Author Archives: Danzig

Hitting the reset button | Lifestyles – Enid News & Eagle

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Hello again, everyone. It's been a week or two.

I apologize for not writing for the last several weeks; moving takes a lot out of you. Consequently, I wasn't able to see Comet C/2020 F3, aka NEOWISE. Hey, you win some, you lose some.

Either way, I appreciate you all hanging in there with me.

For those of you new to me or my column, I thought it would be appropriate for a bit of a reset. I just want to give everyone an impression of who I am and why I write.

My name is Joe, I'm 34, and I've worked at the Enid News & Eagle since June 2009. No, I am not originally from Enid, and while that makes me an outsider, I appreciate this city and its people, young and old, of all opinions.

I was raised in both Florida in Nebraska. In the former state, I lived so close to Cape Canaveral that I could literally watch space shuttle launches from my driveway. That was what launched (pardon the pun) my initial interest in astronomy. From then on, I read every piece of astronomy literature I could get my hands on. This continued through my teen years, when I became more interested in the UFOs/extraterrestrial life/other solar systems part of astronomy. And I would say that remains my main interest to this day.

Valparaiso University is my alma mater. That's where I got my bachelor's degree in journalism, along with a minor in physics. Between 2004 and 2008, I spent two summers conducting astronomy research at both Valparaiso University and Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. I studied protoplanetary nebulae, which is a sort of stage stars go through at the end of their lives.

In addition to all that, I've always been an avid amateur astronomer. I've never had the resources for a big telescope with fancy astrophotography abilities, and yet my curiosity and passion were nonstop as I scanned the night sky for every single star with my eyepiece.

And that's mainly what this column is about. You don't need a fancy telescope or any other special equipment to enjoy the night sky. In fact, sometimes the best tool is still the naked eye under dark skies. The sky shows us many things: objects both familiar and exotic; stellar birth and death, the life cycle of the universe from beginning to eventual end.

I have not gone anywhere; I will continue to share with all of you one of my most intense passions, the study of astronomy.

Coming from someone who thoroughly knows and has studied the field, trust me, there is always something to learn.

Joe Malan is presentation editor and astronomy writer for the Enid News & Eagle. He can be reached at jmalan@enidnews.com.

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Hitting the reset button | Lifestyles - Enid News & Eagle

Astronomers Discover One of the Coolest Transiting Gas Giants | Astronomy – Sci-News.com

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Using data from NASAs Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS), astronomers have discovered a transiting Saturn-like exoplanet circling NGTS-11 (also known as TOI-1847 and 2MASS J01340514-1425090), a mid K-type star located 624 light-years away in the constellation of Cetus. Named NGTS-11b (TOI-1847b), the planet has an equilibrium temperature of just 162 degrees Celsius (324 degrees Fahrenheit), making it one of the coolest known transiting gas giants.

An artists impression of a Saturn-sized exoplanet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

NGTS-11b has a radius of 0.82 times that of Jupiter and a mass of 0.34 Jupiter masses.

The planet orbits its host star every 35 days at a distance 5 times closer than the Earth is to the Sun.

NGTS-11b has a temperature of only 162 degrees Celsius cooler than Mercury and Venus, said lead author Dr. Samuel Gill, an astronomer in the Centre for Exoplanets and Habitability and the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick.

Although this is still too hot to support life as we know it, it is closer to the Goldilocks zone than many previously discovered planets which typically have temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit).

This planet is out at a thirty-five days orbit, which is a much longer period than we usually find them. It is exciting to see the Goldilocks zone within our sights, added Dr. Daniel Bayliss, an astronomer in the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick.

The researchers initially identified NGTS-11b from a single-transit event detected by the TESS spacecraft.

TESS uses the transit method to spot planets, scanning for the telltale dip in light from the star that indicates that an object has passed between the telescope and the star, they explained.

However, TESS only scans most sections of the sky for 27 days. This means many of the longer period planets only transit once in the TESS data. And without a second observation the planet is effectively lost.

The team followed up the system using NGTS telescopes in Chile and observed the host star for 79 nights, eventually catching the planet transiting for a second time nearly a year after the first detected transit.

By chasing that second transit down weve found a longer period planet. Its the first of hopefully many such finds pushing to longer periods, Dr. Gill said.

These discoveries are rare but important, since they allow us to find longer period planets than other astronomers are finding. Longer period planets are cooler, more like the planets in our own Solar System.

The original transit appeared just once in the TESS data, and it was our teams painstaking detective work that allowed us to find it again a year later with NGTS, said Professor Pete Wheatley, an astronomer in the Centre for Exoplanets and Habitability and the Department of Physics at the University of Warwick.

The discovery is reported in a paper in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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Samuel Gill et al. 2020. NGTS-11 b (TOI-1847 b): A Transiting Warm Saturn Recovered from a TESS Single-transit Event. ApJL 898, L11; doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab9eb9

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Astronomers Discover One of the Coolest Transiting Gas Giants | Astronomy - Sci-News.com

A Faraway Solar System Is an Uncanny Reflection of Our Own – The Atlantic

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This other solar system looks almost cozy, but these planets are a few hundred times farther from their star than Saturn and Jupiter are from our own. There might be rocky planets like Earth somewhere in this system, Kenworthy said, but they would be too small for even our most powerful telescopes to spot. As far as we can tell, this system is not like our home in the cosmos, and yet its landscape seems somehow familiar, like seeing a photograph of a famous skyline with a few skyscrapers missing. My first thought when I saw this image was, Huh, I wonder how things are going there. Maybe theyre having a better time of it than we are.

Read: The before times of a solar system

This is, I realize, an absurd thoughta knee-jerk projection of pandemic stress at a time when the fight against the coronavirus in the United States feels more frustrating and helpless each day. Our world seems particularly exhausting right now, and these kinds of astronomical observations provide a strange sense of comfort. They present a different version of something recognizable, and an opportunity to imagine a calmer existence, in which the pandemic isnt always on our minds.

Maddalena Reggiani, a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven, in Belgium, and one of the researchers in this study, gets a similar feelingnot my desperate wishful thinking about an alternate reality, but the sense that she is looking at a cosmic doppelgnger. This image, after all, resembles how our own solar system appears in textbooks and on classroom posters: as a ball of fire suspended in the darkness, with a few glassy marbles circling it.

To produce the image, Kenworthy and his colleagues compared multiple observations of the solar system. In the first set, the star is surrounded by several blobs of glowing gas, any one of which could be a planet. In the second set, taken some time later, some of the orbs have moved, while others have stayed put, as unmoving as the star itself. The objects that shifted turned out to be other stars, somewhere in the background, moving along on their own journey through space. The objects that stuck around, the researchers concluded, were planets.

Read: A breakthrough way to see distant planets

Astronomers seek out such cosmic doppelgngers to learn about our own history. By studying a baby version of the sun somewhere else, they can better understand how our own adult sunall the planets around itcame to be. Studying images of similar solar systems is like looking at a childhood photo album. We cant, during our lifetime, look at how a planetary system is born and how it evolves, Reggiani told me. All we can do is look at stars at different ages so we can guess a little bit at the history of our solar system.

Cosmic analogues can also help scientists understand the kinds of circumstances that can lead to a planet sprouting life, even if all they see is gas planets capable of producing only swirling cloud tops instead of squirming organisms. Spotting a couple of gas planets in another solar system is not the triumphant discovery that detecting an Earthlike atmosphere on a rocky exoplanet would be, but it is an important bread crumb in the search for life in the universe.

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Gamma-Ray Telescopes Can Measure the Diameters of Other Stars – Universe Today

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In astronomy, the sharpness of your image depends upon the size of your telescope. When Galileo and others began to view the heavens with telescopes centuries ago, it changed our understanding of the cosmos. Objects such as planets, seen as points of light with the naked eye, could now be seen as orbs with surface features. But even under these early telescopes, stars still appeared as a point of light. While Galileo could see Jupiter or Saturns size, he had no way to know the size of a star.

That didnt change until 1995 when the Hubble Space Telescope made an image of Betelgeuse not as a point but as a blurry disk. It was the first time astronomers could determine the size of a star directly. Astronomers could finally compare the apparent size of a star to theoretical calculations based on mass, color, and brightness. Since then, both ground and space-based optical telescopes have imaged stars and even planets directly. But astronomy at other wavelengths posed new challenges.

In radio astronomy, the issue was with the wavelength of radio light. Optical telescopes use light with wavelengths on the order of a few hundred nanometers, the wavelengths used by radio telescopes are typically millimeters or centimeters. Since the resolution of telescope scales with the wavelength of light, a radio telescope would need to be nearly a million times larger to create a sharp image. It isnt feasible to create such a large radio antenna dish. So instead, radio astronomers use a technique known as interferometry.

With radio interferometry, an array of antenna dishes view the same object from widely separated positions. Waves of light from the object at slightly different times, depending on their location. By correlating the antenna signals, astronomers can create a virtual telescope the size of the array. This is what makes observatories such as the VLA and ALMA so powerful. With radio interferometry, astronomers can even create a virtual telescope the size of Earth, which they used to directly image a black hole.

But you dont need to make a high-resolution image of a star to measure its size directly. Recently a team measured the size of two stars, Beta Canis Majoris and Epsilon Orionis, and they did it an array of gamma-ray telescopes known as VERITAS.

While radio wavelengths are much longer than visible light, gamma rays have much shorter wavelengths. So short that gamma rays act almost like particles. When gamma rays strike Earths atmosphere, they can create flashes of optical light called Cherenkov light. VERITAS observes Cherenkov light to study gamma ray astronomy, which is not suited for the type of interferometry used by radio telescopes. So the team repurposed the detectors to use another type of interferometry known as intensity interferometry. With this method, multiple antennas only measure the intensity or brightness of a source, so it doesnt need to worry about the wave property of optical light.

Both Beta Canis Majoris and Epsilon Orionis are blue giant stars. The former is about 500 light-years away, while the latter is 2,000 light-years away. Their apparent sizes are less than a milliarcsecond, which is smaller than the Hubble Space Telescopes resolution. Using this method, the team measured the apparent size of these stars with an uncertainty of less than 5%.

The VERITAS array only contains four antennas, so this is just a first step. With more antennas, this method could be used to create extremely precise observations of distant stars.

Reference: Abeysekara, A. U., et al. Demonstration of stellar intensity interferometry with the four VERITAS telescopes. Nature Astronomy (2020): 1-6.

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Gamma-Ray Telescopes Can Measure the Diameters of Other Stars - Universe Today

Astronomers Capture the First Ever Photo of Two Planets Orbiting a Sun-Like Star – PetaPixel

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The European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope (ESO VLT) has captured a worlds first: the first ever image of two giant exoplanets orbiting a young Sun-like star 300 light years away from our own. The photograph could provide important information about the formation of our own solar system.

The groundbreaking imagewhich is discussed in detail on the ESO websiteis described as a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our Solar System, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution.

As the ESO explains, direct observations of exoplanets are exceedingly rare but incredibly important in the search for planets like our own, which might support life. Imaging two exoplanets around the same star is even more remarkable, and capturing an image of two planets orbiting a Sun-like star is a unique accomplishmenta worlds first.

Here is the wide-angle image of the solar system in question:

And here is a closer crop:

The photograph was made possible by using the Very Large Telescopes SPHERE instrument, which uses a coronagraph to block bright light emitted by the star, allowing astronomers to detect and observe the much fainter planets surrounding them.

The image shows a star very much like our own Sun, only far younger, in the top left-hand corner. The two exoplanetsgas giants that are each several times larger than Jupiterare the two bright dots in the middle and bottom right of the image.

Notably, both planets are very far away from their star: one is orbiting at 160 times Earth-Sun distance, and the other at about 320 times Earth-Sun distance. But while this image doesnt show a system similar to ours in the present day, scientists hope that images like this one may shed some light on the early history of our solar system. For the rest of us, theyre just incredible to look at and at least try to fathom.

To learn more, check out the video explainer up top, head over to the ESO blog, or read the full research paper about this image in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

(via DPReview)

Image credits: All photos by ESO/Bohn et al.

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Thanks to astronomy, researchers in Texas figure out the time, date, and year of Vermeer’s "View of Delft" – Art Critique

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Nothing if not technical, Vermeer is known for his expert handling of light and shadow, which has mesmerised many for centuries. However, even today, not a lot is known about the artists life and how he worked, which is how he earned the nickname The Sphinx of Delft and why many of his works remain mysterious. Thus, art historians and scholars have had to speculate their fair share when it comes to his works. A Texas State University physics professor alongside a team of researchers have offered a little more understanding for one of Vermeers paintings, View of Delft.

For decades, there have been relatively few details of the painting articulately depicting Delft, a city in the Netherlands where Vermeer was born, lived, and died. It has consistently been agreed upon that View of Delft was painted during the late spring or summer of 1660, but there has been less consensus on the time of day portrayed by the great painter. Thanks, though, to the work of David Olson, Texas State University astronomer, physics professor emeritus and Texas State University System Regents Professor, Russell Doescher, retired professor in the Department of Physics at Texas State, and students Charles Condos, Michael Snchez, and Tim Jenison, we now know more about the painting.

Vermeers extreme attention to detail when it comes to light and shadow assisted the research team, led by Olson whos been called the celestial sleuth. After more than a year of research, multiple trips to Delft, mapping out the citys features included in Vermeers work, and studying the angle of the sun, they were able to establish what they believe to be the exact time shown in Vermeers work: 8am on September 3rd, 1659 (or possibly 1658).

View of Delft was painted from the second-floor window of an inn where Vermeer stayed to create the work, which shows the octagonal tower of Nieuwe Kerk, or New Church. The tower has long been a point of debate amongst scholars as it was believed to have been increased in size by the Dutch artist, and it proved to be an integral piece to the puzzle for researchers.

Thats our key, Olson said in a press release referring to the octagonal tower. Thats the sensitive indicator of where the sun has to be to do that, to just skim the one projection and illuminate the other. The pattern of light and shadows was a sensitive indicator of the position of the sun.

Through precise measurements taken from high res photos from a similar vantage point to what Vermeer would have seen while painting the work, Olsons team established that the tower was in fact not exaggerated as previously asserted. A thin vertical sliver of light found on the tower allowed the researchers to figure out the exact angle of the sun, which then assisted astronomers in calculating a set of two possible dates: April 6-8 or September 3-4. But which was it? A simple analysis of the work held the answer as the trees, still full of leaves, allowed them to deduce that Vermeer was working during September on the painting.

Vermeer is known to have worked slowly. Completing all the details on the large canvas of his masterpiece may have taken weeks, months or even years, Olson added, recognising Vermeers extreme feat in executing the work. His remarkably accurate depiction of the distinctive and fleeting pattern of light and shadows on the Nieuwe Kerk suggests that at least this detail was inspired by direct observation of the sunlit tower rising above the wall and roofs of Delft.

Ultimately, the discovery offers one more bit of information to help us better understand the celebrated artist, although there is inevitably still much to learn.

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Thanks to astronomy, researchers in Texas figure out the time, date, and year of Vermeer's "View of Delft" - Art Critique

AGC to Complete the Acquisition of MolMed on July 31, 2020 – BioSpace

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AGC Biologics adds leading-edge cell & gene therapy company in Milan, Italy

SEATTLE, July 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- AGC Biologics, a Global Biopharmaceutical Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), has announced that they will acquire the majority of the share capital of Molecular Medicine S.p.A. ("MolMed") on July 31, 2020. MolMed is a biotechnology company focused on research, development, production and clinical validation of cell and gene therapies for the treatment of cancer and rare diseases. AGC Biologics is now one of the very few CDMO's in the world offering both plasmid production and end-to-end cell and gene therapy services.

Cell and gene therapy is an innovative and rapidly growing therapeutic field that aims to treat diseases that do not have adequate treatments to date. Approximately 1,000 clinical trials are underway worldwide, with some products receiving market authorization in the last few years and approximately 50 new therapies expected to be authorized by 2030. Thanks to its two commercially authorized facilities, MolMed offers GMP services for the development and production of cell and gene therapies. MolMed brings deep experience and expertise in providing development and GMP manufacturing services for viral vectors and genetically modified cells, from the preclinical phase through commercial demand.

"While we work hard to take care of each other and our customers during this very challenging and uncertain time, it's also important that we ensure the continued growth of our company," says AGC Biologics CEO Patricio Massera. "AGC Biologics is committed to continuously expanding our offerings and growing our capacity to serve all the needs of current and future customers. We are very pleased to be adding MolMed and its great cell and gene therapy capabilities and track record to AGC Biologics' global CDMO service offerings."

About AGC Biologics:AGC Biologics is a leading global Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) with a strong commitment to deliver the highest standard of service to clients and partners. The company currently employs more than 1,000 employees worldwide. AGC Biologics' global network spans three continents, with cGMP-compliant facilities in Seattle, Washington; Boulder, Colorado; Copenhagen, Denmark; Heidelberg, Germany; and Chiba, Japan.

AGC Biologics offers deep industry expertise and unique customized services for the scale-up and cGMP manufacture of protein-based therapeutics, from pre-clinical to commercial mammalian and microbial production. Integrated service offerings include plasmid (GMP pDNA) manufacturing, cell line development, bioprocess development, formulation, analytical testing, antibody drug development and conjugation, cell banking and storage and protein expression, including the proprietary CHEF1 Expression System for mammalian production. Learn more at http://www.agcbio.com.

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Postdoctoral Researcher, Cognitive and Brain Aging Group job with UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI | 214656 – Times Higher Education (THE)

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INVITATION FOR APPLICATIONS

The Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) is an international research unit focusing on human genomics and personalised medicine at the Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLIFE) of the University of Helsinki - a leading Nordic university with a strong commitment to life science research. As part of Academic Medical Center Helsinki in Meilahti campus FIMM collaborates locally with the Faculty of Medicine, Helsinki University Hospital and National Institute for Health and Welfare. FIMM is part of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine, composed of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the centres for molecular medicine in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and the EU-LIFE Community.

FIMM is currently seeking a postdoctoral researcher to join Cognitive and Brain Aging group

Description:

Postdoctoral researcher will be working in FIMM Cognitive and Brain Aging group led by Dr. Eero Vuoksimaa. Cognitive and Brain Aging group studies risk and protective factors of old age cognitive impairment and aims to improve early detection and diagnosis of dementia and Alzheimers Disease. We are also interested in healthy cognitive aging and cognitive reserve. Our multidisciplinary approach includes e.g., epidemiology, twins studies, molecular genetics, neuropsychology and brain imaging. We are seeking highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to work in a project that aims to understand the mechanisms of cognitive and brain aging from middle age to the oldest-old. Project is done in close collaboration with national and international researchers including Turku PET Centre and University of California, San Diego.

Postdoctoral researcher will participate in analyzing brain imaging, cognitive and genetic data, conducting statistical analyses, presenting in scientific conferences, writing of research manuscripts and in grant writing.

Qualifications and experience:

Candidates should have a PhD in neuropsychology, neurosciences, psychology, genetics or related field. Candidates with track record in processing and analyzing structural brain imaging data and/or experience in twin research / molecular genetics will be preferred. Ideal candidate has expertise also in Alzheimers disease and/or cognitive aging. Proficiency in spoken and written English is required.

Salary and contract:

The salary will be commensurate with qualifications based on the Finnish university salary (YPJ) system on previous qualifications, experience and performance in the position. The contract will be offered for one year with a possibility for extension for a second year. Full time fixed-term position is available from September 2020 or as agreed. Due to coronavirus situation the position may be started remotely.

To apply, please submit the application, together with your CV and a 1 page motivation letter, through the University of Helsinki electronic recruitment system by clicking on Apply for job. Internal applicants (i.e., current employees of the University of Helsinki) please submit your applications through the SAP HR portal.

Attach motivation letter and CV as a single PDF file. CV should include name and contact information of two referees and the list of publications with highlighting up to five most important papers and describing candidates role in these papers. Please indicate your experience in brain imaging and/or behavior/molecular genetics in the motivation letter and indicate why you want to study cognitive aging.

Please apply no later than 3.8.2020. Interviews will be conducted either in-person or online.

For further information please visit our website at http://www.fimm.fi or contact Dr Eero Vuoksimaa at eero.vuoksimaa@helsinki.fi

If you need support with the recruitment system, please contact recruitment@helsinki.fi. Please contact hr-hilife@helsinki.fi for other process-related questions.

Due date

03.08.2020 23:59 EEST

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Postdoctoral Researcher, Cognitive and Brain Aging Group job with UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI | 214656 - Times Higher Education (THE)

Researchers uncover how cells interact with supporting proteins to heal wounds – Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom

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When we get a wound on our skin, the cells in our bodies quickly mobilize to repair it. While it has been known how cells heal wounds and how scars form, a team led by researchers from Washington University in St. Louis has determined for the first time how the process begins, which may provide new insight into wound healing, fibrosis and cancer metastasis.

The team, led by Delaram Shakiba, a postdoctoral fellow from the NSF Science and Technology Center for Engineering Mechanobiology (CEMB) at the McKelvey School of Engineering, discovered the way fibroblasts, or common cells in connective tissue, interact with the extracellular matrix, which provides structural support as well as biochemical and biomechanical cues to cells. The team uncovered a recursive process that goes on between the cells and their environment as well as structures in the cells that were previously unknown.

Results of the research were published in ACS Nano on July 28. Senior authors on the paper are Guy Genin, the Harold and Kathleen Faught Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, and Elliot Elson, professor emeritus of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at the School of Medicine.

Clinical efforts to prevent the progression of fibrocontractile diseases, such as scarring and fibrosis, have been largely unsuccessful, in part because the mechanisms that cells use to interact with the protein fibers around them are unclear, Shakiba said. We found that fibroblasts use completely different mechanisms in the early and I think the most treatable stages of these interactions, and that their responses to drugs can therefore be the opposite of what they would be in the later stages.

Genin, who is the co-director of the CEMB, said the process has stymied mechanobiology researchers for some time.

Researchers in the field of mechanobiology thought that cells pulled in collagen from the extracellular matrix by reaching out with long protrusions, grabbing it and pulling it back, Genin said. We discovered that this wasnt the case. A cell has to push its way out through collagen first, then instead of grabbing on, it essentially shoots tiny hairs, or filopodia, out of the sides of its arms, pulls in collagen that way, then retracts.

Now that they understand this process, Genin said, they can control the shape that a cell takes.

With our colleagues at CEMB at the University of Pennsylvania, we were able to validate some mathematical models to go through the engineering process, and we now have the basic rules that cells follow, he said. We can now begin to design specific stimuli to direct a cell to behave in a certain way in building a tissue-engineered structure.

The researchers learned they could control the cell shape in two ways: First, by controlling the boundaries around it, and second, by inhibiting or upregulating particular proteins involved in the remodeling of the collagen.

Fibroblasts pull the edges of a wound together, causing it to contract or close up. Collagen in the cells then remodels the extracellular matrix to fully close the wound. This is where mechanobiology comes into play.

Theres a balance between tension and compression inside a cell that is newly exposed to fibrous proteins, Genin said. There is tension in actin cables, and by playing with that balance, we can make these protrusions grow extremely long, Genin said. We can stop the remodeling from occurring or we can increase it.

The team used a 3D-mapping technique the first time it has been applied to collagen along with a computational model to calculate the 3D strain and stress fields created by the protrusions from the cells. As cells accumulated collagen, tension-driven remodeling and alignment of collagen fibers led to the formation of collagen tracts. This requires cooperative interactions among cells, through which cells can interact mechanically.

New methods of microscopy, tissue engineering and biomechanical modeling greatly enhance our understanding of the mechanisms by which cells modify and repair the tissues they populate, Elson said. Fibrous cellular structures generate and guide forces that compress and reorient their extracellular fibrous environment. This raises new questions about the molecular mechanisms of these functions and how cells regulate the forces they exert and how they govern the extent of matrix deformation.

Wound healing is a great example of how these processes are important in a physiologic way, Genin said. Well be able to come up with insight in how to train cells not to excessively compact the collagen around them.

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Strata Oncology Announces Partnership with BioMed Valley Discoveries to Accelerate Enrollment in ERK Inhibitor Study – BioSpace

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ANN ARBOR, Mich., July 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --Strata Oncology, Inc. , a precision oncology company advancing molecular indications for cancer therapies, today announced it has signed an agreement with BioMed Valley Discoveries Inc.. to accelerate patient identification and enrollment for BioMed Valley's Phase 2 study of BVD-523 (ulixertinib) for patients with advanced malignancies harboring MEK or atypical BRAF alterations (non-BRAF V600E mutations).

Ulixertinib is a first-in-class potent and selective small molecule inhibitor of ERK1/2. BioMed Valley reported positive preliminary Phase I data for ulixertinib in patients harboring MAPK alterations, including atypical BRAF alterations.

Under the terms of the agreement and through the Strata Trial, Strata Oncology will identify patients with advanced solid tumors that harbor mutations in the MAPK signaling pathway and meet other eligibility criteria, for consideration of enrollment into BioMed Valley's Phase 2 study. The Strata Trial, an ongoing observational study providing tumor molecular profiling for patients with advanced cancer paired with a portfolio of biomarker-guided clinical trials, is available across a network of 25+ select health systems nationwide. Through the Strata Trial, patients with advanced cancer are profiled using StrataNGSTM, a comprehensive molecular profiling test optimized for performance on tissue samples as small as 0.5mm2 surface area.

"This partnership with BioMed Valley Discoveries supports our commitment to improving the lives of patients with cancer by providing local access to promising investigational therapies," said Dan Rhodes, Ph.D., CEO of Strata Oncology. "We are confident our network of health system partners, standardized on the Strata Trial, will help drive rapid enrollment of this important study."

David Chao, President & CEO of BioMed Valley Discoveries, commented,"We are delighted to collaboratewith Strata to developourfirst-in-class ERK inhibitor. Strata's ability to rapidly identify patients with specific tumor mutations has the potential to dramatically accelerate the recruitment of patients for our trial."

For more information about BioMed Valley's BVD-523 study, please visit clinicaltrials.gov.

About Strata OncologyStrata Oncology, Inc. is a precision medicine company dedicated to transforming cancer care by building a platform to systematize precision oncology across a network of health systems and pharma companies. Strata empowers health systems to deliver a cost-effective, system-wide, precision oncology program, one that integrates cutting-edge molecular profiling and precision therapy trials with routine care, so that all advanced cancer patients have the opportunity to benefit. This large network of trial-ready health systems provides a mechanism to rapidly and predictably enroll precision therapy trials. For more information visitwww.strataoncology.com.

Strata Inquiries:Renee Volpini(917) 923-8117renee.volpini@icrinc.com

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SOURCE Strata Oncology, Inc.

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Strata Oncology Announces Partnership with BioMed Valley Discoveries to Accelerate Enrollment in ERK Inhibitor Study - BioSpace

BioMed Valley Discoveries ulixertinib (BVD-523), a first-in-class ERK inhibitor cancer therapy, receives Fast Track designation and launches Phase II…

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Newswise Kansas City, MO. BioMed Valley Discoveries (BVD), a clinical stage biotechnology company, announces the receipt of Fast Track designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for investigation of the ERK inhibitor ulixertinib (BVD-523) as a treatment for patients with non-colorectal, solid tumors that harbor BRAF mutations G469A/V, L485W, or L597Q. BVD has launched a Phase II multi-center study of ulixertinib for patients with advanced malignancies harboring these atypical (non-V600) BRAF alterations or a MEK alteration.

The Phase II effort builds on a successful Phase Ib evaluating ulixertinib as a novel targeted cancer treatment in cohorts of patients with specific genetic alterations that result in aberrant MAPK pathway signaling. Results from Phase Ib showed that ulixertinib has an acceptable safety profile and early evidence of clinical activity against a wide range of tumor types exhibiting mutations in the MAPK pathway, including atypical alterations in BRAF.

BVD is pleased to announce that Cmed, Inc., will serve as the contract research organization (CRO) for the Phase IIb study. BVD is also collaborating with Strata Oncology to identify and obtain study patients with Stratas Precision Oncology Network. This network of trial-ready health systems features a database of matched trial candidates that will allow for rapid and efficient identification of potential patients.

David Chao, PhD, president and CEO of BVD, comments, We are pleased with the receipt of Fast Track designation for ulixertinib and delighted to collaborate with Cmed and Strata to develop this promising first-in-class ERK inhibitor.

This study (NCT04488003) is currently expected to begin enrollment in Q3 2020.

About ulixertinib(BVD-523): Ulixertinib is a first-in class and best-in class small molecule inhibitor ofextracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)family kinases (ERK1 and ERK2) thatis being developedas a novel anti-cancer drug. ERK kinases are downstream components of themitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)signaling cascade (RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK). Ulixertinib has demonstrated promising early efficacy for patients with tumors harboring alterations in the MAPK pathway, including atypical (non-V600) BRAF alterations, for which there are currently no approved targeted agents.

About Fast Track status: Fast Track is a designation by the FDA of an investigational drug for expedited review to facilitate development of drugs which treat a serious or life-threatening condition and fill an unmet medical need. Fast Track status entails eligibility for Accelerated Approval and Priority Review if certain criteria are met as well as more frequent interactions with the FDA.

About the study: This Phase II study expands upon the ulixertinib Phase I signal to evaluate the utility of ulixertinib to treat patients with tumors harboring an atypical BRAF alteration. Furthermore, the potential to treat MEK1/2 mutant cancers will also be explored. This patient population is rare (<1% of cancers), however a strong scientific rationale exists to treat patients harboring putatively activating MEK1/2 alterations with ERK inhibition. Part A of the trial is tumor histology agnostic, with patients enrolled in one of six groups based on their tumor alteration. Part B of the trial is tumor histology specific, enrolling patients with one of up to three specified tumor histologies based on evolving part A data.

About Cmed: Cmed, established for 20 years, is a global technology-led full-service CRO specializing in complex disease areas, particularly oncology, immuno-oncology, cell therapy, and other specialty therapeutics areas. Cmed has built a reputation for delivering these clinical trials with expertise, and a personalized, flexible approach, and a mission to contributing to the development of innovative medicines for the benefits of the patients. Cmed has a strong data management and statistics heritage. As well as being a Functional Service Provider of these services, via its Cmed Technology business (part of Cmed Group), Cmed has developed and uses an advanced, enterprise, cloud based clinical data system,encapsia.encapsiadelivers a complete solution to gather and manage multiple live clinical data sources and apply real-time data management, sophisticated visualizations, analytics, and AI. Client benefits include informed trial progress, deep insights into their data to support timely management decisions, and particularly relevant with the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, able to support remote, decentralized, and virtual trial conduct. For more information, visitwww.cmedresearch.comandwww.encapsia.comor contactInfo@cmedgroup.com.

About Strata Oncology: Strata Oncology, Inc. is a precision medicine company dedicated to transforming cancer care by building a platform to systematize precision oncology across a network of health systems and pharma companies. Strata empowers health systems to deliver a cost-effective, system-wide, precision oncology program, one that integrates cutting-edge molecular profiling and precision therapy trials with routine care, so that all advanced cancer patients have the opportunity to benefit. This large network of trial-ready health systems provides a mechanism to rapidly and predictably enroll precision therapy trials. For more information, visit http://www.strataoncology.com.

About the Strata Precision Oncology Network: The Strata Precision Oncology Network (Network), led by Strata Oncology, is a collaborative network of leading health systems that believe in deploying a clinical-research driven model for precision medicine that enables continuous learning to drive research and clinical care. The Network consists of 25 leading health systems that have demonstrated a commitment to standardizing tumor molecular profiling and precision therapy trials, providing a platform to accelerate drug approvals and catalyze new clinical research opportunities. The Strata Trial serves as the foundation of this approach by providing a standardized genomic testing protocol to deliver precision oncology system-wide.

About BioMed Valley Discoveries (BVD): BioMed Valley Discoveries is a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on addressing unmet medical needs in a variety of therapeutic and diagnostic areas. In addition to the ERK inhibitor, BVDs portfolio includes an oncolytic bacteria that has completed enrollment for a Phase I study, a selective phosphoinositide 3-kinase gamma inhibitor in late preclinical testing, and two early-stage antibodies targeting the tumor microenvironment.

Operating since 2007, BioMed Valley Discoveries was established by Jim Stowers Jr., founder of the asset management firm American Century Investments, and his wife Virginia, to advance new medical innovations to improve the lives of patients with difficult-to-treat diseases. BVD is owned by a supporting organization of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, a non-profit, basic biomedical research organization. Since 2000, the endowment of the Stowers Institute has received over $1.5 billion in dividend payments from American Century. The Institute has invested a portion of its endowment in BVD, whose profits accrue to the benefit of the Institute. For more information, visit http://www.biomed-valley.com.

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BioMed Valley Discoveries ulixertinib (BVD-523), a first-in-class ERK inhibitor cancer therapy, receives Fast Track designation and launches Phase II...

Why it is time to invest in Ethereum – Nairametrics

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Ethereum (ETH) whales have been active lately. Data feed on advanced crypto tracker Whale alert revealed whales moved 935,746 ETH worth $255,458,658 in 8 transactions within minutes showing a large number of transactions taking place in the Ethereum market.

READ: What will you investN1 millioninif you have the following options?

Quick fact; In the ETH industry, traders or investors who own a large number of ETH are typically called ETH whales. This means an ETH whale would be a single Ethereum address owning around 1,000 Ethereum or more.

Data obtained from Coinmarketcap, revealed Ethereum is the second most valuable cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $30.5 billion, trading at $272.61 up 3.5%, at the time this report was drafted.

READ MORE: $945 millionworth of BTCsoptions expiring this week

Is it time to buy ETH? With ETH finally breaking out of its long $200-$250 daily close range, it is time to revisit its historical model that illustrates the number of times a daily close transition has occurred between psychological support levels.

ETH is sitting in its sweet spot where the most polarization has historically unfolded (between the $200 and $300 levels) during its five-year history. A close above $300 in the near future would be the 42nd instance of the price closing above or below it.

READ ALSO: Satoshi Nakamotos unspent BTCs worth $10.9 billion

ETH is a cryptocurrency designed for decentralized applications and deployment of smart contracts, which are created and operated without any fraud, interruption, control or interference from a third party.

Ethereum is a decentralized system, fully independent, and is not under anybodys authority. It has no pivotal point, and its platform is connected to thousands of its users through their computing system around the world, which means its almost impossible for ETH to go offline.

READ MORE: Aliko Dangote and his slide from $25 billion to $7 billion

Like with many other crypto assets, speculating with Ethereum can be highly profitable and has had a good history of giving its investors huge returns. However, there are also many other options to make income from Ethereum. These options include Ethereum mining, Ethereum faucets, and ETH staking.

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Why it is time to invest in Ethereum - Nairametrics

Psychedelic Therapy Offers a Synergy of Biological, Psychosocial Interventions – Psych Congress Network

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When it comes to mental health treatment, there have been two basic, and often opposing, views as to the best approach: pharmaceutical or psychotherapeutic. Psychedelic therapy is a treatment option that unites both, Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD, explained at the 2020 virtual Psych Congress Elevateconference.

You have the drug camp, and then you have the psychotherapy camp, and they dont really get on. In fact, they often fight, said Dr. Carhart-Harris, head of the Centre of Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London in England. Wouldnt it be wonderful if we had an intervention that was biological, that truly affected the brain on a direct level and also opened things up for therapeutic work? The argument is that psychedelic therapy really does that well in a synergistic way.

See a clip of the session here.

During his session, Dr. Carhart-Harris characterized psychedelic therapy as quintessentially biopsychosocial. When used in the appropriate context with professional support, psychedelics such as psilocybin, DMT, and LSD offer promise for helping people undo negative habits or biases associated with a range of mental health disorders to achieve improved well-being, according to the presentation.

Coined in the 1950s, the term psychedelic means to reveal the mind or soul. Molecularly, psilocybin, DMT, and LSD are similar to serotonin, which modulates a number of key functions in the brain, Dr. Carhart-Harris explained. The mechanism of action of psychedelic drugs appears to involve serotonin 2A receptors in the cortex. Serotonin 2A receptor agonism via psychedelic compounds stimulates plasticity and adaptability in the brain, and can create what Dr. Carhart-Harris termed pivotal mental states of pure plasticity.

The key question is, what do you do with that plasticity? he said. If someone spiked your drink at Burning Man, you might trip out and have a psychotic episode, and things arent going to go well. But if you take a psychedelic with a perfectly nurturing, supportive pair of therapists or guides, it could be really beneficial.

You could explore the furthest reaches of your mind and release a lot of trauma and repressed material, work through it, and come upon insights that are healthy and useful to improving mental health.

Psilocybin shows promise for improving well-being and easing symptoms of depression, addiction, end-of-life distress, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The environment a psychedelic drug is administered in, however, is important. In an optimal context, therapeutic guides prepare patients, sit with them during the experience, and talk with them afterward to help glean insights and integrate lessons. Trait absorption, therapeutic intentions, and listening to music all appear to affect emotional breakthrough and long-term outcomes.

I saw negative patterns in my life where if something bad happens, I used to just put it to the back of my mind, recalled a patient with treatment-resistant depression who received psilocybin therapy in a trial. Afterwards, I allowed myself to experience everythingeven if it is sadness. Now I know how to deal with my feelings rather than repress them.

MORE: Psych Congress Takes Deep Dive Into Psychedelics

One participant described openly crying during psilocybin therapynot in pain, but like a washing, a washing out. Another described a renewed ability to experience beauty after receiving psilocybin therapy. Although that study was open-label, the effect sizes of psilocybin in patients with treatment-resistant depression were huge, Dr. Carhart-Harris said.

More recently, he and colleagues performed a double-blind randomized controlled trial comparing two session of psilocybin therapy with 6 weeks of the antidepressant escitalopram. He urged conference attendees to watch for published findings.

The results are really excitingPsilocybin therapy comes out very well in this trial, Dr. Carhart-Harris said with a quick smile. I wish I could say more, but I cant. But the safety and efficacy outcomes are really, really promising.

Jolynn Tumolo

Reference

Therapeutic Mechanisms of Psychedelics: Changing the Landscape of Psychiatric Treatment? Presented at Psych Congress Elevate: Virtual; July 26, 2020.

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How the "Most Normal Person Ever" Became the Face of a Movement to Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms – Washingtonian

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Lavasani with her husband,Daniel Conner, and children Ramsey and Lola.

Melissa Lavasani hesitated last December as she prepared to submit the paperwork for a ballot initiative that would decriminalize natural psychedelics like magic mushrooms, mescaline, and ayahuasca. What are the moms at school going to say about this? she remembers thinking.

Lavasanis neighbors in the H Street, Northeast, neighborhood were likely to know her as the budget officer for the DC Department of Energy & Environment, or perhaps as the mother of two young neighborhood kids. What few knew at the time, though, is that Lavasani felt that substances many people think of as recreational drugs might have saved her life.

Lavasanis transformation into an advocate for drug-law reform began with a difficult second pregnancy in 2017. She developed sciatica and chronic pain so intensethat she often crawled up the stairs at night to go to bed. Things got even worse after she delivered a healthy baby and was hit with anxiety, severe depression, panic attacks, and suicidal ideation. A doctor prescribed antidepressants but, wary of the difficulties friends had encountered in finding the right medication, she decided to try talk therapy first. It was expensive, and it didnt help enough: It just got to a point where it was very clear that if something didnt change, I was going to take my life, she says.

Salvation arrived in the form of a friends recommendation to listen toan episode of the Joe Rogan Experience that featured the mycologist Paul Stamets speaking about the benefits of psilocybin mushrooms on mental health. This was not advice Lavasani, who holds two graduate degrees, normally would have followedI assumed people that took psychedelics were people that were trying to escape their reality, that couldnt deal with adulthood, she saysbut these werent normal circumstances. She ordered spores over the internet and tried to grow them at home using advice from online forums. That wasnt easy, she says, and she was extremely worried about using illegal drugs. But after a few days of microdosing, she began to feel normal again. Another friend recommended she visit an ayahuasca healer, which she tried in early 2019 against every good instinct I had. After a few sessions, she says, it was like I was I turned out to be not only back to myself, but almost like a better version of myself.

After learning of a campaign to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms in Denver (which squeaked through last year), Lavasani began to wonder whether such an initiative could pass in DC as well. She and her husband, Daniel Conner, met with Kevin Matthews, an organizer of the Colorado initiative, who connected her with David Bronner, the top executive at Dr. Bronners soap company, who has put substantial resources behind decriminalization and legalization efforts and had been interested in working on a campaign in DC.

That led to Lavasani and her husbandhooking up with Adam Eidinger, a veteran advocate who had been instrumental in getting cannabis legalized in the District with Initiative 71 in 2014. Lavasani was interested in potentiallycontributing to the campaign or playing a background role, but after a dinner in November 2019, Eidinger worked to convince her that she would be an effective face of be psychedelic reform in DC. Eventually, she agreed:This kind of controversial topic has to come from the most normal of people, she explains.

The measure, Initiative 81, was worded very carefully and conservatively. (Yeah, were pretty limited on what we can do in the District, Lavasani says.)It doesnt call for legalization of entheogenic plants and fungi; it asks that the DC police make psychedelic-related arrests among its arrests because of them among its lowest law enforcement priorities and that DCs Attorney General and the US Attorney for DC cease prosecution of people accused of drug offenses involving these substances. DCs Metropolitan Police Department did not respond to a query about how many people are arrested and accused of drug offenses involving psychedelics, but public data shows that marijuana arrests declined steeply between 2012 and 2019.

Almost as soon as Decriminalize Nature DC came together as an electoral force, though, the pandemic arrived. As part of the process of getting a question on the DC ballot, you must collect 25,000 signatures. With prompting from the campaign, the District government passed legislation in May that made it easier to collect signatures remotely. Decriminalize Nature DC sent out a mailer to 220,000 households that yielded thousands of signatures and, as the District began its phased reopening, set up tables outside grocery stores, knocked on doors, and solicited signatures in parks. In all, the campaign turned in more than 35,000 signatures in early July.

Before the Board of Elections could decide whether the campaign had fulfilled the requirements to get its issue on the ballot this November, an old foe of DC self-determination reappeared: US Representative Andy Harris, a Republican from Maryland who had previouslyhobbled the marijuana-legalization initiative with a budget rider. Harris threatened to force a vote in the House Appropriations Committeeon another budget rider to prevent the District from including I-81on the ballot.

Unlike in 2014, though, Harris is now a member of the Houses minority party. While it was never clear he could actually thwart the legislation, the publicity his threat received may have unintentionally contributed to growing Democratic sentiment toward statehood for the District. DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton framed his interference as meddling with DCs right to self-government, and voting members of the Congress apparently viewed it similarly. Harris withdrew his amendmentin mid-July.

Lavasani notes with some frustration that Congressional Republicans tended to speak about psychedelics as a way to party rather than as a therapeutic tool. (Psilocybin in particular hasshown some promise in researchabout treatment-resistant depression). That actually matches with some of the feedback Decriminalize Nature DC has received about the initiative, she says: The idea that this is just some white kids that want to party with this stuff. Ayahuasca in particular, she says, can be an extremely not-fun experience. Its emotionally painful, its physically painful, but afterwards the healing that you have experienced and continue to experience after the ceremony is really astounding.

Now that the issue is before the Board of Elections, she says her group will prioritize educating the publicabout the substances it hopes to decriminalize. Among residents of DCs predominately Black areas in particular, she says theres a tendency to conflate psychedelics with PCP, which although mind-altering is not a psychedelic and has had many deleterious effects in DC.

Lavasani says shes confident Initiative 81 will appear on the ballot and that her groups goal is to pass the initiative with overwhelming supportits shooting for 70 percent. (Initiative 71 passed with almost 65 percent support in 2014.) I think we can, she says. We got over 36,000 signatures in the middle of a pandemic.

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How the "Most Normal Person Ever" Became the Face of a Movement to Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms - Washingtonian

Lighthouse to hobbit hole: 13 unusual and quirky places to holiday in Scotland – Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald

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IF you are looking for a staycation that stokes the imagination, Scotland has no shortage of unusual and quirky gems.

With the nations tourism sector now reopened, weve put together a list of some of our favourite awe-inspiring holiday accommodation.

Places that bring together architectural wizardry and painstaking refurbishment to breathe new life and use into everything from a lighthouse to a modern-day broch and erstwhile modes of transportation, including buses, train carriages and even a helicopter.

Roulotte Retreat, near Melrose, Scottish Borders

There is something wonderfully romantic about this circle of seven colourful roulottes (Romany-style caravans) located in a pretty wildflower meadow below the Eildon Hills.

Each roulotte faces onto a lochan at the centre of the site. Facilities include sunset decks, wood-burning stoves, eco saunas and hot tubs. Its a perfect getaway for nature lovers with owls, deer, foxes, and badgers among the regular visitors.

Prices start from 115 per night. Call 07990 744044 or visit roulotteretreat.com

Helicopter Glamping, Mains Farm Wigwams, Thornhill, Stirling

Stay in a Sea King helicopter complete with mini kitchen, bathroom and a cockpit seating area offering stunning views over the Forth Valley. The helicopter part of Mains Farm Wigwams sleeps two adults or a family of five (two adults and three children). Theres a double bed, a single bed in the tail and seating which converts into a second double bed. The owners are currently renovating a 1959 Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer plane set to open for overnight stays next year.

Prices start from 170 per night. Call 01786 850735 or visit mainsfarmwigwams.com

Sleeperzzz, Rogart, Sutherland

Choose between a vintage railway carriage, a freight wagon or the Waiting Room B&B.

Located beside a functioning train station at Rogart (on the line between Inverness to Thurso and Wick), Sleeperzzz offers budget accommodation for backpackers, families, walkers, cyclists or those who simply fancy spending the night somewhere a bit different such as a 12-ton goods van from the 1950s.

A great base for exploring Dunrobin Castle and the North Coast 500.

Prices from 22pp per night. Call 01408 641343 or visit sleeperzzz.com

Craighead Howfs, Dunblane, Perthshire

Be transported to The Shire which could be Perthshire or JRR Tolkiens fictional Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings, depending on how you look at it with these magical Hobbit Howfs.

The Burrow and Bagend are built into the hillside with grassy roofs and round doors for an unforgettable glamping experience. Craighead Howfs also offers the chance to stay in a treehouse with panoramic views over the Ochils and a secluded summer house.

Prices start from 105 per night. Call 01786 880321 or visit craigheadhowf.co.uk

The Bus Stop, Gifford, East Lothian

If you have ever wanted to enjoy a Summer Holiday in the vein of the 1963 film, look no further. This fleet of buses in a field belonging to an arable farm in East Lothian have been transformed into holiday accommodation with armchairs, sofas, lanterns, hot flasks, log stoves and beds.

Each bus has a private wood-fired hot tub and barbecue/fire pit. Choose from rustic or luxury the latter have en suite bathrooms and swish mod cons. Oh, and theres gorgeous views of the Lammermuir Hills.

Prices from 180 for a two-night stay. Call 07508 421888 or visit thebusstop.scot

Brockloch Eco Retreat, Kirkpatrick Durham, Castle Douglas

Featured on George Clarkes Amazing Spaces, Brockloch Eco Retreat is small but perfectly formed. Located on a working farm, theres two units: a contemporary, off-grid, micro-timber bothy facing into an open field and an incredible treehouse hideaway within a bluebell wood where the closest neighbours are red squirrels.

The treehouse has a built-in double bed with a skylight to gaze at the treetops and stars as you drift off to sleep. This part of the world is a great place to see red kites.

Prices from 300 for a two-night stay. Call 01556 650249 or visit brockloch.co.uk

Black Isle Yurts, Eathie Hill, Rosemarkie

Set in private woodland, all of the yurts within this eco-sensitive, wild-glamping site are based on designs used by nomadic people in Central Asia for thousands of years.

In keeping with the Scottish climate, the traditional felt outer shell has been replaced with a waterproof canvas and theres a wood-burning stove to stay cosy on cooler nights. The site is a short drive from Chanonry Point which is fantastic for dolphin spotting.

Prices from 180 for a two-night stay. Call 01381 620634 or visit blackisleyurts.co.uk

Rua Reidh Lighthouse, near Gairloch, Wester Ross

Built in 1912 by David Alan Stevenson, a cousin of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson and one of the famous Lighthouse Stevensons, this beautiful, remote location offers B&B and self-catering, the latter in the charmingly named First Officers Quarters.

Endless views, a glorious stretch of coastline, abundant bird and sea life, tranquillity, solitude and the thrill of potentially catching a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis on dark, starry nights awaits.

Prices start from 115 per night. Call 01445 771263 or visit stayatalighthouse.co.uk

Calgary, Mull

Not to be confused with the skyscraper-filled city in Alberta, this little corner of Mull is a delight.

A byre, hayloft and dovecote are among the self-catering properties available at Calgary, each with its own distinctive character. Calgary also has an excellent cafe, art gallery and a woodland sculpture walk.

Theres a beach within strolling distance where Robins Boat sells Isle of Mull ice cream. Sea eagles, otters and basking sharks can all be seen nearby.

Prices start from 400 for a seven-night stay. Call 01688 400256 or visit calgary.co.uk

The Scriptorium Apartments at St Benedicts Abbey, Fort Augustus

The Scriptorium the once secret writing room of the monastery has two one-bedroom apartments with vaulted ceilings, gothic archways and stained-glass windows. Theres plenty to do in the grounds and gardens, be it tennis, badminton, croquet or giant chess. The former Monks Refectory has been converted into a Club Lounge and a chapel refurbished to incorporate a heated pool, sauna and steam room.

Prices start from 500 for a two-night stay. Call 07748 867825 or visit parrandier.com

The Brochs of Coigach, near Achiltibuie, Ullapool

Brochs are an ancient dwelling found only in Scotland, dating back to 500BC. Gille Buidhes Broch and Scals Broch are a bit younger than that (around a decade old) and beautifully enchanting structures.

If you love upcycling, they will impress, built using stones from old, crumbling walls on nearby land and timber recovered from a dilapidated Victorian pier. Oil paintings by John Bellany hang on the walls, alongside display cabinets filled with weird and wonderful objects.

Prices from 140 per night. Call 01854 622368 or visit thebrochs.co.uk

The Four Sisters Boatel, Edinburgh

Tucked away in the heart of the Scottish capital, this houseboat is permanently moored at the Lochrin Basin on the Union Canal the eastern terminus for the 32-mile stretch of water that comes all the way from Falkirk. Sleeping up to six adults and two children, it is an ideal base to explore Edinburgh, with Bruntsfield and the West End, as well as the Old and New Towns, all just a stones throw away.

Prices start from 120 per night. Call 07445 494331 or visit thefoursisters.co.uk

The Sawmill at Glen Dye, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Talk about enjoying the great outdoors in style. Stay in a sleek, refurbished 1950s Airstream Safari caravan in a small pine wood beside the fast flowing lade of a sawmill.

A rustic, wooden seed store with roots back to the 1800s serves as the kitchen, dining and sitting room. There are games, books, a record player and a memorable barbecue spot. Glen Dye also offers a river cabin, a bothy and two steading cottages, as well as running residential courses in crafts and wild food.

Prices start from 490 for a two-night stay. Call 01330 850689 or visit glendyecabinsandcottages.com

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Lighthouse to hobbit hole: 13 unusual and quirky places to holiday in Scotland - Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald

SpaceX to Attempt First Full-Scale Starship Test Flight This Week – Futurism

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First Flight

A full-scale SpaceX Starship prototype is about to finally make its first-ever attempt at getting off the ground.

When asked on an update on the companys SN5 Starship prototype, the fifth of its kind, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk responded yesterday that it will attempt to fly later this week.

The massive SN5 prototype is expected to hop to just 150 meters (492 feet) according to road closure filings released earlier this month.

The test flight would follow flight attempts by the space companys Starhopper, an early scaled-down but still massive prototype, which successfully flew to 150 meters in August 2019. SN5 is substantially larger, currently towering above the companys test facilities in Boca Chica, Texas.

SN5 will likely still have to go through a fueling test and a static fire test of its Raptor rocket engine, according to Teslarati, before it can attempt its first test flight.

Avideouploaded to YouTube byNASA Spaceflight earlier this month also showed SpaceX mounting a mass simulator on top of the SN5 prototype, likely an effort to simulate a payload during test flights.

READ MORE: SpaceX Starship kicks off busy week of tests to prepare for flight debut [Teslarati]

More on the test: SpaceX Is Planning Starships First Test Flight for Next Week

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SpaceX to Attempt First Full-Scale Starship Test Flight This Week - Futurism

NASA Is Using a Robot to Search for Leaks Outside the Space Station – Futurism

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Automated Spacewalks

NASA and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) scientists were just able to automate one of the dangerous jobs on the International Space Station, sending a robot out on spacewalks so humans dont need to put themselves at risk.

Dextre, a CSA robot that looks like a multi-armed tower sticking to the side of the space station, recently checked the outside of the ISS for signs of leaks specifically looking for ammonia that the space station uses as a coolant, according to a NASA press release. And now, with a newly-installed robot hotel, its far easier for the robot to do its job and keep the dangerous work out of human hands.

On Tuesday, ISS astronauts installed the Robotic Tool Stowage (RiTS) unit that was first launched to space in December. NASA calls it a robot hotel, but its really more of a tool shed. In this case, it gives Dextre a place to store parts of RELL, its ammonia leak-detecting tools, on the exterior of the ISS where theyre easier to access.

RELL is a great example [of] how robots with the right tools can simplify life for astronauts, RiTS hardware manager Mark Neuman said in the release. Dextre can use RELL to detect ammonia leaks, eliminating the need for astronauts to perform the same task during a spacewalk.

For now, the new tools like RiTS and RELL can help astronauts stay safe by automating riskier tasks, but NASA suspects that the same technology could help establish orbital habitats.

NASA has big plans for its Deep Space Gateway habitat, and finding ways to give robots all the hard work could help make it a reality.

READ MORE: NASAs robot hotel gets its occupants [NASA]

More on the ISS: The Space Station Is Getting a New Toilet

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NASA Is Using a Robot to Search for Leaks Outside the Space Station - Futurism

How much time do you really need to spend in the office? – The Australian Financial Review

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"I think increasingly [it will be] about finding and framing problems. [And] how we tell stories and create compelling narratives around a vision."

The ability to collaborate to solve complex problems and innovate, as well as sharing knowledge and experience, are often cited as key benefits of working in the same physical environment.

Atlassian has employed various tools to encourage collaboration remotely. One method is to encourage staff to share information they have learnt.

Price said this week: "The best example is how we share openly. So when I finish [the panel] today and I've got to hear all your amazing comments, I could just go back to my home and think: that was a great event. But what I'm going to do is write a blog and share with the company what I learnt.

From left, BOSS editor Sally Patten, Atlassian's Dominic Price, Gilbert + Tobin partner Dianne Banks and behavioural scientist Juliette Tobias-Webb.Janie Barrett

"That gives no value to me. But it gives value to everyone else in the organisation. That's collaboration. Someone might make comments or ask me a question. We start the incidental conversation. When we work in a distributed way, we need to find other avenues to have these moments to connect. We don't have to bump into each other around the water cooler for that to happen.

"If you make this compulsory, people do it for all the wrong reasons. We try and make it because people genuinely see value in it."

Atlassian has also developed tools to help staff to learn and develop knowledge and skills remotely. The software company operates a program called Brainary, whereby anyone who considers themselves to have a good idea and be proficient in a particular skill is able to run a training course that can be attended by anyone.

"You do that to create social learning. You do it to create digital learning, because everyone has a unique learning style," Price said.

"If we pick one way of doing it, we'll probably fail. We pick a way where people can build their own adventure. You still need to be intrinsically motivated to do it. You can't force someone to learn something. But if you set up the system and make it easy to access, we believe the smart people will access that and they will continually grow and develop."

Dr Juliette Tobias-Webb, a behavioural scientist, also points to tools that can help staff learn effectively even if they are not physically at work. Digital platforms mean employees can observe how colleagues present, while the ability to share documents means staff can see how colleagues work and think.

Atlassian is also using a variety of tools to help build relationships and trust among colleagues. These can range from posting holiday snaps to conducting a "Pinot and Picasso" night.

"We got overly competitive for about two hours, drinking wine, painting terrible pictures, and what I learnt through that was there is no correlation between IQ and artistic ability," Price said.

Debbie Taylor, chief information officer, NBN Co

"We looked at a call centre and we compared February, before COVID-19 hit, and the month of June, when 100 per cent of our call centre agents were working from home, and we found some amazing information. The call centre agents were 6 per cent more productive, absenteeism was 50 per cent less and the average speed to answer a call was over 40 per cent quicker."

Alicia Purtell, people and culture director, Lion

"[If you want to get noticed by your leaders in this environment], I think the big thing is don't wait. You know you can't have politeness at a point when you want to discover and learn and be curious. You might not have normal channels so you have to utilise the ones that work best for you. Be really curious; share the learnings; put your hand up to be involved in new initiatives."

Dr Juliette Tobias-Webb, behavioural scientist

"There's a range of ways that we can watch and observe others now. We obviously have digital platforms where we can see people presenting. If you think about the gaming space, you can watch each other. Also there are digital tools that we use now, like a Google doc. When I was doing my PhD, I would sit over my supervisor's shoulder and watch him type away. I can actually now do that in a remote setting.

"The other thing that I'm quite curious about is the trade-off with innovation. Are you more innovative [when you are learning by yourself]? Do we come up with new ways of actually working or doing the task at hand, rather than just watching others?"

Dominic Price, resident futurist, Atlassian

"Ignore perfection because it will kill innovation. We've got to experiment with imperfection, and so many leaders struggle to do that. It's not fail fast. It's learn fast."

Dr Sean Gallagher, director of Centre for the New Workforce, Swinburne University

"[If you are going to put a number on the ideal split between working from home and the office], maybe 60 per cent at home and 40 per cent in the office. But I actually think this is a fantastic opportunity to completely reimagine what we mean by work and why we actually come together into a physical space. I think the workplace is no longer about coming in to process email or to do routine or predictable kind of work. That's just a waste of office space. I think increasingly [it will be] about finding and framing problems; how we tell stories and create compelling narratives around a vision.

Dianne Banks, partner, Gilbert + Tobin

"One of my clients which is Canadian headquartered has decided to move to hybrid remote working permanently. They're going to reduce their footprint and give people the option of working flexibly. I think we're a long way from that here. A number of employers I speak with still have this mentality of employees being "in the office". I think what it's going to take is the war for talent to drive change because the Fair Work Act doesn't help people in terms of flexible work practices in real terms."

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How much time do you really need to spend in the office? - The Australian Financial Review

The Second Amendment is not restricted to white conservatives – Chicago Sun-Times

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Last Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky, about 300 armed members of the NFAC (Not F---ing Around Coalition), a self-described Black militia based in Atlanta, had what the Louisville Courier-Journal called a tense standoff with about 50 armed Three Percenters, which the paper described as a far-right... militia.

While the incident, which ended without violence, could be seen as yet another sign that the country is descending into 1968-style chaos, it was also a striking illustration of the Second Amendments enduring practical and symbolic importance that scrambled conventional stereotypes about the right to armed self-defense.

Since Kentucky allows the open carrying of firearms without a permit, the two groups, both of which disavow aggression, were acting lawfully. And while their motives may look different, both are drawing on a long American tradition of gun ownership as a safeguard against tyranny.

NFAC members came to Louisville in support of protests provoked by the shooting of Breonna Taylor, an unarmed 26-year-old African American woman who was killed by white police officers during a fruitless drug raid on March 13. The circumstances of Taylors death gave the guns carried by those militia members added significance.

Plainclothes police officers broke into Taylors apartment in the middle of the night based on meager evidence that a detective used to obtain a no-knock search warrant. Mistaking the armed invaders for robbers, Taylors boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, grabbed a gun and fired a single shot that struck one officer in the leg.

The cops responded with a hail of bullets, at least eight of which struck Taylor and several of which entered a neighboring apartment. Prosecutors initially charged Walker with attempted murder of a police officer but dropped that charge in May.

As Rep. Tom McClintock, R-California, observed last month, the invasion of a persons home is one of the most terrifying powers government possesses, and every person in a free society has the right to take arms against an intruder in their homes.

While McClintock was emphasizing the dangers posed by no-knock warrants, his comments also raised the question of how Americans, no matter their skin color, can defend themselves against police officers who behave like criminals.

NFAC has one answer. By parading with military-style rifles of the sort that Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, wants to ban, the militias members show they are prepared to exercise the Second Amendment rights that gun control supporters typically portray as a fetish of white conservatives.

The assertion of those rights resonates historically, since modern gun control laws have their roots in the efforts of Southern states to disarm freedmen, depriving them of a constitutional right that Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the Supreme Courts infamous 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, warned Black people would enjoy if they were recognized as citizens.

Under Jim Crow and during the civil rights movement, the right to armed self-defense was vitally important to African Americans resisting government-imposed white supremacy.

The Three Percenters, by contrast, were responding to NFACs presence in Louisville, aiming to aid police (as the Courier-Journal put it) in maintaining order. Yet, the group, which rejects the militia label and disavows racism, also describes itself as defending civil liberties and resisting the illegitimate exercise of government power.

You need not endorse the tactics or ideologies of these organizations to recognize that both are relying on a legal legacy that makes mainstream Democrats like Biden uncomfortable. As the Supreme Court recognized in its landmark 2008 decision overturning the District of Columbias handgun ban, the Second Amendment was based partly on the premise that when the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist tyranny.

The fact that two opposing groups are dedicated to defending the right of armed self-defense should not be surprising. The Second Amendment, like the First, is of value to people with divergent backgrounds and political views.

Gun controllers should stop pretending otherwise.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine.

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The Second Amendment is not restricted to white conservatives - Chicago Sun-Times

Kathleen Sullivan: Either primary candidate will lose to Shaheen, but which still matters – The Union Leader

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New Hampshires September 8 state primary election is less than six weeks away. The biggest Republican race is for the United States Senate nomination and the unenviable task of trying to defeat Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

The two GOP candidates are Colorado lawyer and recent (really recent) Granite State resident Corky Messner and retired Brigadier General Don Bolduc.

Messner is weak on policy specifics. His web site reads like a checklist of old Republican National Committee talking points: hold the line on spending; the national debt threatens prosperity; stop crime by ending illegal immigration; support the Second Amendment; and, fix health care through the free market.

He says nothing about climate change, the environment, or the cost of college, has no proposals to help working and/or middle class families, does not mention racial justice, and provides no substantive alternatives to the ACA to provide health insurance. I was unable to find any policies supported by Messner regarding the war in Afghanistan, and little about the pandemic.

He touts his endorsement by Donald Trump. This is ironic, given that under Trump the national debt has mushroomed (even before the pandemic). Messner calls for strengthened ties with our allies, yet doesnt mention Trumps effort to blow up NATO and his abandonment of the Kurds.

If you want a Republican who has nothing new to say and appears to have missed the last three years, Messner is your man.

Unlike Messner, Bolduc is a New Hampshire guy who did not move here to run for office. He also has done admirable work on the effect of PTSD on active military and veterans. But much of his web site is also just checking old boxes, while ignoring the environment, climate change and racism.

Unlike Messner, he does address the burden of student debt, proposing a service program through which students can earn reduced tuition. Like Messner, he opposes regulation by the federal government, but suggests replacing it with regulation by individual states.

A patchwork of state regulation seems unworkable when it comes to corporate issues of national impact, but give him credit for at least thinking beyond the talking points.

I listened to their interviews on NHPR, which are available on the NHPR website. Bolduc, who has a bad habit of veering toward fringe notions, was asked about wearing masks to prevent COVID-19. He stated that he is unapologetically of the opinion that masks cause more problems than they solve. I am unapologetically of the opinion that he needs to stop listening to right wing talk shows.

Messner was asked whether he supports Black Lives Matter. He said no, that it was a revolutionary movement.

So was the American Revolution, Corky. Black Lives Matter wants our country to live up to the promise of that revolution that all are created equal.

You can obtain more information about Bolduc and Messner by googling their names, or doing a search of this papers web site. I encourage anyone planning on voting in the Republican primary to do so, as what I say about each of them is through my partisan Democrat lens.

And that partisan lens says neither one will be able to defeat Jeanne Shaheen.

Manchesters Kathy Sullivan is the former chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party.

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Kathleen Sullivan: Either primary candidate will lose to Shaheen, but which still matters - The Union Leader