PPE in the United States: What Went Wrong?

AUG 10, 2020 | KEVIN KUNZMANN

In a clinical sense, the burden of limited healthcare-based personal protective equipment (PPE) at the beginning of the US response to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) drove the great disparity in healthcare worker infection rates still observed today.

In a metaphorical sense, the PPE shortage could represent the greater failures of the US healthcare system: well-known to be insufficient in a possible crisis, but never challenged to be changed until it was too late.

Just as new data reported in The Lancet Public Health last week states the predictable—that early COVID-19 healthcare workers with poor PPE reported a 30% greater likelihood of infection than their properly protected colleagues—the fallout from COVID-19 resource shortcomings has resulted in predictable backlash.

“I think the whole crisis and the speed of the pandemic really laid bare a lot of underlying problems I don’t think anyone truly ever acknowledged,” Andrew Chan, MD, MPH, said.

In an interview with Contagion, Chan—study author of the new Lancet study and professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School—discussed the observed “deep fragmentation” of the PPE supply chain in the US.

“The fact there wasn’t any nationalized, centralized approach to how PPE was going to be resourced across the country was really a major problem—especially when you’re dealing with large-scale health crisis,” Chan said.

While some regions were even overstocked with emergent healthcare materials, at-need hospitals and emergency units faced great shortages in necessary supplies early into COVID-19 spread.

Now, experts are seeking to improve a rumored issue the pandemic has made bare.

“I think this leads to people thinking hard about trying to understand the supply chain for PPE, also what are the rules and regulations that govern its dispersal and allocation,” Chan said.

Discovery transforms understanding of hydrogen depletion at the seafloor
by Lehigh University

AUGUST 10, 2020

The hybrid remotely-operated vehicle Nereus was used to collect seafloor samples, in addition to remotely operated vehicle Jason II, at Piccard vents at Mid-Cayman Rise. Credit: Jill McDermott

The discovery in the 1970s of hydrothermal vents, where volcanoes at the seafloor produce hot fluid exceeding 350 degrees Celsius, or 662 degrees Fahrenheit, fundamentally changed the understanding about Earth and life. Yet, life at and underneath the seafloor is still very much a mystery today.

Gaining a better understanding of these volcanically active areas is important, as the chemistry at seafloor vents impacts ocean chemistry more generally. In addition, the seafloor's unique environment supports biological and non-biological processes that offer clues as to how life on Earth first began, how it is sustained over time and the potential for life on other planetary bodies.

According to geochemist Jill McDermott, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at Lehigh University, past studies of the chemistry of hydrothermal vent fluids have revealed reductions in certain gas species, such as molecular hydrogen. These depletions were thought to be caused by microbiological communities living in the shallow seafloor, collectively called the subseafloor biosphere.

However, results of a new study by McDermott and colleagues contradict that assumption. The researchers analyzed gas-tight hydrothermal fluid samples from the world's deepest known vent field, the Piccard hydrothermal field at the Mid-Cayman Rise, which is at a depth of 4970 meters, or about 16,000 feet below sea level. They observed chemical shifts in their samples, including a large loss of molecular hydrogen, that could only be the result of abiotic (non-biological) and thermogenic (thermal breakdown) processes, because the fluid temperatures were beyond the limits that support life, understood to be 122 degrees Celsius, or around 250 degrees Fahrenheit, or lower.

The results were published online today in an article "Abiotic redox reactions in hydrothermal mixing zones: decreased energy availability for the subsurface biosphere" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Additional authors include: Christopher German, Senior Scientist in Geology & Geophysics and Jeffrey Seewald, Senior Scientist in Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry and Sean Sylva, Research Associate III, in Marine Chemistry & Geochemistry from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and Shuhei Ono, Associate Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Lead author Jill McDermott performing a chemical analysis called titration to analyze the hydrogen sulfide content of vent fluid samples onboard the R/V Falkor in 2013. Credit: Julie Huber

"Our study finds that these shifts in chemistry are driven by non-biological processes that remove energy before microbial communities gain access to it," says McDermott. "This could have critical implications for constraining the extent to which global geochemical cycles can sustain a deep biosphere, and for the global hydrogen budget."

She adds "This also means the subsurface biosphere is likely receiving less energy than anyone had realized previously. The degree to which non-biological hydrogen consumption in the oceanic crust may reduce the impact of life inhabiting the seafloor is a great target for future studies."Using chemical analysis of dissolved gasses, inorganic compounds, and organic compounds, the team found that the low-temperature fluid samples originated from mixing between seawater and the nearby Beebe Vents black smokers, so named because the fluid expelled from the vents resembles black smoke from a chimney. In these mixed fluid samples, many chemical species are either high or low in abundance, according to McDermott. The sample with the largest shifts in the amount of gas had a seafloor temperature of 149 degrees Celsius, or 300 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that is too hot to host life. Thus, they concluded, the process responsible for the geochemical changes could not directly involve life.

The non-biological reactions they identified as responsible for these chemical shifts include sulfate reduction and the thermal degradation of biomass, and are supported by mass balance considerations, stable isotope measurements, and chemical energetics calculations.

The samples were collected during two research expeditions using two remotely operated vehicles, Jason II and Nereus, both designed for deep-water exploration and to conduct a diverse range of scientific investigations in the world's oceans.

Too hot to host life, the high temperature Beebe Vents black smokers serve as the source fluids for nearby mixing zones that span the thermal boundary between habitable and uninhabitable below-seafloor environments. All vent fluids were collected with gas-tight, titanium hydrothermal fluid samplers that maintain bottom pressure before shipboard sample retrieval. Credit: Chris German, WHOI/NASA, NSF/ROV Jason/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

"This was a really exciting field program that provided a rare opportunity for us to explore the complex interplay between the chemistry of a natural environment and the life that it supports," said Seewald. "We are now in a much better position to estimate the amount of microbial life that may exist beneath the seafloor."

Discovered in 2010, the Piccard Hydrothermal Field is located just south of Grand Cayman in the Caribbean. The fluid samples the researchers examined vented at 44 to 149 degrees Celsius (111 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit), providing a rare opportunity for the team to study the transition between life-supporting and non-life-supporting environments.

"The cool (hot) thing about this study is that we were able to find a set of vents that spanned from where it was too hot for life, to where it was just right," says German. "That particularly cute set of circumstances opened up the possibility to gain new insights into what life might (and might not) be able to do, down beneath the seafloor."

Shifts in hydrothermal vent fluid temperature and chemical composition are known to serve as an important control on microbial community structure and function in the oceanic crust throughout the world's oceans.

"This relationship exists because hydrothermal fluids provide energy for specific microbial metabolic reactions," says McDermott. "However, the reverse question of whether vent fluid chemistry is modified by life itself, or instead by non-living processes, is an important one that is rarely addressed."

The team's discovery may serve to open up a new path of exploration toward assessing whether non-biological processes serve as important controls on energy availability, in addition to microbial processes.


Explore further Discovery of unknown hydrogen in mid-ocean ridge points to hidden biosphere

More information: Jill M. McDermott el al., "Abiotic redox reactions in hydrothermal mixing zones: Decreased energy availability for the subsurface biosphere," PNAS (2020). 

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2003108117

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by Lehigh University

Utilizing agtech plant labs for human testing could help fight pandemic, study says

by University of Saskatchewan

GIFS' liquid handling robot used to automate the dispensing of specific amounts of liquids to containers in the lab. Credit: Pierre-Luc Pradier.

Just as redeploying a fleet of small British fishing boats helped during the Battle of Dunkirk, marshalling the research equipment and expertise of the many agtech labs around the world could help combat pandemics, say the authors of a just-published article in Nature Biotechnology.

Sophisticated agtech labs and equipment used for crop and animal breeding, seed testing, and monitoring of plant and animal diseases could easily be adapted for diagnostic testing and tracing in a human pandemic or epidemic, the article states.

"If there is anything this current pandemic has shown us, it is that we need to mobilize efforts on a large scale to ramp up diagnostics," said lead author Steven Webb, chief executive officer of the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask).

"We must mobilize 'large ships' to fight pandemics by exploiting and adapting the screening capacity of high-throughput plant breeding laboratories which can rapidly analyze hundreds of thousands of samples."
The authors urge a national or international effort to co-ordinate rapid redeployment of digital agriculture infrastructure for pandemic preparedness. This approach would relieve the pressure on limited testing tools in the health sector and speed up the ability to respond with treatment and measures to contain the spread and occurrence of disease.

"Agtech has the infrastructure and capacity to support this need through its versatile equipment that can be used for very large-scale and automated applications including genetic testing and sequencing, virus detection, protein analysis, and gene expression," Webb said.

For instance, automated analysis of new plant varieties could be quickly switched to the automated detection of viral RNA or proteins, as well as detection of neutralizing antibodies, in humans. Selection of the fittest plant cultivars for breeding could be replaced by confirmation of patient diagnose of infectious diseases.

"As an example, the Omics and Precision Agriculture Laboratory (OPAL) at GIFS combines the digital data analysis of plant genes and traits with the latest precision agriculture technologies, and can provide a complete profile and data analysis of 3,000 plant samples per day," said Webb.

"Appropriate quality control measures would guide OPAL's switch from plant sample testing and analysis to human sample diagnostics during a pandemic, complying with regulation and using processes personnel are trained to employ."

GIFS has already lent equipment to enable expanded testing of COVID-19 blood samples and has donated materials and supplies to the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

The article notes that pandemics also affect animals and plants, with severe consequences for human food security, the economy, the environment, and society. For instance, the Great Famine in Ireland caused by the potato blight in the 1800s led to one million deaths and the spread of the blight in Europe claimed another 100,000 lives.

The article stresses the need to be able to adapt available agtech infrastructure from 'peacetime' applications to emergency use for diagnostic testing. This requires development of contingency protocols at national and international levels.

"There needs to be comprehensive quality control, standardizing the process and outcomes of this high-capacity testing of pandemic diagnostic samples," Webb said.

As well, there's a need to invest in agricultural technologies that can easily be adapted for medical use during pandemics.

"We need to be proactive to fight the next one. A proactive approach on all fronts will ensure the world is more prepared with the infrastructure and resources needed to respond to a pandemic," said Webb.


Explore further New research reveals previously hidden features of plant genomes

More information: Steven R. Webb et al, Agtech infrastructure for pandemic preparedness, Nature Biotechnology (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41587-020-0654-5

Journal information: Nature Biotechnology

Provided by University of Saskatchewan

Biology blurs line between sexes, behaviors

#PANSEXUALITY #ANDROGENY #BISEXUALITY #HERMAPHRODISM

by University of Rochester Medical Center

AUGUST 10, 2020

Credit: University of Rochester Medical Center

Biological sex is typically understood in binary terms: male and female. However, there are many examples of animals that are able to modify sex-typical biological and behavioral features and even change sex. A new study, which appears in the journal Current Biology, identifies a genetic switch in brain cells that can toggle between sex-specific states when necessary, findings that question the idea of sex as a fixed property.
The research—led by Douglas Portman, Ph.D., an associate professor in the University of Rochester Department of Biomedical Genetics and the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience—was conducted in C. elegans, a microscopic roundworm that has been used in labs for decades to understand the nervous system. Many of the discoveries made using C. elegans apply throughout the animal kingdom and this research has led to a broader understanding of human biology. C. elegans is the only animal whose nervous system has been completely mapped, providing a wiring diagram—or connectome—that is helping researchers understand how brain circuits integrate information, make decisions, and control behavior.

There are two sexes of C. elegans, males and hermaphrodites. Though the hermaphrodites are able to self-fertilize, they are also mating partners for males, and are considered to be modified females. A single gene, TRA-1, determines the sex of these roundworms. If a developing worm has two X chromosomes, this gene is activated and the worm will develop into a female. If there is only one X chromosome, TRA-1 is inactivated, causing the worm to become a male.

The new study shows that the TRA-1 gene doesn't go completely silent in males, as had been previously thought. Instead, it can go into action when circumstances compel males to act more like females. Typically, C. elegans males prefer searching for mates over eating, in part because they can't smell food as well as females do. But if a male goes too long without eating, it will dial up its ability to detect food and acts more like a female. The new research shows that TRA-1 is necessary for this switch, and without it hungry males can't enhance their sense of smell and stay locked in the default, food-insensitive mate-searching mode. TRA-1 does the same job in juvenile males—it activates efficient food detection in males that are too young to search for mates.

"These findings indicate that, at the molecular level, sex isn't binary or static, but rather dynamic and flexible," said Portman. "The new results suggest that aspects of the male nervous system might transiently take on a female 'state,' allowing male behavior to be flexible according to internal and external conditions."

A separate study appearing Current Biology by a team of collaborating researchers at Columbia University further describes the complex molecular mechanism by which TRA-1 is controlled by sex chromosomes and other cues.

Explore further 

Biological sex tweaks nervous system networks, plays role in shaping behavior

More information: Hannah N. Lawson et al, Dynamic, Non-binary Specification of Sexual State in the C. elegans Nervous System, Current Biology (2020).

DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.07.007

Journal information: Current Biology

Provided by University of Rochester Medical Center

The Left Hand of Darkness - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › The_Left_Hand_of_Darkness

The Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by U.S. writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Published ... Le Guin used the term Ekumen for her fictional alliance of worlds, a term coined by her father, who derived it ... The protagonist of the novel, the envoy Genly Ai, is on a planet called Winter ("Gethen" in the language of its own ...

[Guest] 5 Science Fiction Novels that Center on Bisexuality ...

girlsincapes.com › 2016/08/17 › diversereads-sffbisexuality

Aug 17, 2016 - The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K Le Guin US paperback cover 2000 Genly Ai is a human envoy from the Ekumen, an 83-world collective that's ... Genly is sent to Winter, where the inhabitants can choose to alter their ...

Gender and glaciers: Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of ...

https://www.tor.com › 2009/06/08 › the-poetry-of-anthropology-ursula-le-...

Jun 8, 2009 - I love the world, I love Karhide at least, the country and the people and how ... She's also written the story “The Winter King” where she uses “she” as ... well to communicate the androgynous/bi-gender (bisexual?) nature of the ...

World Reduction in Le Guin - Verso

 

Fredric Jameson on Ursula K. Le Guin's method of radical abstraction and simplification.

https://www.versobooks.com › blogs › 3588-world-reduction-in-le-guin

Jan 25, 2018 - Huddled forms wrapped in furs, packed snow and sweaty faces, ... Such is our entry into the other world of The Left Hand of Darkness ... is less coding, channeling, and repressing of sex than in any bisexual society I know of.

Review: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin ...

https://www.adventureswithwords.com › 2013/12 › review-the-left-hand-o...

Dec 13, 2013 - Mr Ai has been sent to observe the inhabitants of the snow-bound planet of Winter. ... Le Guin wants us to think about our own world view and whether we ... so the notion of hetero-, homo- or bisexuality becomes null and void.

Aliens, Androgynes, and Anthropology: Le Guin's Critique of ...

https://www.jstor.org › stable

by M FAYAD - ‎1997 - ‎Cited by 31 - ‎Related articles

ditism but spiritual bisexuality," while "androgyny" is used by Sandra. Gilbert and ... inner world of Gethen, of Winter, as the Investigators call it. It is not a "dark.

The Undermining of Feminine Roles in Le Guin's Genderless ...

https://gradesfixer.com › Essay Samples › Literature › Science Fiction

Apr 30, 2018 - The novel takes place in Karhide, where winter is the nation's only season ... Although Le Guin sought to create a genderless world, she still created ... “Even in a bisexual society the politician is very often something less than ...

Dwarf planet Ceres is an ocean world: study

by Patrick Galey

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has its own gravity

The dwarf planet Ceres—long believed to be a barren space rock—is an ocean world with reservoirs of sea water beneath its surface, the results of a major exploration mission showed Monday.


Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, enabling the NASA Dawn spacecraft to capture high-resolution images of its surface.

Now a team of scientists from the United States and Europe have analysed images relayed from the orbiter, captured around 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the asteroid.

They focused on the 20-million-year-old Occator crater and determined that there is an "extensive reservoir" of brine beneath its surface.

Several studies published Monday in the journals Nature Astronomy, Nature Geoscience and Nature Communications also shed further light on the dwarf planet, which was discovered by Italian polymath Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801.

Using infrared imaging, one team discovered the presence of the compound hydrohalite—a material common in sea ice but which until now had never been observed off of Earth.

Maria Cristina De Sanctis, from Rome's Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica said hydrohalite was a clear sign Ceres' used to have sea water.

"We can now say that Ceres is a sort of ocean world, as are some of Saturn's and Jupiter's moons," she told AFP.

The team said the salt deposits looked like they had built up within the last two million years—the blink of an eye in space time.

This suggests that the brine may still be ascending from the planet's interior, something De Sanctis said could have profound implications in future studies.

"The material found on Ceres is extremely important in terms of astrobiology," she said.

"We know that these minerals are all essential for the emergence of life."

Writing in an accompanying comment article, Julie Castillo-Rogez, from the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the discovery of hydrohalite was a "smoking gun" for ongoing water activity.

"That material is unstable on Ceres' surface, and hence must have been emplaced very recently," she said.

In a separate paper, US-based researchers analysed images of the Occator crater and found that its mounds and hills may have formed when water ejected by the impact of a meteor froze on the surface.

The authors said their findings showed that such water freezing processes "extend beyond Earth and Mars, and have been active on Ceres in the geologically recent past".




Explore further Mysterious dwarf planet Ceres gets ready for the spotlight

More information: C. A. Raymond et al. Impact-driven mobilization of deep crustal brines on dwarf planet Ceres, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1168-2


A. Nathues et al. Recent cryovolcanic activity at Occator crater on Ceres, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1146-8

R. S. Park et al. Evidence of non-uniform crust of Ceres from Dawn's high-resolution gravity data, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1019-1

M. C. De Sanctis et al. Fresh emplacement of hydrated sodium chloride on Ceres from ascending salty fluids, Nature Astronomy (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1138-8

B. E. Schmidt et al. Post-impact cryo-hydrologic formation of small mounds and hills in Ceres's Occator crater, Nature Geoscience (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0581-6
Journal information: Nature Astronomy , Nature Communications , Nature Geoscience


© 2020 AFP

GREEN CAPITALISM
California Agency Backs Green-Energy Pilot Using RSK’s Bitcoin Smart Contracts

The California Energy Commission, the state’s primary energy policy and planning agency, is funding an experimental market for carbon-credit trading on a public blockchain. 

Aug 7, 2020 

(Shutterstock)

Nathan DiCamillo

California Agency Backs Green-Energy Pilot Using RSK’s Bitcoin Smart Contracts

The California Energy Commission, the state’s primary energy policy and planning agency, is funding an experimental market for carbon-credit trading on a public blockchain.

Under a plan announced Friday, demo digital tokens will be given to participating businesses that cut their carbon footprint by powering electric van sharing, said Eduardo Javier Muñoz, CEO of EVShare, a startup that’s now involved in the pilot through electric vehicle company Green Commuter. (EVShare is not a contractor with the Commission and the pilot is led by smart energy nonprofit Energy Coalition). If the pilot goes into production, the credits can be used to pay for electricity consumption, rides and services in the future.


Mobility-related transactions will be recorded on the RSK blockchain, a smart contract-oriented platform that is similar to Ethereum but runs on top of the Bitcoin network. Transactions sent to a microgrid–a separate system from the city’s power grid–are being recorded by Community Electricity on the Energy Web Foundation’s blockchain.


The market is part of a $20 million initiative that will track data related to solar panels, energy storage, electric vehicles and charging infrastructure in Bassett, an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County. The commission’s previously disclosed $9 million grant will cover nearly half the cost; Google, the University of California at Los Angeles and others are covering the remaining $11 million, according to EVShare.


Read more: RSK Launches Interoperability Bridge Between Bitcoin and Ethereum


The project aims to digitize carbon credit reporting, create opportunities for businesses to redeem credits and make electric vanpooling cheaper for Bassett residents, Muñoz said.


“Today, carbon credit trading is not digitized,” he said. “It’s a very unconventional market … Now it will be easier to hold [credits] and trade them.”


It is rare for enterprise blockchain projects to use public networks, which are auditable by and open to all comers, instead of a private ledger restricted to authorized participants. Rarer still are enterprise experiments tied to Bitcoin; Ethereum has been the platform of choice for most corporates venturing into open-network territory.

Green mind

The Bassett initiative is the also latest attempt to streamline trading processes for carbon credits using blockchain record-keeping. In July, the InterWork Alliance announced that it was working on blockchain tools to prevent double-spending of carbon credits.

The RSK blockchain will also register transactions between vehicles and solar panels, batteries and chargers. Records of their usage will be stored on-chain with the help of RIF, an identity product developed by RSK Labs, the startup that created the chain. The electric vans will be operated by Green Commuter.

Phase 1 of the pilot included research and development, business collaboration and participation from the Bassett community. Phase 2, which the companies also announced Friday, will connect 50 houses to the solar grid over the course of two years, Muñoz said.

Read more: Carbon Credits Have a Double-Spend Problem. This Microsoft-Backed Project Is Trying to Fix It


Carbon credits permit companies to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Companies with unneeded carbon credits can sell them to other firms that emit more.

EVShare aims to help 1,000 cities transition to a sustainable sharing economy over the next decade. The firm plans to connect solar home-energy systems with shared electric vans operated by Green Commuter. Excess energy is sold to a microgrid or used by households.

UPDATE (July 7, 12:44 UTC): Because of inaccurate information initially provided by EVShare, an earlier version of this article incorrectly said the startup is leading the pilot; the nonprofit The Energy Coalition is, both organizations said.

The article has also been updated to clarify that the carbon credits are not actually redeemable, just demos; that the pilot is connected to a microgrid, not the city’s power grid; that transactions on the microgrid will be recorded on a separate blockchain developed by Energy Web Foundation; and that Green Commuter is a contractor with the energy commission, not EVShare or RSK.

READ MORE ABOUT...CaliforniaGreen EnergyRSK
DISCLOSURE

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

The History, Present and Future of Central Banks, Feat. George Selgin

YOUR GUIDE TO THE AMERICAN RIGHT WING LIBERTARIAN ECONOMIC PHANTASY
Aug 6, 2020


(MDart10/Shutterstock)


Nathaniel Whittemore


The Director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives gives an eye-opening, 200-year history of today’s most powerful economic institution.

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

Today on the Brief:

Better news in the jobless claims this week
A new bitcoin adoption cycle?
Checking on Lebanon

See also: Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough on Stagflation, Bitcoin and the Devalued Dollar

Our main conversation is with Dr. George Selgin.


Dr. Selgin is a Senior Fellow and director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives as well as Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Georgia.


In this eye-opening conversation, he and NLW go deep on the history, present and future of central banks, including:

Why the Scottish and Canadian banking systems in the 19th century show that central banks aren’t a prerequisite for stability

Why the U.S. “free banking” system wasn’t free at all

Why the instability in the late 19th century U.S. banking system was caused by regulation, not the lack of a Federal Reserve

Why the Fed’s first decades were a disaster

Why the Fed gets more power when it underperforms 

The problems with the Fed’s response to 2008

What lessons the Fed could have learned (but didn’t) between the Great Financial Crisis and COVID-19

Find our guest online:
Website: Alt-M.org
Twitter: @GeorgeSelgin

For more episodes and free early access before our regular 3 p.m. Eastern time releases, subscribe with Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocketcasts, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Stitcher, RadioPublica, iHeartRadio or RSS.

Federal Reserve Is Rushing to Get Its Instant Payments Offering Ready

Aug 6, 2020


Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard (Shutterstock)

Danny Nelson

The Federal Reserve is bullish on technologies that aim to speed payments, and is now rushing to get its own platform, FedNow, up and running.

In a Thursday webinar, Federal Reserve Board Governor Lael Brainard said the U.S. central bank will debut its instant payment service "as soon as practically possible."

COVID-19 showcased Americans' dire need of a "resilient instant payment system," Brainard said. FedNow aims to be the answer, even if it won't arrive until 2023 or 2024.

FedNow, which the Federal Reserve is developing in response to private-sector, real-time, gross settlement initiatives, may play a key part in that future.

"By creating that neutral platform, banks in partnership with these other companies will be able to offer much more innovation services, services that we may not even be imagining," Brainard said.

In the meantime, the Federal Reserve "remains optimistic" that emerging payment technologies could benefit consumers at the retail payments level "when the appropriate safeguards are in place," she said.

She also cited the impact of the Facebook-linked libra stablecoin, repeating her past assertion the global stablecoin project raises "fundamental questions" about private money regulation, legality and its potential economic implications.

After Tumultuous Election, Belarus Goes Offline

The Belarus presidential election ended with mass protests and a nationwide internet outage.

Aug 10, 2020 at 18:47 UTC

Protestors on the streets in Belarus after the 2020 presidential election. (YouTube)
Anna Baydakova
Sandali Handagama

The country went offline on Sunday during its presidential election. Major social networks and message sites including Viber, Telegram, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were inaccessible, as were local news outlets.

Following weeks of tension, people streamed into the streets of the capital to protest the landslide victory by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years. Opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya rejected the results, claiming they were falsified.

Internet watchdog NetBlocks first detected network disruptions as early as 3:00 a.m. local time on election day, according to NetBlocks CEO Alp Toker and director of research Isik Mater. Social media restrictions began to pick up around 9:00 a.m. local time. But just as the polls were closing on Sunday, at around 8:19 p.m. local time, NetBlocks observed a near total connectivity drop across the country.

Toker exclusively told CoinDesk there were indications three Belarusian banks were reconnected simultaneously at around 1:30 p.m. local time Monday, but the core disruptions that began after the election were still in place.

As of 9:00 p.m. local time on Monday, many Internet blockages remained. “Only Telegram is working now via some proxy servers; those get cut from time to time, too,” said Nadia Venzhina of the Cyber Academy educational project in Belarus. “Those who set up a [virtual private network] in advance still can use Facebook and YouTube, but all the commonly used VPNs are down now, and you can’t install them,” she added.

Thirty human rights organizations signed a petition to the United Nations against the internet outage Monday, including Russia’s Moscow Helsinki Group, the U.K.’s Article19, South African Legal Resources Center and others.

According to NetBlocks’ reports, in 2020 alone at least 10 countries including Zimbabwe and Venezuela at some point resorted to blocking access or use of the internet and social media to suppress communication during elections, or as a means of curbing public protests.

System overwhelmed

On Saturday, a local news report claimed a cellular company confirmed all forms of communication in Minsk, including telephone lines and the internet, would not work on election day. According to the report, employees of hotels and retail outlets received an “unspoken warning” about the communications shutdown but were asked to show up to work.

According to the chief technology officer of the Belarussian hosting service Hoster.by, Denis Otvalko, the reason for the outage might be the deep packet inspection (DPI) software analyzing web traffic to the country via national internet providers, reported local publication 42.tut.by.

“It might be that those filtering devices failed to proceed all the requests they got yesterday, we can only guess,” Otvalko said, noting that “the government has 100% control over the incoming traffic.”

Belarus President Lukashenko denied shutting down the internet, blaming the attacks from abroad, especially the U.K., Czech Republic and Poland. Belarus’ major internet provider Beltelecom said it had been dealing with increased traffic from abroad since Aug. 8.

“Our systems registered multiple cyber attacks on the government agencies’ websites and Beltelecom servers. That led to the communications channels getting overwhelmed and our infrastructure malfunctioning, leading to the disruption of access to some Internet resources and services,” the provider wrote, promising to fix the issues until the end of the day Aug. 8.

Political unrest

Days before, in an interview that aired on Aug. 6, President Lukashenko said it would be embarrassing for him if Belarusians took to the streets on election day, and he would do everything in his power to curb the “protest mood,” reported a journalist for Russian tech publication Kod.

The election protests were largely peaceful, but protestors were attacked by law enforcement. Tear gas and water cannons were used and at least one person reportedly was hurt by a flash-bang grenade, while another was hit by a police vehicle. Thousands of protesters have been detained.

Reporters from two Russian-language media outlets, Current Time and TV Rain, were denied accreditation and deported. Another Russian journalist, Maxim Solopov, a reporter for Meduza, was beaten and went missing, Meduza wrote.