Why Early Retirement Is a Wrong Goal – Morningstar.ca

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I am going to pen down my thoughts on an acronym I dislike, but given its popularity, I cannot ignore. The movement that is reframing retirement discourse: FIRE Financial Independence, Retire Early.

I bear no ill towards those who evangelize on the merits of FIRE. In fact, I admire their grit and focus to kick up the 9-to-5 routine and live life on their terms.

I, on the other hand, dont have the courage to contemplate an early retirement, considering lifes unexpected curveballs. Moreover, am shamelessly addicted to the monthly paycheque. Lastly, Im not in the least bit enamoured by the early retirement proposition; I like showing up to work daily.

What grabs my attention is the other part of the equation financial independence. This must form the basis of everyones financial strategy, irrespective of when they plan to retire.

For those who believe an early retirement is some sort of nirvana, here are some pointers to use as a compass to point you in the right direction.

#1. What is it that you are retiring from, and retiring to? Are you planning to quit working altogether and indulge in hobbies such as gardening, cooking, travel and volunteering for a cause you feel passionate about? You may opt for a partial retirement where you work as a consultant or opt for freelance projects. Retirement is not a destination, and certainly not a happily ever after reality. You have to plan through it. Building up a retirement corpus is just one aspect. Figuring out your life and how you plan to spend your time is the other. It would be a shame if you attained the financial independence to enable an early retirement, only to be confronted by an existential crisis. Be sure to ask yourself what it is that is driving you. If it is just dislike for your job and the lack of fulfilment, maybe a thoughtful career change would do the trick. If the long commute and city life are wearing you out, would you be open to relocating? The point I am making is not to assume that the only way out is an early retirement.

#2. Start with a different construct. The moment you start from a different context, there will be a paradigm shift in your thinking. Wrong goal: Retire early. Correct goal: Financial independence. Wrong question: At what age must I retire? Correct question: What are the emotional, mental and physical issues pushing me to retirement? Wrong target: What corpus size will be sufficient? Correct target: What will be my source of income and cash flow when I retire? Evidently, there are interdependent factors at play. None of the above can be answered exclusive to the other. But this practical approach will throw light on what you perceive as financial independence. Your magic number may be a million dollars, but for someone of the identical age and similar social status, it could be two million. After all, financial independence is not just a number. It is not about having money to cover all your expenses. It is about psychological independence too. What is the corpus amount that will help you overcome your insecurity? What is the income that makes you feel taken care of?

#3. Are you ready to live frugally? The harsh reality that underpins it all is the fact that early retirement is predicated on significant sacrifice. Unless you are earning obscene amounts of money, you will have to get thrifty. To retire early, you should be saving at least half of your salary and keeping spending to a low. Now it need not be extreme. Recently, I learned of a 36-year old corporate lawyer in New York who lives in New Jersey to avoid taxes, is reluctant to turn on the heat during winter, and eats mostly rice and beans so that he can save 70% of his salary. If you are seriously contemplating retiring early, please watch this 12-minute video of a couple who retired before either of them hit 40. It is tempting, but incorrect, to view financial independence as a pendulum swinging between two extremes - either you are financially independent, or not. View it as continuum. View it as a scalable project. With every single decision and every single paycheque, you are moving closer to financial freedom.

#4. Be open to disruption. Lets assume you retire. Expenses change. It could well be that your lifestyle has been inching upwards and you need more than what your savings and investments provide for. You may find that your calculations were wrong; you assumed too low a rate of inflation and too high a return. You could have a tragedy in the family that forced you to dip into your corpus. In all the above circumstances, you may have to get back to work. Keep upgrading your skills. Develop new ones. You need to have something to fall back on should you have to rejoin the workforce. Keep networking, even if it is low-keyed.

#5. It may be wise to take professional help Financial independence and early Retirement are not necessarily linked at the hip. They exist independently too. To retire, you must be financially independent. Though I do know of individuals who are dependent on their children for support. You can be financially independent and choose not to retire. Plenty fall into this category. Retirement is solidly on your own shoulders. Most safety nets have been pulled out. Dont make any decision lightly. The earlier you retire, the more the time your money will have to suffice to out-save inflation and non-working years. Being old and broke is a terrible reality. Dont be afraid to seek professional expertise.

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Why Early Retirement Is a Wrong Goal - Morningstar.ca

Ex-Giant Devon Kennard building a future in real estate – Giants Wire

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Its been a few years since he was a member of the New York Giants, but many will remember linebacker Devon Kennard, a fifth-round pick of Big Blue in the 2014 NFL Draft.

Kennard spent the first four seasons of his NFL career with the Giants before moving on to the Detroit Lions and then signing with the Arizona Cardinals this offseason.

Everybody always says NFL really stands for Not For Long. Due to previous injuries that Kennard suffered in high school and college, he hasnt turned a blind eye to the fact that he wont be in the league forever. Although hes played all but two games over the past four seasons, eventually, like all NFL players, the time will come where Kennards playing days are behind him.

I realized I wanted to reach success and financial security and financial independence for myself and my family with or without football, Kennard said recently, via Forbes. And my college career kind of showed me you never know whats going to happen with football.

Kennard is now building a future in real estate as he continues his NFL playing career. Conveniently, after signing with the Cardinals, Kennard is back in the state where he was born and played his high school ball.

With his familiarity with the area, its likely Kennard is now able to build his career outside of football better than he ever has. He has been working on his real estate craft over the last 10 years and has learned the game of smart investing in real estate.

My goal is to continue to grow, and I want to become a big real estate mogul when Im done playing, Kennard says. Im starting to build up to that now. And when Im done playing in the NFL, thats when Ill go all in.

Kennard, who will be 29 in a few days, graduated from USC with a degree in communications and business management. With many struggling to fill their time following their NFL careers, Kennard knew early on in his life there would be a lot of life to live following football.

Whenever he does decide its time to hang up the cleats, Devon Kennard seems to be set both financially and has an activity to focus on during life after football.

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Ex-Giant Devon Kennard building a future in real estate - Giants Wire

Woe Is Me! "My Parents Want Me to Marry Soon, But I’m Just Not Ready" – The Swaddle

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Woe Is Me! is a series in which The Swaddle team indulges your pity party with advice youll probably ignore.

I fear the idea of marriage and am not mentally prepared for it at all. When my parents say they wish Id marry soon, it drives me crazy! How do I tell them Im not ready?

No Nuptials Please

RD: Tell them what you associate with marriage. Tell them how you see gender roles playing out, how much happiness you expect to get/not get from the institution, tell them everything else youd rather do instead. Tell them times have changed, and marriage isnt the only goal for youngpeople anymore. Tell them youre hoping they understand and decide to support you because youre not about to change your mind. Sometimes, pushing back on pushy parents is the only way to get them to stop. They may not even realize how annoying theyre being pushing their child for marriage might be the only thing they know. But you have to sit them down and explain, and pray they understand.

KB: I believe your autonomy as an adult is paramount, and you should have the agency to make whatever decisions are right for you without the influence and pressure of family members who impose their hang-ups on you. But I also recognize that if you dont have a family that respects your autonomy, it is very difficult to get out from under the weight of those layered expectations. The truth of the matter, though, is that if someone else pressures you into a major life choice that you then take without any sense of agency, you will end up unhappy.

There is no long-term happiness in making decisions to appease other people. I want to say just tell them youre not ready, but I realize thats facile advice in this situation. You may want to approach them strategically, using whatever tools will speak to their particular arguments (like stats, emotional appeals, career goals, etc), and explain that you understand their concern, but now is not the time. Usually, parents just want their kids to be happy, and they see life-partnership as one stepping stone on the path to happiness. You wont be able to undo this perception of theirs no matter how hard you try, so I think the best you can do is have an open conversation about how its too soon for you.

However and this is very important dont squander this time. If you manage to convince your parents to give you a few years of no pressure, use that time to solidify your career prospects and ensure your financial independence. The single most effective tool you have to convince your parents that you cant be pressured into anything is the ability to live completely independently. If you live under their roof, and depend on their largesse, you will always have to live by their preferences. Respect and treasure the parents who love you and want your happiness (in whatever misguided way), but also understand that financial independence is the crucial difference between being able to nod-and-ignore and being forced to make life choices based on their advice.

DR: Ah, one of the commonest woes of most Indian, unmarried women! I think, you need to sit them down, and explain calmly, and in detail, why youre not ready for the commitment and responsibility that this institution entails. Honestly, I dont think this will get them off your back completely so, heres the next step: statistics. Do your research, and tell them the statistics of marriages failing worldwide because of people being pushed to marry without being ready. Tell them, samaaj kya kahegi (what will society say) if a marriage youre unprepared for breaks down too. Indian parents fear society more than anything else, and I hope that works out in your favor. Good luck!

AM: Your woe is so relatable! The idea of marriage can be overwhelming and youre right, it requires a lot of mental preparation. But what you need to ask yourself is why is it that youre not ready? Which part about marriage scares you the most and is it something you can work upon? You need to think of all this only if you want to get married sometime in the future. If youve decided to never get married, then there is no need to thinkbut you have to convey it to your parents as soon as possible and work on making them accept this fact.

I used to think parents force us to get married because everything should happen at the rightage, but over the years, Ive realized that I never really thought about it from their point of view. In India, its that one big life event that they think they are responsible for and feel the need to get done with it while money, age, health are on their side. Without getting their kids married, it gets harder for them to plan their retirement, utilize funds for bigger investments, and think of doing things theyve always been wanting to do but ended up saving money instead fortheir kids to secure theirfuture.

Its also that one big responsibility taken off their shoulders that gives them the opportunity to travel, spend time with each other and more. They dont do it because oflog kya kahengeall the time, there are a lot of other practical decisions involved behind their pressure to get married. So if you can have a conversation with them about how your getting or not getting married is affecting their life currently and whether it is being an obstruction for them in planning their future, you might have a better idea about why they think you should get married soon. Of course, that doesnt mean you have to sacrifice yourself into getting married if youre not ready but at least itll help you warm up to the idea of marriage if its something you are interested in and will do at some point.

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Returning To Work With A Mental Illness Is Possible – Forbes

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Returning to work with a severe health condition or recent injury can be hard enough. Battling the same misconceptions and stereotypes during a global pandemic can seem like even more of a challenge.

But there are ways to succeed, and the rewards can be tremendous. Financial independence, a sense of control, and greater integration into the community are all benefits people report to us after theyre able to return to work.

Some disabilities are easier to see than others. An employer may understand a reasonable accommodation for someone with back pain and an inability to sit for long hours. With other health conditions, such as mental health, the accommodations process may be more challenging.

Approaching the issue of mental illness can be tough both for the person with a disability and the potential employer or HR department. It can be done with careful steps. One of the things I highly recommend to someone in this position is to have a discussion with a trained career consultant on the best way to communicate on these topics to potential or former employers.

If you are returning to work following successful treatment of mental illness, then its important to think through your steps in advance. For example, having a conversation about accommodation or your illness should be conducted after the application and interview processes are complete, and even more preferably once the position is officially offered and accepted.

Besides navigating the uncertainty of disclosure, it can be harder to find the right fit within the workplace. For example, with the people I help return to work, I find those with anxiety disorders may struggle to be around people in the work environment all day. They might need to limit their face-to-face interactions to avoid a triggering or upsetting situation. In these cases, I guide them toward a more independent job or coach them on how to request a remote work setup.

When I first started working in this field, mental illness wasnt as easily recognized or discussed as it is today. People who are trying to go back to work following effective treatment, generally, are much more comfortable discussing their health than they were years ago. In addition, proponents have been leading the way toward a more inclusive and diverse society.

Sadly, despite some progress, mental health issues still retain a stigma. We need to keep going and recognize mental health as important alongside physical health. The truth is, many people are coming forward to share their experience with depression and anxiety as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mental health needs are common among all types of individuals, no matter their gender, age or other characteristics. A diagnosis is simply that: a diagnosis. All conditions, whether physical or mental in nature, need to be acknowledged and respected.

I direct those I counsel toward the Social Security Administrations free Ticket to Work program. Its designed to help individuals who reach medical recovery to begin their return to work while protecting their Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits.

I also guide job candidates on how to showcase their unique talents and skillsets to employers. Its vital to show how hiring people with disabilities creates a more inclusive work environment, filled with different perspectives and strong work records, usually with many years of experience. In fact, SSDI recipients have on average 22 years of prior work experience.

I have worked with people who have all sorts of disabilities, physical and mental, including people who need treatments on a daily basis. Many individuals with mental illness thrive at work. Their health conditions dont stop them from contributing to the team.

The best advice I can give is this: Never say never when it comes to returning to work. Medical conditions can improve with treatment, and the Ticket to Work program is available for anyone who wants to try working again without risking their benefits. If someone wants to return to work and become financially independent, they will use whatever tools are available to help them succeed. It all comes down to motivation, and I have found many people with mental illnesses have the motivation and ability to surpass these obstacles to find employment success.

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Returning To Work With A Mental Illness Is Possible - Forbes

Consider Something Better is a call to fund Black women-owned businesses – TODAY

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While Black female entrepreneurship is rapidly growing in 2019, women of color opened more businesses than any other demographic, according to one report they're historically underfunded. Businesses with CEOs who are women of color get less than 1% of venture capitalist funding each year, according to Forbes.

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A new initiative aims to change that. Last week, Lauren Napier and Whitney Brown launched Consider Something Better, which calls on corporations to fund businesses owned by Black women.

Brown, creator of the digital platform Meet the Owner, said that in talking to Black business owners, she started to see a similarity in their stories: "The common denominator I found was that there was a lack of funding."

Through their initiative, Brown and Napier are calling on companies to donate $250,000 each to contribute to a goal of $5 million. King is one of the more than 300 Black women who have applied for funding. While they haven't received any commitments just yet, they've begun conversations with several corporations, Brown said.

Napier said teaming up with Brown was inspired by her own struggles while growing her business. She started her brand, Lauren Napier Beauty, with a tax refund check and a credit card inside her studio apartment in Manhattan. At times, her kitchen was full of bubble wrap and her bed piled high with products and packages ready to be shipped to customers.

"It was me pushing a grocery cart to the post office," Napier told TODAY. "There were times I was sleeping at a friend's house because my apartment was filled with boxes. It's hilarious and also sad because I went to the bank and they didn't understand my business. They didn't trust me with their money."

She's since expanded her business, known for its popular makeup remover wipes, into a global brand that's available in 22 countries. But she knows how much she would have benefited from funding in those early days, and she knows how much funding would help women like King. For starters, King, a single mom, wouldnt have to work a 9-to-5 job in addition to running her business.

As protests against racial injustice continue across the country and people look for causes to support, Brown and Napier hope they'll take a moment to consider Black entrepreneurship.

"Police brutality is happening and it's visible and it's painful and it hurts to see, but what's more painful and damaging to our communities is our lack of financial independence and the inability to grow," Napier said, pointing to pay disparities and the decline in Black homeownership as other elements in the cycle of financial insecurity.

She said that by lifting up Black women in particular, entire communities will thrive.

"We are an industrious, creative people," Napier said. "We have had to be since the beginning. We have always overcome adversity. Imagine what we could do. I really think the investor community and the banking community need to take a hard look at investing in people of color, specifically Black women. It's important."

Rheana Murray is a senior lifestyle reporter for TODAY at NBC News. To see what she's working on, follow her onInstagram.

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Consider Something Better is a call to fund Black women-owned businesses - TODAY

Sisi’s era seen as ‘one of the worst ages’ for famed Al Azhar – TRT World

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Egypts Al Azhar, central to Islamic education and religious life for centuries, has lost a lot of its shine under Sisis regime.

Across the Islamic world Egypts Al Azhar and Tunisia's Al Zaytuna are regarded as the two oldest functioning educational institutes, both of which were originally built as mosques respectively in the 10th century and the 8th century.

For over 1000 years, the two educational institutions have served as the main centres of Islamic learning alongside natural and social sciences, graduating an untold amount of students, including an historical icon like Ibn Khaldun.

But more than any other Islamic learning institution and organisation, which included Al Zaytuna, even in modern times, Al Azhar has stood as a symbol of traditional Islam, where authentic Muslim texts have continued to be taught by its traditionally dressed scholars.

Al Azhar was built by the Fatimids, a Shia dynasty, in 972. It became a Sunni institution after Egypt was conquered by the Ayyubids, a Sunni dynasty, in the 12th century. Al Azhar currently has more than 2 million students and 4,000 teaching institutes across Egypt.

What makes Al Azhar unique among its contemporaries is its history. Few Islamic institutions of learning have been around for over a thousand years. The only comparable institutions are Al Zaytuna in Tunisia and Al Qarawiyyin in Morocco. Everything else has disappeared, said Usaama al Azami, a British-Muslim academic and a lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford.

Those institutions are older, but don't have the very vibrant and diverse scholarly environment that Al Azhar can boast. Egypt has also historically been a major centre for Islamic learning that has allowed for the existence of all four Sunni schools, al Azami told TRT World.

The continuous suppression of dissent under successive autocratic leaders from Gamal Abdul Nasser to Anwar Sadat, Hosni Mubarak and most recently Abdul Fattah al Sisi, has taken its toll on Al Azhar and most other institutions.

The loss of its prestige has become particularly apparent after the latest military coup in August 2013, when Sisi ousted the countrys first-democratically elected President Mohammed Morsi, who passed away in a courtroom hearing last year today.

The era of the coup is considered one of the worst ages that passed on Egypt and Al-Azhar. The dawah [invitation to Islam & Islamic learning] and preachers suffered a great scourge that caused the decline of the dawa in various fields, says Dr Jamal Abdul Sattar Mohammed, a former Professor at the College of Islamic Dawah at the Al Azhar University.

After the coup, Dr Mohammed was one of those academics forced to leave Al Azhar. He arrived in Turkey in 2014 and has since lived in exile in Istanbul along with several others.

The coup and the military-dominated rule resulted in Al Azhar losing a lot of its status and respect in the hearts of people in the era of Sisi because it implicated the institution in shameful situations that contradict the intuitions of religion and its constants, Mohammed told TRT World.

Mohammed is of the opinion that Al Azhar has lost its reputed status as a leading Islamic learning institution.

It became clear that the security services are the ones that manage Al Azhar, and that they control [much of what the institution produces], Mohammed said.

Al Azami from the University of Oxford also thinks that Al Azhar has been increasingly politicised in modern times under Egypts autocratic regimes.

The modern Egyptian state became extremely aware of the significance of Al Azhar, going back at least to the time of Gamal Abdul Nasser [former Egyptian president]. For him, there was always a concern about independent centres of power. A 1961 law brought Al Azhar into the domain of the state, so the institution no longer enjoys any financial independence, al Azami said.

Before the autocratic takeover, the Sheikh of Al Azhar or the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, which was institutionalized by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century following the conquest of Egypt by the Ottomans, would be elected by the Committee of Senior Scholars.

Under Nasser, the committee, which was founded in 1911 as an organ of the independent waqf or foundation, was replaced by the Center for Islamic Research, which became part of the government structure under the Ministry of Awqaf or Endowments, five decades later.

Al Azhar had complete independence from an administrative point of view. The election of the Sheikh of Al Azhar was one of the tasks of the Committee of Senior Scholars only, but the committee was canceled during the era of Abdel Nasser, Mohammed, the former Al Azhar scholar, said.

As a result, the Egyptian president began appointing the Sheikh of Al Azhar according to his own criteria, which has more to do with politics than Islamic learning or any proper scientific status, according to Mohammed.

This made the Sheikh of Al Azhar as more representative of the [oppressive] political system than that of scholars, Mohammed reflected.

While most regular scholars at Al Azhar have apparently done their best to continue independent research, the top management of the institution has been under the thumb of autocrats in Cairo.

Al Azhar became an institution, issuing fatwas [religious edicts] and opinions in parallel to regional and global political processes, says Abdurrahim Sen, a Turkish expert on political Islam.

Al Azhars politicisation process has shown its results. During the Arab Spring protests, the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Ahmed al Tayep, issued a statement in favor of the Sisi regime.

The Sheikh of Al Azhar Ahmed al Tayep called the then-President Hosni Mubarak as the legitimate ruler and he found any participation in the protests against his rule (religiously) illicit, Sen told TRT World.

Tayep was also a former member of Mubaraks National Democratic Partys policies committee. Since the late 1970s, the party had led Egypt single-handedly without any real contest until its collapse in 2011 after the Arab Spring protests.

Following the short-lived democratic transformation, Tayep also backed the military coup of Sisiin 2013 against the democratically elected president and its government.

The Sheikh of Al Azhar also leads an important organisation, the Supreme Council of Scholars, whose top management has also been dominated by pro-regime personalities.

A lot of its leadership are respected scholars. But a number of them are also extremely closely associated with the military autocracy of Egypt. The obvious person is the Sheikh of Al Azhar [its rector]. But you also have people like Ali Gomaa, the former Grand Mufti of Egypt, al Azami said.

These sorts of people have very often been supportive of the Sisi regime, broadly speaking. Gomaa in particular supported its massacre of hundreds of unarmed pro-democracy protesters in 2013," al Azami said.

"I think such behaviour has done much damage to the reputation of Al Azhar today, Azami concluded.

Source: TRT World

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Do we need to work less to save the world? – DW (English)

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Since the pandemic hit, how we work has changed. Some of us have had a double load, doing day jobs alongside full-time childcare. Others have found hours we once filled with urgent deadlines suddenly empty. And then there are those of us for whom going to work every day stacking shelves, emptying bins, caring for the sick became not just a job but an act of heroism, applauded by society from balconies and doorsteps.

Philipp Frey of the German Center for Emancipatory Technology Studies says there are lessons to be learned from all this, for the good of both people and planet. Last year, he authored a headline-grabbing studysuggesting that to prevent climate collapse, Europeans should go down to a nine-hour working week.

"There exists a strong positive correlation between carbon emissions and working hours," Frey said. "Most of us produce less carbon emissions on the weekends than on a normal workday."

This isn't only true of workers in carbon-heavy sectors like manufacturing and energy production. Emissions from commuting and running offices are also a factor. And how we work impacts how we consume.

How we work affects how we move around, how and what we consume

Research suggests longer working hours are linked to increased consumption, and that this effect isn't just to do with income. Workers with less free time are more likely to use private vehicles instead of public transport, buy energy-intensive, time-saving products, choose convenience foods over sourcing local produce, and in the words of one study, "favor conspicuous expenditure and non-sustainable lifestyles."

Shifting blame to consumers

"Everyone knows you have to consume less," Frey said. We know that the throughput of energy and resources inherent in Western lifestyles is unsustainable. But focusing on consumption puts the onus on individual choice instead of asking why we are producing so much stuff that is harmful to the planet in the first place.

"We don't have a debate on how we actually spend our work time because that would imply, rather than giving ethical, moral lectures to individuals on how to behave correctly, actually talking about how we organize our economy, and what are socially useful products," Frey said. If nothing else, coronavirus lockdown time has given us pause to consider what kinds of jobs actually fulfill society's essential needs. These are often in the public sector, low-paid, or in fact, aren't paid at all.

According to the UN, 41% of all the work done worldwide is unpaid: Caring for children and the elderly, domestic work and collecting water, for example. Amaia Perez Orozco, an economist with the feminist XXK Collective in Bilbao, says this figure doesn't include activities like subsistence farming that would bring the share of work happening outside the market economy to more like 50%.

Much work that is essential to society is poorly paid or not valued

These activities are essential to sustain society and keep the economy running but they don't generate profit and are largely left to women.

"We value jobs that are more profitable for capital accumulation more than we value jobs that are profitable for the sustainability of life," Orozco said, adding "so we have a completely distorted way about thinking about the value of jobs."

'Nutritious base' vs. 'junkie economy'

In a system gearing toward profit and growth, we reward work that turns resources into products and waste, and neglect the human and ecological "nutritious base," as Margarita Mediavilla, professor of systems engineering at the University of Valladolid in Spain, calls it.

"Collapse happens when the base weakens and the system tries to keep growing," Mediavilla said. "Our society has already entered a pattern of collapse and a pattern of over-exploitation." COVID-19, she adds, "increases even more our fragility, and shows the pattern of collapse even more clearly."

Mediavilla says traditional societies aimed to work only as much as necessary to meet the needs of the population and cared for the natural resources on which their livelihoods depended. In contrast, today's "junkie economy," hooked on cheap oil, cheap labor and cheap resources, "needs to produce more and more in order for people to have a decent living."

For some communities, the ecological cost of fueling this system is starkly manifest in their employment opportunities.

Brototi Roy, a political ecologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona researching coal-sector conflicts in India, describes interviewing workers locked into an industry that has polluted the land and fisheries that once sustained them.

Can jobs and the environment be preserved simultaneously?

When we talk about slowing production or closing harmful industries for environmental reasons, these aims are always set against the imperative to preserve jobs. But Roy says little attention is paid to what workers actually want and we should be asking, "what kind of jobs are we still advocating for, and why are we not asking the people who are doing these jobs if we could provide an alternative?"

Universal basic income

For some low-waged workers in India, and various other communities around the world, one possible alternative has been trialed universal (or unconditional) basic income (UBI). The idea has seen a surge of interest since the pandemic, with Spain planning strings-free monthly payments for poorer citizens and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saying UBI's "time has come."

Ecologically minded proponents of UBI say it would give workers greater power to reject jobs that are bad for their own wellbeing or that of the planet. It would also grant financial Independence to those who do vital unpaid labor and give more of us the opportunity to engage in activities like volunteering, community gardening and grassroots organizing of resources outside the market economy.

With more time to invest in each other and our environment, we might be less drawn to "compensatory consumption" buying stuff to make ourselves feel better, be it status symbols or treats to lift our spirits when we feel burned out and short on the human connection that provides more sustaining mental health benefits.

Optimal hours for human and planetary health

UBI is also put forward as a solution to people being put out of work by technological developments such as artificial intelligence, as seen in arecent videoby Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, who proposes funding UBI through dividends from corporate profits rather than taxes on labor.

Can we change our consumer behavior?

In his 1930 essay Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, John Maynard Keynes predicted automation would mean we would only need to work a 15-hour week. Frey says Keynes and others of his time, "underestimated how much consumption might be extended." Now, we should be seriously questioning what all this consumption is for.

"What's our main focus?" Frey asks. "Is it to satisfy human needs using as little ecological resources as possible? Or is [the economy] organized in such a way that pushes maximum turnover and corporate profits?"

Frey says he was surprised by the optimal working hours based on emissions his calculations produced.Cutting ourworking hours so drastically might be good for the climate but he doesn't believe it would be economically sustainable.

Instead, he advocates a redistribution of the kind of work we do, alongside a managed reduction of the working week toward 20 or 24 hours a level studies suggest is also optimal for workers' healthand productivity.

And, he says, one sector of society had already taken the lead before the pandemic the Fridays for Future campaigners who cut their school week to four days to demand action on climate change: "What the pupils are doing is perfectly reasonable. In a way, they are really ahead of the game."

As the world grinds to a halt, the sudden shutdown of most industrial activities has dramatically reduced air pollution levels. Satellite images have even revealed a clear drop in global levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a gas which is primarily emitted from car engines and commercial manufacturing plants and is responsible for poor air quality in many major cities.

Like NO2, carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) have also been slashed in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. When economic activity stalls, so do CO2 emissions in fact, the last time this happened was during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. In China alone, emissions have fallen by around 25% when the country entered lockdown, according to Carbon Brief. But this change is likely to only be temporary.

As everyone retreats to their homes, some animals have been taking advantage of our absence. Reduced road traffic means little critters like hedgehogs emerging from hibernation are less likely to be hit by cars. Meanwhile, other species like ducks may be wondering where all the people have gone and will need to find other sources of food besides breadcrumbs in the park.

Conservationists hope the coronavirus outbreak will help curb global wildlife trade, which is responsible for pushing a number of species to the brink of extinction. COVID-19 likely originated in a Wuhan wet market, which sells live produce and is a hub for both legal and illegally trafficked wildlife. A crackdown on trading live wildlife may be one positive thing to come out of the crisis.

Shortly after Italy entered lockdown, images of crystal clear canals in Venice were shared around the world the pristine blue waters are a far cry from their usual muddy appearance. And with cruise ships docked for the time being, our oceans are also experiencing a drop in noise pollution, lowering the stress levels of marine creatures like whales and making for a much more peaceful migration.

But it's not all good news. One of the worst environmental side-effects of the coronavirus pandemic is the rapid increase in the use of disposable plastic from medical equipment like disposable gloves, to plastic packaging as more people opt for prepackaged foods. Even cafes that remain open no longer accept reusable cups from customers in a bid to stop the virus from spreading.

With the coronavirus dominating, the climate crisis has been pushed to the sidelines. But that doesn't make it any less urgent. Experts are warning that important decisions regarding the climate should not be delayed even with the UN climate conference postponed until 2021. While emissions have dropped since the pandemic began, we're unlikely to see widespread and long-term change as a result.

Author: Ineke Mules

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Do we need to work less to save the world? - DW (English)

A father’s letter to his kid: The 9 money and life lessons most people learn too late in life – CNBC

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1. Don't underestimate the role of chance in life.

It's easy to assume that wealth and poverty are caused by the choices we make, but it's even easier to underestimate the role of chance in life.

The families, values, countries and generations we're born into, as well as the people we happen to meet along the way, all play a bigger role in our outcomes than most people want to admit.

While you should believe in the values and rewards of hard work, it's also important to understand that not all success is a result of hard work, and that not all poverty is due to laziness. Keep this in mind when forming opinions about others, including yourself.

Being able to do what you want, when you want, where you want, with who you want and for as long as you want provides a lasting level of happiness that no amount of "fancy stuff" can ever offer.

The thrill of having fancy stuff wears off quickly.But a job with flexible hours and a short commute will never get old. Having enough savings to give you time and options during an emergency will never get old. Being able to retire when you want to will never get old.

Achieving independence is our ultimate goal in life. But independence isn't an "all-or-nothing" every dollar you save is like owning a slice of your future that might otherwise be managed by someone else, based on their priorities.

No one can grasp the value of a dollar without experiencing its scarcity, so while your mother and I will always do our best to support you, we're not going to spoil you.

Learning that you can't have everything you want is the only way to understand needs versus desires.This in turn will teach you about budgeting, saving, and valuing what you already have.

Knowing how to be frugal without it hurting you is an essential life skill that will come in handy during life's inevitable ups and downs.

Napoleon's definition of a genius is the person "who can do the average thing when everyone else around him is losing his mind."

Managing money is the same. You don't have to do amazing things to end up in a good place over time, you just have to consistently not screw up for long periods of time.

Avoiding catastrophic mistakes (the biggest of which is burying yourself in debt) is more powerful than any fancy financial tip.

The ability to live with less is one of the most powerful financial levers, because you'll have more control over it than things like your income or investment returns.

The person who makes $50,000 per year, but only needs $40,000 to be happy, is richer than the person who makes $150,000, but needs $151,000 to be happy. The investor who earns a 5% return, but has low expenses, may be better off than the investor who earns 7% a year, but needs every penny of it.

How much you make doesn't determine how much you have, and how much you have doesn't determine how much you need.

Almost no one has their life figured out by age 18, so it's not the end of the world if you pick a major that you end up not enjoying. Or get a degree in a field that you're not 100% passionate about. Or work in a career and later decide you want to do something else.

It's okay to admit that your values and goals have evolved. Forgiving yourself for changing your mind is a superpower, especially when you're young.

The price of a busy career is time away from friends and family. The price of long-term market returns is uncertainty and volatility. The price of spoiling kids is them living a sheltered life.

Everything worthwhile comes with a price, and most of those prices are hidden. They're sometimes worth paying for, but you should never ignore their true costs.

Once you accept this, you'll start to view things like time, relationships, autonomy and creativity as currencies that are just as valuable as cash.

Warren Buffett once said: True success in life is "when the number of people you want to have love you actually do love you."

And that love comes overwhelmingly from how you treat people, rather thanyour level of net worth. Money won't provide the thing that you (and almost everyone else) want most. No amount of money can compensate for a lack of character, honesty and genuine empathy towards others.

This is the most important financial advice I can give you.

All the lessons here, including this last one, are things that most people learn too late in life. But feel free to reject them.

Your world will be different from mine, just as mine is different from my parents. No one is exactly is the same, and no one has all the right answers.Never take anyone's advice without contextualizing it with your own values, goals and circumstances.

Your parents love you. We are so happy you're here. Please let us sleep.

Morgan Housel is a partner at The Collaborative Fund,behavioral finance expert and former columnist at The Wall Street Journal andThe Motley Fool. He is also a winner of The New York Times Sidney Award and a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.

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A father's letter to his kid: The 9 money and life lessons most people learn too late in life - CNBC

International Astrophysics Collaboration Discovers Quasar Jets Are Particle Accelerators Thousands of Light-Years Long – SciTechDaily

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Composite image of Centaurus A, showing the jets emerging from the galaxys central black hole, together with the associated gamma radiation. Credit: ESO/WFI (Optical); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (Submillimetre); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray), H.E.S.S. collaboration (Gamma)

An international collaboration bringing together over 200 scientists from 13 countries has shown that the very high-energy gamma-ray emission from quasars, galaxies with a highly energetic nucleus, is not concentrated in the region close to their central black hole but in fact extends over several thousand light-years along jets of plasma. This discovery shakes up current scenarios for the behavior of such plasma jets. The work, published in the journal Nature on June 18th, 2020, was carried out as part of the H.E.S.S collaboration, involving in particular the CNRS and CEA in France, and the Max Planck society and a group of research institutions and universities in Germany.

Over the past few years, scientists have observed the Universe using gamma rays, which are very high-energy photons. Gamma rays, which form part of the cosmic rays that constantly bombard the Earth, originate from regions of the Universe where particles are accelerated to huge energies unattainable in human-built accelerators. Gamma rays are emitted by a wide range of cosmic objects, such as quasars, which are active galaxies with a highly energetic nucleus. The intensity of the radiation emitted from these systems can vary over very short timescales of up to one minute. Scientists therefore believed that the source of this radiation was very small and located in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole, which can have a mass several billion times that of the Suns. The black hole is thought to gobble up the matter spiraling down into it and eject a small part of it in the form of large jets of plasma, at relativistic speeds, close to the speed of light, thus contributing to the redistribution of matter throughout the Universe.

Using the H.E.S.S.[1] observatory in Namibia, an international astrophysics collaboration observed a radio galaxy (a galaxy that is highly luminous when observed at radio wavelengths) for over 200 hours at unparalleled resolution. As the nearest radio galaxy to Earth, Centaurus A is favorable to scientists for such a study, enabling them to identify the region emitting the very high-energy radiation while studying the trajectory of the plasma jets. They were able to show that the gamma-ray source extends over a distance of several thousand light-years. This extended emission indicates that particle acceleration does not take place solely in the vicinity of the black hole but also along the entire length of the plasma jets. Based on these new results, it is now believed that the particles are reaccelerated by stochastic processes along the jet. The discovery suggests that many radio galaxies with extended jets accelerate electrons to extreme energies and might emit gamma-rays, possibly explaining the origins of a substantial fraction of the diffuse extragalactic gamma background radiation.

These findings provide important new insights into cosmic gamma-ray emitters, and in particular about the role of radio galaxies as highly efficient relativistic electron accelerators. Due to their large number, it would appear that radio galaxies collectively make a highly significant contribution to the redistribution of energy in the intergalactic medium. The results of this study required extensive observations and optimized analysis techniques with H.E.S.S., the most sensitive gamma-ray observatory to date. Next-generation telescopes (Cherenkov Telescope Array, or CTA) will no doubt make it possible to observe this phenomenon in even greater detail.

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Reference: Resolving acceleration to very high energies along the jet of Centaurus A by The H.E.S.S. Collaboration, 17 June 2020, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2354-1

[1] H.E.S.S.: High Energy Stereoscopic System, a network of atmospheric Cherenkov imaging telescopes located in Namibia and specializing in the study of cosmic gamma rays.

The H.E.S.S. International Observatory, consisting of five telescopes located in Namibia, involves laboratories from thirteen countries (mainly France and Germany, but also Namibia, South Africa, Ireland, Armenia, Poland, Australia, Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Japan).

In France, the CNRS and the CEA are the research organisations most involved, mainly through nine laboratories:

France is also already committed to the CTA project for the development of next-generation telescopes. CTA is listed among the very large-scale research facilities (TGIR) on the roadmap of the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation.

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International Astrophysics Collaboration Discovers Quasar Jets Are Particle Accelerators Thousands of Light-Years Long - SciTechDaily

‘Moving from astrophysics to supercomputing was a natural transition for me’ – Siliconrepublic.com

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Computational scientist Elise Jennings talks about her career journey from astrophysics to supercomputing and how the STEM industry has changed in recent years.

The Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) recently appointed Elise Jennings as senior computational scientist. Jennings previously worked at the leadership computing facility at Argonne National Laboratory and as an associate fellow at the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago. She has a research masters degree in theoretical physics and completed a PhD at the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University.

Unsurprisingly, her passion for STEM subjects started young. When I was studying for the Leaving Cert, I loved biology, mathematics and applied maths. Solving science problems and finding out how things worked was a lot of fun for me, she said.

I especially loved those rare moments where I felt I had understood something at a deep level or when a simple event in everyday life can lead to some interesting mathematics. For me, the fact that we could describe these events precisely and make predictions was amazing and certainly got me hooked on science.

The adoption of machine learning and deep learning methods for science has been phenomenal and has enormous potential to accelerate scientific discovery ELISE JENNINGS

Although she started her research work with a focus on astrophysics, Jennings said moving to supercomputing was a very natural transition because her PhD was focused on modified gravity and testing those theories using large N-body simulations of structure formation in the universe.

These simulations ran on a dedicated cluster at the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University and this gave me a great opportunity to understand how these codes run at scale and what it means to profile code for performance, she said.

Overall, many scientific applications from different domains require HPC [high-performance computing] systems to handle the data velocity or size, or to solve the complex scientific questions using advanced methods and simulations. My work has now expanded from astrophysics to include many of these areas and work with researchers looking to scale up and optimise their codes.

In her new role with the ICHEC, Jennings will be responsible for the creation of an exascaling team as part of the European High-Performance Computing (EuroHPC) Competence Centre for Ireland. This centre will operate a programme of mentoring and upskilling the most ambitious and scientifically accomplished academic groups in Ireland.

Jennings said this will enable Irish researchers to migrate from the national Tier-1 system to EuroHPC Tier-0 supercomputers, in preparation for European exascale systems and beyond.

It is exciting work engaging Irish research groups and industries as they develop competitive proposals for EuroHPC resources. I will also be developing HPC training programmes for simulations and emerging scientific machine learning and deep learning methods.

Jennings said one of the challenges she has encountered in her career is academic job uncertainty, noting that the first hurdle after a PhD is securing a postdoc, which can be very competitive.

After a couple of postdocs, the pressure is on to find a permanent research position or lectureship if you want to stay in academia, she said. After dedicating so many years to studying astrophysics, it was difficult to face the prospect of leaving and this fear would arise every couple of years when I had to reapply again. Tied in with this was the pressure to publish, which can drive research on but also adds stress if a line of research is not productive.

However, she also spoke about how incredibly lucky she feels to have worked in some of the top institutions in the world, witnessing cutting-edge research in real time.

From taking part in large astrophysics collaborations at Durham, [University of] Chicago and Fermilab, to working towards the first exascale machine in the world, the Aurora A21 machine at Argonne, she said.

A recent highlight that stands out for me was taking part in a small research team running benchmarks on a dedicated AI testbed at Argonne. I was one of the first people to run a deep learning benchmark on the Cerebras wafer-scale AI chip. It was very exciting to take part in cutting-edge development and innovation like that.

Jennings added that she has noticed several changes in the STEM industry since she began her PhD, including the increased need for HPC systems to process data or run simulations within scientific applications.

The adoption of machine learning and deep learning methods for science has been phenomenal and has enormous potential to accelerate scientific discovery. Many of these methods are built on advanced statistical techniques such as regression, which have a long history, she said.

Deep learning is a new methodology that allows us to process and understand very diverse datasets. Deep learning also poses some new challenges for HPC, particularly in terms of creating AI-driven infrastructure and code, handling massive datasets and coupling with traditional simulation and modelling techniques.

From a broader angle, Jennings also said the increase in diversity at all levels of STEM is another welcome change, which is slowly changing the perception of what it means to be a scientist.

At every stage of my career, I was very aware of diversity in my research groups and how it impacted the culture and productivity. It is encouraging to see more and more conversations about this and hopefully it will continue to bring about positive changes at all levels.

Jennings added that she would advise women who are pursuing a career in computer science to seek out companies and institutions that have a good reputation for a diverse workforce and a healthy work culture.

Most companies now recognise how crucial work-life balance is for the happiness and success of its employees but some academic institutions have been slow to learn these lessons, she said.

I would also recommend to any woman interested in pursuing a career in computer science to connect with the Women in STEM groups or outreach events which take place at their institution. It is invaluable to make contacts with leaders in the field at these events and hear their perspectives.

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Telescope captures breathtaking new X-ray map of the sky – CBS News

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A Russian and German telescope has completed its first full sweep of the sky and it's provided some breathtaking images to mark the occasion. A new map, roughly four times the depth of its predecessor, captures what the universe looks like through X-ray vision.

The eROSITA X-ray telescope, mounted on the space observatory Spektr-RG, launched last July, and finally reached its final position more than 900 million miles from Earth in December, according to anews release. It then spent 182 days slowly rotating, capturing the universe's mysterious dark energy with seven cameras.

A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany said the resulting composite images show the deepest X-ray view of the sky we've ever seen.

"This all-sky image completely changes the way we look at the energetic universe," Peter Predehl, the Principal Investigator of eROSITA, said in the release. "We see such a wealth of detail the beauty of the images is really stunning."

The new map of the hot, energetic universe holds more than one million objects that emit X-rays also known as X-ray sources about 10 times more than what was found by the last all-sky sweep 30 years ago, the release said. The map roughly doubles the number of known X-ray sources, yielding about as many as have been discovered by all past X-ray telescopes in the field's 60-year history.

Scientists said putting together the image was a "mammoth" task that required sorting through 165 GB of data.

They generated the image using the so-called Aitoff projection, projecting the entire sky onto an ellipse with the Milky Way running horizontally through the middle and color-coding photons according to their energy, according to the release. Clusters of galaxies, "stellar cemeteries" made up of supernova remnants, and gas so hot it appears to glow can all be seen in the image.

Nearly 80% of the image is made up of active galactic nuclei supermassive black holes actively gobbling up material at the center of galaxies, the researchers said. In total, about one million X-ray sources were detected, "a treasure trove that will keep the teams busy for the coming years."

While scientists attempt to deepen their understanding of the development of the universe, the telescope is now sweeping the sky for the second time.

The project, which will run for four years, aims to map the positions of millions of galaxies and gain insight into how the universe is structured, according to the release. The project may also help to unravel the mystery of dark energy and how it counteracts gravity, pushing matter apart to accelerate the expansion of the universe.

"Overall, during the next 3.5 years, we plan to get seven maps similar to the one seen in this beautiful image," said Rashid Sunyaev, lead scientist of the Russian SRG team. "Their combined sensitivity will be a factor of five better and will be used by astrophysicists and cosmologists for decades."

"With a million sources in just six months, eROSITA has already revolutionized X-ray astronomy, but this is just a taste of what's to come," added Kirpal Nandra, head of the high-energy astrophysics group at MPE. "Over the next few years, we'll be able to probe even further, out to where the first giant cosmic structures and supermassive black holes were forming."

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Telescope captures breathtaking new X-ray map of the sky - CBS News

Space news: Study says there could be 36 intelligent civilisations in galaxy – 7NEWS.com.au

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Earth has proven unique in its ability to host life in the universe so far, leading us to question if were truly alone.

Maybe were not.

Scientists have calculated that there could be a minimum of 36 active, communicating intelligent civilisations in our Milky Way galaxy, according to a new study published in the The Astrophysical Journal.

In the video below: Is there intelligent life beyond Earth?

However, due to time and distance, we may never actually know if they exist or ever existed.

Previous calculations along these lines have been based on the Drake equation, which was written by astronomer and astrophysicist Frank Drake in 1961.

Drake developed an equation which in principle can be used to calculate how many Communicating Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent (CETI) civilizations there may be in the Galaxy, the authors wrote in their study.

However, many of its terms are unknowable and other methods must be used to calculate the likely number of communicating civilizations.

So scientists at the University of Nottingham developed their own approach.

The key difference between our calculation and previous ones based on the Drake equation is that we make very simple assumptions about how life developed, said study coauthor Christopher Conselice, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, in an email to CNN.

One of them is that life forms in a scientific way that is if the right conditions are met then life will form. This avoids impossible to answer questions such as what fraction of planets in a habitable zone of a star will form life? and what fraction of life will evolve into intelligent life? as these are not answerable until we actually detect life, which we have not yet done.

They developed what they call the Astrobiological Copernican Principle to establish weak and strong limits on life in the galaxy.

These equations include the history of star formation in our galaxy and the ages of stars, the metal content of the stars and the likelihood of stars hosting Earth-like planets in their habitable zones where life could form.

The habitable zone is the right distance from a star, not too hot or too cold, where liquid water and life as we know it may be possible on the surface of a planet.

Of these factors, habitable zones are critical, but orbiting a quiet, stable star for billions of years may be the most critical, Conselice said.

The Astrobiological Copernican Strong limit is that life must form between 4.5 to 5.5 billion years, as on Earth, while the weak limit is that a planet takes at least 4 billion years to form life, but it can form anytime after that, the researchers said.

Based on their calculations using the Astrobiological Copernican Strong limit, they determined that there are likely 36 active and communicating intelligent civilisations across our galaxy.

This assumes that life forms the way it does on Earth which is our only understanding of it at the moment. It also assumes that the metal content of the stars hosting these planets are equal to that of our sun, which is rich in metals, Westby said.

The researchers believed the strong limit is the most likely because it still allows intelligent life to form within a billion years after it did on Earth, which seems like plenty of time, Conselice said.

Another assumption of these potential civilisations is that theyre making their presence known in some way via signals.

Currently, weve only been producing signals like radio transmissions from satellites and televisions for a short time. Our technological civilisation is about a hundred years old. So imagine about 36 others doing the same thing across the galaxy.

The researchers were surprised that the number was so small but not zero. That is fairly remarkable, Conselice said.

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Space news: Study says there could be 36 intelligent civilisations in galaxy - 7NEWS.com.au

Scientists are searching the universe for signs of alien civilizations: ‘Now we know where to look’ – USA TODAY

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A planet comparable to Earth's size and orbit has been discovered. Video Elephant

For the first time in more than three decades, research scientists have received grant money from NASA to search for intelligent life in outer space.

Specifically, the grant will provide funding for a project to search for signs of life via "technosignatures."

"Technosignatures relate to 'signatures' of advanced alien technologies similar to, or perhaps more sophisticated than, what we possess," said Avi Loeb, a professor of science at Harvard and one of the grant recipients.

"Such signatures might include industrial pollution of atmospheres, city lights, photovoltaic cells (solar panels), megastructures or swarms of satellites."

Researchers believe that although life appears in many forms, the scientific principles remain the same, and the technosignatures on Earth will also be identifiable in some fashion outside the solar system, according to a statement from one of the grant recipients, the Center for Astrophysics, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory.

The surge of results in exoplanetary research including planets in habitable zones and the presence of atmospheric water vapor over the past five years has revitalized the search for intelligent life.

Exoplanets are planets beyond our own solar system. Overall, in the past 25 years, researchers have discovered more than 4,000 exoplanets, including some Earth-like planets that may have the potential to harbor life.

"The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence has always faced the challenge of figuring out where to look,"said Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, and the primary recipient of the grant."Which stars do you point your telescope at and look for signals?

"Now we know where to look. We have thousands of exoplanets including planets in the habitable zone where life can form. The game has changed."

We are not alone, study says: There could be 'dozens' of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy

A civilization, by nature, will need to find a way to produce energy, and, Frank said, there are only so many forms of energy in the universe. Aliens are not magic.

The researchers will begin the project by looking at two possible technosignatures that might indicate technological activity on another planet: solar panels and pollutants, according to a statement from the University of Rochester.

Our job is to say, this wavelength band is where you might see certain types of pollutants, this wavelength band is where you would see sunlight reflected off solar panels, Frank said. This way astronomers observing a distant exoplanet will know where and what to look for if theyre searching for technosignatures.

The grant totals nearly$287,000 and will last two years, with the option of being extended to a third year.

This announcementcomes on the heels of a study released this month that said there could be more than 30 intelligent civilizations throughout our Milky Way galaxy alone.

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Scientists are searching the universe for signs of alien civilizations: 'Now we know where to look' - USA TODAY

Help measure who has the darkest skies in Australia – The Canberra Times

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news, national,

Scientists are asking all Australians to step outside on the longest night of the year to help measure light pollution across the country. Australasian Dark Sky Alliance CEO and founder Marnie Ogg said they were expected thousands of people on Sunday, June 21, help researchers create a map of Australia's darkest skies. They'd "also learn about light pollution and its effect on people, animals, and astronomy", Ms Ogg said. "Together, our observations will map how light pollution varies across Australia's cities and regions, and make a Guinness World Records attempt for 'most users to take an online environmental sustainability lesson in 24 hours'." ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) director, astronomer Professor Lisa Kewley, said the Australian night sky was amazing. "Our galaxy, The Milky Way, is painted across the sky. It's a view that encourages us to wonder what's out there, amongst the billions of stars," Professor Kewley said. "It's a view that encourages kids to take up science and physics. But most Australians can't see it, their view of the sky is blinded by light pollution." But the downside was that light pollution didn't just disrupt the view of The Milky Way, Ms Ogg said. "It disturbs wildlife, disrupt people's sleep, and represents wasted electricity," she said. "The information will help councils plan for darker skies and create opportunities for tourism. Dark sky parks and tours are already popping up around the country." The University of Melbourne wildlife ecologist Dr Jen Martin said further understanding of light pollution helped scientists understand its impact on wildlife. "For example, light pollution from cities distracts bogong moths as they migrate from Queensland to Victoria's alpine regions. If they don't arrive on time, the endangered mountain pygmy possums that depend on them for food will starve." The Guinness World Records attempt starts from 1pm AEST on Sunday June 21, 2020 and follows night fall around the world. All the submissions will be added to the international database of Globe at Night and participants from across the planet are welcome to take part. The project is supported by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, which has produced The National Light Pollution Guidelines for Wildlife. Other supporters include ASTRO 3D, AstroNZ, Bintel, ICRAR, Globe at Night, Unihedron, ANU, the International Dark Sky Alliance, Laing Simmons & Young, Waiheke Island Dark Sky Park and Dark Sky Traveller. For more information and to register, visit https://worldrecordlight.thinkific.com/.

https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/R7sDaMurkWxVpij7Babdbr/f2ef5789-f0b4-492e-ab73-dbe2e98204db.jpg/r1_105_2047_1261_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg

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Scientists are asking all Australians to step outside on the longest night of the year to help measure light pollution across the country.

Australasian Dark Sky Alliance CEO and founder Marnie Ogg said they were expected thousands of people on Sunday, June 21, help researchers create a map of Australia's darkest skies.

They'd "also learn about light pollution and its effect on people, animals, and astronomy", Ms Ogg said.

"Together, our observations will map how light pollution varies across Australia's cities and regions, and make a Guinness World Records attempt for 'most users to take an online environmental sustainability lesson in 24 hours'."

ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) director, astronomer Professor Lisa Kewley, said the Australian night sky was amazing.

"Our galaxy, The Milky Way, is painted across the sky. It's a view that encourages us to wonder what's out there, amongst the billions of stars," Professor Kewley said.

"It's a view that encourages kids to take up science and physics. But most Australians can't see it, their view of the sky is blinded by light pollution."

But the downside was that light pollution didn't just disrupt the view of The Milky Way, Ms Ogg said.

"It disturbs wildlife, disrupt people's sleep, and represents wasted electricity," she said.

"The information will help councils plan for darker skies and create opportunities for tourism. Dark sky parks and tours are already popping up around the country."

The University of Melbourne wildlife ecologist Dr Jen Martin said further understanding of light pollution helped scientists understand its impact on wildlife.

"For example, light pollution from cities distracts bogong moths as they migrate from Queensland to Victoria's alpine regions. If they don't arrive on time, the endangered mountain pygmy possums that depend on them for food will starve."

The Guinness World Records attempt starts from 1pm AEST on Sunday June 21, 2020 and follows night fall around the world.

All the submissions will be added to the international database of Globe at Night and participants from across the planet are welcome to take part.

The project is supported by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, which has produced The National Light Pollution Guidelines for Wildlife.

Other supporters include ASTRO 3D, AstroNZ, Bintel, ICRAR, Globe at Night, Unihedron, ANU, the International Dark Sky Alliance, Laing Simmons & Young, Waiheke Island Dark Sky Park and Dark Sky Traveller.

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Help measure who has the darkest skies in Australia - The Canberra Times

Researchers have detected a regular rhythm of radio waves with unknown origins – Tdnews

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A team of astronomers, including researchers at MIT, has picked up on a curious, repeating rhythm of fast radio bursts emanating from an unknown source outside our galaxy, 500 million light years away.

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are short, intense flashes of radio waves that are thought to be the product of small, distant, extremely dense objects, though exactly what those objects might be is a longstanding mystery in astrophysics. FRBs typically last a few milliseconds, during which time they can outshine entire galaxies.

Since the first FRB was observed in 2007, astronomers have catalogued over 100 fast radio bursts from distant sources scattered across the universe, outside our own galaxy. For the most part, these detections were one-offs, flashing briefly before disappearing entirely. In a handful of instances, astronomers observed fast radio bursts multiple times from the same source, though with no discernible pattern.

This new FRB source, which the team has catalogued as FRB 180916.J0158+65, is the first to produce a periodic, or cyclical pattern of fast radio bursts. The pattern begins with a noisy, four-day window, during which the source emits random bursts of radio waves, followed by a 12-day period of radio silence.

The astronomers observed that this 16-day pattern of fast radio bursts reoccurred consistently over 500 days of observations. This FRB were reporting now is like clockwork, says Kiyoshi Masui, assistant professor of physics in MITs Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. Its the most definitive pattern weve seen from one of these sources. And its a big clue that we can use to start hunting down the physics of whats causing these bright flashes, which nobody really understands.

Masui is a member of the CHIME/FRB collaboration, a group of more than 50 scientists led by the University of British Columbia, McGill University, University of Toronto, and the National Research Council of Canada, that operates and analyzes the data from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, or CHIME, a radio telescope in British Columbia that was the first to pick up signals of the new periodic FRB source.

The CHIME/FRB Collaboration has published the details of the new observation today in the journal Nature.

A radio view

In 2017, CHIME was erected at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory in British Columbia, where it quickly began detecting fast radio bursts from galaxies across the universe, billions of light years from Earth.

CHIME consists of four large antennas, each about the size and shape of a snowboarding half-pipe, and is designed with no moving parts. Rather than swiveling to focus on different parts of the sky, CHIME stares fixedly at the entire sky, using digital signal processing to pinpoint the region of space where incoming radio waves are originating.

From September 2018 to February 2020, CHIME picked out 38 fast radio bursts from a single source, FRB 180916.J0158+65, which the astronomers traced to a star-churning region on the outskirts of a massive spiral galaxy, 500 million light years from Earth. The source is the most active FRB source that CHIME has yet detected, and until recently it was the closest FRB source to Earth.

As the researchers plotted each of the 38 bursts over time, a pattern began to emerge: One or two bursts would occur over four days, followed by a 12-day period without any bursts, after which the pattern would repeat. This 16-day cycle occurred again and again over the 500 days that they observed the source.

These periodic bursts are something that weve never seen before, and its a new phenomenon in astrophysics, Masui says.

Circling scenarios

Exactly what phenomenon is behind this new extragalactic rhythm is a big unknown, although the team explores some ideas in their new paper. One possibility is that the periodic bursts may be coming from a single compact object, such as a neutron star, that is both spinning and wobbling an astrophysical phenomenon known as precession. Assuming that the radio waves are emanating from a fixed location on the object, if the object is spinning along an axis and that axis is only pointed toward the direction of Earth every four out of 16 days, then we would observe the radio waves as periodic bursts.

Another possibility involves a binary system, such as a neutron star orbiting another neutron star or black hole. If the first neutron star emits radio waves, and is on an eccentric orbit that briefly brings it close to the second object, the tides between the two objects could be strong enough to cause the first neutron star to deform and burst briefly before it swings away. This pattern would repeat when the neutron star swings back along its orbit.

The researchers considered a third scenario, involving a radio-emitting source that circles a central star. If the star emits a wind, or cloud of gas, then every time the source passes through the cloud, the gas from the cloud could periodically magnify the sources radio emissions.

Maybe the source is always giving off these bursts, but we only see them when its going through these clouds, because the clouds act as a lens, Masui says.

Perhaps the most exciting possibility is the idea that this new FRB, and even those that are not periodic or even repeating, may originate from magnetars a type of neutron star that is thought to have an extremely powerful magnetic field. The particulars of magnetars are still a bit of a mystery, but astronomers have observed that they do occasionally release massive amounts of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, including energy in the radio band.

People have been working on how to make these magnetars emit fast radio bursts, and this periodicity weve observed has since been worked into these models to figure out how this all fits together, Masui says.

Very recently, the same group made a new observation that supports the idea that magnetars may in fact be a viable source for fast radio bursts. In late April, CHIME picked up a signal that looked like a fast radio burst, coming from a flaring magnetar, some 30,000 light years from Earth. If the signal is confirmed, this would be the first FRB detected within our own galaxy, as well as the most compelling evidence of magnetars as a source of these mysterious cosmic sparks.

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Researchers have detected a regular rhythm of radio waves with unknown origins - Tdnews

Massive Saharan Dust Plume Now in the Caribbean Sea to Complete 5000-Mile Journey From Africa to US This Week – The Weather Channel

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A massive plume of dust from the Sahara Desert has already surged into the Caribbean Sea, and it's expected to reach the Gulf of Mexico and parts of the United States this week.

Known as the Saharan Air Layer (SAL), this dry dust plume commonly forms from late spring through early fall and moves into the tropical Atlantic Ocean every three to five days, according to NOAA's Hurricane Research Division (HRD).

The densest plume began to emerge off western Africa last weekend and has now traveled over 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern Caribbean Sea, covering an area larger than the contiguous United States and western Europe.

University of Maryland scientist Santiago Gass noted late last week that the densest dust within the plume covered an unusually large area, as estimated by satellite. NASA's Terra satellite captured an amazing image Friday of the dense plume hanging over Cabo Verde, a group of islands off the western coast of Africa.

Saharan dust tracks as far west as the Caribbean Sea, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico each year a 5,000-mile-long journey.

NOAA's HRD says the Saharan Air Layer is typically located between 5,000 and 20,000 feet above the Earth's surface. It is transported westward by bursts of strong winds and tropical waves located in the central and western Atlantic Ocean at altitudes between 6,500 and 14,500 feet.

The Saharan dust plume is forecast to continue plowing westward through the Caribbean Sea, then reach parts of the Gulf Coast and Deep South later this week. You can see this in the forecast below from NASA's GEOS-5 model.

The dust particles can contribute to hazy skies and spectacular sunrises and sunsets in the Caribbean Islands, South Florida, the Florida Keys and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The dust can also cause toxic algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico, according to NASA. It can also aggravate those suffering from respiratory issues such as asthma and COPD. Air quality was already categorized as "unhealthy" Sunday morning in the Lesser Antilles.

NASA says this Saharan dust also plays beneficial, crucial roles in both fertilizing soil in the Amazon and maintaining Caribbean beaches.

Given the SAL is most common during hurricane season, research has been done on how it can affect the development of tropical storms and hurricanes. According to NOAA, some of the potential impacts to tropical development caused by the SAL include:

- The dry air can create downdrafts (sinking air) around tropical storms and hurricanes, which may result in the weakening of tropical cyclones.

- Strong winds associated with the SAL can contribute to increased vertical wind shear the change in wind speed with height which makes the environment hostile for tropical cyclone development.

- The role dust plays in tropical storm and hurricane intensity is not known. However, some research says it might impact cloud formation.

The early part of hurricane season is typically quiet in the tropical Atlantic. But this outbreak of dust along with unfavorable upper-level winds will likely put a lid on any significant tropical development in the near-term future.

The Weather Companys primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.

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Massive Saharan Dust Plume Now in the Caribbean Sea to Complete 5000-Mile Journey From Africa to US This Week - The Weather Channel

All the Caribbean countries that are currently open for tourism – Time Out

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An island vacation might actually be on the cards this year. The islands that make up the Caribbean are in various stages of reopening this summer, with many countries already open to tourists. Throw in the fact thatAmericans probably won't be able to visit Europe this summer, and you have even more reason to lounge on a beach in the middle of the Atlantic.

From the Bahamas to Bermuda, these are all the Caribbean islands reopening to tourists this summer:

OPENING IN JUNE

Antigua:Antigua will allow flights from the United States to recommence on June 4.To be allowed into the country, travelers will need to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival at the airport.

Jamaica: Jamaica reopened to tourists from all countries on June 15.

St. Barth: St. Barth will reopen June 22 with all beaches, restaurants and stores open without restrictions. Tourists must provide aCOVID-negative RT-PCR test performed within three days prior to the visitors departure.

St. Lucia:St. Lucia began a phased reopening on June 4, allowing only tourists from the United States.Visitors must alsopresent certified proof of a negative coronavirus test taken within 48 hours of boarding their flights when arriving on the island and must also continue wearing face masks and practicing social distancing. Phase two of reopening starts August 1.

US Virgin Islands:The islands have been open since June 1. The nation's stay-at-home order stillr requires masks to be worn in public buildings, limits gatherings to 10 people or less, and requires bars and restaurants to operate at 50 percent capacity.

OPENING IN JULY

Aruba: Aruba currently allows visitors from Bonaire and Curaao. Tourism from other Caribbean nations (except the Dominican Republic and Haiti), Europe, and Canada will begin on July 1. United States tourism will begin on July 10.

Bahamas: As part of a phased opening, the islands will welcome private yachts and planes starting June 15 before opening for commercial tourism on July 1.

Bermuda:Bermuda will reopen to international air travel on July 1, but before arriving on the island, visitors will be required to obtain a certified negativePCR COVID-19 testwithin 72 hours of departure.

Dominican Republic: The DR will reopen for tourism starting July 1 as part of the fourth phase of its reopening plan.

Puerto Rico: Puerto Rice will reopen on July 15.Temperature checks will be enforced and anyone with a temperature over 100.3 will be denied entry.

Turks and Caicos:On June 5, Turks and Caicos will allow businesses to reopen, and restaurants plan to reopen on July 6 before tourism commences on July 22.

OPENING IN AUGUST

Cuba:Cuba will allow tourism in late August but Havana and the mainland will be off-limits. International visitorswill be bussed directly to all-inclusive resorts on Cubas outlying islands.At airports, all arriving travelers will be given mandatory PCR (swab) and temperature tests.

When will we be able to travel again? Heres everything we know so far.

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All the Caribbean countries that are currently open for tourism - Time Out

Anything but plain sailing through the Caribbean – Sail World

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by Clipper Round the World Race 21 Jun 05:14 PDT

The race from Panama through the Caribbean Sea is a far stretch from a holiday on the relaxed paced, tropical islands the Clipper Race teams will traverse. A definite gear shift is experienced by crew compared to the sometimes Champagne sailing conditions off the West Coast of the United States, Mexico and Central America the teams will have faced on the first stage of Leg 7.

Whilst it is comparatively shorter than earlier ocean crossing in the circumnavigation, it is a tactically tough race as the route passes through a complex arrangement of islands and reefs.

Crew can expect everything from searing temperatures, light and fickle winds to squalls and tropical storms with spectacular displays of lightning. Countless sail changes will be on the cards and it's a race where we often see frequent changes in the leaderboard as distance can be lost as quickly as it is gained.

Jennifer Burgis raced halfway round the world, from the Whitsundays to London, during the 2015-16 edition and during Leg 7 she experienced Tropical Storm Colin. Looking back she said: "Once we went through the Panama Canal it was all change. The second race of this leg started nice and sunny then slowly it got a little colder and wetter and with it the number of sail changes increased. Once through the Caribbean islands, Storm Colin was a wake up call. We hadn't really had any serious weather since leaving Seattle, a good five weeks earlier!"

The first stage of the race in the western side of the Caribbean Sea, up to the Windward Passage, usually sees fairly light winds with close to beam reach sailing. Once past Cuba, the fleet has to pick its way through the northern Caribbean Islands which can be characterised by fluky winds accompanied by spectacular displays of lightning. The third section of the race is back in the North Atlantic and the conditions will be greatly influenced by the Atlantic High with its clockwise circling winds.

This, the penultimate leg, sees the battle for leaderboard positions heat up. Each finishing position and scoring opportunity become all the more important as the chances to secure points become fewer. It's at this point the overall leaderboard really starts to shape up. With the competition often within sight, its head out of boat sailing and sees match racing with your closest competitors.

Clipper Race circumnavigators will not have been in the North Atlantic since crossing the equator when racing to South America around nine months earlier. A momentous occasion that often sees much self-reflection and thoughts of life after the race start to creep in.

In an extract from circumnavigator Charlie Garrett's crew blog, from during the 2017-18 edition, she said: "Time on board is running short; before we set sail 11 months felt like a lifetime and although it has felt like it at times, the reality is that this adventure has only been a snapshot in time. I am eager to return home to see friends and loved ones but with that follows a little trepidation as that means this experience will be over and I will have to say goodbye to the ones I have called family this year."

The variety of conditions, wildlife, Panama Canal, Caribbean sailing and incredible destinations means that the USA Coast to Coast Leg continues to be one of the most popular stages of the circumnavigation.

For more information visit http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com.

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Anything but plain sailing through the Caribbean - Sail World

Traveling to the US Virgin Islands, Explained Caribbean Journal – Caribbean Journal

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This new age of travel means visitors have new questions as they plan their trips.

What is the flying experience like? How have hotels changed? How can I ensure that I feel safe? How is the on-island experience different?

To answer some of the questions, Caribbean Journal has launched a new CJ Webinar series with Marriott International focused on Caribbean destinations and the protocols and practices of their reopening plans.

The first Caribbean destination to reopen was the US Virgin Islands, which officially reopened to tourists on June 1.

The latest CJ Webinar, presented in partnership with Mariott International, brought together top tourism industry leaders from the USVI to explain how the experience has changed and why travelers can feel confident.

The panel included Joseph Boschulte, Commissioner of the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism; Dale McKinney, Regional Manager for the Caribbean at Delta Air Lines; Cliff Brutus, Director of Sales and Marketing at The Ritz-Carlton, St Thomas; and Lisa Hamilton, President of the US Virgin Islands Hotel and Tourism Association.

The new realities of travel mean that destinations, airlines, hotels need to explain whats expected from travelers, and what travelers can expect from them, said Alexander Britell, editor-in-chief of Caribbean Journal, who moderated the webinar. Our new webinar series is all about facilitating that conversation.

And dont miss this special report on what to expect in the reopened US Virgin Islands.

You can watch the full Webinar below:

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Traveling to the US Virgin Islands, Explained Caribbean Journal - Caribbean Journal

St Barth to Reopen for Tourism on June 22 Caribbean Journal – Caribbean Journal

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The Caribbeans most glamorous destination is reopening for tourism, Caribbean Journal has learned.

The French Caribbean island of St Barth is reopening for travel and tourism on June 22, according to Bruno Magras, president of the islands territorial council.

Whether you are visiting an island friend or local resident, returning to spend time in your vacation home or coming back to spend some vacation time on the island, St Barth is pleased to welcome you back, Magras said.

Magras said life on the island has returned to normal.

Island beaches are open without restriction, restaurants and boutiques are operating as usual, houses of worship are open and holding services and nautical services as well as the other services to which you are accustomed are being provided as usual, he said.

Thats due to early, aggressive action to lock down the island in the early days of the pandemics spread, and now it means St Barth is open for business.

The island has implemented new COVID-19 protocols for incoming travelers, however.

Every visitor to the island will be asked to provide a COVID-negative RT-PCR test performed within three days prior to the visitors departure.

If its not possible to arrange a test prior to departure, visitors will be required to be tested for COVID-19 within 24 hours of arrival.

Until test results are known, visitors will be required to observe strict quarantine in their villa or hotel room during which time interaction is limited to only those traveling in your party.

Test results will take less than 24 hours to be released, Magras said. For those staying on the island for more than seven days, a second RT-PCR test will be required on Day 7. (Children under the age of 10 do not require a test).

The islands villas and resorts are beginning to reopen, most notably the Hotel Le Toiny, the first hotel on the island to announce its reopening, along with the popular Les Ilets de la Plage beachfront resort in St Jean.

Of course, leading villa companies like WIMCO and St Barth Properties are also reopening their properties for travelers.

And the best ways to get there from the United States remains flying luxury carrier Tradewind Aviation via San Juan.

CJ

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St Barth to Reopen for Tourism on June 22 Caribbean Journal - Caribbean Journal