Nurse’s Covid-19 efforts win hotel stay anywhere in the world – East Lothian Courier

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A NORTH Berwick business has helped a nurse to win a hotel stay anywhere in the world in appreciation of her efforts in the battle against Covid-19 and raising thousands of pounds for patient care packages.

Alison Williams, a research nurse at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, was nominated in the holiday competition by Rock My World Travel of North Berwick.

The 41-year-old Edinburgh resident, who visited North Berwick on holidays as a child, has been branded a superhero after raising more than 29,000 in her campaign to create Rainbow Boxes for patients.

The campaign started after Alison witnessed first-hand that several patients had few personal items as family members were unable to visit them, so did not have basic items such as pyjamas and toiletries.

She said: A lot of people were being admitted in emergency situations so they didnt have and were missing essential items, from nightwear to phone chargers.

She added that other initiatives aimed to help nurses, whereas this specifically helped patients.

The mum of two, who studied at Napier University and qualified in 2001, then came up with the idea to get these items to the patients and launched a campaign on a local Facebook group, Edinburgh Gossip Girls, with the original aim of raising 500 to create the boxes.

To date the total stands at more than 29,300, with a further 25,000 donated from RBS, bringing the total raised to more than 50,0000.

Alison said: The 500 target was smashed in a few minutes.

She now has a small team of people supporting her.

She added: We have enough money to last until October but hopefully things will be back to normal [by then] and people can come in on visits and the need wont be as great.

Boxes are delivered to all 60 wards in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, as well as nearby hospices and the East Lothian Community Hospital in Haddington.

Her campaign, alongside her job as a nurse and working during the current coronavirus crisis, led to her being nominated in the holiday competition by Rock My World Travel.

The competition was featured in Travel Weekly, a travel industry trade magazine, and run by travel company Stuba, in recognition of the hard work of local heroes who have emerged during the pandemic.

People were in with a chance of winning a 300 hotel voucher. Alison was one of 20 national winners.

Isobel McCardie, who runs Rock My World Travel alongside her husband Mark, nominated Alison.

Isobel, who lives in North Berwick, said: When I saw what Alison was doing, it instantly resonated with me.

Not only was she on the frontline fighting Covid-19, but her compassion for the patients inspired her to go further.

As soon as I saw the competition, I instantly thought of Alison. She has been completely selfless in this entire task and is working tirelessly, I cant think of anyone who deserves a break more.

On the nomination, Alison said: I only knew about it when she phoned me and told me Id won. Its really nice that someone who doesnt know me nominated me. Its amazing and flattering.

Alison plans to take her colleague Rachel, who has been working tirelessly to help Alison with her campaign.

When asked if she had decided where to go, Alison said: Im not wanting to go too far. Ill possibly go somewhere in Scotland.

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Nurse's Covid-19 efforts win hotel stay anywhere in the world - East Lothian Courier

Great American Outdoors Act heads to Trump as Cory Gardner leans on measure in reelection bid – The Colorado Sun

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Congress on Wednesday sent President Donald Trump a major, bipartisan public lands bill that has become a pillar of Republican Cory Gardners reelection campaign in Colorado, finalizing the swift passage of a measure seen as an election-year gift to the U.S. senator.

The U.S. House approved the Great American Outdoors Act, which would achieve the long-held goal of fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund while also tackling the nations massive national parks maintenance backlog, by a vote of 310-107.

Trump has said he will sign the bill.

The measure moved through Congress at lightning speed relative to the normal pace of legislation after Gardner, who was a prime sponsor of the bill, negotiated the support of Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in March. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been trying for years to secure full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

It shows what can happen when youre committed to the path of your legislation, Gardner said in an interview with The Colorado Sun on Wednesday. Every state, every county across the country will benefit.

Gardner said he believes the legislation will create thousands of jobs in Colorado at a time when people are feeling the economic effects of the coronavirus crisis. He said its one of the greatest accomplishments of his congressional tenure.

Democrats and environmental groups with a liberal lean also applauded the bills passage.

Whether its urban parks you access to escape the fast pace of the city or hiking trails in our national parks you enjoy over the weekend, Coloradans love and utilize public lands, Hannah Collazo, the state director for Environment Colorado, said in a written statement. This bill is not only an investment in outdoor spaces but also in our emotional, spiritual, and physical health as Coloradans.

Gardner, who is facing an uphill reelection battle as he seeks a second term, has capitalized on the win. During the Senates July 4 recess he toured Colorado to tout his work on the bill. His campaign has also run two television ads boasting of its passage in the Senate.

Gardners law endorsed by every environmental leader, a 30-second TV ad released this week says.

Ivanka Trump, the presidents daughter, is scheduled to make a stop in Colorado on Thursday to celebrate the bills passage at Rocky Mountain National Park with Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

Even the president weighed in on the legislations passage Wednesday.

Thanks @SenCoryGardner and @SteveDaines for all your work on this HISTORIC BILL! Trump tweeted.

Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, is another GOP member of Congress facing a tough reelection bid in November.

The Great American Outdoors act has two key provisions:

The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been used to help pay for a number of projects in Colorado.

Meanwhile, the states public lands operated by the National Park Service had an estimated maintenance backlog of $2 billion in 2018. That included $84 million in needed repairs at Rocky Mountain National Park, $76 million in deferred maintenance at Mesa Verde National Park, and $21 million in put-off repairs and upgrades at the Colorado National Monument.

Democrats, while excited about the bills passage, have accused Gardner of trying to greenwash his record on the environment through the measure. They point to his decisions not to support tougher regulations on emissions of carbon dioxide and methane and his proximity to the Trump administration, which has rolled back a number of environmental regulations.

What Gardner is selling is a hollow victory, state Rep. Edie Hooton, D-Boulder, wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday by The Sun. The only thing Gardner really seems to be working on here is how to rebrand his environmental record.

Gardner has brushed off the criticism as partisan sour grapes, but questions remain about his positions on key public lands issues, namely Trumps nomination of William Perry Pendley as head of the Bureau of Land Management. Pendley has been serving as acting director of the agency.

Colorados Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet on Tuesday called for an expedited hearing for Pendley, who has been leading the BLM as acting director for about a year despite not having gone through a confirmation hearing.

Gardner has declined to say where he stands on the nomination, explaining that hes waiting for Senate hearings before making his decision. He didnt say if he supports Bennets request for expedited proceedings.

Obviously there will be a hearing, Gardner said. I dont know when that hearing will be scheduled, but hes going to face some very difficult and tough questions.

Another area where Democrats have attacked Gardner is over the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Economy Act, a massive Colorado public lands bill being run by Democratic members of the states congressional delegation. Gardner has not thrown his weight behind the measure, citing objections from U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, a Cortez Republican whose district would be affected by the measure.

Democrats added the CORE Act into the National Defense Authorization Act as it passed this week out of the U.S. House. Gardner credited U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Boulder, with tacking the measure onto the NDAA, saying it shows what somebody who is dedicated to passing the bill can make happen.

But when asked whether he would work to keep the CORE Act as part of the defense bill as it makes its way through the Senate, Gardner said I dont think it will happen. I think its too late for any amendments here.

Gardner said he didnt have information on when Trump may sign the Great American Outdoors Act into law, but that he has encouraged the president to celebrate lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who pushed for the measure.

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Great American Outdoors Act heads to Trump as Cory Gardner leans on measure in reelection bid - The Colorado Sun

‘Vande Mataram’: My Shock Recognition About Claims to the Matrubhoomi – The Wire

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You may have come across an advertisement that has in recent days been blaring powerfully from the television screen that recounts in song the many real or alleged achievements of the government, concluding in a high-pitched Vande Mataram invocation.

This rather overbearing call to a codified nationalism brings to my mind an instructive interaction that has remained etched in my memory.

Returning from a seminar at a university in an Uttar Pradesh city a decade or more ago, I got talking with the driver of the vehicle that was kindly organised to bring me back home.

The drivers name was Abdul Rashid, a venerable old man, who, I was to discover, to be an astonishingly learned man. I distinctly recall that he bore an uncanny resemblance to the self-taught Abraham Lincoln.

Unsurprisingly, our conversation came round to the subject of Vande Mataram, after, that is, a painful dip into the partition of India for which he told me he never forgave Jinnah, even as he held other parties guilty as well.

From a routine conditioning, I suppose, I asked him why Muslims felt so strongly about this address to the motherland (matrubhoomi).

Abdul Rashids response at first was equally conditioned and predictable: Dr Sahib, he said, our faith forbids us from bowing to anything and anyone other than the one god, Allah.

This was as much as I already knew.

Sensing that I was a liberal sort of Hindu, his articulation warmed to some elaborations on the theme that have left me thinking hard.

Dr Sahib, do you ever think about the reality that when you die, your ashes will be immersed in the Ganges, or some other water-body, and, in course of time, the waters will carry them beyond the territories of India into the sea; but when I die, my remains will be buried in our own mother earth and be mingled with it for eternity? So, I ask you, which of us has a better claim to the matrubhoomi? Is it not the case, then, that were we to say Vande Mataram, we would be committing the ultimate blasphemy of bowing to ourselvesa thought not to be entertained in the Islamic faith?

The Ganga river in Varanasi. Photo: Flickr/Eric Parker CC BY NC 2.0

I had never ever in my long life confronted this perception. The stark irony embedded in it suddenly made me feel an outsider to my own landsomething of a tenant than an owner. It was as though I had been dispossessed of a claim trumpeted over millennia of a self-evident assertion and unquestionable truth.

The recognition that my matrubhoomi was in fact eternally intimate with non-Hindu Indians, inextricably making up the soil in whose name we Hindus have so berated our Semitic fellow-Indians, was nothing less than a telling realisation, and I asked myself how so obvious a reality could remain so obfuscated from the popular Hindu mind for many centuries of conjoint living.

I was hit by the thought that where my flesh and bone would not fertilise my matrubhoomi, Abdul Rashids would.

What metaphysical rejoinders I could think up seemed puerile next to the earthy home truth Abdul Rashid had placed before me.

A litany of Muslim Indian writers sprang to my mind who have in their work celebrated their love of the matrubhoomi, and, how tragic I thought that such an abiding fact should amount to so little in the minds of those who blare their proprietorship of India as a civilisation just because Muslims will not bow to the matrubhoomi.

Bahadur Shah Zafars hauntingly poignant lament from the then Rangoon that he was not destined to two yards of earth in his motherland for burial put for me a wholly new gloss on what Abdul Rashid had taught me of loyalty to and love of matrubhoomi among Indian Muslims.

Bahadur Shah Zafar enthroned with Mirza Fakhruddin. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Ghulam Ali Khan, Smithsonian, Washington, Public Domain

I have since that day wondered how my ashes, far away from Indian shores, may look back to blare their claim to any exclusive ownership of India, that is Bharat. And why those whose meat and bone become one with the soil should be considered alien to the matrubhoomi.

I thought of Pearl S. Bucks The Good Earth as a celebratory trope so healthfully alternate to a political call of allegiance to the landone which teaches us to salute the earth for the bounties she gives us without discrimination as we labour lovingly with it. And it struck me how little the matrubhoomi cares as to whose hands work those bounties.

Badri Rainahas taught at Delhi University.

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'Vande Mataram': My Shock Recognition About Claims to the Matrubhoomi - The Wire

Whose natural resources are they anyway? – Deccan Herald

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Amid debates over fundamental rights and federalism, other parts of the Constitution tend to occasionally get short shrift. Not because they are no longer relevant, but because theres a sort of selective, collective amnesia that lawyers and academics (not to mention politicians and the public) tend to suffer from. I am, of course, referring to the Directive Principles of State Policy -- one of the most problematic parts of the Constitution but also one of its most meaningful. Specifically, I want to focus on the directive principle which talks about natural resources -- Article 39, in specific, clauses (b) and (c) of this Article.

Clause (b) says that the States policies should ensure that ownership and control of the material resources get distributed to subserve the common good. Clause (c) says that the States policies should make sure that the working of the economy does not cause the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment.

The importance of these two clauses was highlighted in the Constituent Assembly by Purnima Banerjee in her speech on November 24, 1949:

By the inclusion of these clauses, I personally feel that this Constitution has provided us with the means for changing the structure of society. It will all depend on us whether we are able to establish that sovereign democratic republic, not for the hollow benefit of registering ones vote and passing legislation, not a democracy which will simply maintain the status quo or which will take upon itself the policy of laissez-faire, but a democracy which will combine with it the healthy principle that the government governs best which governs least, with the principle that it should encourage the active citizenship of the country.

Banerjee also calls these two clauses the cornerstone of the Constitution -- a prescient verdict given the controversies in the years that have followed over the distribution and use of natural resources.

Clauses (b) and (c) have been relied on by governments in the past to push through socialist policies that provided for land redistribution, ceilings on land ownership, controlling monopolies, among other things. Theres a whole book waiting to be written on the litigation battles between governments citing these clauses and citizens citing fundamental rights over radical policies that tried to reduce inequalities and nationalised industries. With neo-liberal economic ideas being in vogue, however, one could argue that these clauses are socialist relics of old and might as well be ignored.

Not quite.

The relationship between fundamental rights and directive principles are not always antagonistic -- theyre supposed to be complementary. Although fundamental rights are enforceable and directive principles are not, courts since the 1980s have held that directive principles can be read into the fundamental rights to make them more meaningful and expansive. One of the interesting ways fundamental rights and directive principles have been read together is when Article 14 (which guarantees equality) was read together with Article 39(b) in the context of natural resources.

The distribution of natural resources by governments have become among the most contentious issues that courts have been called to decide upon, whether it is coal or spectrum. One of the most famous of these (one in which I was involved in professionally) was the dispute between the Ambani brothers over claims to natural gas deposits found offshore in the Krishna-Godavari basin, which later dragged the government into it. Eventually, the Supreme Court in 2010 held that the natural gas belonged to the people of India and that it would be the government (and not the Ambani brothers) who would decide how it would be used. In his judgement in the case, Justice Sudershan Reddy had something caustic and perceptive to say:

The concept of equality, a necessary condition for the achievement of justice, is inherent in the concept of national development that we have adopted as a nation. India was never meant to be a mere land in which the desires and the actions of the rich and the mighty take precedence over the needs of the people.

Have governments subsequently taken this message to heart? The news of the last few years suggests otherwise.

Its not always well understood but what our Constitution tells us is that natural resources are not the personal property of whoever can make a claim over them. They are not even the property of governments to dispose of as they please. They are the collective property of the citizens of the country. Governments only hold and use them as trustees on our behalf. Its up to us, as citizens, to hold the government accountable for the way our natural resources are used for our benefit.

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Whose natural resources are they anyway? - Deccan Herald

Israeli Settlements in the West Bank: Why Palestine is More Vulnerable Than Ever – International Policy Digest

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In May of this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his plan to formally annex Israeli settlements located in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This behavior is unsurprising given that the Palestinians have effectively been under the control of Israel for decades, but the decision to formally annex Israeli settlements is both a violation of international law and a direct threat to the autonomy and livelihood of Palestinians. Despite condemnation from Egypt, Jordan, Germany, and France, Israel plans to go through with the annexation within the coming months.

The United States boasts of its status as a liberal democracy that is very influential on the international scale, yet the Trump administration has helped lead the way for dividing the territory and has failed to accurately deem the action illegal. It is worth mentioning that the U.S. has a long-standing allyship with Israel. Trumps support of the annexation is disappointing but by no means a surprising move. With the U.S. behind the annexation, there is little hope that Palestinians will be able to uphold their right to land, putting Israeli-Palestinian relations at a crucial turning point. Here is why the U.S. peace plan to aid Israels annexation of Palestine is anything but peaceful.

The Israel-Palestine conflict dates back centuries, but the bottom line is that Palestinians and Israelis disagree about who has the historical right to the land and how it should be controlled. The Jewish state of Israel believes that they have a right to reclaim their Holy Land, but Palestinians argue that they have a right to territory that had been under Arab rule for centuries. Currently, the area of the West Bank is under the control of Palestinian authorities but occupied by Israeli troops that place restrictions on Palestinians.

The inability to provide a territorial compromise between Israel and Palestine demonstrates a long history of commitment problems within the conflict. As James Fearon explains in Rationalist Explanations of War, rationally led states may be unable to arrange a settlement that both would prefer to war due to commitment problems, situations in which mutually preferable bargains are unattainable because one or more states would have an incentive to renege on the terms. There have been several attempts at peace resolutions and international involvement, yet neither state can agree to give up on any land that they believe is rightfully theirs. There are several factors that exacerbate this issue, one of which being the involvement of extremist groups that continue to inhibit conflict resolution in this case. Hamas, an extremist faction of the Palestinian government that advocates for the liberation of Palestine, has gained substantial support throughout the conflict and often displays violence toward those who cooperate with the Israeli government. The inability to compromise only deepens cleavages and tends to spoil potential peace deals. This all-or-nothing approach has led to a long and violent conflict.

In an effort to assert power over the Palestinians, Israel has formed over 130 Israeli settlements along the West Bank that effectively cut off Palestinians from their access to their own land. Currently, there are 11,000 Palestinians who are restricted from entering Israeli land that divides up Palestinian territory. Unable to pass through the border, they cannot access employment and resources that exist east of the settlements. Despite annexation being proposed under the deceptive claim of a simple security measure, the fact that 85% of the settlements fall within the West Bank as opposed to the Green Line that divides Israel and Palestinian territory verifies that the placement of settlements is exceptionally strategic to favor Israeli interests.

Not only does it seem that the Israeli government has ulterior motives, their annexation simply violates international law. According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, states shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies. Furthermore, the International Criminal Court created a statute in 1998 that deemed the behavior a war crime within international law.

Despite ratifying the very law that makes this annexation illegal, the United States is playing a key role in Netanyahus plan. Unlike some of its allies, the U.S. has shown support for annexation. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman,stated that Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank. This is a clear case in which the United States has openly supported and involved itself in a policy that directly opposes that of international law. What many people do not know is that Friedman has a vested interest in the promotion of the Israeli regime. Along with being the ambassador to Israel, Friedman serves as the president of the American Friends of Bet El Institutions, which raises about $2 million in tax-deductible donations every year from settlement supporters in the U.S. There is no surprise that Friedman would capitalize on his position of ambassador to promote these personal beliefs, despite international outrage.

In taking this position, the United States is encouraging massive human rights violations. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there have been 113,668 Palestinian civilians injured and 5,581 civilian fatalities within occupied Palestinian territory and Israel since 2008. Israel has demonstrated its capacity for violence on several occasions and the formal annexation of the Israeli settlements only adds fuel to the fire of violence that already exists in occupied Palestine.

The question we need to consider is what exactly will happen to the Palestinians if this annexation takes place. One possibility is that Israel grants Palestinians full Israeli citizenship, which is risky in terms of upholding Israel as a Jewish state. If Palestinians become citizens, the Israeli government runs the risk of being outnumbered and outvoted by Muslim Palestinians. Considering Israels efforts to establish its place as a Jewish state and Holy Land, it seems unlikely that this will be the result of the annexation. The alternative, however, indicates a grim future for Palestinians, who could be ultimately confined to small areas of land with few rights.

With the growing fortitude of Netanyahus anti-Palestine efforts, the livelihood of the Palestinian population becomes complex and unknown. There is no clear outcome to annexation other than the probable repression of Palestinian human rights. The U.S. and its role in the Israel and Palestine conflict is anything but tangential to the outcome of the annexation plans. While there are no obvious ways to resolve this conflict otherwise, the U.S. peace plan and cooperation with Netanyahus administration is a step in the wrong direction.

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Israeli Settlements in the West Bank: Why Palestine is More Vulnerable Than Ever - International Policy Digest

The Forgotten History of the Jewish, Anti-Zionist Left – Jacobin magazine

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I would alter that a bit to say Im really talking about the communist and Marxist left in this context. I grew up within a left-wing family where opinion was definitely divided on the question of Zionism yet, nonetheless, there was a pervasive idea that the Holocaust changed opinion universally, and everyone fell in line as soon as the details of the Holocaust were revealed, Zionist and anti-Zionist alike.

Its undeniably correct to say that without the Holocaust there probably would have been no Israel, if just for the single fact that there was a massive influx of Jewish refugees after the war who would have undoubtedly stayed in Europe otherwise. Without that influx of Jews who could fight the 1948 war and populate Israel just after, its doubtful an independent state of Israel could have succeeded.

However, one thing I found most surprising going through the Jewish left press in the 1940s publications of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, the Communist Party, and writings by Hannah Arendt is that even after the scope of the Holocaust was widely understood, their official position was still anti-Zionist.

They may have called for Jews to be allowed to resettle in the lands from which they were expelled or massacred, with full rights and full citizenship, be allowed to immigrate to the United States, or even be allowed to emigrate to Palestine if there was nowhere else to go (as was often the case). But they were still wholly against partition and the establishment of a Jewish-only state.

What is important to understand about that moment was that Zionism was a political choice not only by Western imperial powers, but also by Jewish leadership. They could have fought more strenuously for Jewish immigration to the United States. And a lot of the Zionist leaders actually fought against immigration to the United States.

There were a number of stories reported in the Jewish communist press about how Zionists collaborated with the British and Americans to force Jews to go to Mandate Palestine, when they would have rather gone to the United States, or England. Theres a famous quote by Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary, who said the only reason the United States sent Jews to Palestine was because they do not want too many more of them in New York. And the Zionists agreed with this.

While this may seem like ancient history, it is important because it disrupts the common sense surrounding Israels formation. Yes, maybe there could have been peace between Jews and Palestinians, but the Holocaust made all of that impossible. And I would say that this debate after 1945 shows that there was a long moment in which there were other possibilities, and another future could have happened.

Ironically, perhaps, the Soviet Union did more than any other single force to change the minds of the Jewish Marxist left in the late 1940s about Israel. Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Unions ambassador to the United Nations, came out in 1947 and backed partition in the United Nations after declaring the Western world did nothing to stop the Holocaust, and suddenly theres this about-face. All these Jewish left-wing publications that were denouncing Zionism, literally the next day, were embracing partition and the formation of the nation-state of Israel.

You have to understand, for a lot of Jewish communists and even socialists, the Soviet Union was the promised land not Zionism. This was the place where they had, according to the propaganda, eradicated antisemisitm.

The Russian Empire was the most antisemitic place throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, before the rise of Nazism. Many of the Jewish Communist Party members were from Eastern Europe, or their families were, and they had very vivid memories of Russia as the crucible of antisemitism. For them, the Russian Revolution was a rupture in history, a chance to start over. And, of course, this is after World War II, when the Soviet Union had just defeated the Nazis.

For the Soviet Union to embrace Zionism really sent a shockwave through the left-wing Jewish world. The Soviet Union changed its policy a decade or so later, openly embracing anti-Zionism by the 1960s. But for this brief pivotal moment, the Soviet Union firmly came down in favor of partition, and that seems to be what really changed the Jewish left.

Without this kind of legitimation, I think we are all starting to see the Jewish left such as it exists return back in an important way to the positions that it had originally held, which is that Zionism is a right-wing nationalism, and that it is also racist and colonialist. We are seeing the Jewish left return to its first principles.

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The Forgotten History of the Jewish, Anti-Zionist Left - Jacobin magazine

Do we need to stop eating meat? – Telegraph.co.uk

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It is also important to remember that not all vegetables are as virtuous. If food is assessed in emissions per calorie or per gram of protein, many commonly eaten fruits, salads and vegetables do not fare much better than beef or pork. Celery is terrible in terms of CO2 per calorie, as is lettuce, tomato and broccoli, largely because these plants require lots of CO2-generating inputs (fertiliser, farm machinery etc) to make them grow, but the resulting crop is largely composed of water and dietary fibre, and so extremely low in calories. Yet unlike meat, these commonly eaten foods get little criticism, largely because everyone understands that we dont eat them for calories or protein. We eat vegetables, fruits and salads because they are delicious, form an important part of our cuisine and contain vital nutrients.

Perhaps we would be better off viewing meat in a similar way. Seeing it as a vital source of nutrients. Considering it a delicious adjunct to meals, rather than the centre of every plate. Eating better meat, eating it less often, and valuing it far more. That way, we could still eat well, but with less impact upon the world. As with so many environmental decisions, we should really try and do this now when we can, rather than tomorrow because we have to.

Chicken or beef?

Is chicken better than beef? It is more efficient at converting feed into meat and has far lower carbon emissions per gram, but chickens are largely fed on human-edible food such as grain, whereas cows can convert grass into protein. Swapping some beef for chicken is probably wise, but unfortunately its complicated.

Loose vs plastic-wrapped produce?

It depends. Excess plastic packaging is certainly to be avoided, but in some cases plastic can help reduce food waste. Plastic wrapping on cucumbers and broccoli has been shown to reduce the environmental impact by extending shelf life.

Palm oil or animal fat?

Although palm oil production drives a lot of tropical deforestation, it is a very efficient, productive crop. Completely banning it may not be the best option as some of the replacements, including beef fat, might have a greater environmental impact. Instead, look for RSPO-certified palm oil that doesnt result in deforestation.

Chicken or organic chicken?

Organic food is often sold as a more sustainable option, but organic chicken requires three times the land of conventional production.

LEAF produce or regular produce?

The LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) standard is a mark of good environmental management on farms. Forty per cent of vegetables sold in the UK are LEAF-marked. Seeking out LEAF produce is a simple way of ensuring it is produced in a more sustainable way

Almond milk or oat milk?

Although almond milk production has low climate emissions and is efficient regarding land use, it uses large amounts of water, often in regions where supplies are limited. Oats are a better option as they can be grown in regions with high rainfall.

No-till or conventional?

No-till agriculture is one of the most promising farming practices in environmental terms, with many crops now being produced without any ploughing. Ploughing is known to cause soil degradation and releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is currently hard to identify food grown in this way, although some progressive farms sell produce directly.

Local or imports?

Although locally grown produce has lower transport emissions, the cost of growing things in unsuitable climates can exceed the benefit. Hot-house-grown tomatoes often have several times the climate impact of imported varieties.

Air freight or road freight?

Although the transport of food is generally a low proportion of its climate impact, air-freighted fruits and vegetables are an exception. These are best avoided or minimised.

Plastic or glass?

Although glass bottles and jars are often chosen on environmental grounds, they can have a greater impact than plastic over a full life cycle. Heavy-duty reusable plastics, or easily recycled lightweight versions, are often better options.

Cheese or meat?

Many people going vegetarian will swap meat for cheese, but there is evidence that cheese has a greater climate impact than chicken or pork (although less than beef or lamb). A note: most studies look at climate impact per gram. While eating 150g of chicken is not usual, that much cheddar would be fairly extreme.

Slow-grown chickens or standard?

Slow-grown chickens are highly prized, but the difference is often only a matter of 10-12 days. Slowly raised animals have a larger climate impact, although if choosing them means you eat less and value it more, it might still be a good choice.

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Do we need to stop eating meat? - Telegraph.co.uk

Spaceflight and Tethers Unlimited team up on deorbiting system for satellite carrier – GeekWire

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An artists conception shows Spaceflights Sherpa-FX, the first orbital transfer vehicle to debut in the companys Sherpa-NG (next generation) program. The vehicle is capable of executing multiple deployments, as well as providing independent and detailed deployment telemetry. (Spaceflight Inc. Illustration)

Seattle-based Spaceflight Inc. says itll use a notebook-sized deorbiting system developed by another Seattle-area company to deal with the disposal of its Sherpa-FX orbital transfer vehicle.

The NanoSat Terminator Tape Deorbit System, built by Bothell, Wash.-based Tethers Unlimited, is designed to take advantage of orbital drag on a 230-foot-long strip of conductive tape to hasten the fiery descent of a spacecraft through Earths atmosphere. The system has been tested successfully on nanosatellites over the past year, and another experiment is planned for later this year.

Tethers Unlimiteds system provides an affordable path to reducing space debris, which is becoming a problem of greater concern as more small satellites go into orbit. Statistical models suggest that there are nearly a million bits of debris bigger than half an inch (1 centimeter) whizzing in Earth orbit.

WhenTethers was founded in 1994, its main focus was to solve the problem of space debris so that NASA, the DoD [Department of Defense] and commercial space enterprises could continue to safely operate in Earth orbit, Tethers Unlimited CEO Rob Hoyt said today in a news release. We are pleased to see our solutions are now making a significant contribution to ensuring sustainability of the space environment, which will benefit the entire industry.

Spaceflight Inc.s Sherpa-FX is due to have its first in-space use during a dedicated rideshare mission scheduled for no earlier than December. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket would send the vehicle into orbit, loaded up with smaller spacecraft. After Sherpa-FX separates from the rockets upper stage, it would deploy those spacecraft to independent orbits. The system builds on the legacy of Spaceflight Inc.s first free-flying satellite deployer, which was used for a 64-satellite mission in 2018.

In-space transportation is essential to meeting our customers specific needs to get their spacecraft delivered to orbit exactly when and where they want it, Grant Bonin, Spaceflight Inc.s senior vice president of business development, said in a news release. If you think of typical rideshare as sharing a seat on a train headed to a popular destination, our next-generation Sherpa program enables us to provide a more complete door-to-door transportation service.

Spaceflight Inc.s customers for the rideshare mission include iQPS, Loft Orbital, HawkEye 360, Astrocast and NASAs Small Spacecraft Technology program.

The Terminator Tape module, which weighs less than 2 pounds, will be attached to Sherpa-FXs exterior. When the transfer vehicle has completed its mission, an electrical signal will activate the system to wind out the conductive tape. Interactions with Earths magnetic field and upper atmosphere will increase drag, causing a quicker plunge from orbit.

Were focused on being a good steward of our space resource, and our mission is to conduct frequent small satellite launches, so we have a responsibility for deorbiting what we send up, said Philip Bracken, vice president of engineering at Spaceflight Inc. Tethers solution is affordable, compact and lightweight, and will help us fulfill our responsibilities to clean up space after our mission is complete.

Spaceflight Inc. handles satellite launch logistics in partnership with a variety of launch providers, including SpaceX and Rocket Lab. It was founded as a subsidiary of Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries, but this year ownership was transferred to Mitsui & Co. Ltd.

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Spaceflight and Tethers Unlimited team up on deorbiting system for satellite carrier - GeekWire

Soyuz rocket raised on Baikonur launch pad for space station resupply flight – Spaceflight Now

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A Russian Soyuz rocket rolled out to a launch pad Monday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, ready for final inspections, checkouts and fueling before liftoff Thursday with a Progress supply ship bound for the International Space Station.

The Soyuz-2.1a launcher emerged from a hangar at the Baikonur Cosmodrome just after sunrise Monday, riding a mobile railcar across the Kazakh steppe to Launch Pad No. 31. A hydraulic lift raised the launcher vertical on pad 31, and gantry arms rotated into position around the rocket to allow workers access to the vehicle for final pre-launch preparations.

Launch is scheduled for 10:26:22 a.m. EDT (1426:22 GMT; 7:26:22 p.m. Baikonur time) Thursday to kick off a three-hour pursuit of the space station. The launch time is set to occur around the time the research outpost flies over Baikonur.

After shedding its four liquid-fueled first stage boosters about two minutes after liftoff, the Soyuz rocket continue firing its core stage until nearly five minutes into the mission. An upper stage will finish the task of placing the Progress MS-15 cargo carrier into orbit, then deploy the supply ship around nine minutes after launch.

The Progress MS-15 resupply freighter will unfurl its solar panels and navigation antenna, then begin a series of thruster firings to adjust its altitude to match that of the space station. A final radar-guided automated rendezvous sequence will steer the spacecraft on an approach to the Pirs docking compartment on the stations Russian segment.

The automated docking is scheduled for 1:47 p.m. EDT (1747 GMT), delivering some 2.8 tons (2.6 metric tons) of fuel, food, supplies and other equipment to the research outpost and its five-person crew.

Russian ground teams loaded 3,351 pounds (1,520 kilograms) of dry cargo into the cargo freighters pressurized compartment, according to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. Roscosmos says theres around 1,322 pounds (600 kilograms) of propellant aboard the Progress MS-15 spacecraft for transfer into the space stations tanks, along with 926 pounds (420 kilograms) of water and 101 pounds (46 kilograms) ofcompressed gas to replenish the space stations breathing air.

The Progress MS-13 supply ship, which docked with the space station Dec. 9, departed the Pirs docking port July 8 to clear the way for the arrival of the new cargo freighter. Once it docks Thursday, the Progress MS-15 spacecraft will remain linked with the space station until December, when it will detach and burn up in Earths atmosphere.

Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner will monitor the Progress MS-15 supply ships approach to the space station. They will be ready to intervene and take manual control using a remote command panel inside the station.

Ivanishin and Vagner are joined by Expedition 63 commander Chris Cassidy and NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard the International Space Station.

Cassidy, Ivanishin and Vagner launched in April aboard a Russian Soyuz crew capsule. They are scheduled to return to Earth in October.

Behnken and Hurley launched May 30 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the first flight of SpaceXs Crew Dragon spacecraft with astronauts. They reached the station May 31, and are gearing up for undocking as soon as Aug. 1, followed by re-entry and splashdown off the Florida coast Aug. 2.

Photos of the Soyuz-2.1a rockets rollout to the launch pad at Baikonur are posted below.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Soyuz rocket raised on Baikonur launch pad for space station resupply flight - Spaceflight Now

Hubble Reveals The Beauty And Mystery Of Saturns Rings – Forbes

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Saturn and its spectacular rings, as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope on July 4, 2020. Hubble ... [+] takes an annual image of Saturn as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) project.

Right now, in Earths skies, Saturn appears at its biggest and brightest.

A view of tonight's midnight sky from 45 N latitude, which shows the relative positions of bright ... [+] Saturn and even brighter Jupiter in the southern part of the sky. They rise in the southeast just as the Sun sets, then migrate towards the west over the course of the night. They are joined by a variety of meteor showers, including the Delta Aquariids.

Just look to the southeastern skies (from the northern hemisphere), slightly east of bright Jupiter.

Every year, there's one moment where Earth passes directly between the Sun and Saturn, occurring ... [+] recently in the 2nd half of July. As captured by amateur astronomer Christian Gloor in 2019, this shows a view very close to what skywatchers will see through a telescope tonight, although the rings are slightly more edge-on this year than last year.

With Earth between the Sun and Saturn, its poised for spectacular viewing.

The seven extraterrestrial planets of the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, ... [+] Uranus, Neptune. Photographed in 2019 with a Maksutov telescope from Mannheim and Stockach in Germany. The angular sizes and colors shown are accurate, but the brightnesses are not: Venus is some 63,000 times brighter than Neptune, or 12 astronomical magnitudes; the same difference as between the full Moon and a typical bright star like Vega or Capella. Saturn's rings are incredibly prominent, and the only ringed system visible through a typical telescope.

But the true star of Saturn is its main rings, now tilted for excellent views.

A computer simulated view of what Saturn looks like from Earth during opposition in every year from ... [+] 2001 through 2029. Note the 15 year repeating pattern of where the rings are maximally tilted or edge-on to the Earth. Right now, in 2020, the rings are becoming closer to edge-on, which they will achieve in 2024.

Every 15 years, the rings cycle from edge-on to maximum tilt and back again.

Details of Saturn's main, icy rings are visible in this sweeping view from Cassini of the planet's ... [+] glorious ring system. The total span, from the innermost A ring to the outer F ring shown here, covers approximately 40,800 miles (65,700 km) and was photographed on November 26, 2008. The outermost rings, including the ring created by Enceladus and the Phoebe ring beyond that, are not shown.

Although they reach over 70,000 kilometers in extent, theyre only 30 kilometers thick.

This 1990s-era image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows Saturn in an unusual configuration: ... [+] with its rings edge-on to us from our perspective. This occurs roughly every 15 years on a repeating basis, with the rings tilted at an angle the rest of the time. Saturn's giant moon Titan can be seen at left (with its shadow falling on the planet), while smaller moons appear to the right.

As a result, they briefly seemed to disappear in 1994, 2009, and will again in 2024.

From the vicinity of Saturn itself, NASA's Cassini mission was able to capture the shadows cast by ... [+] various ice crystals from within the rings, showing the incredible relief of the thin rings and their shadows against the main rings themselves. Saturn's rings might extend for tens of thousands of kilometers in the radial dimension, but are only 30 km thick.

NASAs Cassini mission previously captured long shadows cast by nearly edge-on sunlight.

This 2018 image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows Saturn at opposition, with four of its ... [+] moons visible and its rings shining brightly at nearly their maximum tilt with respect to our perspective. The banded structure of Saturn itself can also be seen, as can many of the gaps/divisions in the main ring system.

With no current Saturn orbiters, NASAs Hubble provides our best views from afar.

Taken by the Cassini spacecraft with the Sun hidden behind Saturn, this backlit view of our Solar ... [+] System's great ringed world contains a bonus: a few pixels that reveal the Earth-Moon system. This is one of the most distant photographs of Earth ever taken, but it still reveals our world as larger than a single pixel. The rings themselves appear glorious, and are composed of 99.9% water ice.

The rings are 99.9% water ice, and are comparable in total mass to Saturns 7th largest moon: Mimas.

Saturn's 7th largest moon, Mimas, appears to hover above the colorful rings. This image was taken by ... [+] the Cassini spacecraft and, despite their enormous size differences, show two entities of comparable mass. Mimas is approximately twice the mass of the entirety of the ring system, despite the much larger apparent extent of the rings.

Saturns rings are quickly evaporating; theyll be gone in merely 300 million years.

This image of Saturn's rings, with the planet itself behind them, was taken by Cassini at a distance ... [+] of 725,000 km from the planet. Due to the fact that the ring system is "raining" down material onto Saturn, we can conclude that the rings will be entirely gone, based on the current rate of mass loss, in another 300 million years.

The evidence possibly points to their origin arising from a recently destroyed moon.

Within Saturn's rings, many small moons and moonlets, such as Daphnis, can be found. These objects ... [+] are likely created by accreting particles, then destroyed by collisions and tidal forces. their uniform composition and decaying nature suggests that they were created relatively recently, with one longstanding theory contending that a larger, destroyed moon gave them their origin as little as tens but as many as hundreds of millions of years ago.

Back when trilobites dominated the Earth, Saturn may not have had any rings at all.

The entirety of Saturn's main rings, from the inner D ring to the outer F ring, may be much newer ... [+] than the rest of the Solar System. It's plausible that a few hundred million years ago, before the rise of the dinosaurs, these rings may not have existed at all. In another 300 million years ago, they likely will have disappeared entirely.

Until another Saturn-bound mission launches, telescopes like Hubble will provide our sharpest views.

While the age of Saturn's rings remains controversial, annual portraits from Hubble, such as this ... [+] 2019 image, continue to shed insights on this fascinating giant planet. The changing north pole, in particular, can be seen by comparing the 2018, 2019, and 2020 images illustrated in this article.

Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals, and no more than 200 words. Talk less; smile more.

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Hubble Reveals The Beauty And Mystery Of Saturns Rings - Forbes

On first anniversary of Chandrayaan-2, a look at the global space missions that lie ahead – THE WEEK

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India's lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 marked the first anniversary of its launch on Wednesday. The payloads are performing well, and the lunar surface is being extensively examined, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement. "Extensive data has been acquired from Chandrayaan-2 payloads and parameters are being derived for presence of water-ice in the polar regions, X-ray based and infrared spectroscopic mineral information and mid and high latitude presence of Argon-40, a condensable gas on the moon," ISRO stated.The data from Chandrayaan-2 will be publicly released from October, it added.

A GSLV-Mk-III rocket, carrying the orbiter, lander Vikram and rover Pragyaan, took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on July 22, 2019. The 3,850-kg Chandrayaan-2 aimed at landing the rover on unchartered Lunar South Pole. The spacecraft was inserted into lunar orbit on August 20, 2019. The Chandrayaan-2 mission was India's first attempt to land on the lunar surface.

However, the lander Vikram hard-landed in September.Vikram, with rover Pragyan housed inside it,hit the lunar surface after communication with the ground stations was lost during its final descent, just 2.1km above the surface. The lander was supposed to analyse the unexplored part of the moon's terrain and send back data for 14 days. It was later revealed that a last-minute software glitch led to the failure of the lander mission. It crash-landed on the moon's surface after its guidance software went kaput.

However, the orbiter, which is still in the lunar orbit, has a mission life of seven years.As Chandrayaan-2 makes its polar orbit over the time period, the Imaging IR Spectroscope (IIRS) will take detailed mineralogical and volatile measurements of the moon in the spectral range of 0.8 to 5 micrometres at a resolution of around 20 nanometres. The IIRS also measures water/hydroxyl features at high spatial resolutions like 80 metres as well as spectral resolutions like 20 nanometres for the first time. These measurements are expected to, over time, provide comprehensive maps of water and mineralogical features on the moon. According to ISRO's post on Chandrayaan-2's payloads, the IIRS will enable such measurements to be taken for the 'first time' at such a spectral range and resolution.

Even as Vikram crash-landed, ISROChairman K. Sivan had said the Chandrayaan-2 mission has achieved 98 per cent of its objectives.He had said the orbiter was doing well and performing scheduled science experiments.

A series of space missions

A series of high-profile global space missions are expected in 2020 and the early 2021. In July,UAE became the first Arab country to embark on a Mars mission with its spacecraft 'Al Amal', launched fromJapan's remote Tanegashima spaceport.Al Amal, or 'Hope' probe, weighing 1.3 tonnes was launched via Mitsubishi's H-2A rocket. The probe is transmitting and the signals are being studied, UAE had announced post-launch.A newcomer in space development, the UAE has already put three Earth observation satellites into orbit. Two were developed by South Korea and launched by Russia, and a thirdits ownwas launched by Japan. A successful Hope mission to Mars would be a major step for the oil-dependent economy seeking a future in space, coming less than a year after the launch of the first Emirati astronaut Hazzaa Ali Almansoori.

China is also planning to embark on the first Mars exploration mission Tianwen-1 this year. Aiming to catch up with India, US, Russia and the European Union to reach the red planet, Chinas Mars mission plans to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one go.China, in recent years, has emerged as a major space power with manned space missions, and landing a rover on the dark side of the moon. It is currently building a space station of its own. However, Chinas attempts to send an exploratory probe to Mars called Yinghuo-1, in a Russian spacecraft in 2011, failed shortly after the launch and it was declared lost and later burnt during re-entry into earth.

NASA's Perseverance rover to Mars, expected to touch down on the Jezero crater, will look for signs of past microbial life in river delta deposits formed over billions of years that might have enhanced preservation of evidence of life. The delta, speculated to have formed due to sediment deposits at the mouth of Hypanis Valles, a river system on ancient Mars, separates the southern highlands from the northern lowlands. Scientists believe that Mars once had an ancient ocean and a water cycle similar to Earth's and large seas or an ocean ever existed in the northern lowlands. Findings from Jezero crater could aid our understanding of how life evolved on Earth. If life once existed there, it likely didn't evolve beyond the single-cell stage, scientists say. That's because Jezero crater formed over 3.5 billion years ago, long before organisms on Earth became multicellular. If life once existed at the surface, its evolution was stalled by some unknown event that sterilised the planet. That means the Martian crater could serve as a kind of time capsule preserving signs of life as it might once have existed on Earth.

India's major focus in 2020 will be on its third lunar mission (Chandrayaan-3), andGaganyaan's first unmanned flight.According to the ISRO chairman, the government has approved the Chandrayaan-3 project, which will again attempt a soft landing on the moon, and the whole project will cost around Rs 615 crore. Gaganyaan, the human space mission, envisages to send three Indians to space by 2022. The four test pilots selected for this mission are currently undergoing training in Russia.

However, Sivan had expressed consternation that 10 space missions being prepared for launch this year were disturbed due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown.Because of this [pandemic], everything got disturbed. We have to make an assessment after the COVID-19 issue is resolved, Sivan had said. Gaganyaan will be impacted because of the lockdown all industries have not yet started functioning, Sivan said.

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On first anniversary of Chandrayaan-2, a look at the global space missions that lie ahead - THE WEEK

SETI Institute in the News Media Roundup. July 1 July 15, 2020 – SETI Institute

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NASA Awards SETI Institute Contract for Planetary Protection

As we continue to venture out and research the possibility of life in outer space, an important consideration is the protection of Earth and other planets in our solar system and beyond, from biological contamination. In early July, NASAs Office of Planetary Protection awarded the SETI Institute with the contract to support all phases of current and future missions to ensure compliance with planetary protection standards.

As we return to the Moon, look for evidence of past or present life on Mars and continue our missions of exploration and discovery in the Solar System, Planetary Protection becomes an increasingly important component of mission planning and execution, said Bill Diamond, President and CEO of the SETI Institute. We are proud to be NASAs partner for this mission-critical function, protecting Earth from backward contamination, and helping ensure that the life we may find on other worlds, didnt come from our own.

Whether through telescopes, binoculars or even with the naked eye, many are observing the July light show put on by C/2020 F3, otherwise known as Comet NEOWISE, named after the space telescope instrumental in finding it, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope.

Comets are like cats, says Franck Marchis, an astronomer at the SETI Institute. They are unpredictable. If Comet NEOWISEs outgassing exhausts its reserves of icy material, its bright tail could dissipate, effectively removing the object from view. On the other extreme, ongoing heating from the sun could cause the comet to disintegrate in a bright outburst, potentially resulting in a highly visible great comet of historic significance. This possibility would be a spectacular event and a great show for the earthlings, Marchis says. But personally, I recommend walking up early and going to see it now, while we know its here.

Two scientists at Omni Calculator have combined the Drake Equation, created by Frank Drake in 1961, and a new method called the Astrobiological Copernican Limits to create the Alien Civilization Calculator. They use this calculator to estimate the number of technologically advanced civilizations that could potentially exist in our galaxy.

In November 2019, NASA researchers identified a repeating pattern of orbit between two of Neptunes inner moons, Naiad and Thalassa, known as the dance of avoidance. The unusual dance continues and has likely been there a very long time, according to Planetary Astronomer Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute.

"We are always excited to find these co-dependencies between moons," said planetary astronomer Mark Showalter, from the SETI Institute.

"Naiad and Thalassa have probably been locked together in this configuration for a very long time, because it makes their orbits more stable. They maintain the peace by never getting too close."

Check out Weekly Space Hangout with astrophysicist Dr. Andrew Siemion, Director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute.

Big Picture Science

Transmission surprises

Some dogs and cats have become sick with COVID. But its not just domestic critters that are vulnerable: zoo animals have fallen ill too. Theres more strange news about the pandemic, for example scientists who track the coronavirus in our sewage, and computer models that show that flushing the toilet can launch persistent, pathogenic plumes into the room. And scientists have warned the WHO that infectious virus remains airborne. Also, how a shortage of glass vials could delay the deployment of a vaccine.

Join guests Yvette Johnson-Walker, Rolf Halden and Bryan Bzdek as they discuss interesting pandemic phenomena in COVID Curiosities.

Uniquely human

Your cat is smart, but its ability to choreograph a ballet or write computer code isnt great. A lot of animals are industrious and clever, but humans are the only animal that is uniquely ingenious and creative.

Neuroscientist David Eagleman and composer Anthony Brandt discuss how human creativity has reshaped the world. Find out what is going on in your brain when you write a novel, paint a watercolor, or build a whatchamacallit in your garage.

But isHomo sapiensclaim on creativity destined to be short-lived? Why both Eagleman and Brandt are prepared to step aside when artificial intelligence can do their jobs.

Tune in here to this repeat edition of Creative Brains, originally aired February 5, 2018.

For more information and the archive of past shows, visit the Big Picture Science website.

SETI Live

Recent SETI Live episodes include:

Frontier Development Lab Knowledge Discovery Framework - NASA has an exceptionally large archive of Earth Science data. How can machine learning and artificial intelligence unlock new insights and enable new types of scientific research? A prototype of a Knowledge Discovery Framework (KDF) enables users to sift through data and identify patterns. This Frontier Development Lab team is developing tools that allow users to provide an example image so AI can find similar images in the data, addressing a gap in current search tools. An AI-driven KDF will have applications for disaster response, monitoring climate change and more. Team members are: Francesco Civilini (NASA postdoctoral fellow at Marshall Space Flight Center), Megan Seeley (PhD student at Arizona State University), Nishan Srishankar (Worcester Polytech Institute), and Satyarth Praveen (University of Maryland, College Park).

Frontier Development Lab Starspots Team - Starspots are cooler, darker areas on the surface of a star that form when regions of the stars magnetic field block the flow of heat and energy to the stellar surface. Understanding the surface features of stars could provide insights about stellar magnetism and its impact on exoplanet habitability. This FDL team will be using applied AI and machine learning tools and processes to Kepler and TESS data to identify and define the properties of starspots, stellar rotation, and stellar magnetism in tens of thousands of stars, and increase our understanding of our own Sun as a star. Join us for a conversation with team members Daniel Giles (Illinois Institute of Technology and Adler Planetarium), J. Emmanuel Johnson (University of Valencia, Spain), Lisseth Gavilan-Main (NASA Ames Research Center) and Stela Ishitani Silva (Catholic University of American and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) for a discussion about the starspots challenge they are tackling and what they are learning.

As always, videos of all past Facebook Live events can be found on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SETIInstitute/

Or on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/SETIInstitute

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SETI Institute in the News Media Roundup. July 1 July 15, 2020 - SETI Institute

Sunita Williams on her time in space and the Mars mission – Oneindia

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India

oi-Oneindia Staff

| Updated: Monday, July 20, 2020, 12:02 [IST]

New Delhi, July 20: Sunita Williams holds the record of the longest space flight for a woman but as a child, the Indian American astronaut had never thought about voyaging into space ever.

Williams, who has made 7 spacewalks and spent more than 321 days in space was addressing a webinar organised by the APJ Abdul Kalam Centre on "Our Place In Space", on Sunday evening.

"I grew up in a family with dad who immigrated from India, and my mother who was an X-ray technician in a hospital, they met each other when he was going through residency. I came from a humble family, me, my brother, we all knew that we should work hard, I never envisioned to be an astronaut. As a child I liked swimming, I was an athlete and I liked animals and wanted to be a veterinary doctor," Williams said.

The daughter of neuroanatomist Dr Deepak Pandya and his wife, Bonnie, of Massachusetts, Williams graduated from the US Naval Academy, became an engineer and a test pilot before being selected by NASA's Astronaut Candidate School in 1998.

Williams is among the four astronauts picked by Nasa on Friday to train for a programme which will one day land an American on Mars. She will be flying to the International Space Station in Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in the next few months.

Nasa's unmanned Mars 2020 Perseverance rover, which is provisionally slated for launch on July 30, could pave the way for a manned mission to the Red Planet subsequently, Indian-American astronaut, Sunita Williams, stated.

"We should go to Mars. It is entirely a different place and it is important we plan how to sustain there. I am sure this will happen in our generation," she said.

Watch the full interview here:

She said that Nasa's Artemis mission, which aims to put a man and the first woman in the south pole region of the moon by 2024, will also help in planning a human mission to the Red Planet.

"Nasa is working with oceanographic institutes, planning a flight to one of Jupiter's moons by sending a submarine to its ocean," she added.

The role of this mission will be in the area of astrobiology. She said that the view of earth from space leaves one awestruck.

"When I had my first glimpse I said vow, how peaceful, beautiful and incredible it is," she said emphasising that it gave sense of oneness.

Williams also shared her experience in space as she enjoyed eating samosas and took with her the Bhagwad Gita and the Upanishad which her father had gifted her.

"Working with our international partners drives cooperation and makes one think of just one world," Williams said.

Rajasthan Political Crisis: Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat issued notice | Oneindia News

"Boundaries that divide countries disappear when scientists and astronauts work together to fuel scientific discovery on and off the planet", she added.

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Sunita Williams on her time in space and the Mars mission - Oneindia

Eyes on the stars: Launches continue as Alaska’s spaceport thinks expansion – Juneau Empire

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With a launch coming up in a matter of days the Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in Kodiak is looking at ramping up its capabilities and number of vehicles delivered into orbit.

Were licensed for up to 9 launches per year. Were working with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to increase it to 36. You have room if a third commercial launch company wants to come on, said Mark Lester, the president and CEO of the Alaska Aerospace Corporation, which administers the spaceport, in a phone interview. I think thats a really good pace to make the spaceport vibrant.

The spaceport, which opened in 1998, had several launches scheduled for 2020 that the coronavirus pandemic has interfered with.

Historically, weve launched one a year, Lester said. This year we expected to launch six, but with COVID, things slowed down.

Working with the community

The spaceport, about 40 miles from the city of Kodiak, is scheduled to launch a commercial rocket, with the launch window beginning on Aug. 2 and closing on Aug. 7.

We can have really nice weather in Kodiak but we can get some storms, Lester said. Its really important for the local community and local aviators as well as trans-Pacific flights.

Launch schedules need to cleared with the FAA, as well as with the local community, to minimize disruption to flights, commercial fishing and people in the park the spaceport itself is sited in.

We have six launch pads. We have pretty robust capability. We have payload processing. Two command and control centers. I feel comfortable that our infrastructure is in a good place, Lester said. Now were using the spaceport as an economic hub to create more aerospace activity.

Unlike the launch pads NASA uses at Cape Canaveral, which loft their payloads in an equatorial orbit, PSCA launches into an orbital track, which is useful for different types of payloads.

[Mine developer sees review as positive for Alaska project]

The polar orbit is why Kodiak is valuable. The only other place you can go into polar orbit from the U.S. is Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, Lester said. Theres a role here for Kodiak to support government missions, military missions and commercial missions.

Rockets and payloads are conveyed up to Kodiak by sea and then truck, Lester said.

Well ship it up in 40-foot containers. We get it at the port, Kodiak has a nice ice-free port, Lester said. Sometimes, theyll fly them in on C-130s if they need to get them up here faster.

The PSCA is also preparing to support human spaceflight, after a fashion, Lester said. Space Perspective, a Florda-based company that offers rides for eight passengers and crew in advanced balloons to the very edge of space.

This will be the first manned space launches from PSCA, Lester said. Space Perspectives is currently working with PSCA and the FAA to make sure operations are safe and efficient for everyone in the airspace.

Space Force and Space Command

With the standing up of the Space Force as the newest armed service, Lester said, theres rich potential for Alaska as an anchor point for U.S. national interests in orbit and on the surface that the spaceport can support.

The Space Force is exciting, said Lester.

While PSCA and the Alaska Aerospace Corporation dont have a contract with the new service yet, they do have work with the Space Development Agency.

Continuing to support national security missions is part of our portfolio, Lester said.

[Recent earthquake adds missing piece to puzzle]

Gov. Mike Dunleavy recently published an opinion piece urging the Department of Defense to base U.S. Space Command in Alaska. Space Command is a combatant command of the Air Force, different from the Space Force, responsible for military operations more than 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) above the surface of the planet.

Alaska has been important to the military for a long time. The Arctic is certainly important, Lester said. Early warning, missile defense, air defense, the University of Alaska, the spaceport. Alaska offers a lot to U.S. Space Command.

For now, Lester said, PSCA will keep doing what it excels at, supporting launches and promoting economic growth in Alaskas aerospace industry.

This is my dream job, to be running a spaceport, to be defining what spaceport is. Spaceports can learn a lot from airports, Lester said. We look forward to seeing Astra launch and continuing to support their launch. Were continuing to try and think through how Alaska Aerospace brings economic value.

Contact reporter Michael S. Lockett at 757-621-1197 or lockett@juneauempire.com.

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Eyes on the stars: Launches continue as Alaska's spaceport thinks expansion - Juneau Empire

Trailer for Award-Winning Doc FEELS GOOD MAN Takes Viewers on an Artist’s Journey to Reclaim His Creation ‘Pepe the Frog’ – GeekTyrant

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A very interesting trailer has dropped for the film festival award-winning documentary Feels Good Man. The story follows artist Matt Furie, who created the underground comic book Boys Club in 2006, starring Pepe, a psychedelic frog, and his mischievous roommates. Then in recent years, the comic character was turned into an alt-right meme, and was adopted as a symbol of white supremacists, and Furie went on a crusade to see if he could undo what had been done.

Heres the full synopsis:

When Matt Furie first created Pepe the Frog, a character in his indie comicBoys Club, Matt was an easygoing San Francisco artist and Pepe was a chill frog dude. Through a series of unforeseen events and bizarre connections driven by the internet, Pepe came to be a symbol of hate for the far right. How that exactly happened is a wild journey into the heart of online life today and the memeification of our shared collective culture, where the meanings of images change moment to moment and cannot be controlled even by their creators.

Furie decides to fight to take back Pepe from the dark forces that have turned him from a silly comic-book character into their own symbol. But is it already too late? Debut director Arthur Jones takes us through a modern-day saga of the internet that must be seen to be believed or understood.Feels Good Manshows us how a character meant to provide joy and fun can slowly morph into something elsebut just maybe can change again.

The doc was helmed by Arthur Jones in his directorial debut, and he co-wrote the story with Giorgio Angelini and Aaron Wickenden. Check out the trailer below, and see Feels Good Man when it hits VOD on September 4th.

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Trailer for Award-Winning Doc FEELS GOOD MAN Takes Viewers on an Artist's Journey to Reclaim His Creation 'Pepe the Frog' - GeekTyrant

Libertarianism – Libertarian philosophy | Britannica

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Classical liberalism rests on a presumption of libertythat is, on the presumption that the exercise of liberty does not require justification but that all restraints on liberty do. Libertarians have attempted to define the proper extent of individual liberty in terms of the notion of property in ones person, or self-ownership, which entails that each individual is entitled to exclusive control of his choices, his actions, and his body. Because no individual has the right to control the peaceful activities of other self-owning individualse.g., their religious practices, their occupations, or their pastimesno such power can be properly delegated to government. Legitimate governments are therefore severely limited in their authority.

According to the principle that libertarians call the nonaggression axiom, all acts of aggression against the rights of otherswhether committed by individuals or by governmentsare unjust. Indeed, libertarians believe that the primary purpose of government is to protect citizens from the illegitimate use of force. Accordingly, governments may not use force against their own citizens unless doing so is necessary to prevent the illegitimate use of force by one individual or group against another. This prohibition entails that governments may not engage in censorship, military conscription, price controls, confiscation of property, or any other type of intervention that curtails the voluntary and peaceful exercise of an individuals rights.

A fundamental characteristic of libertarian thinking is a deep skepticism of government power. Libertarianism and liberalism both arose in the West, where the division of power between spiritual and temporal rulers had been greater than in most other parts of the world. In the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), I Samuel 8: 1718, the Jews asked for a king, and God warned them that such a king would take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day. This admonition reminded Europeans for centuries of the predatory nature of states. The passage was cited by many liberals, including Thomas Paine and Lord Acton, who famously wrote that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Libertarian skepticism was reinforced by events of the 20th century, when unrestrained government power, among other factors, led to world war, genocide, and massive human rights violations.

Libertarians embrace individualism insofar as they attach supreme value to the rights and freedoms of individuals. Although various theories regarding the origin and justification of individual rights have been proposede.g., that they are given to human beings by God, that they are implied by the very idea of a moral law, and that respecting them produces better consequencesall libertarians agree that individual rights are imprescriptiblei.e., that they are not granted (and thus cannot be legitimately taken away) by governments or by any other human agency. Another aspect of the individualism of libertarians is their belief that the individual, rather than the group or the state, is the basic unit in terms of which a legal order should be understood.

Libertarians hold that some forms of order in society arise naturally and spontaneously from the actions of thousands or millions of individuals. The notion of spontaneous order may seem counterintuitive: it is natural to assume that order exists only because it has been designed by someone (indeed, in the philosophy of religion, the apparent order of the natural universe was traditionally considered proof of the existence of an intelligent designeri.e., God). Libertarians, however, maintain that the most important aspects of human societysuch as language, law, customs, money, and marketsdevelop by themselves, without conscious direction.

An appreciation for spontaneous order can be found in the writings of the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu (6th century bce), who urged rulers to do nothing because without law or compulsion, men would dwell in harmony. A social science of spontaneous order arose in the 18th century in the work of the French physiocrats and in the writings of the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Both the physiocrats (the term physiocracy means the rule of nature) and Hume studied the natural order of economic and social life and concluded, contrary to the dominant theory of mercantilism, that the directing hand of the prince was not necessary to produce order and prosperity. Hume extended his analysis to the determination of interest rates and even to the emergence of the institutions of law and property. In A Treatise of Human Nature (173940), he argued that the rule concerning the stability of possession is a product of spontaneous ordering processes, because it arises gradually, and acquires force by a slow progression, and by our repeated experience of the inconveniences of transgressing it. He also compared the evolution of the institution of property to the evolution of languages and money.

Smith developed the concept of spontaneous order extensively in both The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). He made the idea central to his discussion of social cooperation, arguing that the division of labour did not arise from human wisdom but was the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility: the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. In Common Sense (1776), Paine combined the theory of spontaneous order with a theory of justice based on natural rights, maintaining that the great part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government.

According to libertarians, free markets are among the most important (but not the only) examples of spontaneous order. They argue that individuals need to produce and trade in order to survive and flourish and that free markets are essential to the creation of wealth. Libertarians also maintain that self-help, mutual aid, charity, and economic growth do more to alleviate poverty than government social-welfare programs. Finally, they contend that, if the libertarian tradition often seems to stress private property and free markets at the expense of other principles, that is largely because these institutions were under attack for much of the 20th century by modern liberals, social democrats, fascists, and adherents of other leftist, nationalist, or socialist ideologies.

Libertarians consider the rule of law to be a crucial underpinning of a free society. In its simplest form, this principle means that individuals should be governed by generally applicable and publicly known laws and not by the arbitrary decisions of kings, presidents, or bureaucrats. Such laws should protect the freedom of all individuals to pursue happiness in their own ways and should not aim at any particular result or outcome.

Although most libertarians believe that some form of government is essential for protecting liberty, they also maintain that government is an inherently dangerous institution whose power must be strictly circumscribed. Thus, libertarians advocate limiting and dividing government power through a written constitution and a system of checks and balances. Indeed, libertarians often claim that the greater freedom and prosperity of European society (in comparison with other parts of the world) in the early modern era was the result of the fragmentation of power, both between church and state and among the continents many different kingdoms, principalities, and city-states. Some American libertarians, such as Lysander Spooner and Murray Rothbard, have opposed all forms of government. Rothbard called his doctrine anarcho-capitalism to distinguish it from the views of anarchists who oppose private property. Even those who describe themselves as anarchist libertarians, however, believe in a system of law and law enforcement to protect individual rights.

Much political analysis deals with conflict and conflict resolution. Libertarians hold that there is a natural harmony of interests among peaceful, productive individuals in a just society. Citing David Ricardos theory of comparative advantagewhich states that individuals in all countries benefit when each countrys citizens specialize in producing that which they can produce more efficiently than the citizens of other countrieslibertarians claim that, over time, all individuals prosper from the operation of a free market, and conflict is thus not a necessary or inevitable part of a social order. When governments begin to distribute rewards on the basis of political pressure, however, individuals and groups will engage in wasteful and even violent conflict to gain benefits at the expense of others. Thus, libertarians maintain that minimal government is a key to the minimization of social conflict.

In international affairs, libertarians emphasize the value of peace. That may seem unexceptional, since most (though not all) modern thinkers have claimed allegiance to peace as a value. Historically, however, many rulers have seen little benefit to peace and have embarked upon sometimes long and destructive wars. Libertarians contend that war is inherently calamitous, bringing widespread death and destruction, disrupting family and economic life, and placing more power in the hands of ruling classes. Defensive or retaliatory violence may be justified, but, according to libertarians, violence is not valuable in itself, nor does it produce any additional benefits beyond the defense of life and liberty.

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Libertarianism - Libertarian philosophy | Britannica

What Is Libertarian – Institute for Humane Studies

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Want to know what is a classical liberal? Visit our Core Classical Liberal Principles page.

The libertarian perspective is that peace, prosperity, and social harmony are fostered by as much liberty as possible and as little government as necessary.

With a long intellectual tradition spanning hundreds of years, libertarian ideas of individual rights, economic liberty, and limited government have contributed to history-changing movements like abolition, womens suffrage, and the civil rights movement.

Libertarian is not a single viewpoint, but includes a wide variety of perspectives. Libertarians can range from market anarchists to advocates of a limited welfare state, but they are all united by a belief in personal liberty, economic freedom, and a skepticism of government power.

According to American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition, 2000:

NOUN: 1. One who advocates maximizing individual rights and minimizing the role of the state.

The Challenge of Democracy (6th edition), by Kenneth Janda, Jeffrey Berry, and Jerry Goldman:

Liberals favor government action to promote equality, whereas conservatives favor government action to promote order. Libertarians favor freedom and oppose government action to promote either equality or order.

According to The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman, Open Court Publishing Company, 1973:

The central idea of libertarianism is that people should be permitted to run their own lives as they wish.

According to Libertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz, Free Press, 1997:

Libertarianism is the view that each person has the right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as he respects the equal rights of others. Libertarians defend each persons right to life, liberty, and property-rights that people have naturally, before governments are created. In the libertarian view, all human relationships should be voluntary; the only actions that should be forbidden by law are those that involve the initiation of force against those who have not themselves used force-actions like murder, rape, robbery, kidnapping, and fraud.

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What Is Libertarian - Institute for Humane Studies

Obesity kills – it’s important we realise this and stop making excuses – iNews

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Eat less, move more. The answer to tackling obesity, our most damaging health epidemic is simple, right? Except it really isnt despite the latest initiative from a born-again Prime Minister, whose personal Covid-19 experience has converted a libertarian to nannying.

With estimates suggesting that two-thirds of Britons are seriously overweight, the endless warnings, chastisements and diets are clearly not working. They do not address the greatest barrier to solving the problem: how we see ourselves.

Yes, I know the economic issue; that the poor spend a greater percentage of their earnings on food, much of which is so high in the fat, salt and sugar that contribute to obesity and the resulting Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and Covid-19 that are at least in part a result of so many of us being obese.

Whats needed is a way of getting through to our psyches, in the way we have with issues like smoking. We have all known for years that smoking kills. It still did not stop so many smokers for decades until it became socially unacceptable in so many contexts.

Sadly, obesity is not viewed in the same way yet. Despite Britain being the second most overweight nation in Europe (after Malta), there is currently still too much of the type of knee-jerk resistance to government interference that we see with face masks. We have to look at the complex, knotty issue of the balance between anti-obesity campaigning and the anti-fat-shaming lobby rather than the headline-grabbing easy win of banning junk food ads before the 9pm watershed.

Much centres on the word fat. We can scarcely use it for fear of appearing fattist. But mentioning someone has cancer, heart disease or Alzheimers is not deemed offensive. Yes, fat-shaming doesnt help. There is too much evidence that it leads only to resentment, anxiety and depression.

But too many who are overweight hide behind the observation that some cant help being fat. Many more can. The mistake is to believe in instant fixes.

We need re-education on both a personal and social level that obesity should not be a badge, but is a genuine problem, both for individuals and the NHS. We need more libertarians to have a Boris-like conversion to the nanny state.

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Obesity kills - it's important we realise this and stop making excuses - iNews

How Darwin Shaped the Young Joseph Stalin – Discovery Institute

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Photo: Paining of Stalin in the Joseph Stalin Museum, by Andrew Milligan sumo, via Flick (cropped).

Michael Egnor points out that Totalitarianism Is Darwinism Applied to Politics, citing Hannah Arendts famous book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, which draws the connection. The Nazis, as well as Marx and Engels, all drew from Darwins well.

Jonathan Wells notes that another figure in the totalitarian tradition was influenced by evolution from a very early age. As a boy, Joseph Stalin

talked about books all the time. If he coveted a volume, he was happy to steal it from another schoolboy and run home with it. When he was about thirteen, Lado Ketskhoveli took him to a little bookshop in Gori where he paid a five kopeck subscription and borrowed a book that was probably DarwinsOrigin of Species. Stalin read it all night, forgetting to sleep, until Keke [his mother] found him. Time to go to bed, she said. Go to sleep dawn is breaking. I loved the book so much, Mummy, I couldnt stop reading. As his reading intensified, his piety wavered. One day Soso [Stalin] and some friends, including Grisha Glurjidze, lay on the grass in town talking about the injustice of there being rich and poor when he amazed all of them by suddenly saying, Gods not unjust, he doesnt actually exist. Weve been deceived. If God existed, hed have made the world more just. Soso, how can you say such things? exclaimed Grisha. Ill lend you a book and youll see. He presented Glurjidze with a copy of Darwin.

The idea of an organic movement in history, sketched by Darwin, leads to thinking that seeks to seize control of society and forcibly direct that movement. Arendt needed a thick book to explain why. The case of Stalin, influential reading by a 13-year-old, is much more direct.

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How Darwin Shaped the Young Joseph Stalin - Discovery Institute

US Congress to question heads of tech giants on Wednesday – Yahoo News Australia

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A highly anticipated congressional hearing on anti-competitive practices, bringing together the heads of four US technology giants, has been rescheduled for noon (1600 GMT) Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee has announced.

The heads of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple -- the world's biggest technology companies -- will be testifying at a time of growing complaints about their dominance and amid calls by some politicians and activists to break them up.

The hearing, originally set for Monday, was rescheduled. The committee did not offer a reason, but civil rights icon and long-time congressman John Lewis will be lying in state in the US Capitol on Monday and Tuesday.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the four tech leaders -- Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Tim Cook (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Sundar Pichai (Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube) -- will be allowed to appear virtually if they wish.

It will be a first congressional appearance for Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.

Pressure has been growing both from the right and the left -- and sometimes internally -- to do something about the overwhelming dominance of the internet platforms.

The Judiciary Committee has spent more than a year conducting a sweeping investigation into the four companies to determine whether they are guilty of any antitrust abuses and, if so, to consider possible remedies.

This file photo shows the logos of the four giant tech firms whose heads will testify before the US Congress on July 29, 2020, amid rising pushback against their market dominance

(L-R) Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai; Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos -- the four are to testify before a US congressional committee on July 29, 2020

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US Congress to question heads of tech giants on Wednesday - Yahoo News Australia