Thursday, January 09, 2020

UK
Students who have been sexually assaulted are being let down by ‘inadequate’ support from universities, regulator warns

Institutions face fines and deregistration if they fail to respond to harassment reports

AFP

Students who have been sexually assaulted or harassed are often being let down by “inadequate” support and “ineffective” reporting procedures in universities, the regulator has warned.

Universities could face sanctions, including fines and deregistration, if they fail to respond to reports of harassment and sexual misconduct, the Office for Students (OfS) said.

The watchdog is calling on institutions to have robust procedures in place to address complaints of sexual abuse and ensure students know how they can report concerns.

Universities should make training available to all staff and students, including consent workshops, to help prevent incidents from taking place on campus, the OfS has urged.

It comes after research revealed that more than half of university students have experienced unwanted sexual behaviour including inappropriate touching, being followed and being forced into sex.

Campaigners previously warned that students have been forced to share sexual abuse allegations on social media due to universities failing to listen to them and subjecting them to poor treatment.

The OfS’s proposals, which are now open for consultation, warn of “widespread reports” of harassment and sexual misconduct that are not being adequately addressed by universities.

Institutions should clearly set out how they will prevent and respond to these complaints, as well as the behaviour expectations they have of students, staff and visitors.

There should be proper policies and processes in place for students to report and disclose incidents, the consultation says, including easy-to-understand information on how to do so.

Nicola Dandridge, the chief executive of the OfS, said: “We continue to hear accounts of students experiencing harassment, sexual assault and other forms of sexual misconduct.

“Too often students say they are not getting the support they need if they suffer this unacceptable behaviour, and that reporting systems are not clear or effective.”

Cambridge don resigns from college after sexual harassment complaints

She added: “We need to do more for the students who are still being let down by ineffective procedures and inadequate support.

“Our proposed statement of expectations sets out the basis of fair, clear and robust processes that we expect all higher education providers to have in place to respond effectively to harassment and sexual misconduct. Where we see evidence of serious failings, we have the regulatory powers to intervene.”

Universities must be registered with the OfS if they want students to receive tuition fee loans. The OfS has a range of powers to sanction institutions – including financial penalties and revoking a registration.

Rachel Watters, the NUS’s women’s officer, said: “We need urgent responses to tackle sexual harassment and violence in colleges and on campus. Historically, efforts towards tackling issues of sexual violence on university campuses have been shouldered by the most marginalised students.”

A spokesperson for Universities UK, an organisation that represents vice-chancellors, said: “Universities are committed to ensuring students and staff have a safe university experience, free from harassment and hate crime, which allows them to thrive in their learning and work.

“Universities welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the progress they are making on this important issue.”

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FOXCONN DENIES REPORTS OF PULLING OUT OF $5 BILLION INVESTMENT IN INDIA

The Taiwanese electronics firm was previously reported to have backed out of its five-year investment.

It was earlier reported that Foxconn had called off its plans of building more manufacturing units in the state of Maharashtra. However, a new report says that the Taiwanese electronics firm hasn’t cancelled the deal.

Foxconn. Image: Reuters

The previous reports stated that Maharashtra’s minister for industries Subhash Desai said, “There is no chance of Foxconn exercising its commitment for investment in the state, as it is facing some problems related to its business.” He mentioned that the company had an "internal dispute" with Apple, one of its largest clients, owing to which it was cancelling the deal.

However, Foxconn has now denied the reports with a statement from its parent company Hon Hai. It also stated that the claim of an “internal dispute” with one of its major clients was also inaccurate. In the report by Focus Taiwan, Hon Hai said that it will establish 10-12 facilities in India this year.

Back in 2015, Foxconn had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Maharashtra state government for an investment of $5 billion (Rs 35,000 crore) over five years. The firm had planned to set up a manufacturing plant near Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) in Navi Mumbai. It also planned to buy 44 acres of land in the same area’s special economic zone (SEZ). According to Hon Hai’s statement, the group’s production in India is going on smoothly.

New York could legalise cannabis this year, governor says Move could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue

Recreational cannabis is currently legal in 11 US states ( Getty )

New York governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday pledged for the second year in a row to legalise recreational cannabis, looking for his state to become the nation’s 12th to do so and saying that it could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Mr Cuomo, a Democrat, made the legalisation of cannabis a key priority as he outlined his agenda for 2020, saying taxes imposed by a regulatory scheme could bring some $300m (£230m) into the state’s coffers and confront injustices in enforcement of drug laws.

“For decades, communities of colour were disproportionately affected by the unequal enforcement of marijuana laws. Last year we righted that injustice when we decriminalised possession,” Mr Cuomo said in his annual State of the State address, according to a transcript of the speech released by his office.

“This year let’s work with our neighbours New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, to coordinate a safe and fair system and let’s legalise adult use of marijuana,” Mr Cuomo said.

Last year, in his 2019 State of the State speech, Mr Cuomo had also declared his intention to legalise cannabis, citing the potential revenues and harm to poorer communities, but the effort foundered in the Democrat-controlled state legislature.

Where is cannabis legal in the US?
Show all 11

In addition to the 11 states where recreational use of marijuana is already legalised, New York joins several others expected to make that push in 2020, including neighbouring New Jersey, which tried and failed to pass such a bill last year.

Cannabis remains illegal under federal law and critics say legalisation at the state level is bad health policy, citing studies which show that the drug can be addictive and affect brain development in young people, in addition to the dangers associated with any kind of smoking.

Officials at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have said that vitamin E acetate, a cutting agent used in cannabis vape cartridges, may play a role in an outbreak of vaping-related lung injuries.

Mr Cuomo in his State of the State speech boasted that New York had “led the way” in banning flavoured vaping and urged passage of laws restricting the sale and advertisement of flavoured e-cigarettes.

“After all the millions of lives lost, big tobacco has come back to life in a different wrapper. They are now in vaping products. We know well the danger of nicotine addiction and we don’t yet know the dangers of vaping, but young Americans are dying to find out,” Mr Cuomo said in his speech.

Reuters

Three quarters of domestic abuse victims trying to flee partner hit with ‘insidious’ technological abuse

Exclusive: ‘Previously you could remove and extract yourself from the abuse. It is now harder. It is easy to feel like you have lost control,’ says expert

Maya Oppenheim Women's Correspondent @mayaoppenheim
Thursday 9 January 2020 09:18

Refuge say they have seen a rise in tech abuse cases which involve abusers using smart locks, webcams and smart heating systems to 'monitor, control and gaslight' victims in the past two years

Refuge say they have seen a rise in tech abuse cases which involve abusers using smart locks, webcams and smart heating systems to 'monitor, control and gaslight' victims in the past two years

Refuge say they have seen a rise in tech abuse cases which involve abusers using smart locks, webcams and smart heating systems to 'monitor, control and gaslight' victims in the past two years

Three in four domestic abuse victims have been exposed to “controlling, humiliating or monitoring” behaviour by their former partners using technology, new figures show.

Refuge, the UK’s largest provider of shelters for domestic abuse victims, found 4,004 women seeking help last year – around three-quarters of the total – had faced abuse from their ex-partner perpetrated via technology.

The tech abuse includes current or former partners using smartphones or their children’s iPads and games consoles to track a woman’s location, sharing so-called revenge porn on the internet or repeated phone calls and messages or harassment via social media.

Refuge say they have seen a rise in tech abuse cases which involve abusers using smart locks, webcams and smart heating systems to “monitor, control and gaslight” victims in the past two years.

Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, thinks such cases were underreported because many women are simply unaware of what is happening to them. She said: “As technology becomes more advanced and more readily available, perpetrators will continue to find new ways of using it to facilitate abuse. Frontline staff at Refuge have recorded an alarming rate of tech abuse cases.

“Put simply, tech abuse is the misuse of everyday technologies and devices by perpetrators, for the purposes of controlling, humiliating or monitoring their victims. It almost always occurs alongside other forms of physical or sexual violence, psychological and economic abuse.

“Women frequently come to Refuge having suffered harassment online, account hacking, spoofing, online identity theft, and revenge pornography. Often, the devices and social media platforms that represent a woman’s vital line of communication to the outside world will be the very same ones used by her perpetrator to isolate and abuse her.”

Jemima*, a 29-year-old teacher who was physically, sexually and emotionally abused by her 43-year-old partner, said he subjected her to tech abuse and stalked her for almost four years after they broke up.

“It was relentless,” she said. “He harassed me through Facebook. I blocked him and what he called his ‘stalker profile’ – a fake account to monitor other people on Facebook – so he would ask other people to check my account and screenshot who I was with and where I was. He would create fake profiles on Facebook and add me. He would email colleagues or career contacts. He was very insidious. I felt like every day I was looking over my shoulder.”

She added: “He wanted to control me in the relationship. He controlled what I wore and ate, what friends I had, where I lived, where I worked and monitored my everyday movements – constantly ringing me or door-stepping me at work. But he carried on controlling me after we broke up. I think he wanted to scare me by knowing he still had control. I felt like I was never going to live a life he didn’t know about. I felt very low. I got a diagnosis of PTSD.”

Jemima said he would also stalk her indirectly by contacting colleagues and friends and eventually moved into her local area in south London after learning where she was living from social media. She then moved into a refuge with an anonymous location provided by Solace Women’s Aid.

Dr Leonie Tanczer, an academic based at UCL who specialises in tech abuse, said there are cases where abusive former partners buy smart toys such as dolls or teddy bears, on the internet or in high street shops which have a GPS location connected to them that abusers can exploit.

She said abusive ex-partners may give such toys as presents to their child and are then able to trace their ex’s movements via the item.

Dr Tanczer added: “You can also get a normal teddy bear and put a GPS device in it or buy spy cameras to put in houses which secretly film. You can also install dedicated malicious spyware on smartphones, laptops and tablets that allows perpetrators to monitor victims.

“Tech abuse feeds the anxiety and worries that victims and survivors hold. It changes the nature of abuse. Previously you could remove and extract yourself from the abuse. It is now harder. It is easy to feel like you have lost control. It is so overwhelming. You may get paranoid because you don’t know what you can trust.”

Elise*, a domestic abuse victim who is in her late thirties, was traced by her ex-partner while in one of Refuge’s shelters last year. The abuse survivor, who came to the refuge with a young child, received a message from her abusive ex-partner saying: “I know where you are.”

Her support worker discovered her ex had access to her email account which had her location settings turned on after looking through her phone.

“From that, he had been able to access her location in real-time, her calendar with the details of all of her appointments with solicitors, doctors, the jobcentre etc,” Jane Keeper, Refuge’s director of operations, said. “He could see the search history on her maps and also had access to her internet search history.”

She added: “Knowing her location in the refuge was a huge safety risk to her, other residents, and staff. She had to pack her bags and move to another refuge in the middle of the night. The support worker helped her to close her email account and secure her device. She was given a burner phone, and the support worker also helped her to change all the passwords and account settings for her online banking as he had also been withdrawing money from her account without her knowledge.”

The perpetrator continued to stalk her on social media and posted threats to her and the child on his account but was eventually taken to court, Ms Keeper added.

Refuge, which has been running a specialist tech abuse service since 2017, has launched a chatbot, an easy-to-navigate platform that allows women to find out how to safeguard their everyday devices, on their website this week.

*Jemima and Elise’s names have been changed to protect their identities.

Anyone who requires help or support can contact the National Domestic Violence Helpline via their website www.nationaldomesticviolencehelpline.org.uk

ONE OF OUR TEENY TINY SATELLITES IS MISSING NASA

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has lost contact with one of its exoplanet-hunting CubeSats ASTERIA.

The Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics (ASTERIA) is a briefcase-sized satellite that was deployed on 20 November 2017 to seek out exoplanets — any planets that orbit a star and lie outside our solar system.

The short-term missions of ASTERIA were to demonstrate that the technology required to find exoplanets can be shrunk in size to fit into a small Cubesat, and its long-term missions were to show that CubeSats could assist larger exoplanet missions like NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey (TESS).

NASA engineers prepare the ASTERIA spacecraft in April 2017 prior to its launch. Image credit: NASA

The last successful communication with ASTERIA was on 5 December 2019. NASA hopes to continue its attempts to get in touch with it till March 2020. ASTERIA's mission was completed in February 2018, after which it was tasked with three mission extensions.

The CubeSat, as per a statement, observed a handful of nearby stars and successfully demonstrated that it could achieve precision measurements of the stars' brightness. Scientists are looking at the collected data to find if ASTERIA spotted any distant worlds. The dips in a star's light can indicate if an orbiting planet passing between the satellite and the star.

"The ASTERIA project achieved outstanding results during its three-month prime mission and its nearly two-year-long extended mission," said JPL's Lorraine Fesq, the ASTERIA program manager in a press release.

"Although we are disappointed that we lost contact with the spacecraft, we are thrilled with all that we have accomplished with this impressive CubeSat."

GODZILLA GALAXIE

HUBBLE CAPTURES WHAT MAY BE THE LARGEST SPIRAL GALAXY IN OUR LOCAL UNIVERSE
WHICH JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE KNOWN AS: Neues von „Hubble“: Weltraumteleskop entdeckt „Godzilla-Galaxie“YEP GODZILLA GOT A GALAXY NAMED AFTER HIMSELF

The Hubble Space Telescope, managed jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), has taken a stunning new image of a barred spiral galaxy located some 232 million light-years from Earth, in the northern constellation of Perseus. Dubbed UGC 2885, or LEDA 14030, the spiral galaxy is 8,16,000 light-years wide — roughly 8 times the size of the Milky Way Galaxy. Astronomers also think it contains ten times the number of stars as the Milky Way.

UGC 2885 has also acquired the nickname 'Rubin’s Galaxy' after astronomer Dr Vera Rubin, by Dr Benne Holwerda from the University of Louisville, who observed the galaxy with the Hubble telescope.

Galaxy UGC 2885 may be the largest one in the local universe. It is 2.5 times wider than our Milky Way and contains 10 times as many stars. This galaxy is 232 million light-years away, located in the northern constellation of Perseus.

"Dr Rubin measured the galaxy’s rotation, providing evidence for dark matter that makes up most of the galaxy’s mass," Dr Holwerda said. His research into the size and features of UGC 2885 has been inspired largely by the work of Vera Rubin in the 1980s. Holwerda and his colleagues from Canada and the United States are studying the galaxy to understand what led to its enormous size.

"It’s as big as you can make a disk galaxy without hitting anything else in space," Holwerda said. "Did the monster galaxy gobble up much smaller satellite galaxies over time? Or did it just slowly accrete gas to make new stars?"

Holwerda thinks the galaxy appears to be "puttering along, slowly growing." UGC 2885 is situated in a fairly isolated locale, without many galaxies in striking distance to crash into and disrupt the shape of its disk. But it is close enough to Earth for Dr Holwerda and his co-authors to make some finer observations. For instance, the number of globular star clusters that appear in UGC 2885's halo.

"It is close enough for Hubble observations to resolve the globular cluster population," the astronomers said.

Another thing the team hopes to study using UGC 2885 are scaling trends — how important physical properties like mass, size, luminosity and colour of galaxy clusters relate to others in the same galaxy or others.

"[Many] scaling relations between the globular cluster population and parent galaxy have been observed, but these differ for disk and spheroidal galaxies [which are more massive]," said Holwerda. "This galaxy is an ideal test case of these scaling relations as it lies between spiral and massive ellipticals."

The team of astronomers are expected to present their findings on 8 January 2020 at the 235th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawai'i

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INDIA 2020 LOTTA CONTINUA

Jakarta floods on New Year's Day due to heavy rains;

16 killed, thousands displaced in Indonesian capital [Photos]

FP Staff Jan 2, 2020

1/6

A fleet of flooded taxis is seen at the operator's submerged parking lot following overnight rain in Jakarta. 16 people died after Indonesia's capital was hit by its deadliest flooding in years, as torrential rains on New Year's Eve left vast swathes of the megalopolis submerged. Getty Images

2/6

Residents cross the floods that inundated their settlements to flee to high land in Cibitung Regency, West Java. The heavy rain that occurred for more than 15 hours since 31 December caused massive floods in Jakarta. Getty Images

3/6

A rescue team evacuates residents from their flooded houses in Jakarta. Monsoon rains and rising rivers submerged at least 169 neighborhoods and caused landslides in the Bogor and Depok districts on Jakarta's outskirts, National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said. Getty Images

4/6

Residents wade through a flooded neighborhood in Tanggerang on the outskirts of Jakarta. Video and photos showed cars floating in muddy waters while soldiers and rescuers in rubber boats helped children and elders forced onto the roofs of flooded homes. The floods inundated thousands of homes and buildings in poor and wealthy districts alike, have forced authorities to cut off electricity and water and paralysed transport networks, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo. AP

5/6

A rescue team evacuates residents from their flooded houses in Jakarta. National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Agus Wibowo said, 120,000 rescuers were helping people evacuate and installing mobile water pumps as more downpours were forecast. He vowed his city administration would complete flood-mitigation projects on the two rivers. Getty Images

6/6

Children play in a flooded neighborhood in Tanggerang on the outskirts of Jakarta, which is home to 10 million people and 30 million live in its greater metropolitan area. It is prone to earthquakes and flooding and is rapidly sinking due to the uncontrolled extraction of groundwater. AP

NASA/ESA celebrates Hubble telescope completing 30 years with 13 spectacular gems from space [Photos]

tech2 News Staff Jan 08, 2020

1/13

The galaxy NGC 3256 has a distorted shape as a result of a past galactic merger between two spiral galaxies. It is located around 100 million light-years away from Earth. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

2/13

This is the most comprehensive image, ever assembled, of an evolving universe and contains around 10,000 galaxies. This image is a result of a study conducted by astronomers called the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field project. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

3/13

This image shows a part of the Veil Nebula, that is located around 2100 light-years from Earth. This brightly coloured cloud of glowing debris spans approximately 110 light-years. The section of the nebula is known as the Witch’s Broom Nebula. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

4/13

This image is the birth announcement of a young star named IRAS 14568-6304. It is cloaked in a haze of golden gas and dust. The dark region swirling around is known as the Circinus molecular cloud that has a mass around 250,000 times that of the Sun and is filled with gas, dust and other young stars. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

5/13

This 2016 image from the Hubble telescope captures one of the largest gatherings of hot, massive and bright stars in the Milky Way, in the star cluster Trumpler 14. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

6/13

Hubble captured this image in 2011 and it features the fine detail and perfect spiral structure of NGC 634 galaxy. It is located 250 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation of Triangulum. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

7/13

The 2011 composite image of Sh 2-106 shows a newly formed star at the centre that is shrouded in dust and gas. The glowing blue light is hydrogen gas. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

8/13

This is a 2018 composite image of the ringed planet Saturn that is pictured with six of its 82 known moons. From left to right, the moons visible in this image are Dione, Enceladus, Tethys, Janus, Epimetheus, and Mimas. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

9/13

This 2012 Hubble image of the NGC 5189 is particularly dramatic and unveiled new details of the object. The intricate structure of the stellar eruption looks like a giant and brightly coloured ribbon in space. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

10/13

A star-studded view of the Milky Way galaxy was captured in 2016 by Hubble when it pointed its cameras towards the Sagittarius constellation. The stars with red hues are red dwarfs and are much cooler than the Sun. They are either at the end of its life or much smaller in mass. The blue hues indicate hot, young, or massive stars, many times the mass of the Sun. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

11/13

In January 2002, a moderately dim star known as V838 Monocerotis in the constellation of Monoceros suddenly became 600,000 times brighter than our Sun. A Hubble snapshot shows remarkable details in the shells of dust that were lit up during the stellar eruption. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

12/13

Hubble captured a stunning close-up shot of part of the Tarantula Nebula, which is the most luminous nebula of its type in the local Universe. This star-forming region is rich in ionised hydrogen gas in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy which neighbours the Milky Way. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

13/13

The Hubble telescope revealed a rainbow of colours in the dying star, IC 4406. Like many other planetary nebulae, IC 4406 shows a high degree of symmetry. The nebula's left and right halves are nearly mirror images of each other. Image credit: ESA/Hubble

VENUS MORNING STAR LUCIFER
Venus could still have active volcanoes on it, with its most recent eruptions taking place a few years ago, according to a new study.

TECH2 NEWS STAFFJAN 06, 2020 14:35:13 IST

So far, astronomers agree that Jupiter's moon Io is the only known place apart from Earth known to host active volcanoes that spew lava. The Earth's moon and Mars are both thought to have once had volcanoes on their surface, which died out many millions of years ago.

Going by the levels of trace sulfurous gases in its atmosphere, scientists think Venus could still harbor active volcanoes. Scientists reviewed data from the European Space Agency's Venus Express probe, suggesting that some of the lava flows is as recent as 2.5 million years old, and potentially less than 2,50,000 years old.

File image of Venus taken by NASA's Pioneer-Venus Orbiter in 1979. Image: NASA

Some data collected by the Venus orbiter in 2010 points to unusually-high emissions of visible to near-infrared light at multiple sites on the planet. When these emissions are high, it suggests that new surfaces on Venus have experienced weathering from the hot, caustic atmosphere of Venus.

The exact ages of these lava flows, however, researchers are still uncertain about, because a lot is still unknown about how quickly volcanic rocks alters in response to the harsh atmosphere of Venus, and how these changes affect the emissions of visible to near-infrared light.

Scientists used crystals of a green mineral commonly found in volcanic rock, called olivine, to put their theory to test. Watching for how these crystals altered when exposed to conditions like those on the surface of Venus, researchers placed the olivine in a furnace with Earth air heated to 1,650 degrees F (900 degrees C) for up to a month. The olivine was coated in days with red-black mineral hematite.

The ESA's Venus Express probe suggested that some of the lava flows on Venus are less than 2.5 million years old, and possibly even less than 2,50,000 years old. Image: ESA

Venus Express circled the planet between 2006 to 2014, during which time it reportedly detected signatures of olivine from orbit, suggesting that the olivine came from recent volcanic eruptions. It is was from a much older eruption, reacting with Venus' atmosphere will have made it obscure.

"This is the first time we may have seen active volcanism on another planet," Justin Filiberto, study lead author and planetary scientist at the Universities Space Research Association's Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, told Space.com. The scientists have explained and elaborated their finding in the journal Science Advances.

Origin of Deep-Space Radio Flash Discovered, and It's Unlike Anything Astronomers Have Ever Seen

By Adam Mann

Things are only getting more confusing.

An animation shows the random appearance of fast radio

(IPAC/Caltech); B. Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF)

HONOLULU — Mysterious ultra-fast pinpricks of radio energy keep lighting up the night sky and nobody knows why. A newly discovered example of this transient phenomenon has been traced to its place of origin — a nearby spiral galaxy — but it's only made things murkier for astronomers.

The problem concerns a class of blink-and-you'll-miss-them heavenly events known as fast radio bursts (FRBs). In a few thousandths of a second, these explosions produce as much energy as the sun does in nearly a century. Researchers have only known about FRBs since 2007, and they still don't have a compelling explanation regarding their sources.

"The big question is what can produce an FRB," Kenzie Nimmo, a doctoral student at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said during a news briefing on Monday (Jan. 6) here at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Scientists were given some help in 2016, when they discovered an FRB that repeated its quick-pulsing radio tune in random bursts. All previous examples had been one-off events.

The repeating FBR was eventually traced back to a dwarf galaxy with a high rate of star formation 3 billion light-years away, Nimmo said. The galaxy contains a persistent radio source, possibly a nebula, that could explain the FRB's origin, she added.

Astronomers have also managed to determine that three non-repeating FRBs came from distant massive galaxies with little star formation going on. This seemed to provide evidence that repeating and non-repeating FRBs arose from different types of environments, Nimmo said. But the new discovery challenges this simple story.

FRB 180916.J0158+65, as the object is known, is a repeating FRB discovered by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) observatory, a radio telescope near Okanagan Falls in British Columbia that Nimmo called "the world's best FRB-finding machine."

Follow-up observations by a network of telescopes in Europe allowed the research team to produce a high-resolution image of the FRB's location. This location turned out to be a medium-sized spiral galaxy like our Milky Way that is surprisingly nearby, only 500 million light-years away, making it the closest-known FRB to date. The results were published yesterday (Jan. 6) in the journal Nature.

Image of SDSS J015800.28+654253.0, the host galaxy of
Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 180916.J0158+65. The green circle
shows the location of the FRB. The image was captured by
the 8-meter Gemini-North telescope.
(Image credit: Gemini Observatory/NSF’s
Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/AURA)

Despite precisely locating the FRB, the team was unable to detect any radio sources in the spiral galaxy that could explain the mysterious outbursts. Even worse, this new entity seems not to fit the patterns established by previous repeating and non-repeating FRBs.

"This is completely different than the host and local environments of other localized FRBs," Benito Marcote, a radio astronomer at the Joint Institute for VLBI European Research Infrastructure Consortium and lead author of the Nature paper, said during the news briefing.

The researchers hope that subsequent data might help them get a handle on what this FRB is telling them. But until then, they might have to continue scratching their heads over these puzzling phenomena.

Related: The 15 Weirdest Galaxies in Our UniverseCosmic Record Holders: The 12 Biggest Objects in the Universe15 Amazing Images of StarsThe Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics

Originally published on Live Science.

KENNEY HAS A STUPIDER IDEA EVAN THAN A SALES TAX

Alberta risks ‘double jeopardy’ if it exits Canada Pension Plan, leading expert warns
Provincial plan could burden future generations with falling contributions and declining assets

A supporter attends a rally for Wexit Alberta rally in Calgary.

The province is exploring withdrawing from the Canadian

Pension Plan.Reuters/Todd Korol/File Photo

Victor Ferreira
January 8, 2020

One of Canada’s leading pension experts is warning Albertans to consider the “double jeopardy” of falling contributions and investment asset values they might be subjecting future generations to if they replace the Canada Pension Plan with a provincial alternative.

In a report published on Wednesday, Keith Ambachtsheer, president of KPA Advisory Services and director emeritus at the International Center for Pension Management, said that a potential switch to a provincially run pension plan could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to establish and would also put its contributors in danger of facing serious underwriting and investment risks.

Primarily, Ambachtsheer is concerned an Alberta Pension Plan could be used to double down on the oil and gas industry.

“It’s a simple diversification argument: If your underlying economy is to a significant degree dependent on the health of a particular industry that if you also put your retirement savings into that industry, it’s double jeopardy,” said Ambachtsheer. He added that Norway avoided making the same error with its fossil fuel industry by ensuring its pension plan’s investments are all international and beginning the process to divest from oil and gas.

Why AIMCo taking over Alberta’s pension scheme could be a high-risk, high-reward gambit
Alberta to study ‘compelling case’ of withdrawing from Canada Pension Plan, Jason Kenney says

An Alberta exit from Canada’s pension plan would cost the rest of the country big time

In November, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney floated the idea of pulling the $40 billion Alberta has in the CPP and putting it under the management of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation amid frustrations that the province’s economic interests were being neglected by Ottawa. A “fair deal” panel made up of former politicians and business leaders has since been created and has been consulting with Albertans through town halls about withdrawing from the pension, among other issues. The panel will present its report to the government by March 31.
An Alberta Treasury Board and Finance spokesperson said it welcomes all submissions about the potential creation of an Alberta Pension Plan to the panel, including Ambachtsheer’s.

“It is worth noting that there have been a variety of views expressed by experts on this topic, including those from the Fraser Institute, the CD Howe Institute and the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, all of which highlighted potential benefits of an Alberta Pension Plan,” the spokesperson said.

Some of the appeal surrounding a withdrawal is centered around the potential for Albertans to make lower contributions than the current 9.9 per cent of pay. Studies from the Fraser Institute and C.D. Howe suggested that an Alberta Pension Plan could cut contributions to the six-to-eight-per-cent range while providing the same benefits. This is mostly due to the fact that the majority of Alberta’s contributors are much younger and higher-paid than the rest of Canada’s.

That younger population — the median age, according to Statistics Canada, is 37.1 years old and the youngest in the country — has led to Albertans contributing more than they otherwise would to the plan, Kenney argued in November.

Ambachtsheer questioned the legitimacy of a lower contribution rate due to the potential of Alberta’s younger citizens leaving the province for greener pastures should the oil and gas industry continue to decline.

Should the industry continue to struggle, Ambachtsheer said he worries there could be fewer jobs available in the province, especially those that pay well. That could impact the total contributions made to the APP and the only way to make up for the lost capital would be to raise the rate.

Building out and administering the plan could also lead to a exorbitant bill for taxpayers to front. Ambachtsheer points to the $70 million Ontario spent developing a potential pension plan of its own between 2014 and 2016, before joining the CPP expansion instead.

As for the costs to operate it, Ambachtsheer uses the example of the Alberta Pension Services Corporation, which provides pension administration services to 375,000 public sector employees in the province. It pays $175 per person, per year to do so. Using that math, it would cost $525 million to administer the plan to the three million Albertans currently making CPP contributions.

The process has yet to be tested, but no province has ever withdrawn from the CPP.

• Email: vferreira@nationalpost.com

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