Agriculture remains a key driver of ASEAN economic development. As of 2018, it accounts for more than a quarter of total exports of Cambodia and Myanmar, whereas imports range from only 3% in Singapore to 15% in Brunei, suggesting that this sector is relatively self-sufficient, profitable, and with a large export market. Agriculture is also the biggest source of employment in most ASEAN Member States (AMS), from 29% of the labour force in the Philippines to 72% in Laos. However, agriculture makes up a disproportionately low 10% of the entire ASEAN economy, necessitating a concerted effort from AMS to prioritise its development.

Current Growth

Total agricultural production and consumption have been increasing as corroborated by the drastic increase in total agricultural trade reported by the ASEAN Statistics Data Portal. There is a remarkable increase since the first ASEAN Free Trade Agreement with an extramural partner, ASEAN-China FTA, which took effect in 2005. According to ASEAN Food Security Information System, the stable rise in rice, maize, sugar, soybean, and cassava production and trade is due to improving productivity, better crop varieties, and supportive government policy. This growth is slightly offset by unfavourable weather, disasters, and decrease in planted areas; the latter due to decreasing demand and prices.

Although agricultural imports increase consistently, exports dipped in specific time periods years 2009, 2012, and 2015-2016; exports have also been lagging behind imports. Moreover, using the Arkansas Global Rice Model, rice supply is predicted to grow by a mere 1.37% annually, threatening staple food consumption in ASEAN coupled with a growing population. This shows that although significant strides have been made, several barriers remain. For instance, although tariffs have been completely eliminated among ASEAN-6, and close to zero among CLMV, there remain sensitive list exceptions. Non-tariff measures are increasing especially in the more developed AMS. Although not necessarily trade-reducing, these measures increase compliance costs and may act as trade barriers if not implemented effectively.

Nevertheless, there are notable efforts towards further liberalisation. The Philippines enforced the Rice Tariffication Law which effectively removes rice from the list of exceptions, allowing importation without quota, but instead with tariffs. This is a significant move towards an integrated and cohesive economy and sectoral cooperation in ASEAN. However, this was immediately met with opposition from farmers, NGOs, and urban poor who cite the negative social impact and lack of economic safety nets for those affected. This polarisation is a grim reminder of the disconnected regionalism in ASEAN led only by state leaders. Nevertheless, the active participation of non-state stakeholders by lending their voices should be a welcome development for an integrated ASEAN community.

Challenges in Agriculture

However, there are more fundamental challenges that threaten not just stakeholder participation but the very goals of the ASEAN Economic Community. Firstly, although total agriculture volume is expanding, its share in ASEAN GDP is fast shrinking. This is mostly due to the increasing shares of the manufacturing and services sectors. This shift is inevitable, given a number of AMS such as Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines are rapidly industrialising. However, ASEAN must ensure that the gains in agriculture must be seamlessly transferred to the agriculture economies. For instance, engendering inclusive and equitable growth for Myanmar means translating the dynamic shifts in comparative advantage of agricultural production from AMS into the rice fields of Myanmar. This is indeed happening in the increasing share of Myanmar in ASEAN agriculture trade, but Laos and Cambodia have yet to realise substantial growth.

Factors that promote de-globalisation and protectionism also dampen regional agricultural development. ASEAN-led RCEP has been delayed due to failure of India to commit in an attempt to protect its vulnerable agriculture sector. Thus, ASEANs organisational maturity in accommodating flexibilities, potentially through ASEAN Minus X, will be critical to salvage the multilateral arrangement. More importantly, protectionism still exists especially in the lesser developed economies of ASEAN, a remnant of ASEANs competing agricultural economies as well as a consequence of opening up to cheaper products outside. However, the established macroeconomic model for the international flow of capital and goods presents the most compelling case against protectionism as it ultimately leads to decreased overall trade, without having any long-term impact on trade balance or net exports; the loss of export demand means lower production, thus lower revenues.

Competitive Agriculture Sector

The good news is in the proactive vision of ASEAN to push for the agriculture sector, as enshrined in the ASEAN Economic Community agenda. To this end, there have been many initiatives undertaken by different ASEAN organisations. The Initiative for ASEAN Integration is funded by ASEAN-6 to aid the development of CLMV states through infrastructure, human resource development and regional integration projects aimed at narrowing the development gap. Similarly, the ASEAN Development Fund finances short-term projects especially in poorer regions to alleviate income disparity. Both these are utilised in the agriculture sector of CLMV to expedite their economic development.

Furthermore, ASEAN has implemented initiatives around sustainability and increasing the overall competitiveness of the agriculture sector including the ASEAN Public-Private Partnership Regional Framework for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry Sectors and the ASEAN Roadmap for Enhancing the Role of Agricultural Cooperatives in Global Agricultural Chains. The latter, in particular, will further integrate ASEAN agricultural products in global value chains and establish forward and backward linkages in domestic production lines. Aside from ensuring equitable growth and enhancing access to global markets, these initiatives also aim to eradicate poverty, deepen regional integration, improve sustainability, nutrition, and food security. The work plan around these covers standardisation of product quality and quantity,

resource sustainability, trade facilitation, economic integration and market access within and outside ASEAN. Best practices and SOPs in animal husbandry, agriculture, aquaculture, and sanitation have likewise been finalised. All these will hasten the growth of the agriculture sector while mitigating the impact of adverse events such as disasters and economic shocks such as Malaysias oil and rubber trade decline.

Moving towards the ASEAN Economic Community

The fate of ASEANs agriculture sector lies in the prudent implementation of the vision for an integrated, competitive, and equitable ASEAN Economic Community. Without a strong commitment, ASEAN development will be relegated to persistent delays, as seen in the current development gap, thwarted liberalisation, and trade protectionism rampant among AMS economies. Nevertheless, ASEANs proactive initiatives have served to hasten the realisation of an economic community, which will in turn, further strengthen ASEANs primary sector.

Related

Read more from the original source:

Pandemic Recovery: Economic Developments and Future of Work - Modern Diplomacy

An article in Ladies Home Journal predicted 2001 a century earlier. Heres a video version:

Futurism is a hit and miss business: Fast food is predicted (3:40) but so is the extinction of the horse (3:20). Apparently, the futurist, John Elfreth Watkins, Jr., did not foresee a future for horses in recreation and sports except for the rich.

He predicted the internet and wireless communications in principle (5:57, 13:29): A husband sitting in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. But, surprisingly, he did not see much of a commercial future for the airplane but rather favored dirigibles and electrified ships (8:20ff).

He predicted high-speed trains but also electric sleighs for kids (17:16) Hmm. Did he not pause to think about concussion? No surprise, that idea never took off.

When predicting the future, we all may tend to either underestimate the advances:

The average American will live fifty years, as opposed to thirty-five

US life expectancy was about 78.6 years in 2017, principally due to clean water, healthier living conditions, and emergency medicine.

Or else we overestimate them:

The trip to suburban home to office will require only a few minutes a penny will pay the fare Dreamin

Commenters at YouTube offer some thoughts about what the 1901 futurist got right and wrong:

giant guns will fire 25 miles or more Paris gun 13 years later could fire 81 miles.

The whole well get rid of all the annoying flying bugs- thing showed that we clearly hadnt quite figured out the whole everything is connected aspect of the biosphere.

and

He predicted spy satellites in space before man had sent anything into space, granted he said theyd be balloons with cameras attached but they describe satellites

2010 looks back on a 1909 prediction, in this case by Nicola Tesla (18561943) in Popular Mechanics:

He wrote in the magazine that, one day it would be possible to transmit wireless messages all over the world.

Tesla, who spent most of his adult life in America before his death in New York in 1943, imagined such a hand-held device would be simple to use and that, one day, everyone in the world would communicate to friends using it.

This, he added, would usher in a new era of technology.

Imagine. A handheld device

2014 looks back on (roughly) 1914s predictions via French vintage postcards popular during the 1900 Worlds Fair and following:

One thing you see in the cards is a tendency to assume some things wont change, even though they undoubtedly will. In one image, a couple flags down an aerotaxi. Thats futuristic enough, but the man is wearing spats and carrying a cane, while she has a parasol and an enormous hat with a feather. Did they really think transportation would undergo a revolution while fashion stayed frozen in time? In every one of these you see a mix of a futuristic concept with stuff that looks to us to be very old fashioned, [collector Ed] Fries said.

At the same time, theres virtually no hint in the postcards of the truly transformative technologies of the last centurynamely personal computers and the internet.

Heres one card (public domain) depicting an aerocab station as seen from 1900:

Some of the jealously guarded cards are shown in this YouTube video.

and

2018 looks back on 1918s predictions:

On January 6, 1918, the headline of an article in The Washington Times announced that the Automobile of Tomorrow Will Be Constructed Like a Moving Drawing Room. The author was writing about a prediction in Scientific American that described the car of the future. It would be water-tight and weather-proof, with sides made entirely of glass, and seats that could be moved anywhere in the vehicle. It would be decked out with power steering, brakes, heating, and a small control board for navigation. A finger lever would replace the steering wheel. Other designs imagined that cars would roll around on just three wheels, or on air-filled spheres to remove the need for shocks.

So much is right; again, the parts that the futurist gets wrong likely stem from not envisioning practical issues like the increased hazard from smashed glass during a minor collision.

The big disadvantage of making predictions for a century hence is that we probably wont get to find out if they come true.

If you enjoyed this piece, you may also want to look at:

Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it sometimes grows out of it. A senior editor at Wired told us a while back that science fiction writer H. G. Wellss 1914 tale, The World Set Free, formed part of the inspiration for the atomic bomb, exploded over Hiroshima in 1945.

and

Brilliant vision from a century ago foretells todays internet. In E. M. Forsters dystopia, people interact only through the Machine.

View post:

What Goes Right and Wrong When We Predict a High-Tech Future - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Runner Up

Tesla competitor Lucid Motors claims to have beaten a Tesla Model S in a quarter mile race, covering the distance in a blistering 9.9 seconds.

The company has been hyping up its Lucid Air electric luxury sedan for several weeks now. First, it claimed the sedan will have a whopping 517 mile range on a single charge. Then they said it will be the fastest charging electric vehicle ever offered.

And now, Lucid is coming after Teslas speed records as well. The Air, with its 1,080 horsepower powertrain, can launch fromzero to 60 mph in just 2.5 seconds. Nowit says the vehicle covered the quarter mile, with an experienced driver behind the wheel and warmed up tires, in just under ten seconds.

Lucid Motors went as far as claiming the drag race made it the worlds quickest production sedan.

A Tesla Model S Performance with a specialized powertrain took 0.7 seconds longer, as Motor Trend reports. A 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S took 0.6 seconds longer.

The Lucid Air will make its first big stage appearance (albeit virtually) during an online event next week.

READ MORE: In ego battle, Lucid Motors claims to beat Tesla with 9.9 second quarter mile [TechCrunch]

More on Lucid Motors: Tesla Competitor Claims Its Car Will Be the Fastest Charging EV Ever

The rest is here:

Lucid Motors Claims to Have Beaten Tesla Model S on Drag Strip - Futurism

A team of astronomers have spotted what they claim is the most massive collision of two black holes ever observed.

Prior to the gigantic collision, at least one of the massive colossal space objects had the mass of 85 Suns. The collision itself created a black hole about 150 solar masses putting it into a mass range previously thought to be possible and ejected the equivalent of eight solar masses in the form of energy in the form of gravitational waves, as detailed in papers published today in the journals Physical Review LettersandThe Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Everything about this discovery is mindboggling, Simon Portegies Zwart, a computational astrophysicist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the research, said in a Nature statement.

The size of the black holes involved in the merger would make them more massive than a regular star, but lighter than the supermassive black holes often found at the center of galaxies.

The event, which occurred approximately seven billion light years away, was observed in May 2019 using the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Antenna (LIGO) detectors in the US and the smaller Virgo observatory in Italy.

Theresearchers made the discovery by observing gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that can give away these galactic events. The relatively new technique has allowed scientists to make discoveries of dozens of other black hole collisions like it.

But even by the epic standards of black hole collisions, this one takes the cake.

This doesnt look much like a chirp, which is what we typically detect, Virgo member Nelson Christensen, researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), who compared the new results to the first detection of gravitational waves using LIGO dating back to 2015, said in an MIT press release.

This is more like something that goes bang, and its the most massive signal LIGO and Virgo have seen, Christensen added.

The masses of the two merging black holes are highly unusual as there is a mass gap, roughly between 65 and 135 solar masses, where black holes arent expected to exist. Thats because at those sizes, stars theoretically tend to be ripped apart and disintegrated by the explosive fusion of oxygen nuclei, a process known as pair instability.

This is quite neatly in the range one would expect the pair-instability mass gap should be, LIGO astrophysicist Christopher Berry of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said in the Nature statement.

Scientists suspect that at least one of the black holes may not have formed from a collapsing star the more conventional way smaller black holes are formed.

Another scenario is that smaller black holes could have merged together over time, accumulating into the one involved in this collision. Yet such a theory is hard to back up as we still havent found any other intermediate black holes.

Thats why astronomers have been looking for these extensively, because they would help in solving this puzzle, Salvatore Vitale, an assistant professor at the LIGO Lab of MIT, told The Verge.

LIGO once again surprises us not just with the detection of black holes in sizes that are difficult to explain, but doing it using techniques that were not designed specifically for stellar mergers, Pedro Marronetti, program director for gravitational physics at the National Science Foundation, said in the MIT press release.

This is of tremendous importance since it showcases the instruments ability to detect signals from completely unforeseen astrophysical events, he added. LIGO shows that it can also observe the unexpected.

READ MORE: Astronomers say theyve detected the most massive merger of two black holes ever discovered [The Verge]

More on black holes: Cornell Scientists Say Strange Metals Are Similar to Black Holes

Link:

Astronomers Claim to Have Spotted the Most Massive Black Hole Merger Ever - Futurism

According to new research, tiny doses of the psychedelic drug LSD could be an effective painkiller perhaps as powerful, the scientists found, as conventional opioids like morphine.

This study in healthy volunteers shows that a low dose of LSD produces an analgesic effect in the absence of a psychedelic effect, as assessed with a cold pressure tests, said lead researcher Jan Ramaekers, a professor of psychoparmacology and behavioral toxicology at Maastricht University, in a press release. The magnitude of the analgesic effect appears comparable to analgesic effects of opioids in the same pain model.

As described in research published this week in theJournal of Psychopharmacology, Ramaekers and his colleagues gave either placebos or microdoses of LSD between five and 20 micrograms, compared to the 100 micrograms or more you might find in a recreational dose to 24 volunteers.

Then they administered something called a cold pressor test, in which the subjects were asked to submerge a hand in a tub of water that had been chilled to near-freezing.

What they found was striking. The very low doses of LSD didnt seem to have much of an effect on participants perception of pain, but the 20 microgram dose appeared to decrease participants perception of pain by a substantial 20 percent.

Amanda Feilding, the Director of the Beckley Foundation, which assisted with the research, expressed enthusiasm for the results.

The present data suggests low doses of LSD could constitute a useful pain management treatment option that is not only effective in patients but is also devoid of the problematic consequences associated with current mainstay drugs, such as opioids, she said in the press release. Over 16 million people worldwide are currently suffering from Opioid Use Disorder and many more will become hooked as a result of oversubscription of pain medication.

The research, is still early stage, and Ramaekers called for further trials to see if the findings can be replicated. But its intriguing, New Atlas points out, because it builds on much earlier findings from the 1960s, when a researcher named Eric Kast conducted a series of promising experiments designed to probe whether LSD might be an effective pain medication.

That work was cut short when the government cracked down on LSD research. But now, with authorities starting to loosen those restrictions, scientists like Ramaekers are interested in following up.

These findings strongly encourage clinical trials in pain patients to assess the replicability and generalizability of these findings, Ramaekers said in the release.

Read the original here:

Research: LSD Microdoses as Effective as Opioids at Treating Pain - Futurism

Beyond serving the simple purpose of providing companies with office space, some office buildings also become world-famous cultural icons due to their unique design or remarkable history. From the enthusiasm of the first skyscrapers in the 1920s to the innovative futurism of today, famous office buildings have always represented an apex of modern architecture. But, which office buildings are the most popular?

To find out, we looked at the number of web visits to the Wikipedia pages of famous U.S. office buildings larger than 1 million square feet. The study is based on views since 2015, the earliest point where there is available data. So, without further ado, here are the nations 10 most popular office buildings by Wikipedia page views.

Coming in at #10 on our list is 40 Wall St. (also known today as the Trump Building and as the Bank of Manhattan Trust Building in its early days) is a testament of Manhattans first skyscraper frenzy in the late 1920s. Combining elements of Art Deco with neo-Gothic architecture, 40 Wall St. has a distinctive look due to its buff brick faade and pyramidal roof.

This propertys role in the Manhattan skyscraper race is often forgotten because it was surpassed by both the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building in height. However, its eclectic style and relevance even in the present day earned it 915,000 Wikipedia page views in the last five years.

The 1,128-foot-tall 875 N. Michigan Ave., with its black steel beams and slightly tapered shape, took the ninth spot on our list with just over 1 million Wikipedia page views since 2015. The building has been officially referred to by its address since 2018, although many still know it by its previous name the John Hancock Center.

Situated a mere two blocks from Lake Michigan, this office building epitomizes the peak of competition between the Chicago office market and Manhattan. In fact, upon its completion in 1968, it was the worlds second-tallest building, following only the Empire State Building.

This property in Midtown Manhattan was completed in 1957, and has been viewed on Wikipedia more than 1.2 million times since 2015. The building at 666 Fifth Ave. was previously owned by Tishman Speyer until it was sold for $1.8 billion in 2007 to Kushner Properties to become its flagship office building. At the time, it was the largest real estate deal in New York history.

Then, in 2018, Kushner signed a full leasehold agreement for the building with Brookfield Properties with nearly a century of lease being paid in advance. And now, renovation plans are in place totaling an estimated $400 million, including renaming the building to 660 Fifth Ave.

At the heart of downtown San Francisco, the Salesforce Tower known until 2014 as the Transbay Tower gathered 1.2 million page views on Wikipedia. Built between 2013 and 2018, it added 1.4 million square feet of space to the San Francisco office market.

Standing at 1,070 feet, the Salesforce Tower is San Franciscos tallest building. The property features an innovative shape with rounded edges that taper toward the top, and the 5.4-acre Salesforce Park is nearby.

The best-ranking West Coast property in our top 10 is the corporate headquarters of tech giant Apple. Apple Park is a massive, neo-futurist groundscraper an office building with a large square footage that extends horizontally rather than vertically.

Opened in 2017, the facility totals 2.8 million square feet of office space in the heart of Silicon Valley. However, Apple Park feels less like an office building and more like a nature reserve. For example, it features extensive green spaces and includes thousands of trees that are present in the local Cupertino wildlife. Its also entirely powered by renewable energy.

The rebuilt 7 World Trade Center was completed in 2006, boasting 52 stories; a total height of 743 feet; a trapezoid-shaped footprint; and a dark blue, glass faade.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, this hallmark of modern architecture was the first office tower to reopen in the rebuilt WTC complex. Its also an early example of green skyscraper design, as 7 WTC was the first building in all of New York City to receive a LEED Gold rating.

A famous Art Deco building in Manhattan, the Chrysler Building occupies the fourth spot on our list with 3.1 million Wikipedia page views since 2015.

Situated in Turtle Bay, the Chrysler Building is the product of the 1930s New York skyscraper race. In particular, the buildings unique spire brought its total height to 1,047 feet when it was completed one year prior to the completion of the Empire State Building. This made the Chrysler Building the worlds tallest for 11 months and the worlds first supertall building. Even today, it still holds the title for the worlds tallest brick building with a steel framework.

An icon of the Chicago skyline, the Willis Towers 4.6 million page views make it the third-most famous office building on Wikipedia. Formerly known as the Sears Tower until it was rebranded in 2009, it held the title of the tallest building in the world (by height of architectural elements) from 1973 until 1998. In fact, the Willis Tower is still the worlds tallest steel-construction building all buildings taller than it use concrete construction or composite materials.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill the architecture company that would go on to design One World Trade Center and the Burj Khalifa it features a modernist design, and is composed of nine square tubes arranged in a three-by-three pattern that function structurally as if they were separate buildings. This gives the Willis Tower its distinctive rectangular, stepped appearance, while also allowing the potential addition of more floors in the future.

The Empire State Building came in second with 8.4 million Wikipedia page views the equivalent of more than 4,500 per day. The iconic buildings Art Deco faade emanates optimism and progress, encapsulating the glitz of New York City in the Roaring Twenties.

The Empire State Building was the worlds tallest building for almost four decades from its completion in 1931 until 1970, when it was overtaken by the World Trade Center, but it stands as a landmark of New York City and the U.S. as a whole. And, in addition to its status as a national cultural icon and a major tourist attraction, its also still a desirable location for office space.

With more than 9.1 million views or 4,890 per day on average the office building with the most-visited Wikipedia page is One World Trade Center. If the Empire State Building is representative of Manhattans early history, then One World Trade Center is the firemost symbol of modern New York Citys resilience. As the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center (WTC) complex, One WTC is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the sixth-tallest in the world. At 1,776 feet, its height coincides with the year the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Final plans for the supertall office building were unveiled in 2005, and it was initially dubbed Freedom Tower. Now, with its triangular glass facades, tapered shape and octagonal midsection, it stands as a representation of the contemporary style in skyscraper architecture. And, besides being an ideal location in Manhattans Financial District, its state-of-the-art features such as elevators that can go from the ground to the top floor in one minute, as well as a variety of green amenities ensured that world-class tenants lined up to occupy its 3.1 million square feet of Manhattan office space.

Original post:

Here Are The Most Popular Office Buildings in the US - COMMERCIALCaf

Leeeeroy Jenkins

On Thursday, NASA watched as a “sungrazer comet” sailed through space on a self-destructive collision course with the Sun.

Unfortunately, the poor fella didn’t survive its close encounter, CNET reports. Perhaps that’s not all that surprising for anything hurtling toward the Sun, but astronomers did get some fascinating footage as they watched the comet break apart in real-time.

Comet approaching the Sun (from southwest, or lower right), while slow CMEs were in progress on both the east and west limbs. The comet must have overlapped with the solar disk by now if it had survived. pic.twitter.com/DH1ftnycr7

— Halo CME (@halocme) August 27, 2020

Rest In Peace

NASA and the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) spotted the comet after it let out a bright flash of light on its approach. Sungrazer comets are fairly common, CNET reports, but it’s unusual for them to announce themselves with such dramatic flair. Unfortunately, this one’s journey is already over.

“This is not survivable for a little comet,” NASA and NRL researcher Karl Battams wrote in a tweet about the comet’s trajectory.

Our bright SOHO sungrazer is still looking as healthy as can be hoped! [: https://t.co/0lbmyfPeHV]

Perihelion looks like it'll be 2020-08-27 ~15:58UT, at about 0.0067au (~~1.5 solar radii). This is not survivable for a little comet. pic.twitter.com/4ftuTFdOtn

— Karl Battams (@SungrazerComets) August 26, 2020

Doomed Journey

Even aside from its final destination, the scientists observing the comet could tell it was doomed by looking at its tail.

In another tweet, Battams pointed out that the comet didn’t have a regular tail. Instead, it was leaving a trail of debris and boulders behind as it rapidly broke apart on its journey. Needless to say, we’ll be pouring one out.

The bright @esa/@NASASun SOHO comet has now entered our @USNRL LASCO C2 camera.

That tail is not your typical comet tail – it's more of a boulder-strewn debris trail. The comet is being entirely deconstructed by solar radiation in our solar system's most hostile environment! pic.twitter.com/OYeXvQBoiK

— Karl Battams (@SungrazerComets) August 27, 2020

READ MORE: Bright comet caught recklessly racing toward the sun [CNET]

More on comets: Here Are The Most Amazing Shots of the NEOWISE Comet

The post This Dumbass Comet Just Flew Directly Into the Sun appeared first on Futurism.

Read more from the original source:
This Dumbass Comet Just Flew Directly Into the Sun

Flying Machine

A Japanese company called SkyDrive just conducted a successful flight test of its “flying car” vehicle — with a human pilot on board.

The vehicle, which looks sort of like a cross between a snowmobile and a quadrotor drone, hovered several feet off the ground for four minutes, AP News reports. While it sounds like a small feat, very few eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) projects have ever actually made it off the ground — and fewer yet have done so with a human in the pilot’s seat.

Taking Off

Tomohiro Fukuzawa, who runs SkyDrive, told AP News that he’s optimistic about the future of eVTOL vehicles and believes that they could drive down the cost of exports or revolutionize personal transport.

“Of the world’s more than 100 flying car projects, only a handful has succeeded with a person on board,” Fukuzawa told AP News. “I hope many people will want to ride it and feel safe.”

Mild Turbulence

But there’s a lot of engineering that needs to happen between now and then. Flying cars can’t yet stay aloft for nearly long enough to be useful, and the battery packs necessary to do so are heavy and expensive.

“If [eVTOL vehicles] cost $10 million, no one is going to buy them,” Sanjiv Singh, a Carnegie Mellon University roboticist who’s working on his own eVTOL project, told AP News. “If they fly for 5 minutes, no one is going to buy them. If they fall out of the sky every so often, no one is going to buy them.”

READ MORE: Japan’s ‘flying car’ gets off ground, with a person aboard [AP News]

More on flying cars: Boeing’s Flying Car Just Completed Its First Test Flight

The post Japanese Company Tests a Flying Car — With a Human On Board appeared first on Futurism.

The rest is here:
Japanese Company Tests a Flying Car — With a Human On Board

Big Hack

A new Electrek story details the saga of Jason Hughes, a whitehat hacker who says he managed to gain a flabbergasting level of access to Tesla’s internal servers — managing to seize control of the company’s entire fleet of electric vehicles.

The alleged hack took place back in March 2017, and Hughes immediately alerted Tesla’s security team, which quickly patched the security hole. Still, it’s a fascinating glimpse at the perils of connected vehicles.

Security Breach

Hughes told Electrek that he pulled the hack off by discovering an escalating series of weaknesses in Tesla’s fleet management systems. Eventually, he gained access so deep that he could look up the location of individual Tesla vehicles and even activate their “Summon” feature, causing them to drive remotely. Electrek‘s Fred Lambert, who apparently knew about the hack at the time, said that Hughes was able to provide the precise location and other information about his own Tesla.

Because of the gravity of the situation, Hughes said that he contacted the company’s head of software security directly, who asked him to prove the hack by activating the Summon feature on a car in California. After Hughes did so successfully, and submitted a vulnerability report that he has now shared online, he says that Tesla paid him an unprecedented $50,000 bug bounty.

Electric Gravy

Surprisingly, Electrek pointed out, Musk appeared to allude to the secret hack onstage at an event, just a few months after it happened.

“In principle, if someone was able to say hack all the autonomous Teslas, they could say — I mean just as a prank — they could say ‘send them all to Rhode Island’ — across the United States… and that would be the end of Tesla and there would be a lot of angry people in Rhode Island,” he said during a 2017 event in Rhode Island.

READ MORE: The Big Tesla Hack: A hacker gained control over the entire fleet, but fortunately he’s a good guy [Electrek]

More on Tesla: Tesla Driver, Watching Movie on Autopilot, Slams Into Police Cars

The post A Hacker Reportedly Gained Access to Tesla’s Entire Fleet appeared first on Futurism.

More:
A Hacker Reportedly Gained Access to Tesla’s Entire Fleet

According to new research, tiny doses of the psychedelic drug LSD could be an effective painkiller — perhaps as powerful, the scientists found, as conventional opioids like morphine.

“This study in healthy volunteers shows that a low dose of LSD produces an analgesic effect in the absence of a psychedelic effect, as assessed with a cold pressure tests,” said lead researcher Jan Ramaekers, a professor of psychoparmacology and behavioral toxicology at Maastricht University, in a press release. “The magnitude of the analgesic effect appears comparable to analgesic effects of opioids in the same pain model.”

As described in research published this week in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, Ramaekers and his colleagues gave either placebos or “microdoses” of LSD — between five and 20 micrograms, compared to the 100 micrograms or more you might find in a recreational dose — to 24 volunteers.

Then they administered something called a “cold pressor test,” in which the subjects were asked to submerge a hand in a tub of water that had been chilled to near-freezing.

What they found was striking. The very low doses of LSD didn’t seem to have much of an effect on participants’ perception of pain, but the 20 microgram dose appeared to decrease participants’ perception of pain by a substantial 20 percent.

Amanda Feilding, the Director of the Beckley Foundation, which assisted with the research, expressed enthusiasm for the results.

“The present data suggests low doses of LSD could constitute a useful pain management treatment option that is not only effective in patients but is also devoid of the problematic consequences associated with current mainstay drugs, such as opioids,” she said in the press release. “Over 16 million people worldwide are currently suffering from Opioid Use Disorder and many more will become hooked as a result of oversubscription of pain medication.”

The research,  is still early stage, and Ramaekers called for further trials to see if the findings can be replicated. But it’s intriguing, New Atlas points out, because it builds on much earlier findings from the 1960s, when a researcher named Eric Kast conducted a series of promising experiments designed to probe whether LSD might be an effective pain medication.

That work was cut short when the government cracked down on LSD research. But now, with authorities starting to loosen those restrictions, scientists like Ramaekers are interested in following up.

“These findings strongly encourage clinical trials in pain patients to assess the replicability and generalizability of these findings,” Ramaekers said in the release.

The post Research: LSD Microdoses as Effective as Opioids at Treating Pain appeared first on Futurism.

Read more:
Research: LSD Microdoses as Effective as Opioids at Treating Pain

I’m Melting!

Scientists recently found a new victim of climate change and pollution: a blackmouth catshark that had its teeth, skin, and other features dissolved away from swimming in contaminated water.

It’s the first time that scientists have seen such extensive environmental damage on a shark, according to The Evening Standard. The team of University of Cagliari scientists aren’t exactly sure what caused the degradation — it could have been climate change-related ocean acidification, chemical pollution, or both — but it’s a stark reminder of the destruction that human activity is wreaking on the delicate ocean ecosystem.

Toxic Avenger

Thankfully, the shark was able to survive, or at least it did up until last July when it was caught by commercial fishers and promptly turned over to the scientists for study.

The team expected that such extensive damage to the shark’s skin and teeth would be fatal. But they found 14 different sea creatures inside its stomach, according to research published in the Journal of Fish Biology. That suggests that the shark was still able to hunt and swallow prey whole, since its teeth had completely dissolved away.

Extreme Case

This shark is the first known to science with such an extreme level of skin and tooth damage, but scientists have long known that ocean acidification was hurting shark populations.

In fact, previous research found that spending just nine weeks in acidic water ate away nine percent of a shark’s denticles, the tiny scales that line their bodies.

READ MORE: Shark found without skin or teeth in Sardinia ‘fell victim to contaminated waters and climate change’ [The Evening Standard]

More on ocean acidification: Our Acidic Oceans Are Eating Away at Sharks’ Skin

The post Pollution Dissolved This Shark’s Teeth and Skin, Researchers Say appeared first on Futurism.

The rest is here:
Pollution Dissolved This Shark’s Teeth and Skin, Researchers Say

Clear View

For the first time, scientists managed to spot space debris orbiting the Earth during the day.

Near-Earth orbit is getting awfully crowded, as dead satellites, rocket parts, and the remains of in-orbit collisions or explosions turn space into a dangerous minefield — and that’s saying nothing of the operational satellites that need to navigate the whole mess. Now, thanks to powerful new lasers, scientists can even track all that floating junk during the daytime.

Evasive Maneuvers

Scientists needed better ways to actually track everything up there, according to a University of Bern press release. Now, they found a new technique that doesn’t force them to wait until nightfall.

The Bern scientists are using a new laser that diffracts and scatters as it strikes orbital debris and then tracking where those photons bounce off to with sensitive new cameras that can pick up the signal through daylight.

Evasive Maneuvers

Thanks to the laser, the team hopes to take more precise measurements than ever and help space agencies navigate the cosmos without playing bumper cars along the way.

“The possibility of observing during the day allows for the number of measures to be multiplied,” Bern astronomer Thomas Schildknecht said in the release. “More accurate orbits will be essential in [the] future to avoid collisions and improve safety and sustainability in space.”

READ MORE: Space debris observed for the first time during the day [University of Bern]

More on space debris: Astrobiologist: Humans Are Going to Ruin Outer Space

The post Scientists Saw Space Debris During the Day for the First Time appeared first on Futurism.

See more here:
Scientists Saw Space Debris During the Day for the First Time

Escape Room

Individual cells are capable of traveling great distances within our bodies — and scientists built an almost-cartoonish experiment to figure out how they know where to go.

Cells are attracted to certain chemicals and repelled by others. For instance, infection-fighting white blood cells are drawn to chemicals called chemoattractants that are released at the scene of an injury, according to Phys.org. But to learn how cells navigate spaces bigger than their immediate vicinity, scientists put them to the test in tiny mazes loaded up with those chemoattractants.

First Place

The University of Glasgow scientists put both amoebas and pancreatic cells through the gauntlet to test — and ultimately confirm — their hypothesis that cells steered themselves in the direction with the greatest concentration of chemoattractants as a proxy for figuring out what direction they came from.

The research, which was published Friday in the journal Science, shows both types of cells solving the mazes with an eerie, unsettling degree of competence. If you don’t mind getting a little grossed out, that Phys.com article has some videos of living cells racing through the branching paths toward their target.

Left Behind

For the most part, the amoebas — and to a slightly lesser extent the cancer cells — excelled at the simpler mazes. They did worse in mazes with more dead ends and traps. But then again they are just single cells, so cut them some slack.

Also, cells that started at the back of the pack often got lost, because the frontrunners had already gobbled up the chemoattractants that guided their path, suggesting cell biology is more cutthroat than one might expect.

READ MORE: How cells can find their way through the human body [Phys.org]

More on cells: Scientists Are Printing Living “Xenobots” Out of Biological Cells

The post Researchers Forced Living Cells to Navigate Tiny Mazes appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original here:
Researchers Forced Living Cells to Navigate Tiny Mazes

Drone Zone

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has issued a mea culpa in the case of a drone photographer who was told to stop filming at the company’s Giga Texas construction site yesterday.

“I think our security was a little overzealous in this case,” Musk tweeted early this morning.

Over Zealots

Photographer Jeff Roberts was using a drone to film construction of Tesla’s new factory near Austin, Texas when he says he was approached by Tesla security personnel who told him to stop filming.

“Today, site security told me to ‘ease and desist’ all filming of the Tesla ‘Giga Texas’ Construction site,” he wrote in a video about the event. “They stated that continued filming would be ‘criminal trespass’ and that they would press charges.”

Fair Distance

But Musk says that the company is backing down, and that “reasonable” drone photography of the site will be allowed.

“I’m fine with reasonable drone footage,” Musk tweeted. “Just needs to be at a fair distance and not coming right up to people.”

More on Tesla: A Hacker Reportedly Gained Access to Tesla’s Entire Fleet

The post Elon Musk: Tesla Security Was “Overzealous” In Kicking Out Drone Photographer appeared first on Futurism.

Read more here:
Elon Musk: Tesla Security Was “Overzealous” In Kicking Out Drone Photographer

The OGO

This weekend, a 56-year old NASA satellite is set to be retired in a glorious blaze of fire.

The Orbiting Geophysics Observatory 1 (OGO-1) satellite studied how the Sun affects the Earth’s magnetic field between 1964 and 1969, according to Space.com. Now, after roughly 50 years of peaceful retirement, the satellite will come back home — and incinerate as it re-enters the atmosphere.

Peace Out

Hearing that a 1,000-pound satellite is screaming back to Earth might give you pause, but NASA has stressed that OGO-1’s dramatic demise is all part of the plan.

“The spacecraft will break up in the atmosphere and poses no threat to our planet — or anyone on it — and this is a normal final operational occurrence for retired spacecraft,” reads a NASA press release.

Sole Survivor

OGO-1, Space.com reports, has been the last bastion of the OGO program for years now. All five of the other OGO satellites, all launched in the 1960s, have already been retired in a similar fashion.

Now, decades after it stopped being useful to NASA, it’s time for the original OGO to come home as well.

READ MORE: 56-year-old NASA satellite expected to fall to Earth this weekend [Space.com]

More on satellites: A Look Inside the Deep-Sea Graveyard for Dead Spacecraft

The post A NASA Satellite From the 1960s Is About to Die appeared first on Futurism.

Read more:
A NASA Satellite From the 1960s Is About to Die

Hop on Pop

After its first successful flight test of a Starship prototype earlier this month, SpaceX is planning to try again on Sunday.

According to CEO Elon Musk, this will be another l0w altitude test, intended to work out the bugs before moving on to more ambitious launches.

We’ll do several short hops to smooth out launch process, then go high altitude with body flaps

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 5, 2020

Rocket Man

It’ll be a test of SpaceX’s SN6 Starship prototype, a squat metallic tank that the company hopes to eventually refine into a scifi-esque vehicle intended to move cargo or humans to the Moon, Mars or beyond.

The launch is currently slated for sometime after 9am EST, from SpaceX’s facility in Bocha Chica, Texas.

“Good chance something will slip, but, yeah, Sunday is intense,” Musk tweeted about the busy day of SpaceX launches.

READ MORE: SpaceX hopes to ‘hop’ another Starship prototype this weekend [CNET]

More on SpaceX: Astronomers Slam SpaceX’s Growing Starlink Satellite Constellation

The post SpaceX Is Planning to Fly Its Starship Prototype This Weekend appeared first on Futurism.

View post:
SpaceX Is Planning to Fly Its Starship Prototype This Weekend

Black Mirror

During Elon Musk’s live event about his secretive startup Neuralink on Friday night, the eccentric billionaire made a surprising comparison — invoking the dystopian science fiction show “Black Mirror.”

The remark came when he was replying to an audience question about whether the technology could eventually allow users to save and replay memories.

“Yes, I think in the future you’ll be able to save and replay memories,” he said. “I mean, this is obviously sounding increasingly like a ‘Black Mirror’ episode. But I guess they’re pretty good at predicting.”

Entire History

The question did bring to mind the “Black Mirror” episode “The Entire History of You,” which features characters who are able to record and review all their memories — with disastrous consequences.

After his meditation about “Black Mirror,” Musk went on to speculate that the technology could eventually be used for mind transfer.

“You could upload, you could basically store your memories as a backup, and restore the memories, and ultimately you could potentially download them into a new body or a robot body,” Musk said. “The future’s going to be weird.”

More on Neuralink: Elon Musk: We’ve Already Implanted Neuralink in Live Pigs

The post Elon Musk Compares Neuralink to “a ‘Black Mirror’ Episode” appeared first on Futurism.

View original post here:
Elon Musk Compares Neuralink to “a ‘Black Mirror’ Episode”

On Friday, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk demonstrated the Link device, a prototype built by his secretive brain-computer interface company Neuralink.

The demo involved three live pigs, only one of which actually had a Neuralink device in its brain. Musk made a lot of bold claims during the event, according to MIT Technology Review, like Neuralink someday treating blindness and paralysis, as well as being used for entertainment or somehow connecting to an AI hivemind. Needless to say, many experts said demo amounted to a whole lot of fluff with very little substance.

if you are a programmer or ever used any kind of software in your life, the idea of having software connected directly to your brain is the most terrifying thing imaginable #neuralink

— the artist formerly known as ansdor (@ansdor) August 28, 2020

Musk, who previously made the baffling and insensitive claim that Neuralink could “solve” Autism spectrum disorder, even went as far as saying that customers could use a Neuralink implant to play video games or summon their Tesla.

But there’s a whole lot of medical science that needs to happen before the devices go into a single person’s brain, MIT Tech Review reports. While Musk boasts about Neuralink’s ability to drill and implant tiny wires into the brain, neural implants tend to kill surrounding brain cells and cause even further damage when they inevitably break down.

“I would say this is solid engineering but mediocre neuroscience,” Newcastle University neuroscientist Andrew Jackson told BBC News.

Before everyone gets too excited about the @elonmusk Neuralink demo here’s what Prof Andrew Jackson, Professor of Neural Interfaces, Newcastle University, says: “this is solid engineering but mediocre neuroscience” pic.twitter.com/R7AlLfX84R

— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) August 30, 2020

Aside from the lack of evidence that Neuralink can live up to any of Musk’s medical claims, MIT Tech Review reports that Neuralink’s grand pig demonstration showcased decades-old technology.

During the demo, a machine played noises as the link recorded brain signals, something that scientists have done — to humans — in the lab since the 1920s.

READ MORE: Elon Musk’s Neuralink is neuroscience theater [MIT Technology Review]

More on Neuralink: People Are Begging Elon Musk To Drill Holes in Their Skulls

The post Neuralink’s Demo Didn’t Impress Experts appeared first on Futurism.

Read the original here:
Neuralink’s Demo Didn’t Impress Experts

On Friday evening, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk used a live event to release a number of rare updates about his secretive other startup, Neuralink, which is trying to build an interface between human brains and computers.

The demo focused on a device that Musk called “Link,” which appears to be the company’s prototype version of the hardware it wants to implant in users surgically. It takes the form of a coin-sized electronic unit that replaces a small piece of a user’s skull — and which, Musk said, could be used to both read and write information from the brain.

“In a lot of ways, it’s kind of like a Fitbit in your skull, with tiny wires,” said Musk. “I could have a Neuralink right now and you wouldn’t know.”

The core of the live demo was the revelation that Neuralink has installed prototypes of its hardware, which Musk called “Link,” in a number of live pigs.

On stage, Musk showed off three of the animals: one that hadn’t had the Link device implanted, one that had had it for several months, and a third that he said had previously had the device in its head but which had later been removed.

“If you have a Neuralink, and then you decide you don’t want it, or you get an upgrade, you should be able to remove it,” Musk said.

Perhaps Musk’s most technologically impressive claim came when he played a prerecorded video showing a pig on a treadmill. One overlay showed the actual position of its joints. Another overlay, he said, showed the positions of the joints as interpreted by the Link unit in the pig’s brain — and the two largely lined up.

It’s impossible to verify those claims. But Musk’s vision for the device is unquestionably grand.

“Our goal is to solve important brain and spine problems with a seamlessly implanted device,” he said. He later added that “you could solve blindness, you could solve paralysis, you could solve hearing.”

Musk also talked up a robot the company is working on which he says will surgically implant the Link device rapidly.

“We feel confident about getting the Link procedure in under an hour,” he said. “So you can basically go in the morning and leave the hospital in the afternoon. And it can be done without anesthesia.”

Though Musk initially focused on his medical hopes for Neuralink’s technology, he also made numerous references to more consumer-oriented applications.

At one point, he said that it could “probably” be used for gaming.

An audience audience member also lobbed an easy question that Musk used to promote another of his companies: could the Link device allow users to summon their Teslas telepathically?

“Definitely,” Musk said. “Of course.”

The post Elon Musk: We’ve Already Implanted Neuralink in Live Pigs appeared first on Futurism.

View post:
Elon Musk: We’ve Already Implanted Neuralink in Live Pigs

Veterans are spending thousands on retreats in central America where they take ayahuasca, a psychedelic drug one attendant called a “Hail Mary” for PTSD symptoms, according to The New York Times.

The trend has grown significantly over the last couple years, becoming a sought-after alternative to common prescription drugs like antidepressants.

Specialized facilities feature therapy sessions and posh amenities, according to the NYT, but the experience of taking ayahuasca often involves ceremonial singing, pacing, and frequent vomiting — an experience, needless to say, that falls squarely outside the standard realm of American health care.

An increasing number of veterans swear by it, but the health effects of ayahuasca, a special brew that contains the hallucinogen dimethyltryptamine (DMT), are not entirely understood yet. Some of its consumers are finding the experience to provide a much-needed mental reset, while health experts warn that it could have irreversible negative health effects as well — particularly when being taken in combination with antidepressants.

A 2019 study by the Imperial College London found it to make brain waves unpredictable and more chaotic — almost like dreaming while awake.

“From the altered brainwaves and participants’ reports, it’s clear these people are completely immersed in their experience,” lead researcher Christopher Timmermann said in a press release at the time. “It’s like daydreaming only far more vivid and immersive; it’s like dreaming but with your eyes open.”

“These experiences have a way of completely blasting people out of the mental ruts they’re stuck in and to look at a broader set of possibilities,” Matthew Johnson at Johns Hopkins, told the Times.

“It seemed to almost rewire my brain,” Jesse Gould, a former Army Ranger, who went on several retreats and has raised funds for other veterans to go on retreats as well, told NYT.

Despite the success stories, there’s always the possibility that the drug could do more harm than good.

“You have to recognize that there’s a Wild West element,” Johnson admitted to the newspaper.

The post Veterans Are Taking a Psychedelic Plant to Fight PTSD appeared first on Futurism.

Read more:
Veterans Are Taking a Psychedelic Plant to Fight PTSD