbone of the climbing industry in the Himalayas for bearing huge risks to carry equipment and food, fix ropes and repair ladders.

"Sherpas are top climbers of the world, and it is a proud moment for us. But reaching the summit is only the first half. We hope now that they can all make it back down safely," warned Ang Tshering Sherpa, the former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association.

A lonely place

One of the final technical difficulties to be overcome by the group was the dreaded "bottleneck", a narrow and steep passage where 11 people were killed in August 2008 in K2's worst known tragedy.

Many climbers have died trying to reach the summit, while others were killed on the dangerous descent.

Lockdowns and travel bans sparked by the coronavirus pandemic meant the summer climbing season last year was a bust in most of the popular climbing destinations in the region, such as Nepal.

READ MORE: Nepali becomes world’s fastest climber after scaling 14 highest peaks

With Pakistan's borders open and few other places to go, this winter an unprecedented four teams totalling around 60 climbers converged on the mountain, more than all previous expeditions put together.

Unlike Mount Everest, which has been topped by thousands of climbers young and old, K2 is a much lonelier place.

Northern Pakistan is home to some of the world's tallest mountains, including K2 in the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Nestled between the western end of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush mountains and the Karakoram range, Gilgit-Baltistan has 18 of the world's 50 highest peaks.

READ MORE: Nepalese Sherpa conquers Mount Everest for 23rd time

Popular Thai politician charged with defaming monarchy

BANGKOK — Thai officials on Wednesday filed criminal charges against a popular former politician, accusing him of defaming the monarchy by broadcasting criticism of government efforts to secure supplies of coronavirus vaccines.  

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The action against Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit came just a day after Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters that that his government will prosecute anyone who shares false information about coronavirus vaccines.

Thanathorn, former leader of the dissolved Future Forward Party, accused the government of acting too slowly in procuring the vaccines. He also pointed out that the government’s main contract for vaccine supply was made with a Thai company owned by the royal palace. The government and the company deny any wrongdoing.

“What Thanathorn said is not true at all. The monarchy has nothing to do with the vaccines and they are not in the position to respond to him in the public,” said Thosaphol Pengsom, a vice minister attached to the prime minister’s office.

Vice Minister of Digital Economy and Society Newin Chochaiyathip said at a news conference that anyone who shares Thanathorn’s broadcast or distorted information about vaccines and monarchy judged to be distorted would be prosecuted.

Thanathorn’s office said he had no immediate comment.

The government has increasingly used the law against defaming the monarchy to crack down on critics. The law, widely know as Article 112, makes insulting King Maha Vajiralongkorn or his family punishable by three to 15 years’ imprisonment.

Thanathorn has long been a thorn in the side of Prayuth’s government. His party, critical of the army, a pillar of the country’s establishment, made a strong third-place showing in the 2019 general election, but he was forced out of Parliament when a court ruled that he had broken an election law. His party was later dissolved on a similar technicality. He has faced a number of legal cases which supporters charge are politically motivated.

Also Wednesday, six activists from Thailand’s pro-democracy movement reported to police to acknowledge Article 112 charges against them.

Their appearance at a central Bangkok police station was the latest skirmish between Thailand’s royalist establishment and the youth-led protest movement that caught fire last year with a series of well-attended rallies around the country calling for major political reforms, including of the country’s influential monarchy.

The six protesters were charged by police with insulting or expressing malice toward the king in connection with a December protest at a Bangkok shopping mall. The charge sheet offers no details.

According to a member of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, who asked for anonymity because she was not authorized to release information, police explained that the charges were related to wearing short cropped T-shirts at their protest to make fun of the king and his queen. Two minors were not accused of wearing inappropriate attire but of having signs or making hand gestures supporting the protest.

Photographs of the king casually wearing cropped T-shirts have circulated widely on social media and have been published overseas, but not in Thai mass media, which does not publish undignified photos of the royal family.

The monarchy is revered by many Thais and until recently was almost universally treated as an untouchable institution. But the protest movement charges that monarchy is unaccountable and wields too much power is what is supposed to a democratic constitutional monarchy.

From November to January this year, about 50 people have been charged with lese majeste — though none has yet gone to trial. Most if not all cases were based on statements made at public rallies or posted on the internet.

Critics says the law can easily be abused because anyone — not just royals or authorities — can lodge a complaint. After Vajralongkorn took the throne in 2016, he informed the government that he did not wish to see the law used.

But the escalating criticism of the king late last year prompted Prayuth to declare that the protesters had gone too far and could now expect to be prosecuted for their actions.

——-

Associated Press video journalist Tassanee Vejpongsa contributed to this report.

Grant Peck And Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul, The Associated Press

CANADA

Set clear rules for vaccinating health care workers against SARS-CoV-2

CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL

Research News

Provincial and territorial governments should set clear rules for vaccinating health care workers against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in public and private settings, and should not leave this task to employers, according to an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"An effective vaccine provided to health care workers will protect both the health workforce and patients, reducing the overall burden of COVID-19 on services and ensuring adequate personnel to administer to people's health needs through the pandemic," writes Dr. Colleen M. Flood, University of Ottawa Research Chair in Health Law & Policy and a professor at the university, with coauthors.

The analysis, authored by legal scholars and a physician-researcher, describes legal precedents from attempts to mandate influenza vaccines for health care workers and how those precedents might apply to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination. It also describes the legal justification for mandating SARS-CoV-2 vaccination for health care workers and other legal considerations.

When creating policy for mandatory vaccination of health care workers, it will be important to include exemptions for people who cannot receive a vaccine because of underlying health issues or other reasons. These exemptions will help protect government mandates if there is a challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Based on current evidence, these challenges would likely be unsuccessful if there are exemptions in place for employees. It is important to note that any vaccinate or stay at home order would not force a health care worker to be vaccinated.

"What is less clear is whether or not a health care worker could argue that they should be able, in lieu of vaccination, to wear personal protective equipment," says Dr. Flood. "Initially, even those vaccinated will continue to wear PPE, but we think courts should accept the application of the precautionary principle so as to require vaccination in most circumstances. It will, however, be essential to collect and weigh real-world evidence of the benefits of both vaccines and PPE."

The authors distinguish between overall mandated government actions that might qualify under the Charter and actions from nongovernmental organizations, such as a private long-term care home requiring its own health care workers to be vaccinated, in which case the Charter would not apply.

"This is an important issue to address with science and law working together," says Dr. Kumanan Wilson, senior scientist, The Ottawa Hospital, and Clinical Research Chair in Digital Health Innovation, University of Ottawa. "Given the rapid development of various COVID-19 vaccines and emerging evidence, new data will determine whether these policies will stay in effect or will be modified."

Support for people who may experience a rare adverse event from mandatory vaccination is important. "We applaud the recent announcement of a no-fault vaccine compensation scheme and await the implementation of the program. Although not a cure all, it does provide some security for health care workers obligated to vaccinate pursuant to carrying out their vital work," the authors write.

Listen to a podcast with Dr. Colleen M. Flood on the legal aspect of mandatory vaccination of health care workers https://soundcloud.com/cmajpodcasts/202755-ana

New COVID-19 model shows little benefit in vaccinating high-risk individuals first

NYU TANDON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

Research News

 

BROOKLYN, New York, Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - The World Health Organization reports that as of January 19, 2021, there are approximately 94 million cases of COVID-19 globally, with over 2 million deaths. In the face of these numbers -- driven in part by an aggressive resurgence of the virus in the U.S. -- health authorities face a tenuous balancing act: how to enact policies to keep citizens safe while doing the least possible damage to quality of life and local economies, especially in smaller cities and towns, where short supply of intensive care units and tight budgets make the thin line between precautionary measures and normalcy even thinner.

A new theory and simulation platform that can create predictive models based on aggregated data from observations taken across multiple strata of society could prove invaluable.

Developed by a research team led by Maurizio Porfiri, Institute Professor at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, the novel open-source platform comprises an agent-based model (ABM) of COVID-19 for the entire town of New Rochelle, located in Westchester County in New York State.

In the paper "High-Resolution Agent-Based Modeling of COVID-19 Spreading in a Small Town," published in Advanced Theory and Simulations, the team trains its system, developed at the resolution of a single individual, on the city of New Rochelle -- one of the first outbreaks registered in the United States.

The ABM replicates, geographically and demographically, the town structure obtained from U.S. Census statistics and superimposes a high-resolution -- both temporal and spatial -- representation of the epidemic at the individual level, considering physical locations as well as unique features of communities, like human behavioral trends or local mobility patterns.

Among the study's findings are those suggesting that prioritizing vaccination of high-risk individuals has only a marginal effect on the number of COVID-19 deaths. To obtain significant improvements, a very large fraction of the town population should, in fact, be vaccinated. Importantly, the benefits of the restrictive measures in place during the first wave greatly surpass those from any of these selective vaccination scenarios. Even with a vaccine available, social distancing, masks, and mobility restrictions will still be key tools to fight COVID-19.

Porfiri pointed out that focusing on a city of New Rochelle's size was crucial to the research because most cities in the U.S. have comparable population sizes and concentrations. "We chose New Rochelle not only because of its place in the COVID timeline, but because agent-based modelling for mid-size towns is relatively unexplored despite the U.S. being largely composed of such towns and small cities," he said.

Supported by expert knowledge and informed by officially reported COVID-19 data, the model incorporates detailed elements of pandemic spread within a statistically realistic population. Along with testing, treatment, and vaccination options, the model also accounts for the burden of other illnesses with symptoms similar to those of COVID-19.

Unique to the model is the possibility to explore different testing approaches -- in hospitals or drive-through facilities-- and vaccination strategies that could prioritize vulnerable groups. "We think decision making by public authorities could benefit from this model, not only because it is 'open source,' but because it offers a 'fine-grain' resolution at the level of the individual and a wide range of features," noted Porfiri.

The research team included Zhong-Ping Jiang, professor of electrical and computer engineering; post-docs Agnieszka Truszkowska, who led the implementation of the computational framework for the project, and Brandon Behring; and graduate student Jalil Hasanyan; as well as Lorenzo Zino from the University of Groningen, Sachit Butail from Southern Illinois University, Emanuele Caroppo from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and Alessandro Rizzo from Turin Polytechnic, and visiting professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NYU Tandon.

###

The work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (CMMI1561134 and CMMI-2027990), Compagnia di San Paolo, MAECI ("Mac2Mic"), the European Research Council, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research.

About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute. A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences as part of a global university, with close connections to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. NYU Tandon is rooted in a vibrant tradition of entrepreneurship, intellectual curiosity, and innovative solutions to humanity's most pressing global challenges. Research at Tandon focuses on vital intersections between communications/IT, cybersecurity, and data science/AI/robotics systems and tools and critical areas of society that they influence, including emerging media, health, sustainability, and urban living. We believe diversity is integral to excellence, and are creating a vibrant, inclusive, and equitable environment for all of our students, faculty and staff. For more information, visit engineering.nyu.edu.

A Black scientist who approved the coronavirus vaccine says it is 'nothing like Tuskegee' and people of color will not be 'guinea pigs'

© ARK LENIHAN/POOL/AFP/Getty MARK LENNIHAN/POOL/AFP/Getty

Black Americans are less likely to get the coronavirus vaccine than white people, but are more likely to get sick and die from COVID-19. 

Some are concerned about the speed of vaccine development. Dr. James E. K. Hildreth, a Black immunologist, explained how the process was safely expedited. 

He also said the coronavirus vaccine is "nothing like Tuskegee" in part because Black scientists like him have been involved every step of the way.

As the coronavirus vaccine is haphazardly distributed across the country, Black Americans are being left behind.

A Kaiser Health News analysis found that while Black Americans are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, in some states their vaccination rates are two to three times lower than their white neighbors.

The gap is due in part to a long history of racial discrimination and mistreatment by the US healthcare system, which has contributed to mistrust in vaccines among people of color. In December, 35% of Black people said they probably or definitely wouldn't get the shot.

Dr. James E. K. Hildreth, a Black immunologist who serves on the FDA committee that authorized both Pfizer and Moderna's shots for emergency use in the US, understands why.

"How can we be confident that a vaccine that was developed so quickly is safe and effective?" he said people of color ask him, adding that they also "don't want to be the guinea pigs, they don't want to be experimented on as were the men in the Tuskegee experiment from many decades ago."

He addressed those concerns during Monday's Choose Healthy Life Black Clergy Conclave, an online convening of more than 100 Black clergy, leading public-health officials, and corporate and scientific leaders who are working to boost COVID-19 testing and other resources in the Black community.

The doctor said there are three key reasons that explain the vaccine's speed of development, and many more why the coronavirus vaccine is "nothing like Tuskegee." 

The vaccine was developed quickly due to technology, parallel processes, and existing infrastructure

Past vaccines have taken years to develop. After decades of global research, an HIV vaccine is still elusive.

But coronavirus vaccines have been developed in just 10 months, which "will go down probably as one of the greatest scientific achievements of this century," Hildreth, who's also the president and CEO of Meharry Medical College, said.

It was possible because "we have technologies available to us that just a few years ago were not even imaginable," he said. Plus, vaccines are typically developed iteratively, or with one step completed before the next begins. "In this case ... those [processes] have been running parallel," Hildreth said.

Finally, the worldwide infrastructure already in place for HIV vaccine development - including scientists and facilities - pivoted to focus on COVID-19, eliminating the need to develop a new one from the ground up.
The coronavirus vaccine is 'nothing like Tuskegee'

During the infamous Tuskegee experiment, US scientists monitored about 400 Black men with syphilis but did not treat them for the disease or even tell them they had it. The study lasted about four decades, according to a timeline from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ending in 1972.

Hildreth said the horror of Tuskegee prompted major changes in human research.

Today, institutional review boards approve research protocols before they can begin, data safety monitoring boards continuously watch data from ongoing trials to ensure they're safe, and advisory groups review the data before recommending vaccine approval.

Black people have been involved in it all, Hildreth said. "We have been involved in every phase of development, we're sitting on all sides of the table, and that alone makes this very different from the Tuskegee experiment."

He added that his university, a historically Black institution, is involved in vaccine trials and giving the vaccine to people in its community. "We would not risk our reputation as an institution if there was the least bit of concern that the vaccines were not safe."

Last, 10% of participants in the vaccine trials were Black, and 30% to 50% had underlying conditions like diabetes, asthma, obesity, and high blood pressure that disproportionately affect people of color. In all those groups, the vaccines were more than 90% effective.

"For all those reasons, I am convinced that this is a vaccine people of color must take," Hildreth said, "because otherwise, we're putting our lives and our communities at risk."
Read the original article on Business Insider

Constructing termite turrets without a blueprint

Researchers develop a mathematical model to explain the complex architecture of termite mounds

HARVARD JOHN A. PAULSON SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCES

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE INTERIOR OF A TERMITE NEST SHOWS COMPLEX, INTERCONNECTING FLOORS AND RAMPS. view more 

CREDIT: (IMAGE COURTESY OF GUY THERAULAZ/HARVARD SEAS)

Following a series of studies on termite mound physiology and morphogenesis over the past decade, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have now developed a mathematical model to help explain how termites construct their intricate mounds.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Termite mounds are amongst the greatest examples of animal architecture on our planet," said L. Mahadevan, the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and of Physics and lead author of the study. "What are they for? How do they work? How are they built? These are the questions that have puzzled many scientists for a long time."

In previous research, Mahadevan and his team showed that day-to-night temperature variations drive convective flow in the mound that not only ventilates the colony but also move pheromone-like cues around, which trigger building behavior in termites.

Here, the team zoomed in further to understand how termites build the intricately connected floors in individual mounds without a plan or a planner. With experimentalists from the University of Toulouse, France led by Guy Theraulaz, the researchers mapped the interior structures of two nests using CT scans, and quantified the spacing and arrangement of floors and ramps. Adding to the complexity of the nests is the fact that not only do termites build simple ramps to connect floors but they also build spiral ramps, like the ramps in parking garages, to connect multiple floors.

Using these visualizations and incorporating the previous findings on how factors such as daily temperature shifts and pheromone flows drive building, OEB graduate student Alexander Heyde and Mahadevan constructed a mathematical framework to explain the layout of the mound.

Heyde and Mahadevan thought of each component of the mound -- the air, the mud and the termites -- as intermixed fluids that vary in space and time.

"We can think of the collection of hundreds of thousands of termites as a fluid that can sense its environment and act upon it," said Heyde. "Then you have a real fluid, air, transporting pheromones through that environment, which drives new behaviors. Finally, you have mud, which is moved around by the termites, changing the way in which the pheromones flow. Our mathematical framework provided us with clear predictions for the spacing between the layers, and showed the spontaneous formation of linear and helical ramps."

"Here is an example where we see that the usual division between the study of nonliving matter and living matter breaks down," said Mahadevan. "The insects create a micro-environment, a niche, in response to pheromone concentrations. This change in the physical environment changes the flow of pheromones, which then changes the termite behaviors, linking physics and biology through a dynamic architecture that modulates and is modulated by behavior. "

In addition to partially solving the mystery of how these mounds work and are built, the research may well have implications for swarm intelligence in a range of other systems and even understanding aspects of tissue morphogenesis.

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The research was co-authored by Lijie Guo and Christian Jost. It was supported in part by the US and French National Science Foundations under grant numbers DGE-1144152, ANR-06-BYOS-0008, and PHY1606895.

Mystery of Martian glaciers revealed

Research shows Mars had as many as six to 20 ice ages during the past 300-800 million years

COLGATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: THIS IMAGE OF A GLACIER ON MARS SHOWS THE ABUNDANCE OF BOULDERS WITHIN THE ICE. HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGING OF THE SURFACE OF MARS SUGGESTS THAT DEBRIS-COVERED GLACIER DEPOSITS FORMED DURING MULTIPLE... view more 

CREDIT: JOE LEVY/COLGATE UNIVERSITY

In a new paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of ScienceS (PNAS), planetary geologist Joe Levy, assistant professor of geology at Colgate University, reveals a groundbreaking new analysis of the mysterious glaciers of Mars.

On Earth, glaciers covered wide swaths of the planet during the last Ice Age, which reached its peak about 20,000 years ago, before receding to the poles and leaving behind the rocks they pushed behind. On Mars, however, the glaciers never left, remaining frozen on the Red Planet's cold surface for more than 300 million years, covered in debris. "All the rocks and sand carried on that ice have remained on the surface," says Levy. "It's like putting the ice in a cooler under all those sediments."

Geologists, however, haven't been able to tell whether all of those glaciers formed during one massive Martian Ice Age, or in multiple separate events over millions of years. Since ice ages result from a shift in the tilt of a planet's axis (known as obliquity), answering that question could tell scientists how Mars' orbit and climate have changed over time -- as well as what kind of rocks, gases, or even microbes might be trapped inside the ice.

"There are really good models for Mars' orbital parameters for the last 20 million years," says Levy. "After that the models tend to get chaotic."

Levy concocted a plan to examine the rocks on the surface of the glaciers as a natural experiment. Since they presumably erode over time, a steady progression of larger to smaller rocks proceeding downhill would point to a single, long ice age event.

Choosing 45 glaciers to examine, Levy acquired high-resolution images collected by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite and set out to count the size and number of rocks. With a resolution of 25 centimeters per pixel, "you can see things the size of a dinner table," Levy says.

Even at that magnification, however, artificial intelligence can't accurately determine what is or isn't a rock on rough glacier surfaces; so Levy enlisted the help of 10 Colgate students during two summers to count and measure some 60,000 big rocks. "We did a kind of virtual field work, walking up and down these glaciers and mapping the boulders," Levy says.

Levy initially panicked when, far from a tidy progression of boulders by size, the rock sizes seemed to be distributed at random. "In fact, the boulders were telling us a different story," Levy says. "It wasn't their size that mattered; it was how they were grouped or clustered."

Since the rocks were traveling inside the glaciers, they were not eroding, he realized. At the same time, they were distributed in clear bands of debris across the glaciers' surfaces, marking the limit of separate and distinct flows of ice, formed as Mars wobbled on its axis.

Based on that data, Levy has concluded that Mars has undergone somewhere between six and 20 separate ice ages during the past 300-800 million years. Those findings appear in PNAS, written along with six current or former Colgate students; Colgate mathematics professor Will Cipolli; and colleagues from NASA, the University of Arizona, Fitchburg State University, and the University of Texas-Austin.

"This paper is the first geological evidence of what Martian orbit and obliquity might have been doing for hundreds of millions of years," Levy says. The finding that glaciers formed over time holds implications for planetary geology and even space exploration, he explains. "These glaciers are little time capsules, capturing snapshots of what was blowing around in the Martian atmosphere," he says. "Now we know that we have access to hundreds of millions of years of Martian history without having to drill down deep through the crust -- we can just take a hike along the surface."

That history includes any signs of life potentially present from Mars' distant past. "If there are any biomarkers blowing around, those are going to be trapped in the ice too." At the same time, eventual explorers to Mars who might need to depend on extracting fresh water from glaciers to survive will need to know that there may be bands of rocks inside them that will make drilling hazardous. Levy and his colleagues are now in the process of mapping the rest of the glaciers on Mars' surface, hoping with the data they have, artificial intelligence can now we trained to take over the hard work of identifying and counting boulders.

That will bring us one step closer to a complete planetary history of the Red Planet -- including the age-old question of whether Mars could ever have supported life.

"There's a lot of work to be done figuring out the details of Martian climate history," says Levy, "including when and where it was warm enough and wet enough for there to be brines and liquid water."

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Astronomers dissect the anatomy of planetary nebulae using Hubble Space Telescope images

Researchers from RIT and Green Bank Observatory shed new light on nebula formation processes

ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Research News

 

IMAGE: ON THE LEFT IS AN IMAGE OF THE JEWEL BUG NEBULA (NGC 7027) CAPTURED BY THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE IN 2019 AND RELEASED IN 2020. FURTHER ANALYSIS BY RESEARCHERS PRODUCED... view more 

CREDIT: STSCI, ALYSSA PAGAN

Images of two iconic planetary nebulae taken by the Hubble Space Telescope are revealing new information about how they develop their dramatic features. Researchers from Rochester Institute of Technology and Green Bank Observatory presented new findings about the Butterfly Nebula (NGC 6302) and the Jewel Bug Nebula (NGC 7027) at the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Friday, Jan. 15.

Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 observed the nebulae in 2019 and early 2020 using its full, panchromatic capabilities, and the astronomers involved in the project have been using emission line images from near-ultraviolet to near-infrared light to learn more about their properties. The studies were first-of-their-kind panchromatic imaging surveys designed to understand the formation process and test models of binary-star-driven planetary nebula shaping.

"We're dissecting them," said Joel Kastner, a professor in RIT's Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science and School of Physics and Astronomy. "We're able to see the effect of the dying central star in how it's shedding and shredding its ejected material. We're able to see that material that the central star has tossed away is being dominated by ionized gas, where it's dominated by cooler dust, and even how the hot gas is being ionized, whether by the star's UV or by collisions caused by its present, fast winds."

Kastner said analysis of the new HST images of the Butterfly Nebula is confirming that the nebula was ejected only about 2,000 years ago--an eyeblink by the standards of astronomy - and that the S-shaped iron emission that helps give it the "wings" of gas may be even younger. Surprisingly, they found that while astronomers previously believed they had located the nebula's central star, it was actually a star not associated with the nebula that is much closer to Earth than the nebula. Kastner said he hopes that future studies with the James Webb Space Telescope could help locate the actual central star.

The team's ongoing analysis of the Jewel Bug Nebula is built on a 25-year baseline of measurements dating back to early Hubble imaging. Paula Moraga Baez, an astrophysical sciences and technology Ph.D. student from DeKalb, Ill., called the nebula "remarkable for its unusual juxtaposition of circularly symmetric, axisymmetric, and point-symmetric (bipolar) structures." Moraga noted, "The nebula also retains large masses of molecular gas and dust despite harboring a hot central star and displaying high excitation states."

Jesse Bublitz '20 Ph.D. (astrophysical sciences and technology), now a postdoctoral researcher at Green Bank Observatory, has continued analysis of NGC 7027 with radio images from the Northern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) Telescope, where he identified molecular tracers of ultraviolet and X-ray light that continue to shape the nebula. The combined observations from telescopes at other wavelengths, like Hubble, and bright molecules CO+ and HCO+ from NOEMA indicate how different regions of NGC 7027 are affected by the irradiation of its central star.

"We're very excited about these findings," said Bublitz. "We had hoped to find structure that clearly showed CO+ and HCO+ spatially coincident or entirely in distinctive regions, which we did. This is the first map of NGC 7027, or any planetary nebula, in the molecule CO+, and only the second CO+ map of any astronomical source."

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In addition to Kastner, Moraga, and Bublitz, the research team involved in the HST imaging work includes Rodolfo Montez Jr. '10 Ph.D. (astrophysical sciences and technology) from Harvard-Smithsonian CfA; Bruce Balick from University of Washington; as well as Adam Frank and Eric Blackman from University of Rochester. Bublitz's international team of collaborators on radio molecular line imaging of NGC 7027 includes Kastner, Montez Jr., and astrophysicists from Spain, France, and Brazil.

For more information, contact Luke Auburn at 585-490-3198, luke.auburn@rit.edu, or on Twitter: @lukeauburn.

Blockchain technology to optimize P2P energy trading

Mitsubishi Electric and Tokyo Tech Develop - For more flexible trading environments and expanded use of surplus electricity from renewable energy

TOKYO INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Research News

 

IMAGE: A RESEARCH TEAM OF TOKYO INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, IN COLLABORATION WITH MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC CORPORATION, HAS DEVELOPED A NEW TECHNOLOGY AN ORIGINAL BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY THAT CAN OPTIMIZE PEER-TO-PEER (P2P) ENERGY... view more 

CREDIT: SYMPOSIUM ON CRYPTOGRAPHY AND INFORMATION SECURITY

A Tokyo Tech research team led by Specially Appointed Professor Takuya Oda of the Institute of Innovative Research and Professor Keisuke Tanaka of the School of Computing, in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, has developed a new technology an original blockchain[1] technology that can optimize peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading[2]. The technology is expected to contribute to more effective use of surplus electricity from renewable energy by creating trading environments that flexibly respond to shared trading needs, particularly to maximize the amount of surplus electricity available in the market at any given time. Beginning in April, the P2P energy trading system's performance will be evaluated to further optimize the algorithm as required, aiming at the earliest possible commercialization.

Flexible P2P energy trading using blockchain technology to optimally match trades

General blockchain technologies, such as those used for trading cryptocurrencies, require a large number of high-performance computers to perform massive calculations, or mining[3], when determining the creator of a new block to record trading information. To clear buy and sell orders, a conventional method[4] can be used to match conditions and process transactions, but this does not optimize matches.

Mitsubishi Electric and Tokyo Tech have developed an original blockchain technology to optimize P2P energy trading. Their newly devised distributed-optimization algorithm enables customer computers to share trading goals and data and then optimally match buy and sell orders using minimal computations. Also, the new mining method is executable on a micro-computing server.

CAPTION

A research team of Tokyo Institute of Technology, in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, has developed a new technology an original blockchain technology that can optimize peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading. The technology is expected to contribute to more effective use of surplus electricity from renewable energy by creating trading environments that flexibly respond to shared trading needs, particularly to maximize the amount of surplus electricity available in the market at any given time.

CREDIT

Symposium on Cryptography and Information Security

Conventional blockchain

*Mining to determine block generators

*Run on high-performance computers

New system's blockchain

*Mining to optimize trading

*Run on small computers

As shown in Fig. 2, using the new technology involves four steps. In the first step, information on buy and sell orders with a common trading goal (market surplus, profit, etc.) are shared by computing servers during a predetermined timeframe. Second, each server searches for buy and sell orders matched to the common goal in the first step. Third, each server shares its search results. In the fourth and final step, each server receives the search results and generates a new block by selecting trades that best meet the shared goal, which it adds it to each blockchain.

P2P energy trading benefits consumers by enabling them to engage in direct trading as buyers and sellers and sometimes make trades even above offer prices or below bid prices if the right match is found. In addition, since new offers and bids can be issued, a customer who fails to make a trade can improve the chances of making a trade by changing the price or quantity in the next offer or bid after refering to the previous offer/bid conditions.

The trading goal shared among consumers can be changed to meet specific needs. For example, if the goal is to maximize the amount of surplus electricity available in the market, the best offer-bid match can be searched with respect to this common goal. If a surplus exists, the trading price would likely decrease according to market principles and thus demand for recharging electric vehicles would likely increase due to cheaper prices. As a result, surplus power usage would be maximized without retail power companies having to respond to market fluctuations.

If the priority is the profits of prosumers and consumers, the shared goal can be adjusted to increase total profits, or raise the lowest profits, of all prosumers and consumers. By allowing the shared goal to be adjusted, the system enables flexible P2P energy trading.

To ensure fair trading, the decentralized search of a solution occurs in parallel on multiple computers where equivalent[5] matches are selected randomly.

Background

As a measure against global warming, Japan introduced a feed-in tariffs (FIT) system to enable electric utilities to purchase electricity generated from solar and other renewable energy sources at fixed prices. The law for this system, however, has been gradually retired since November 2019. With buy-seller contracts under the FIT system now expiring, prosumers need to find alternative retail-power suppliers to sell their surplus electricity at acceptable prices.

As a new method of trading surplus power, P2P energy trading is attracting attention by allowing prosumers to directly trade surplus energy at optimal prices. Since the current Electricity Utilities Industry Law allows only retail power companies to sell electricity to consumers, demonstrations are now being conducted to test the use of blockchain technology for P2P power transactions under the management of retail electric operators, aiming at verifying the effectiveness of such transactions while identifying any possible issues.

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Footnotes

[1] A distributed ledger technology that connects blocks of transaction information in a chain along a timeline

[2] Direct trading of electricity between consumers (users) and prosumers (producers who are also users)

[3] The use of extensive iterative calculations to search for a value that satisfies an uncommon condition. In a typical blockchain, the first person to succeed in a search receives a processing fee.

[4] A contract method used in the stock and wholesale electricity markets, known as the continuous double-auction method.

[5] Orders where all information, except order name, is the same, including order time, price, quantity and type of buy or sell.

About Tokyo Institute of Technology

Tokyo Tech stands at the forefront of research and higher education as the leading university for science and technology in Japan. Tokyo Tech researchers excel in fields ranging from materials science to biology, computer science, and physics. Founded in 1881, Tokyo Tech hosts over 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students per year, who develop into scientific leaders and some of the most sought-after engineers in industry. Embodying the Japanese philosophy of "monotsukuri," meaning "technical ingenuity and innovation," the Tokyo Tech community strives to contribute to society through high-impact research. https://www.titech.ac.jp/english/