‘They Cloned Tyrone’ Adds Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris to the Netflix Sci-Fi Mystery – /FILM

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John Boyega may have walked away disappointed with his experience working on the new Star Wars trilogy, but that hasnt turned him off sci-fi in general. The actor is slated to star in the Netflix original sci-fi mystery movie They Cloned Tyrone, and hes finally getting some company in front of the camera. Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris (Chi-raq, Candyman) have joined the cast of the movie.

The Hollywood Reporter has news on the They Cloned Tyrone cast expanding with Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris, but it hasnt been specified who their characters are. John Boyega is leading the film, and it seems that these two new additions to the cast will fill out the trio at the center of the movie who investigates a series of eerie events, alerting them to a nefarious conspiracy lurking directly beneath their hood. We dont know the entire conspiracy, but were betting it has something to do with cloning someone named Tyrone.

They Cloned Tyrone will mark the directorial debut of Creed II writer Juel Taylor, who co-wrote the script for this new movie with Tony Rettenmaier. Theyll both also be producing with Charles King and his Macro production banner, along with Stephen Dr. Love and Kim Roth. Poppy Hanks and Mark R. Wright are also executive producing for Macro.

Back in 2019, They Cloned Tyrone was one of the films named on The Black List, a collection of the best unproduced screedplays in Hollywood. Thankfully, Netflix snatched up the movie that has been described as a pulpy, sci-fi mystery caper that is like a combination of Friday and Get Out.

John Boyega has already shown his strengths in comedy and sci-fi action thanks to Attack the Block and the Star Wars franchise. Foxx is just coming off another Netflix sci-fi movie, Project Power, and we know he can handle comedy very well. And finally Teyonah Parris has proven to be quite the diverse actress too, with supporting roles in Mad Men, They Came Together, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Empire. Plus, shes also playing a grown Monica Rambeau in Marvels upcoming WandaVision series on Disney+. So having all three of them together for a pulpy movie like this should be something worth watching whenever it arrives on Netflix.

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'They Cloned Tyrone' Adds Jamie Foxx and Teyonah Parris to the Netflix Sci-Fi Mystery - /FILM

5Ws+1H: How It’s Done: Card holders can save money by growing their own – Tahlequah Daily Press

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Tahlequah has plenty of medical marijuana dispensaries for those with state medical cards, but patients could save money in the long run and enjoy the fruits, or buds, of their labor by growing their own.

A patient with an Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority license can legally possess six mature marijuana plants, and six seedling plants. The start up for those new to "gardening" depends on how much cannabis they would like to grow, and which method they would like to use. A grower could plant seeds or clone indoors using the traditional soil method, or could take the hydroponic route by growing it in a reservoir of water - or take the clone or seeds and throw them in the dirt in the backyard.

Jackie Guinn, owner of Jus Grow Me in Tahlequah, said she would start beginners with a few pots, lights to use inside their homes, and soil for under $500. However, if people want to take it further, they could get a setup that costs upward of $1,000.

"The price is going to depend on how many plants you're going to do," said Guinn. "It depends on what lights you want to get. I've got lights that start at $130 and on up. I would probably start them off with a little clone in a 1-gallon pot."

Whether it's a potted plant or using the hydroponic method, Guinn said a grower should give the plant 18 hours of light and six hours of darkness while it is in its vegetative state. She would water it about every other day and give it a variety of nutrients. Once the plant reaches about knee high, it can be transplanted into a 5-gallon bucket.

"You would keep that in its vegetative state until it reaches about 4 feet high," said Guinn. "When it starts to flower, it's going to double in size, and if you're growing indoors, that's kind of hard for most people."

Once a plant reaches about 4 feet, the grower should transition it to its flowering stage. That requires a different set of nutrients, which would help the plant yield more buds and avoid starvation.

"When you go into flowering, you need your blooming nutrients to help produce the buds, the THC, the CBDs, and your trichomes," said Guinn. "Those are always important, because the higher CBD and THC are going to eliminate your pain."

Miracle-Gro should not be used on cannabis. It contains to much nitrogen, which would give the plant issues once it reaches flowering stage. Guinn said another factor is making sure the plant's water has the appropriate PH balance.

"Tap water is the worst for your plants," she said. "It can burn them up. The PH needs to be between 6.5 and 7. If you use distilled water, you've got to make sure you add Cal-Mag, because distilled water does not have it and your plants need that. Rain water is the best for them."

Those who plant their marijuana outside should make sure the plants don't get too much water, or else they will be susceptible to root rot. Guinn recommends raisers a tarp to cover the plants if it rains too much.

Growers need to look out for mites and other bugs. There are a variety of organic pesticides or other natural ways of getting rid of pests, such as using lady bugs. Cultivators should also be on the lookout for mold and mildew.

"If that happens, you need to just throw them all away. It's not healthy to make any kind of medicine out of that at all," said Guinn. "You've got to keep your humidity in your tent or your room just right. That's a very important step, because if the humidity gets too high, it can cause mold or mildew on your plants."

After the plant reaches flowering stage, the grower can start to harvest anywhere from 60 to 90 days. It depends on what he would like to get out of the plant. Guinn said examining the plant's trichomes, which are small resin glands found on the flowers, will help one decide when it's time to harvest.

"Your trichomes will start out [in the flowering stage] as clear," said Guinn. "Then, it goes to cloudy, and then it can go to ember. When it goes to cloudy, you can harvest. It's higher in THC when it's cloudy. You get higher CBD when it turns to the ember color. The trichomes are the little crystals all over your leaves."

Jus Grow Me offers free classes for people looking to start their own small grow operations. Students can learn about cloning, hydroponics, starting a plant in soil and more. While it may seem complicated at first, Guinn said it takes little time to get the hang of it.

"Every day check on your plant," she said. "Once you start growing your plant, it gets pretty easy. You get to know your plant and you can tell if you have a deficiency. All they've got to do is call me and we'll get them through this. We're all about people growing their own natural medicine. It's the way to go."

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To find out more information about growing cannabis or classes at Jus Grow Me, call 918-822-3634.

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Voice Cloning Market Expected to Boost the Global Industry Growth in the Near Future – The News Brok

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Global Voice Cloning Market Report from AMA Research highlights deep analysis on market characteristics, sizing, estimates and growth by segmentation, regional breakdowns& country along with competitive landscape, players market shares, and strategies that are key in the market. The exploration provides a 360 view and insights, highlighting major outcomes of the industry. These insights help the business decision-makers to formulate better business plans and make informed decisions to improved profitability. In addition, the study helps venture or private players in understanding the companies in more detail to make better informed decisions.

Major Players in This Report Include,

Google (United States), Microsoft (United States), IBM (United States), AWS (United States), AT&T (United States), Baidu (China), Nuance Communications (United States), iSpeech (United States), NeoSpeech (United States), CereProc (Scotland), Cepstral (United States), Lyrebird (Canada), Kata.ai (Indonesia), Alt.ai (Japan), Aristech GmbH (Germany), Acapela Group (Belgium), VocaliD (United States), Voicery (United States) and Voctro Labs (Spain).

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Definition

Voice cloning, is a technique that helps in audiobook narration, highly desired feature for personalized speech interfaces. It is based on copying and reusing of recorded voice or speech with the help of cloning software. In the future, Artificial Intelligence powered voice cloning technology provides enhanced conversational ability of voice assistants and chatbots. Of late, according to Chinese internet giant Baidus AI research team, revealed that AI software can learn and replicate the way a person speaks and communicates with it. Such a positive technological advancement is the major driving agent for the voice cloning market globally

Global Voice Cloning Market Report offers a detailed overview of this market and discusses the dominant factors affecting the growth of the market. The impact of Porters five armies on the market over the next few years has been discussed for a long time in this study. We will also forecast global market size and market outlook over the next few years.

Types of Products, Applications and Global Voice Cloning Market Report Geographical Scope taken as the Main Parameter for Market Analysis. This Research Report Conducts an assessment of the industry chain supporting this market. It also provides accurate information on various aspects of this market, such as production capacity, available production capacity utilization, industrial policies affecting the manufacturing chain and market growth.

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Market Drivers

Market Trend

Restraints

Opportunities

The Global Voice Cloning is segmented by following Product Types:

by Application (Accessibility, Chatbots and assistants, Digital games, Interactive games, Others), Component Type (Solutions (Software Tools, Platforms), Services (Managed Services, Professional Services)), Verticals Type (Healthcare and life sciences, Education, Media and entertainment, Telecom, Travel and hospitality, Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI), Others), Deployment Model (Cloud, On-premises)

.

In this research study, the prime factors that are impelling the growth of the Global Voice Cloning market report have been studied thoroughly in a bid to estimate the overall value and the size of this market by the end of the forecast period. The impact of the driving forces, limitations, challenges, and opportunities has been examined extensively. The key trends that manage the interest of the customers have also been interpreted accurately for the benefit of the readers.

The Voice Cloning market study is being classified by Type, Applicationsand major geographies with country level break-up that includes South America (Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America), Asia Pacific (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Rest of Asia-Pacific), Europe (Germany, France, Italy, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Rest of Europe), MEA (Middle East, Africa), North America (United States, Canada, Mexico).

The report concludes with in-depth details on the business operations and financial structure of leading vendors in the Global Voice Cloning market report, Overview of Key trends in the past and present are in reports that are reported to be beneficial for companies looking for venture businesses in this market. Information about the various marketing channels and well-known distributors in this market was also provided here. This study serves as a rich guide for established players and new players in this market.

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Current Scenario Analysis for Decision Framework

Key Strategic Developments in Voice Cloning Market:

The research includes the key strategic activities such as Research & Development (R&D) initiatives, Merger & Acquisition (M&A) completed, agreements, new launches, collaborations, partnerships & (JV) Joint ventures, and regional growth of the key competitors operating in the market at global and regional scale to overcome current slowdown due to COVID-19.

Key Market Features in Global Voice Cloning Market

The report highlights Voice Cloning market features, including revenue size, weighted average regional price, capacity utilization rate, production rate, gross margins, consumption, import & export, demand & supply, cost bench-marking in Voice Cloning market share and annualized growth rate (Y-o-Y) and Periodic CAGR.

Extracts from Table of Contents

Global Voice Cloning Market Research Report

Chapter 1 Global Voice Cloning Market Overview

Chapter 2 Global Economic Impact on Industry

Chapter 3 Global Market Competition by Manufacturers

Chapter 4 Global Revenue (Value, Volume*) by Region

Chapter 5 Global Supplies (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions

Chapter 6 Global Revenue (Value, Volume*), Price* Trend by Type

Chapter 7 Global Market Analysis by Application

.continued

This report also analyzes the regulatory framework of the Global Markets Voice Cloning Market Report to inform stakeholders about the various norms, regulations, this can have an impact. It also collects in-depth information from the detailed primary and secondary research techniques analyzed using the most efficient analysis tools. Based on the statistics gained from this systematic study, market research provides estimates for market participants and readers.

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Advance Market Analytics is Global leaders of Market Research Industry provides the quantified B2B research to Fortune 500 companies on high growth emerging opportunities which will impact more than 80% of worldwide companies revenues.

Our Analyst is tracking high growth study with detailed statistical and in-depth analysis of market trends & dynamics that provide a complete overview of the industry. We follow an extensive research methodology coupled with critical insights related industry factors and market forces to generate the best value for our clients. We Provides reliable primary and secondary data sources, our analysts and consultants derive informative and usable data suited for our clients business needs. The research study enable clients to meet varied market objectives a from global footprint expansion to supply chain optimization and from competitor profiling to M&As.

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Voice Cloning Market Future Growth Analysis, Business Demand and Opportunities to 2026 | Google, Lyrebird, Nuance Communications, Baidu, Microsoft -…

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Comprehensive quantitative and qualitative high-end research on the Voice Cloning Market. According to the current market state, this report has been prepared in accordance with continuous observation of the global market. This report has been formulated to give our clients the most up to date data on the Voice Cloning Market.

Top Companies are covering This Report:-

IBMGoogleLyrebirdNuance CommunicationsBaiduMicrosoftAWSAT&TNeoSpeechSmartbox Assistive TechnologyexCloneLumenVoxKata.AiAlt.AiCereProcAcapela GroupVocaliDVoiceryAristechCepstral

Reports Intellect projects Voice Cloning Market based on elite players, present, past, and forecast data for the coming years which will act as a profitable guide for all the market competitors. The study includes growth trends, micro- economic and macro-economic indicators in detail and the report has been assessed with the help of PESTEL analysis and other essential analyses operating in the Voice Cloning Market.

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The report offers all the essential data for players to secure a position of strength in the market all while creating a comprehensive action plan. Our analysts here at Reports Intellect have used advanced primary and secondary research techniques to create the most up to date assessment of data on the Voice Cloning Market which opens up a plethora of new opportunities to create new strategies to gain leverage over the competition.

Product Type SegmentationCloudOn-premises

Industry SegmentationHealthcare and life sciencesEducationMedia and entertainmentTelecomTravel and hospitality

Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers

North America (United States, Canada, Mexico)

Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia)

South America (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, etc.)

Europe, Middle East and Africa

Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa

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Global Voice Cloning Market : Industry Analysis and Forecast (2019-2026) by Component, Application, Deployment mode, and Region. – Galus Australis

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Global Voice Cloning Market was value US$ 460Mn in 2018 and is expected to reach US$ 1,812Mn by 2026 at a CAGR of 18.69%.Global Voice Cloning Market, by Deployment ModeVoice cloning is a highly preferred feature for personalized speech interfaces. Speaker coding is based on training a separate model to directly assume a new speaker embedding from cloning audios and to be used with a multi-speaker propagative model.

Increasing in the introduction of new initiatives in voice cloning market will further push voice cloning market trends in the upcoming years. Though, complexities in recreating natural speech will obstruct the growth of the market during forecast period. But, integration of artificial intelligence technologies with voice cloning personalization and services in human-equipment interaction will offer profitable avenues for the players across the voice cloning market in the nearby future.

Cloud deployment mode segment is predicted to grow at a higher CAGR over the forecast period. Many vendors have started offering cloud-based voice cloning market. The demand for cloud-based voice cloning deployment mode is projected to grow due to the various benefits offered by the cloud, for instance, scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.

Chatbots and assistants are becoming vital to delivering a seamless experience & are becoming fundamental in conversational interfaces. So, vendors around the globe are focusing on enhancing the conversational capabilities of chatbots and assistants by integrating the AI-powered voice cloning technology market. Voice cloning solutions would aid enterprises to add voice cloning capabilities to make chatbots or assistants sound more natural.

Region-wise, North America is dominating the global voice cloning market. An enormous number of vendors and industry participants in North America are involved in new product development and product innovation. These vendors are also aiming at integrating AI capabilities into voice cloning solutions to develop more natural sounding voice cloning samples. Reputed manufacturers are founding new units for the production of consumer electronics goods using voice cloning technologies. Many research initiatives across the region are predictable to fuel the adoption of voice cloning solutions across some business verticals and domains.

Global voice cloning market report includes PESTLE analysis, competitive landscape, and Porters five force model. Market attractive analysis wherein all the segments are benchmarked based on the market size, growth rate, and general attractiveness.

Key players operating in the global voice cloning market, Google, Microsoft, IBM Corporation, AT&T Corp., Baidu, Nuance Communications, CereProc.Scope of Global Voice Cloning Market

Global Voice Cloning Market, by Component

Solutionso Software Toolso Platforms ServicesGlobal Voice Cloning Market, by Application

Chatbots & Assistants Accessibility Digital Games Interactive learningGlobal Voice Cloning Market, by Deployment Mode

Cloud On-PremisesGlobal Voice Cloning Market, by Region

North America Europe Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa South AmericaKey players operating in Global Voice Cloning Market

Google Microsoft IBM AWS AT&T Baidu Nuance Communications iSpeech NeoSpeech CereProc Cepstral# Lyrebird Kata.ai Alt Inc. Aristech GmbH Acapela Group VocaliD Voicer Voctro Labs exClone CandyVoice LumenVox rSpeak Smartbox Assistive Technolog VivoTex.

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Global Voice Cloning Market : Industry Analysis and Forecast (2019-2026) by Component, Application, Deployment mode, and Region. - Galus Australis

Enhancing the Butyrylcholinesterase Activity in HEK-293 Cell Line by D | DDDT – Dove Medical Press

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Vida Mirzaie,1 Touba Eslaminejad,2 Homayoon Babaei,3 Seyed Noureddin Nematollahi-Mahani4,5

1Department of Anatomy, Afzalipour School of Medicine, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran; 2Pharmaceutics Research Centre, Institute of Neuropharmacology, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran; 3Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran; 4Neuroscience Research Centre, Institute of Neuropharmacology, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran; 5Afzal Research Institute (NGO), Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

Correspondence: Seyed Noureddin Nematollahi-Mahani Tel +983 433257343Email nnematollahi@kmu.ac.ir

Purpose: Human butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) serves as a bio scavenger to counteract organophosphate poisoning. It is also a potential drug candidate in several therapeutic fields. Therefore, in the present study, we constructed a new dual-promoter plasmid consisting of Cytomegalovirus (CMV) and human elongation factor 1 (EF-1) promoters and transfected that into HEK-293 cells using Lipofectamine to enhance the BChE secretion.Methods: The new dual-promoter construction (pBudCE dual BChE) including two copies of the BChE gene was designed and transfected into cells by liposomal structures. The cloned plasmids were evaluated by enzyme digestion and gel electrophoresis analysis. Experimental groups were categorized into the cells transfected by pBudCE dual BChE (treatment), pCMV (positive control) vectors, and nontransfected cells (negative control). BChE gene expression was evaluated by qRT-PCR and the enzyme activity was assessed using modified Ellmans method. The freeze-thaw process was carried out for analyzing the stability of the pBudCE dual BChE vector.Results: Validation examination of the cloned plasmids confirmed the successful cloning process. The gene expression level and Ellmans method value in pBudCE dual BChE was higher than the other groups. CMV promoter has also increased the enzyme activity, although the difference was not significant compared with the control group. Interestingly, freeze-thaw cycles followed by several passages did not affect the enzyme activity.Conclusion: The designed construction with CMV and EF-1 promoters could increase BChE gene expression and the activity of the BChE enzyme in HEK-293 cell line. Large-scale production of BChE enzyme can be achieved by using dual-promoter plasmid construction compared to a single-promoter vector to be used in clinical trials.

Keywords: dual-promoter, vector, recombinant protein, drug delivery, Ellmans method, HEK-293

This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.

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Fauci: We Could Cut Trials Short and Give Out COVID Vaccine "Right Now" – Futurism

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According to Anthony Fauci, the United States top infectious disease expert, there could be a safe way to start giving out a COVID vaccine earlier than expected.

Fauci said during aTuesday interview with Kaiser Health News that the Data and Safety Monitoring Board, a committee made up of independent experts who evaluate the safety of vaccine development, could decide that the data is so good right now that you can say its safe and effective.'

In other words, researchers could end the trials early and start giving out the vaccine.

Three COVID vaccines have reached late stage large-scale trials in the US, according to CNN, including one by pharmaceutical company Moderna.

Its a touchy subject and complicating matters is the politicization of the vaccine by U.S. president Donald Trump. Experts have claimed that Trump is pressuring regulators to release a vaccine early to help with his reelection later this year.

Fauci remained steadfast during Tuesdays interview. If you are making a decision about the vaccine, youd better be sure you have very good evidence that it is both safe and effective, Fauci said. Im not concerned about political pressure.

Health experts are reluctant to make any claims as to when a coronavirus vaccine will be made available. Some claim that ending trials early would likely come with inherent safety risks, as CNN reports.

Fauci is optimistic. He believes that we could make rapid progress before the end of 2020.

I believe that by the time we get to the end of this calendar year that we will feel comfortable that we do have a safe and effective vaccine, Fauci told NBC today.

Faucis main concern right now, actually, is the upcoming flu season, something the nation needs to get ahead of.

What Id really like to see is a full court press to get us way down as a baseline, so that when you get these cases in the fall, they wont surge up, Fauci added.

READ MORE: Theres a legitimate way to end coronavirus vaccine trials early, Fauci says [CNN]

More on Fauci: Trump Wants to Approve a COVID Vaccine Before Theyre Done Testing It

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Fauci: We Could Cut Trials Short and Give Out COVID Vaccine "Right Now" - Futurism

SETI Team Increases Number of Stars That Might Host Life by 200x – Futurism

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Branching Out

The search for extraterrestrial life just got a whole lot more expansive a team of scientists keeping an ear out for alien transmissions just ballooned their operation to examine 200 times the number of star systems it had previously.

The Breakthrough Listen Initiative, an effort to intercept radio transmissions sent out by extraterrestrial civilizations, is now listening to 288,315 star systems instead of its previous 1,327, according to preprint research shared online last week. In all, the change represents a major upgrade to one of the more prominent attempts to find intelligent life in the Milky Way.

The University of Manchester scientists behind the project made the improvements after combing through existing European Space Agency data about the locations and distance from Earth of celestial bodies within 33,000 lightyears, which is the range of their radio telescope.

Knowing the locations and distances to these additional sources, Manchester researcher and team leader Michael Garrett said in a press release, greatly improves our ability to constrain the prevalence of extraterrestrial intelligence in our own galaxy and beyond. We expect future SETI surveys to also make good use of this approach.

The idea is to identify extraterrestrial civilizations by picking up radio broadcasts, so figuring out how feasible it is for each star system to get a message to Earth helped them narrow down their search while adding the new candidates.

Our results help to put meaningful limits on the prevalence of transmitters comparable to what we ourselves can build using twenty-first-century technology, study coauthor Bart Wlodarczyk-Sroka said in the release.

READ MORE: Breakthrough narrows intelligent life search in Milky Way [University of Manchester]

More on SETI: Scientists Say Life Could Survive Inside Stars

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Japanese Company Tests a Flying Car With a Human On Board – Futurism

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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 pilots seat.

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

Of the worlds 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.

But theres a lot of engineering that needs to happen between now and then. Flying cars cant 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 whos 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: Japans flying car gets off ground, with a person aboard [AP News]

More on flying cars: Boeings Flying Car Just Completed Its First Test Flight

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Japanese Company Tests a Flying Car With a Human On Board - Futurism

Chadwick Bosemans Wakanda: Afro-Futurism Is in the Present – Common Dreams

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Chadwick Bosemans tragic death at the all too young age of 43 from colorectal cancer has been weighing on me the past couple of days. I am a fan. But I also am battling cancer, and I think I understand his incredible productivity in his last years, as he knew he was fighting for his life. He was also fighting for a legacy, something to bequeath those he would leave behind. Having played Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, James Brown and King TChalla among others, he produced a string of pearls, of multi-dimensional performances. At a time when young Black men need hope and role models, he stepped up.

I thought I would say something about the Afro-Futurism that was much discussed with regard to the Wakanda whose ruler he played in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At the end of The Black Panther, TChalla announces that Wakanda would begin sharing its technology with the world. Someone in the audience asks what a largely agricultural country had to offer, and Boseman just smiles.

Of all the world regions, Africa and the Middle East most suffer from stereotypes in the US media. Elliot Ross at Africaasacountry wrote in 2014 about historian Steven Simons observation that publishers seemed to like putting acacia trees on the covers of novels set in Africa, and, indeed, on books about Africa in general.

I lived about a tenth of my life on the African continent, and can attest that acacias or plane trees just arent common everywhere there.

What has been obscured by Americans stereotypes of Africa as one big wild animal reservation is its own spheres of hyper-modernity.

The complaints of white American conservatives that Wakanda is not a country are peculiarly tone deaf and betray an inability to understand genres of literature. It has been observed that George Orwells 1984 was not about the future. Eric Blair writing as Orwell was describing in the present the worst excesses of fascist and Stalinist societies (and as an anarcho-syndicalist was not above indicting British capitalism either).

Science Fiction and comic books often appeal to hyperbole and exaggeration as their central figure of speech, just as literary fiction likes irony. Wakanda is not the opposite of reality, but an exaggeration of an existing reality, a piling up of realities in one place that are instead scattered.

We dont often see Africa skylines like that of Nairobi in our media:

As for science, there is a lot of it being done on the continent, especially in South Africa, as Cheryl Kahla wrote at The South African.

She points out that Sandile Ngcobo and some physicist colleagues at the University of KwaZuluNatal developed the first digital laser, which can be controlled by computer and does not have to be reset each time it is used.

Some of the inventions come out of Africas special challenges. These obstacles can spur innovation.

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For instance, Africa mostly did not have a network of physical telephone wires, so when cell phone technology came along, Africans adopted it even more widely than other global populations. By 2013 there were 650 million cell phones in Africa, more than in the United States or Europe. We all remember how North African youth wielded this technology to unseat a string of dictators.

Thus, in a BBC report on technological innovations in Africa for 2017 we find that Ugandan engineer Brian Turyabagye has designed a biomedical smart jacket to quickly and accurately diagnose pneumonia in children. In that population it is hard to distinguish it from malaria, but Turyabagye linked a stethoscope in a vest to a mobile phone app that records the audio of the patients chest. Analysis of that audio can detect lung crackles and can lead to preliminary diagnoses.

As for Wakandas new-found vocation of philanthropy, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda are highly rated for charitable giving. Even Liberia, despite its legacy of civil war, is more generous in world rankings than Belgium.

The Black Panthers own Orientalism can get in the way of its futurism. It makes Wakanda a monarchy when Africa is almost entirely made up of republics. Ghana and Senegal have made strides in democracy (and Killmonger could not so easily have taken over a democracy). It garbles Pharaonic religion with Hinduism and displaces both to the south of the subcontinent, whereas the vast majority of Africans are Muslims and Christians, and they have innovated in those traditions. Sufi Murids in Senegal contributed to a powerful strain of Muslim pacifism. If anything the film does not make Africa futuristic enough.

Of course, Africa can sometimes offer a low-tech critique of an overly industrialized, scientistic way of life.

Ironically, if Boseman had actually been, say, a South African, he would have been much less likely to die of that form of cancer. A 2018 paper in the American Journal of Pathology says that:

Incidence rates of CRC are vastly different for African Americans (60 per 100,000 per year) and South African blacks (5 per 100,000 per year). Of the many differences that characterize the environment for these different individuals, diet can play an outsize role in the incidence rates for CRC. The diet for rural South African blacks is highly enriched in fiber and low in meat and fat, whereas the Western diet is low in fiber and high in meat and fat.

Americans would do well to adopt this low tech but life-saving way of life from Africans, cutting down on red meat and fat in favor of nutritious fruits and vegetables. Since red meat is also a high carbon food, reducing its consumption would also help the environment. Africas carbon dioxide and methane emissions are tiny compared to those of supposedly technologically more sophisticated countries.

In one of his many achievements, Boseman (along with the MCU creative team) deployed the tropes of science fiction to create new images of Africa, but African scientific and technological advance is in the present. If it does not get the big international awards, I suspect, it is because it is oriented to practical problem-solving for populations that were set back by a history of European colonialism and exploitation.

These thoughts came to me as I rewatched The Black Panther for the nth time.

I am just one of millions of grieving fans trying to find a way to say goodbye to someone whose spirit I had expected to inspire and guide me for many years to come, and who was cut down in his prime. I am grateful for his life even as I mourn his death.

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Chadwick Bosemans Wakanda: Afro-Futurism Is in the Present - Common Dreams

Scientists Are Running Out of Primates to Test Vaccines On – Futurism

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Right now, anyone in the U.S. trying to develop a vaccine for COVID-19 will likely run into a crucial roadblock: There simply arent enough primate research subjects to go around.

American labs have run into a critical shortage of monkeys, The Atlantic reports. And without them, scientists have no hope of completing the animal testing phases of clinical tests before they can move on to trials with human volunteers. The bottleneck is a bad sign for future attempts to develop a treatment, as scientists who might develop a working vaccine have no way to actually test it out.

Koen Van Rompay is an infectious disease expert at the California National Primate Research Center. He told The Atlantic that due to the shortage, he gets significantly more requests from companies that want to run studies at the facility than he can handle.

I have to tell them, Im sorry, we are not allowed to start your research,' Van Rompay told The Atlantic.

There are numerous problems at play, The Atlantic reports. Theres more demand for monkeys to use in clinical research due to the coronavirus pandemic, but there are fewer monkeys available than ever. China had been supplying 60 percent of monkeys used in American research, but closed down exports due to the pandemic. On top of that, monkeys were already a hot commodity in short supply.

And because hindsight can be cruel, the National Institutes of Health actually discussed creating a strategic monkey reserve back in 2018, but never acted on it. If they had, scientists might still be able to do their important work.

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Scientists Are Running Out of Primates to Test Vaccines On - Futurism

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

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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

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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

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

Vault of the Ancients update brings dogs and treasures to Sea of Thieves – PC Invasion

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RaresSea of Thieves has certainly seen a shift in the tides of late. Going from being derided and evolving into a wonderful world of adventures on the high seas, fans have been rewarded for their patience as the studio continues to support the live service game. Outside of expansions and even someBattletoads additions, we are now getting mans best friends added to the game as pets. Dogs were shown at gamescom 2020, and they are too adorable not to have on board. Of course, it all comes via a brand new update, Vaults of the Ancients.

These Vaults of the Ancientsbelonged to the Gold Hoarders. Home to plenty of loot, the keys to these treasure troves have been hidden. However, the faction has now deemed that a bad idea and they need players to help locate the keys once more. Of course, why bother returning the loot to their rightful owners? You are a pirate, after all. Inside the vaults, you will be able to find special treasures. Getting them is not easy, as you will have to locate certain medallions and solve a puzzle under the stress of time. With a heist and a race, Vaults of the Ancientsis not playing around.

In order to help the players find the right stuff to do, Rare will be inserting some mysterious notes into Sea of Thieves. Open up your radial menu, and there you will see recommendations from the developers. New events, voyages, and NPCs are pointed out for your convenience. Vaults of the Ancientswill also be coming with accessibility improvements. Some examples include making island banners less obstructive, and tweaks to the single stick mode.

The hidden treasures of the Vaults, as well as your new furry friends, can be found starting this September 9 in the Vaults of the Ancients update for Sea of Thieves.

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Dog saved on the high seas – kdvr.com

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Wildlife officer reflects upon rescue of bull elk from Estes Park swimming poolNews / 9 hours ago

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Dog saved on the high seas - kdvr.com

Piracy in 2020: the trends you need to know – Lexology

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Piracy has existed for as long as there has been maritime trade; it conjures images of sail ships, the jolly roger, treasure and buccaneers on the seven seas. Pirates in the twenty first century, however, are more familiar with semi-automatic weapons than a cutlass, while their treasure is less gold doubloons than hostages and the latest electric goods.

According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), piracy can be defined as the act of boarding any vessel with intent to commit theft or any other crime, and with an intent or capacity to use force in furtherance of that act. Stamping out piracy is an ongoing battle, but in recent years we have seen some positive trends. Somali waters are perhaps the most well-known location of the modern-day pirates, largely due to headlines generated during the 2000s. Since then, the region has managed to significantly reduce numbers of piracy incidents, in part due to surveillance from the air and sea, and an increased international cooperation between countries' navies. Though it is considered that the decisive factor was a concerted effort to improve security measures aboard vessels, particularly through the use of armed guards. This fall in numbers is at face value a global trend, with incidents of piracy falling worldwide in recent years.

2020 is, however, on course to buck this downward trend. The IMB's Piracy Reporting Centre recorded 98 incidents of piracy and armed robbery in the first half of 2020, up from 78 in the first half of 2019.

New era, new tactics?

The traditional modus operandi for pirates has not evolved dramatically over the years. It involves attacking vessels from astern, often at night, using grappling hooks and ropes to board the ship before anyone raises the alarm. To mitigate against this, vessels have long been warned not to drop anchor in high-risk areas and are increasingly being advised of the dangers of even drifting in these zones.

Where pirates have evolved is their capability to target ships at increasing distances from the coastline. We are typically seeing attacks take place between 45 and 75 nautical miles out to sea. There are also incidents recorded as far as 400 nautical miles from the shoreline. In these incidents, smaller ships are working in conjunction with a larger mothership that carries fuel, supplies and ammunition. Further, attacks are also becoming increasingly common during daylight hours.

Victims of piracy are often simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the vast expanse of the ocean pirates may just pick the first vessel they come across. There have been incidents however of pirates utilising open source intelligence and modern technology, specifically online tracking apps and surveillance equipment to target vessels. It is impossible to estimate how widespread the use of this technology is but in one recorded hijacking incident in 2017, in the South China Sea, the pirates monitored the online Marine Traffic system and used the Ship Finder app to follow the movements of the targeted ship. There is also anecdotal evidence of Somali pirates researching information on vessels and the counter measures being employed to combat them. There are various ship tracking apps freely available online which include huge swaths of detail on potential targets including images of vessels, types of vessel i.e.: tanker or cargo vessel and their proposed routes. These are all hugely valuable bits of information and it is not a leap to imagine how they might be used increasingly by pirates to scope out targets and plan their attack vectors.

There has also been some suggestion that informants are providing access to ship information making it possible for pirates to locate target specific vessels, which may have cargo of value, in the vast expanses of the sea. Crews of some hijacked vessels have said that the pirates appear to know specific details about the ship including its layout.

Kidnap for ransom is also trending as it is much easier, quicker and often more profitable to take human cargo rather than the entire vessel - which may be difficult to house and control. This trend is being driven primarily by events in The Gulf of Guinea were violence towards crew is also an increasing risk. Between January and July of this year 77 crew were taken hostage or kidnapped according to IMBs half year report. The Gulf of Guinea accounted for 49 of these kidnappings. The maritime pirates operating in the Gulf of Guinea, like the Somali pirates of old, are known to have strong connections to their land-based counterparts, especially those operating in the Niger Delta - notorious for kidnap for ransom gangs. This gives them unique access to the markets that profit from piracy activity.

Piracy is still rooted in a tried and tested model, but there is evidence of its evolution from basic armed robberies. The relationship with land-based groups demonstrates an operation that goes beyond regional borders. While modern technology will continue to improve a pirates capability and opportunities which means seafarers must continue to be vigilant and stay informed of trends.

Where are the hotspots?

There are four traditional hotspots for piracy: the Gulf of Aden, associated with Somali pirates of the 2000s; Southeast Asia; the Gulf of Mexico; and finally, the Gulf of Guinea which reportedly accounts for the majority of maritime kidnappings in the world. There is a concern though that an economic downturn, of the sort caused by the COVID 19 pandemic, will cause a rise in piracy in other regions of the world as individuals search out alternative means of income.

Though very different parts of the world, the same factors explain why piracy has risen in these areas:

- Corruption;

- The weak rule of law and unstable governments mean authorities are unable to respond to the threats;

- Economic conditions have led some people to resort to illegal activity. Piracy is a lucrative job.

These factors are likely to be exacerbated by the COVID 19 pandemic as security is directed to other priorities and the global economy suffers a downturn. This is reflected in the number of kidnap incidents since lockdown; with 32 of the 49 crew kidnap incidents in the Gulf of Guinea during the first half of this year occurring between May and July.

Gulf of Mexico

Maritime security officials say attacks have returned in the Gulf of Mexico due to instability in the region. The security forces available are also focused on inland issues during the current pandemic. When Mexico opened its oil industry to international investment it led to that sector being seen as a lucrative target. Though private sector involvement has been rolled back since Lopez Obrador became President, attacks are still occurring on ships and platforms tied to Mexico's oil industry, robbing crews of money and seizing personal belongings and technical equipment.

Reports emerged indicating that on 24 July a group of armed pirates targeted an offshore supply vessel which was conducting operations near the Odin Offshore platform off the coast of Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz state.

The attacks in the gulf have persisted into the summer, causing the U.S. government in June to issue a special security alert for the region, singling out the Bay of Campeche as a particularly perilous region.

Asia

The number of piracy and armed robbery incidents reported in Asian waters has more than doubled in the first half of 2020 compared to last year. There were 51 incidents reported from January to June this year, compared with 28 for the same period in 2019.

The most high-profile incident in Asia took place in January, when pirates boarded a fishing trawler off the east coast of the Malaysian state of Sabah and abducted eight crew members. Six months later, five crew members are still being held in captivity.

The half-yearly statistics were released by the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) Information Sharing Centre on 16 July. Most of the incidents in the Singapore Strait this year occurred in the hours of darkness and involved bulk carriers - although tankers and tug-boats were also targeted. ReCAAP has attributed a lack of law enforcement, patrol and surveillance to the spike in incidents.

Gulf of Guinea

The Gulf of Guinea off West Africa is increasingly dangerous for commercial shipping, accounting for the majority of maritime kidnappings worldwide.

Where Asia may experience the most piracy incidents, which are generally thefts, the Gulf of Guinea, particularly the Niger River Delta region, is the most perilous route for ships' crews.

"The violence towards the crew is quite high and significant," says Cyrus Mody, Assistant Director for Commercial Crime Services at the International Chamber of Commerce. "The incidents are targeted at the kidnappings of the crew and the attacks are a lot more violent than other parts of the world". "Violence against crews is a growing risk in a workforce already under immense pressure," says IMB Director Michael Howlett. "In the Gulf of Guinea attackers armed with knives and guns now target crews on every type of vessel. Everyones vulnerable."

In total, IMBs Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) reports that 49 crew have been kidnapped in 2020, 32 between May and July, for ransom in the Gulf of Guinea and held captive on land for on average up to six weeks.[1]

Attempts to mitigate this are hampered somewhat by the fact that none of the countries in this region allow for private security on board. Only those with memoranda of understanding with local navies, who in turn provide security, are allowed to operate. This obviously comes at a premium.

Gulf of Aden

The security focus less than a decade ago was in the Gulf of Aden, regarded then as the most dangerous waters in the world. Somali pirates persistently hijacked large cargo ships. But a combination of coordinated international naval efforts, improved local governments and enhanced security measures aboard ships, including armed personnel, reduced the threat of pirates off the East African coast.

Whats the authorities response?

The response to maritime piracy requires state cooperation; to date three agreements have been set up in different regions of the world. The members to these regional agreements agree to arrest, investigate, and prosecute pirates on the high seas, and to suppress armed robbery in their respective territorial waters.

- In Asia, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) was established in 2006;

- In East Africa, the Djibouti Code of Conduct (DCoC) was agreed on in 2009;

- Finally, the Yaound Code of Conduct (YCoC) to combat illicit maritime activities in West and Central Africa was signed in 2013 by 25 regional states.

The collection and dissemination of data on maritime crimes is one of the most important practical tasks carried out by the regional agreements, because to efficiently coordinate cooperation between maritime security actors it is crucial to have available all relevant information on the threat at hand. Furthermore, by creating reliability, regular information sharing has the potential to strengthen trust and confidence among key actors.

While the setup of the regional agreements is certainly a milestone in counterpiracy governance, the different regions are faced with a variety of challenges concerning cooperation in general and the implementation of the agreements provisions, in particular:

- Concerns over territorial sovereignty;

- Lack of national capacities;

- Gaps in scope.

Looking ahead, threats to maritime security cannot be understood in isolation, as they are deeply interrelated and tied into international trends.

What can you do to stay safe from piracy?

For those operating in the area the best advice is to engage a professional maritime security advisor. They will be up to date with all the latest guidance and best practice, including onboard security and advice on how to navigate high risk areas. Furthermore, they will also be up to date on the latest trends and hotspots to help you best prepare your route.

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Piracy in 2020: the trends you need to know - Lexology

‘We are closer to the other side of this crisis every day’ Cruise boss confident of a return to sea – Telegraph.co.uk

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The head of Royal Caribbean Group has revealed that cruisers wont have to wait too much longer before setting sail once again with his company.

Speaking to travel agents on a webcast on online trade hub RCL Cares, Richard Fain said he had been heartened by the recent resumption of cruising in Europe: Were not through this yet, but there are more bright spots and bits of good news than there have been for quite a while. We are closer to the other side of this crisis every day.

The chairman and chief executive said that Royal Caribbean is committed to learning from early efforts and will start slowly and methodically when the brand returns to the high seas.

In Germany, our joint venture company, Tui Cruises, has been operating cruises since late July. In Italy, MSC Cruises started operating last week and has attracted a lot of really very positive publicity. We understand Costa Cruises is starting operating there in just a few weeks.

Not that the Royal Caribbean Group will have a chance to test the waters just yet as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has extended a no-sail order effectively banning cruising around American waters until the end of October. Similarly Canada has prohibited the arrival of cruise ships until at least October 31 while cruising in Australia has been suspended until December.

Fain also used the webcast to introduce Dr Calvin Johnson, Royal Caribbeans new head of public health and chief medical officer.

Asked as to why he applied for the role, Johnson said: I saw the opportunity to apply my skills in a really meaningful and substantive way during probably the most significant health crisis in our time.

It is the nature of the work. It is the opportunity to serve 75,000 crew and to protect their health and to serve four to six million guests a year and to protect their health. I am all focusing on protection of health.

Royal Caribbean Group is the parent company of Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara and Silversea. It also owns a partial interest in several European cruise brands.

The pandemic has seen the cruise linedelay the debut of the worlds largest ship, Wonder of the Seas, which was due to welcome passengers next spring.

While cruise lines slowly resume service in Europe, many others have delayed their restart until late 2020, or into 2021.

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'We are closer to the other side of this crisis every day' Cruise boss confident of a return to sea - Telegraph.co.uk

How Chinas Massive Fishing Fleet Is Transforming the Worlds Oceans – Slate

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Thousands of fishing boats berth at shore in Zhoushan, China, due to Typhoon Maysak on Tuesday.Reuters

More than a hundred miles from shore, near the coast of West Africa, I accompanied marine police officers from Gambia as they arrested 15 foreign ships on charges of labor violations and illegal fishing over the course of a week in 2019. All but one of the vessels arrested were from China.

At the beginning of that same year, during a monthlong voyage on a toothfish longliner headed into Antarctic waters from Punta Arenas, Chile, the only other ships we passed were a dozen rusty Chinese purse seinersfishing boats using long curtainlike netsthat looked barely seaworthy.

Chinas fishing fleet is more than just a commercial concern; it acts as a projection of geopolitical power on the worldsoceans.

Aboard a South Korean squid boat in May 2019, I watched nearly two dozen ships flying Chinese flags make their way single file into North Korean waters, in flagrant violation of United Nations sanctions. They were part of the worlds largest fleet of illegal ships: 800 Chinese trawlers fishing in the Sea of Japan as of 2019, revealed in a recent investigation for NBC.

And this month, more than 340 Chinese fishing vessels appeared just outside the biodiverse and ecologically sensitive Galpagos Marine Reserve. Many of the ships were tied to companies associated with illegal fishing, according to C4ADS, a conflict research firm. Three years prior, a similarly sized Chinese flotilla arrived in these same waters, and one ship was apprehended with about 300 tons of illegally caught fish, including endangered species, such as scalloped hammerhead sharks.

With anywhere from 200,000 to 800,000 boats, some as far afield as Argentina, China is unmatched in the size and reach of its fishing armada. Fueled primarily by government subsidies, its growth and activities have largely gone unchecked, in part because China itself has historically had few rules governing fishing operations.The dominance and global ubiquity of this fleet raise broader questions about how China has put so many boats on the water, and what it means for the worlds oceans.

Chinas fishing fleet is more than just a commercial concern; it acts as a projection of geopolitical power on the worlds oceans. As the U.S. Navy has pulled back from the waters of West Africa and the Middle East, China has bolstered its fishing and naval presence. And in places such as the South China Sea and the Arctics Northern Sea Route, China has laid claim to prized shipping lanes as well as subsea oil and gas deposits.

The scale and aggressiveness of its fleet puts China in control, says Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, adding that few foreign countries have been willing to push back when Chinas fishing boats make incursions into their national waters.

Not that the fishing itself is unimportant. The fleet is also a way to obtain food security for Chinas 1.4 billion people. Many of the marine stocks closest to Chinas shores have dwindled from overfishing and industrialization, so ships are forced to venture farther to fill their nets. The Chinese government says it has roughly 2,600 distant-water fishing vessels, which, according to a recent report by the Stimson Center, a security research group, makes it three times larger than the fleets of the next top four countriesTaiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Spaincombined.Over the past two decades, China has spent billions of dollars supporting its fishing industry, says Tabitha Grace Mallory, a professor at the University of Washington, who specializes in Chinas fishing policies, in an email. In 2018, total global fisheries subsidies were estimated to be $35.4 billion, with China accounting for $7.2 billion of it. This includes those for fuel and for new boats that increase the size of the fleet.

The government also helps cover the cost of new engines, of more durable steel hulls for trawlers, and for armed security and medical ships to be stationed permanently at fishing grounds, enabling fishing captains to stay at sea for longer. Chinese fishermen further benefit from government-led fishing intelligence that helps them find the richest waters.

Without its massive subsidy schemes, Chinas distant water fishing fleet would be a fraction of its current size, and most of its South China Sea fleet wouldnt exist at all, Poling says.

Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of the Sea Around Us Project at the University of British Columbias Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, explained in an email that these subsidies have not only increased geopolitical tensions by allowing ships to venture into contested regions, they also play a major role in depleting fish stocks as they keep vessels operating that would otherwise be decommissioned.

As long as fleets are provided financial assistance to overfish, experts say that sustainable fishing is impossible. Already 90 percent of commercial fish stocks tracked worldwide by the U.N.s Food and Agriculture Organization have been overfished or fully fishedmeaning they are past their capacity to sustainably replenish themselvesincluding the worlds 10 most important commercial species.

China is by no means singular when it comes to subsidizing its fishing fleet. More than half of the global fishing industry would be unprofitable at its current scale without government subsidies, according to a 2018 study in Science Advances led by National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence Enric Sala.

Japan spends more in subsidies for fishing on the high seasthe parts of the ocean not under control by any governmentthan any other country, accounting for about 20 percent of global high seas fishing subsidies, Salas study shows. Spain accounts for 14 percent of global fishing subsidies, followed by China at 10 percent, then South Korea, and the U.S.

But when it comes to scale, China is by far the biggest. With more than 800 ships on the high seas, Chinese vessels were responsible for more than 35 percent of the reported global catch on the high seas in 2014more than any other country. (Taiwan, with the next highest number of vessels at 593, accounts for about 12 percent of that catch, and Japan, with 478 ships, accounts for less than 5 percent.)

Subsidies are not just a major reason that the oceans are rapidly running out of fish. In putting too many vessels on the water globally, subsidies can lead to unsustainable fishing, unhealthy competition, territorial disputes, and illegal fishing as captains become desperate to find new, less-crowded fishing grounds.

To put it bluntly, this is akin to paying burglars to rob your neighbors house, says Peter Thomson, the U.N. secretary-generals special envoy for the ocean, about the role that subsidies play in encouraging illegal fishing.

China ranks as having the worlds worst score when it comes to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, according to an index published last year by Poseidon Aquatic Resource Management, a fishery and aquaculture consulting firm.

In 2016, the government released a five-year plan to cap the number of distant-water fishing vessels to fewer than 3,000 by 2021. (Its unclear whether China has made any progress toward this goal, however, because the government releases little data on ship numbers.)And in June, the Chinese fishing authorities announced they will close squid-catching seasons for Chinese boats in certain South American waters from July to November, citing the need to allow squid populations to replenish. This is the first time China has ever voluntarily closed a fishing season.

I believe that the Chinese government is serious when they offer to restrict their distant water fleet, Pauly says. Whether they can enforce the planned restrictions onto their fleet is another question; indeed, I dont believe they control their distant-water fleets any more than we control ours in the West.

Ensuring that ships of any nation comply with environmental, labor, or other rules when they are in international waters is difficult, since no country has the jurisdiction or resources to police them so far from shore.

With a rapidly growing middle class thats able to afford more seafood, the Chinese government has boosted its aquaculture industry with more than $250 million in subsidies between 2015 and 2019 in an effort to reduce the countrys dependence on wild-caught fish.

That move, however, presents a new problem: To fatten up their fish, most fish farms rely on fishmeal, a high-protein powder predominantly made from wild-caught fish from foreign or international waters. Furthermore, aquaculture takes a lot of fishmealbefore a farmed tuna gets to market, for example, it may eat more than 15 times its weight in wild fish in the form of fishmeal.

Ocean conservationists warn that the voracious nature of fishmeal production is accelerating ocean depletion, contributing to illegal fishing, destabilizing the aquatic food chain, and sapping poorer countries waters of protein sources needed for local subsistence.

Catching large amounts of wild fish to feed a growing demand for farmed fish makes little sense, Sala says. A fraction of those wild fish could instead be used to feed people directly, with less impact on ocean life.

To meet the demand for fishmeal and fish oil, Chinese fishing authorities said in 2015 that they planned to increase the amount of krill harvested from Antarctic waters from 32,000 metric tons to 2 million metric tons, though they committed to staying out of ecologically vulnerable areas. Krill are a primary food source for whales, and conservationists worry about the knock-on effects of such a high harvest.

In addition to the potentially devastating environmental consequences of overfishing and fishery collapses, so many ships on the sea means more competition for fishing grounds, which can destabilize relationships between countries and lead to violent clashes.

In 2016, the South Korean Coast Guard opened fire on two Chinese fishing vessels that had threatened to ram patrol boats in the Yellow Sea. A month earlier, Chinese fishermen rammed and sank another South Korean speedboat in the same area. In the same year, Argentina sank a Chinese boat it claimed was fishing illegally in its waters. Indonesia, South Africa, and the Philippines have all had recent run-ins with Chinese fishing fleets. In most of these cases, the Chinese boats were fishing for squid, which represents more than half of the fleets catch on the high seas.

One of the reasons Chinas fleet is so bloated is that some of its fishing ships serve purposes other than merely fishing. Part of a so-called civilian militia, Poling says, these fishing vessels are dispatched to conflict zones at sea to surveil the waters and occasionally to intimidate and ram fishing or law enforcement boats from other countries. Separate from its fishing subsidies, China has a program that incentivizes boats to operate in disputed waters in the South China Sea as a way to assert Chinas claims. They get many of the same benefits as the distant-water fleet, plus cash payments because operating in that region is otherwise unprofitable.More than 200 of these militia fishing boats occupy the waters around the South China Seas disputed Spratly Islandsan area rich with fish, and possibly oil and natural gas tooto which China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Taiwan lay claim. Satellite imagery shows that the Chinese fishing boats in the area spend most of their time anchored close together in clusters and are not actually fishing.

The only reason that smaller [Chinese] fishermen go out to the Spratlys is because theyre paid to do so, Poling says. The presence of these fishing vessels has sped the decline of fish around the islands, led to clashes with fishing boats from other countries, and given China cover to build military installations on some of the reefs, further reinforcing its claims to the territory.

Partly because they travel in groups and sometimes with armed security, Chinese fishing ships are often aggressive toward competitors or perceived threats. I saw this up close in 2019 after paying my way onto a South Korean squid ship and heading offshore in the Sea of Japan, where I hoped to document the presence of illegal Chinese squidders operating in North Korean waters.

We raced to catch up with what turned out to be not just one ship but nearly two dozen, all heading single file from South Korean waters into North Koreanwaters.

Our captain was a short and wiry man, roughly 70 years old, with deep-set eyes and skin weathered like an elephant. On the morning of our scheduled departure, the hired crew told the captain that they would not be working the trip. They said they were too nervous about being associated with any reporting related to North Korea and about getting near Chinese fishing ships.

The captain said we could still go to sea with just his first mate but the ship would be tough to manage, dirtier than normal, and we would need to help him when asked.

Stinking of rotten chum and skating-rink slippery from the prior catch, the deck of the 60-foot-long wooden vessel was a mess. Crew quarters were trashed, and the ship engine conked out on us several hundred miles from shore, leading to a tense two hours until it was fixed.

Shortly after nightfall on our very first day offshore, the blip of a boat appeared on our radar. We raced to catch up with what turned out to be not just one ship but nearly two dozen, all heading single file from South Korean waters into North Korean waters. All were flying Chinese flags, and none with their transponders turned on, as required in South Korean waters.

In sending a previously invisible armada of industrial boats to fish in these banned waters, China has been violently displacing smaller North Korean vessels and spearheading a decline in once-abundant squid stocks. Asked about the findings, documented by novel satellite technology from Global Fishing Watch, and confirmed by my 2019 excursion, documented for NBC, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it conscientiously enforced the U.N. Security Councils North Korea resolutions and has consistently punished illegal fishing, but it neither confirmed nor denied the presence of Chinese ships there.

We followed the boats, filmed them, documented their identification numbers, and after about 45 minutes, we put a drone in the air to get a better look at the ships. In response, one of the Chinese boat captains blared his horn, flashed his lights, and then abruptly cut toward us in a ramming maneuvera warning. We stayed our course, but the Chinese ship continued toward us. When it reached within 30 feet of us, we suddenly veered to avoid collision.

This was as much as our captain wanted to risk. Deciding it was too dangerous to continue, he turned our ship around and began the eight-hour trip back to port, during which he seemed unusually quiet and slightly rattled. They are very serious, he kept murmuring, referring to the Chinese fishermen, who, undaunted, continued heading into North Korean waters.

Clearly, subsidies had not just grown the Chinese fishing fleet into a global force of unprecedented size and geographic reach. They had also instilled a sense of ambition, drive, and boldness that few other countries or their fishing captains were willing or able to challenge.

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How Chinas Massive Fishing Fleet Is Transforming the Worlds Oceans - Slate

Apps and after: Chinas growing naval muscle will have to be jointly countered – The Times of India Blog

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In another strike on Chinese apps, government has banned 118 fresh entities for engaging in activities prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India. In the latest round, the biggest casualty appears to be PUBG, the worlds most lucrative mobile game whose largest subscriber base is in India. At a time when India and China continue to face off at the border in eastern Ladakh, the curb on Chinese apps is both a security imperative preventing data leakages, and a strong message to Beijing that it cant be business as usual.

New Delhis moves could, however, trigger a response from Beijing, not necessarily confined to aggressive moves along the LAC. China has all-round capabilities, and is adept at using an all of national power approach to bully neighbours. It could launch cyberattacks, for which New Delhi should be prepared. Its navy has rapidly expanded to become the largest in the world with 350 warships to the USs 293. As per a Pentagon report, China is actively trying to set up military logistics facilities in countries from Myanmar and Thailand to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and UAE. India could soon find itself surrounded by the Chinese navy.

Countering China at sea is therefore the big challenge next to resisting Beijings designs at the LAC. In this regard, India must immediately ask for regular naval exercises with the Quad grouping and other nations including the UK, France, Vietnam etc to balance China. Additionally, it must strengthen its force projection capabilities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, from where it can exploit Chinas Malacca Dilemma and retain the option to choke Beijings energy supplies in case of war. The high seas are the new grounds of powerplay. India and likeminded nations must coordinate to check China here.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.

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Apps and after: Chinas growing naval muscle will have to be jointly countered - The Times of India Blog