Latest Bitcoin Cash price and analysis (BCH to USD) – Yahoo Finance

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Bitcoin Cash, like much of the cryptocurrency market, has stagnated in terms of price action over the past six weeks as it clings on to the tight range between $230 and $240.

The period of relative calm comes after a turbulent couple of months spurred by the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic fallout.

Bitcoin Cash plunged to as low as $145 at the height of the crisis in March before recovering by nearly 100% in the following month.

However, since surging to $285 Bitcoin Cash has been consolidating at around $240 with an apparent lack of interest on both the sell side and the buy side.

From a short term perspective there has been slight dips to $221 and spikes to $266, but the daily 200 moving average remains a key point of resistance to the upside.

Bitcoin Cash seems to be following the cryptocurrency market in general, with a number of altcoins like XRP and Litecoin both struggling beneath the daily 200MA.

A daily or weekly candle close above this level would confirm a bullish breakout and would pave the way for a test $282, with an upside price target also emerging at $327.

Much of the upcoming price action will also depend on Bitcoin, which seems to be correlated with the US stock market.

Economic stimulus from global economies has the potential the drive stock market indexes to new all-time highs, and if this happens Bitcoin will likely follow bringing altcoins in its wake.

For more news, guides and cryptocurrency analysis, clickhere.

Current live BCH pricing information and interactive charts are available on our site 24 hours a day. The ticker bar at the bottom of every page on our site has the latest BCH price. Pricing is also available in a range of different currency equivalents:

US Dollar BCHtoUSD

British Pound Sterling BCHtoGBP

Japanese Yen BCHtoJPY

Euro BCHtoEUR

Australian Dollar BCHtoAUD

Russian Rouble BCHtoRUB

Bitcoin BCHtoBTC

Bitcoin Cash was born out of the idea of making Bitcoin more practical for small, day-to-day payments. In May 2017, Bitcoin payments took about four days unless a fee was paid, which was proportionately too large for small transactions. A change to the code was implemented and Bitcoin Cash was born on 1st August 2017.

If you want to find out more information about Bitcoin Cash orcryptocurrenciesin general, then use the search box at the top of this page. Heres an article to get you started:

https://coinrivet.com/roger-ver-to-launch-crypto-exchange-on-bitcoin-com/

As with any investment, it pays to do some homework before you part with your money. The prices of cryptocurrencies are volatile and go up and down quickly. This page is not recommending a particular currency or whether you should invest or not.

You may be interested in our range ofcryptocurrency guidesalong with the latest cryptocurrencynews.

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Palliative Treatment for Mesothelioma – Mesothelioma.net Blog

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This page has been fact checked by aDoctor of Nursing Practice who specializes in Oncology and has experience working with mesothelioma patients.

Sources of information are listed at the bottom of the article. We make every attempt to keep our information accurate and up-to-date.

Please Contact Us with any questions or comments.

Palliative treatment is especially important for mesothelioma patients who often live with severe side effects and symptoms, distress, anxiety, and fear. More than just treating the disease, palliative care is supportive care for the person as a whole and aims to improve their quality of life for as long as possible.

Palliative treatment is any type of care provided for a patient with a serious or terminal illness with the goal of improving quality of life. Instead of solely treating a disease, it focuses on factors that affect symptoms as well prioritizing personalized care. Treatment is geared towards what matters most to patients. This includes all kinds of supportive care:

While there may be some overlap in strategies, palliative care is not the same as other cancer treatments. The goal of treatments that are not palliative is to cure, slow, or stop the progression of a disease. Many patients with mesothelioma benefit from both palliative and non-palliative treatments.

Studies find that malignant mesothelioma patients have a high burden of symptoms. In one study, for instance, 92 percent of patients lived with three or more difficult symptoms: shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pains, loss of appetite, and cough, among other less common symptoms. They also experience distress, uncertainty, and a sense of lack of control.

Management of symptoms to improve quality of life is the main reason to use palliative care. Without treatment for symptoms, patients may struggle with severe, uncomfortable, and painful side effects of the cancer and its treatments. Palliation can help patients physically but also give them better control over quality of life, which improves mental health.

Historically, palliative care was reserved for patients in the latter stages of cancer. However, literature supports introduction of palliative care at the time of diagnosis, especially for those cancers that tend to be aggressive with shorter survival trends. Palliative care can work in conjunction with the medical and surgical oncology teams to provide patient centered care. Mesothelioma is a particularly painful cancer, though, and palliation early on in the disease can be beneficial too.

Studies have shown that cancer patients with early access to palliative care enjoyed better quality of life and improved survival times.

Patients in need of palliative care will generally work with a specialist. Some centers have dedicated palliative care teams. They have specialty training in palliative care and can create a strategy with the patient and their family. If a dedicated team is not available, the medical care team can certainly have a more palliative approach and work to provide support that best fits an individuals goals.

The actual medical procedures are provided by physicians. The palliative care specialist will also reach out to other caregivers to help implement the plan: pain specialists, holistic care providers, pharmacists, physical therapists, psychologists, spiritual leaders, and others.

Palliative treatments do not have to wait until a patient is in hospice car. Hospice may be in a medical facility or at home, but is care that is provided to patients at the end of their lives. Palliative care does not require enrollment into hospice.

Palliative care becomes especially important in hospice, where it provides relief, comfort, and the best possible quality of life for the time a patient has left.

Patients living with pleural mesothelioma experience a number of difficult symptoms, including pain, a relentless cough, and difficulty breathing. Several treatments, including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy can be used for relief and palliation:

Many of the same strategies used for pleural mesothelioma palliation can be applied to the peritoneal patient. Paracentesis is the term for removing fluid from the abdomen. Standard chemotherapy may provide some benefits, but radiation is not generally used for peritoneal mesothelioma.

The buildup of fluid in the abdomen, know as ascites, can be particularly uncomfortable for peritoneal patients. Specialists who provide HIPEC, a debulking surgery followed by heated chemotherapy, may offer this service for palliation. It is generally used as a treatment to slow or cure the cancer, but studies have also found it can improve quality of life as a palliative treatment.

Managing this rare type of mesothelioma is especially challenging because it is so close to the heart. A percardiocentisis a surgical procedure that can be used to drain fluid from around the heart, which relieves pressure and pain. Chemotherapy may also help relieve symptoms, but radiation is not effective with pericardial mesothelioma.

A surgical procedure known as a pericardiectomy may help relieve symptoms specific to this type of mesothelioma. It involves removing part or all of the pericardium around the heart. This may help relieve pressure on the heart, which is both uncomfortable and dangerous.

For any type of mesothelioma, pain is a major symptom and focus of palliative treatment. The medical treatments used for each type can help relieve pain but are often not adequate. Medications and other management strategy can help reduce pain or make it more tolerable:

While most complementary and alternative (CAM) practices are unproven to help treat cancer, they can help manage symptoms and play an important role in palliative care.

For example, a study from MD Anderson Cancer Center included 375 cancer patients and found that acupuncture relieved several symptoms: fatigue, hot flashes, numbness, nausea, and dry mouth.

CAM may also include aromatherapy, massage therapy, herbal supplements, and other strategies. Patients may have a CAM specialist on their treatment or palliative care team. Some CAM practices may help some patients feel better or not work for others. Most are safe to try, though.

Palliative treatments are essential for helping mesothelioma patients enjoy a better quality of life. This is a devastating disease that is most often terminal but also very painful physically. Palliative care can provide psychological and spiritual assistance and medical treatments to relieve symptoms.

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Chemo, Immunotherapy Combo May Be Effective Mesothelioma Treatment – Study Finds

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BALTIMORE Mesothelioma, a rare but very aggressive form of cancer in the lungs, is usually caused by exposure to asbestos. Once the cancer becomes inoperable, patients dont have many treatment options. A new set of research from Johns Hopkins Medicine, however, suggests that a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy may be an effective first line of treatment for mesotheliomapatients.

A total of 55 patients from 15 U.S. cancer treatment facilities were examined for this study. Each patient received the immunotherapy drug durvalumabin combination with cisplatin and pemetrexed (two chemotherapy drugs).Every three weeks patients were given six treatments of the combination therapy, followed by a dosage of just durvalumab alone. This went on for up to one full calendar year across all studied mesothelioma patients.

Historically, mesothelioma patients treated with chemotherapy alone usually survive for an average of 12 months. Patients given the combination therapy, however, survived for an average of 20.4 months. Thats a very remarkable result; this is the first piece of research ever to show patients with inoperable mesothelioma surviving for longer than 20 months.

Moreover, none of the patients experienced any unexpected negative side effects from the combination therapy.

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After closely examining tissue samples provided by participating patients, the studys authors discovered that the combination therapy appears to stop a certain cancerous protein (PD-L1) from forming a protective armor around cancer cells.

Inflammation is key to the development of pleural mesothelioma and, as such, it represents a key target for immunotherapy. This, in addition to earlier studies that showed promising results using the same immunotherapy drug in previously treated cases, led us to study the combination, says Patrick Forde, an associate professor of oncology at Hopkins, in a statement. Because of the promising results, we are in the process of starting a phase 3 study to confirm the benefit of this approach.

This study will begin accruing patients across the United States and Australia in late 2020.

The research was presented at the the American Society of Clinical Oncologys annual meeting.

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Chemo, Immunotherapy Combo May Be Effective Mesothelioma Treatment - Study Finds

The Potential Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) for Malignant Mesothelioma Market : Industry Trends and Developments 20192028 – Personal Injury Bureau…

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Global Malignant Mesothelioma Market Analysis

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The report reveals that the global Malignant Mesothelioma market is set to grow at a CAGR of ~XX% over the forecast period (2019-2029) and surpass the value of ~US$XX by the end of 2029. The presented study also includes a thorough analysis of the micro and macroeconomic factors, regulatory framework, and current trends that are expected to influence the growth of the Malignant Mesothelioma market during the assessment period.

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The market study put forward by MRRSE segments the global Malignant Mesothelioma market to offer a microscopic understanding of the various aspects of the Malignant Mesothelioma market. The Malignant Mesothelioma market is segmented on the basis of region, product type, end-user, and more.

The study offers a Y-o-Y growth projection of each market segment and sub-segment over the stipulated timeframe of the study.

Market Taxonomy

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Our research methodology leverages both primary and secondary research to collect the relevant market data. We have analyzed the global malignant mesothelioma market by considering key player revenue, usage patterns, historic trends, and problems faced by oncologists, the required treatment developments, and most preferred drugs. Key opinion leaders including experienced healthcare professionals in various healthcare facilities at the country level have been considered for primary research. These estimates have been further validated with drug manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers. Extensive secondary research has been carried out to understand the epidemiology of malignant mesothelioma, treatment rate, adoption rate, regulatory scenarios, average selling price and the global reimbursement scenario by referring to published scientific literature from various databases such as the WHO, Asbestos.com, PubMed, Springer, and Wiley among many others. We have also analyzed the various companies annual reports, investor presentations, SEC filings, reports and press releases to fetch substantial information pertaining to the market size, trends, opportunities, drivers, and restraints.

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The Potential Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) for Malignant Mesothelioma Market : Industry Trends and Developments 20192028 - Personal Injury Bureau...

Ohio Mesothelioma Victims Center is Urging the Family of a Person with Just Diagnosed Mesothelioma in Ohio to Call for Direct Access to Attorney Erik…

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(MENAFN - EIN Presswire)

CLEVELAND , OHIO, USA, June 17, 2020 / EINPresswire.com / -- The Ohio Mesothelioma Victims Center is urging the family of a person who has just been diagnosed with mesothelioma anywhere in Ohio to call 800-714-0303 for direct access tom attorney Erik Karst of the law firm of Karst von Oiste. Because of the Coronavirus many people in Ohio with confirmed mesothelioma were probably initially diagnosed with pneumonia-COVID-19. This may have cost the person with mesothelioma valuable time. If your husband or dad has just been diagnosed with mesothelioma in Ohio-please call attorney Erik Karst of the law firm of Karst von Oiste.

Aside from being to explain how the financial compensation process to a person with mesothelioma Erik Karst will also be able to assess the potential value of the compensation claim. Erik Karst and his remarkable colleagues at Karst von Oiste have been assisting people with mesothelioma nationwide for decades and they are responsible for over a billion dollars in financial compensation results for people like this. For direct access to attorney Erik Karst at the law firm of Karst von Oiste please call 800-714-0303." http://www.karstvonoiste.com/

Aside from their focus on the best possible compensation the Center is also extremely passionate about the best possible medical treatments. For the best possible mesothelioma treatment options in Ohio the Ohio Mesothelioma Victims Center strongly recommends the following three heath care facilities with the offer to help a diagnosed victim, or their family get to the right physicians at each hospital.

* Case Western Reserve University Cancer Research Center Cleveland, Ohio: https://cancer.case.edu/ * Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center Columbus, Ohio: https://cancer.osu.edu/ * The Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute Cleveland, Ohio: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/departments/cancer .

The Ohio Mesothelioma Victims Center wants to emphasize there is a statewide initiative available to a diagnosed victim anywhere in Ohio including communities such as Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, Dayton, or Youngstown. https://Ohio.MesotheliomaVictimsCenter.Com

High risk work groups for exposure to asbestos in Ohio include Veterans of the US Navy, power plant workers, factory workers, plumbers, electricians, coal miners, auto mechanics, machinists, and construction workers. Typically the exposure to asbestos occurred in the 1950''s, 1960''s, 1970''s, or 1980''s. http://www.karstvonoiste.com/

According to the CDC the states indicated with the highest incidence of mesothelioma include Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Louisiana, Washington, and Oregon. http://www.karstvonoiste.com/

However, based on the calls the Mesothelioma Victims Center receives a diagnosed victim of mesothelioma could live in any state including New York, Florida, California, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, or Alaska.

For more information about mesothelioma please refer to the National Institutes of Health''s web site related to this rare form of cancer: https://www.cancer.gov/types/mesothelioma

Michael ThomasOhio Mesothelioma Victims Center+1 800-714-0303email us here

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Ohio Mesothelioma Victims Center is Urging the Family of a Person with Just Diagnosed Mesothelioma in Ohio to Call for Direct Access to Attorney Erik...

Europe must ‘stop treating Islam as a security threat’ Turkey – TRT World

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Fast News

Turkey's Communications Director Fahrettin Altun calls for an end to "securitisation of Islam and European Muslims" during the launch of European Islamophobia Report 2019.

European governments, opinion leaders, and policymakers "must stop" treating Islam as a security threat and Muslims as potential criminals, a top Turkish government official said.

"Don't do that," Turkey's Communications Director Fahrettin Altun told a web panel during the launch of the European Islamophobia Report 2019.

"Islamophobia is a global threat that places millions of Muslims at risk," he said.

Stressing that there has been a notable increase in the number of attacks against Muslims, Islamic places of worship and community centres across Europe, he said, "The frequency of those attacks contributes to their normalisation."

Yearly report

The yearly report was launched by Turkish think-tank SETA, which provides country-specific surveys on the development of Islamophobia in 32 European countries.

The latest report has largely focused on how Islamophobia undermines the life of millions of Muslim citizens, weakens domestic security, and strengthens the rise of xenophobic and racist groups in Europe.

Altun also criticised mainstream Western media for "glorifying far-left terrorism."

"Although the mainstream media opposes Islamophobia out of political correctness, it has had no problem glorifying far-left terrorism," he said, adding " the securitisation of Islam and European Muslims is a source of concern."

Source: TRT World

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Europe must 'stop treating Islam as a security threat' Turkey - TRT World

What Happens When Youre Defensive and Dismissive – Adweek

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It shouldnt take scores of people mobilizing in the streets in order for marginalized folks voices to be heard. A common refrain from marginalized people is that they refuse to remain silent. They want their grievances to both be acknowledged and addressed.

Government and corporations find themselves seemingly caught off guard during this current climate of global civil protests. Curiously though, executives and other leaders repeatedly say theyre sorry they didnt listen to their employees or that they didnt know various groups of people felt marginalized, ignored, hurt or worse.

All of this indicates that there is a significant issue regarding process. One of my academic mentors told me when you have a bad outcome, then you likely have a bad process.

Ultimately, creating an inclusive mentality requires a person or organization to consistently critique itself and be open to change.

The first step then is to examine your culture, more specifically, the inclusivity portion. How welcoming are we of people who are different from us? How much does everyone feel valued? How much do we value contributions from all people? How do we respond when we commit offenses against our peers and colleagues?

Before we continue, we must make a valuable distinction between inclusivity and political correctness. I operationalize inclusivity as acting in a way that widens the tent, consciously behaving in a manner that tries to make as many people as possible feel included and valued. Conversely, political correctness is acting in such a way that you wont get into trouble. In other words, inclusivity is a core value whereas political correctness is an expedient behavior without much substance to back it up.

If our culture is inclusive, then we celebrate difference and solicit as many perspectives as we can because our goal is to expand our base, not narrowly cling to a restrictive vision of how a few people think something should be. From an inclusivity perspective, diversity is not a box to check; rather, diversity is part of the core product. And for businesses, diversity is often correlated to increased profits.

How can you correct a problem if you dont know there is a problem? Even if we practice an inclusive mindset daily, were still going to forget people or commit offenses toward people (I know I do). When adversity hits, then youll know the inclusivity level of your culture. If the culture is strong, then people feel more likely to speak up. Researchers Stephen Stubben and Kyle Welch summarize part of their findings on their study of whistleblowers thusly: All companies have their share of concerns, but not all companies have a culture where employees feel secure and valued when sharing feedback. We found that on the balance, more reports are a good thing, reflecting greater trust in management by employees and a greater flow of information to management about potential problems.

You have to want to know where youve gone wrong. You have to be willing to accept criticism and be vulnerable. The criticism likely isnt that youre a bad person or a bad company; rather, you fell short in a certain way and try to do better.

However, too many people just dont want to know or ignore the evidence brought to them. In feminist scholar Nancy Tuanas taxonomies of ignorance (which is a must-read in this current environment), this is called willful ignorance. Tuana defines this as a systematic process of self-deception, a willful embrace of ignorance that infects those who are in positions of privilege, an active ignoring of the oppression of others and ones role in that exploitation.

Managements current cries of were sorry we didnt listen or were sorry we ignored you ring hollow under this framework because systems were designed to replicate dominant ideologies at the expense of inclusivity and respect. Essentially, leaders were willfully ignorant of marginalized peoples suffering because ignoring the suffering allowed the leaders to run their companies in a manner that made the current power structure comfortable.

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What Happens When Youre Defensive and Dismissive - Adweek

Cohen: Coronavirus story is not over – The Manchester Journal

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By Rabbi Michael M. Cohen

I understand Michael Cooperman's frustration ("Political correctness run amok," Journal, June 12) with what the coronavirus has brought to our lives. We are fortunate when compared to many places in the Unites States and around the world our numbers even at peak were much lower, and we are blessed that our numbers are so low at present. That was done by all of us working together to get to this point. But this coronavirus story is not over, and we should not be lulled into a false sense of security with the present good numbers.

As Dr. Michael Polifka points out, "COVID-19 infection result isn't just complete recover or death. There are lots of folks who have recovered with significant persistent sequelae (lung/heart/kidney/brain) that will last for weeks/months and probably permanent for some. And the severe cases of COVID are not just the elderly, infirm and immunocompromised. There are young adults who have had severe infections and an increasing syndrome among young previously completely healthy children of catastrophic illness. Because the absolute number of these cases in Vermont are small, it's easy not to relate. A parent/relative or neighbor of such a child has, no doubt, a very different point of view."

The main function, by way of its spontaneous mutation, of the coronavirus is to find as many hosts as possible and spread. It is biologically almost perfectly constructed to do just that, and its collateral damage is the death of humans. It has no morality when it chooses whom to infect. We humans are not solely a biological entity. We have a consciousness and the ability to weigh decisions from the standpoint of ethics, morality, as well as philosophy and other values. That is the framework we are operating under now to try to decide what is the best option vis-a-vis the coronavirus. That is not an easy decision to reach with so many competing human factors and values.

What we do know is this. Our virus numbers are very low now. We also know the coronavirus has not disappeared. As we have been painfully reminded of late about racism; if one doesn't notice something it does not mean it is not there. We also know there is a correlation between social distancing, which is not social isolation, and lowering or helping to keep the coronavirus in check. We also know a second wave is very possible, and perhaps even more deadly than the first wave. We also know a community only needs one "patient zero" for the coronavirus to come in and quickly spread throughout a community. Until an effective vaccine is available and given to a large portion of the population, we will need to continue to live with and adjust our lives accordingly.

Which leads to Cooperman's car analogy. Yes, driving kills people, but we don't stop driving. But we also do many things to mitigate its danger. We know that reduced speed limits, mandatory wearing of seat belts, and installing baby seats have saved thousands of lives. The latter two one can argue are inconvenient and like with face masks now, there was a lot of opposition to seat belts when those laws were introduced. Now most of us don't get in car accidents, but we all wear seat belts as a social response, and we are all the better because of that.

That is not political correctness run amok (a loaded term in and of itself), but rather a prudent response to making driving safer; not eliminating driving. So as we all drive down the coronavirus highway, for the foreseeable future, wearing masks, keeping our distance from each other, and other smart practices are ways we can still socialize, educate and work.

Rabbi Michael M. Cohen lives in Manchester Center.

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Canadians are not as free as wed like to believe we are – The Globe and Mail

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PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: THE GLOBE AND MAIL; SOURCE IMAGES: ISTOCK PHOTO

Philip Slaytons books include Mighty Judgment: How The Supreme Court of Canada Runs Your Life and the recently published Nothing Left to Lose: An Impolite Report on the State of Freedom in Canada.

Is Canada a free country?

What a question! Of course it is. Lets tick off the reasons why; we know them by heart. Why waste time on this?

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We elect those who govern us. We have an independent judiciary. We have an unfettered press. Young people have access to a competent educational system. We have civilian control of the police. We are a tolerant and peaceable people. We acknowledge the worth of the individual. We are socially progressive and right-thinking. We have a constitutionally entrenched bill of rights, guaranteeing fundamental freedoms, democratic rights, mobility rights, legal rights and equality rights. What could be better? As our anthem says, God keep our land glorious and free!

But wait a moment. Is all this completely true?

Complacency about our freedoms in Canada is not well-founded. There are things to be careful about, quite apart from the way government abbreviated our rights during the COVID-19 pandemic panic hopefully, but not certainly, temporarily. There are fundamental causes for concern.

First, Canadians are generally unduly and dangerously deferential to authority. We often defer to status and presumed expertise to judges, bank presidents, medical experts, university professors, senior bureaucrats and other assorted pundits and sages. After all, despite the fact that these peoples views are sometimes vague, suspect and contradictory, they must be more intelligent and better informed than we are. Otherwise, how did they get to their positions?

Our well-known politeness and civility accentuate our deference to authority. Of course, as we look around the world at the divisive and confusing Brexit debate in Britain, for example, or at Donald Trumps shambolic and angry United States we might congratulate ourselves on a Canadian restraint that helps avoid debilitating and absurd excess. But this is not a straightforward calculus. Excessive deference and restraint only bury ideas that have merit and marginalize their advocates. They alienate dissenters from the mainstream political system, limiting participation in public debate and the flow of contrary ideas. They promote easy acceptance of things that an engaged populace should be quarrelling about. They leave us vulnerable to those to whom we defer and the direction they would take us.

We freely elect those who govern us, that is true, but our political process and constitutional structure is seriously flawed. Our first-past-the-post electoral system gives little room to smaller but important political parties that garner significant percentages of the popular vote. The prime minister and the executive branch of government dominate the elected legislature in the lawmaking process. This has been particularly evident during the pandemic, when vast amounts of money have been spent and radical programs put in place with minimal parliamentary oversight. Ordinary members of Parliament? The first Trudeau described backbench MPs as nobodies when they were not on Parliament Hill. They scurry around, taking orders from the prime minister if they are members of the governing party, powerless and irrelevant if they are not. Parliamentary procedures and devices omnibus bills, for example emasculate parliamentary debate. And the countrys constitution is lopsided, giving the provinces complete power over cities, where most Canadians live, depriving municipal governments of the authority and financial resources to do what their citizens want and need.

An independent and fair justice system, accessible to all, is an essential part of a free democracy. One job of the justice system is to protect citizens from government and from each other. Protection from government, especially in defence of minority rights, is essential in Canada, a country where the supremely powerful executive branch has the ability to ride roughshod over anyone. To their credit, the courts have, from time to time, held government at bay since the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But on other occasions, using the Charter, they have inappropriately decided fundamental public policy questions that should be answered by elected representatives, such as the laws concerning abortion, prostitution, aboriginal title, the definition of marriage and medical assistance in dying. Matters once properly considered political issues, to be dealt with by application of generally accepted public policy legislated into law by elected representatives of the people, have been recharacterized as legal questions to be answered by appointed judges.

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Meanwhile, for economic reasons lawyers cost a lot few Canadians have access to the justice system. Few can afford to assert or defend their rights against government or each other. In particular, the ordinary citizen may desperately need the protection of the courts if he is the target of the awesome legal power and unmatched financial resources of the government. David Johnston, a former governor-general and a lawyer who is not given to controversial statements, gave a hard-hitting speech at the 2011 annual meeting of the Canadian Bar Association in Halifax: For many today, the law is not accessible, save for large corporations and desperate people at the low end of the income scale charged with serious criminal offences. Nothing has changed since 2011. The former Chief Justice of Canada, Beverley McLachlin, has frequently pointed out this frightening feature of our justice system.

Canadas traditional free press, essential to exposing and reining in the excesses of those in authority, has largely collapsed as advertisers flee to the internet and subscriptions decline. It has been replaced by social-media commentators who, for the most part, lack resources, credibility and discipline. The amplification and validation effects of the internet an open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information, according to Tom Friedman of The New York Times allow isolated and uninformed individuals to join together electronically in hate and become a threatening and cocksure worldwide community that instantly condemns and convicts those believed to have transgressed. Social media, used in this way, subverts and undermines a legal system that many have laboured mightily for a long time to put into place and develop for the common good one that seeks to uncover the facts and presumes innocence.

Universities have also let us down. They have replaced education with job training in their mandates, and free speech with political correctness in their values. A curious and well-informed mind is a free mind, and a person with a free mind is a free person; creating this free person is what education, particularly postsecondary education, is meant to do. Universities need to reject a corporate consumer-driven model; a student is not a client. Universities must eschew misguided vocationalism, emphasize the development of critical thinking in particular, the ability to distinguish between a good argument and a bad argument and recognize that society needs dreamers at least as much as technicians. They need a fee structure that makes postsecondary education available to all without career-distorting long-term debt. And they need to welcome the expression of all views, even extreme ones. They must reject any attempts to suppress them, whether they come from the political right or the political left, and deploy critical thinking, good judgment and a sense of humour instead of a heavy-handed suppressive approach to repudiate views that seem wrong and dangerous.

Meanwhile, our concept of human rights has become vague and overly accommodating. Expansive notions of human rights, and an energetic bureaucracy enforcing them, can chill the free expression of unpopular ideas and opinions. We should be wary of human rights newly invented by special interest groups. Some may have a legitimate place in the permanent list of rights that must be protected; others are repressive or trivial ideas intended to deceive and compel. As Dominique Clment, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta, wrote: Human rights is the language we use to frame the most profound and the most commonplace grievances. Sometimes, it can seem as if the main purpose of human-rights laws and principles is to enforce what is politically correct, rather than as one might naively expect to protect freedom of speech and action by those who think differently.

And our police forces have run rampant. Just look at how police responded to demonstrations at the 2010 Group of 20 summit in Toronto, for example, or at the Canada-wide practice of carding Black Canadians, or the general treatment by police of racialized groups, or our national-security organs excessive reaction to spurious terrorist threats. We need the police to keep order and shield us from harm, but they can be a threat themselves. Former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie caught part of the predicament in the 2009 Charter case of R. v. Grant: While the uniformed police embody societys collective desire for public order and livable and safe communities, they also present a serious and continuing risk to the individuals right to be left alone by the state. Add in surveillance and the continuing loss of privacy to the mix accelerated in the age of the pandemic and consider the consequences.

Economic inequality has increased dramatically and vast parts of the population have been rendered financially impotent, unable to secure even modest housing, vulnerable to disease (the poor are far more likely to contract the coronavirus than the affluent) and vulnerable to exploitation by a handful of rich people and corporations. There are many more poor people than rich people, and in a true democracy each person has only one vote. You might expect that a poor majority would make certain that wealth was redistributed in its direction, through tax policy and social programs. Yet, by and large, this does not happen, because inequality corrupts democracy. One explanation is that political power goes hand in hand with riches; those with money can influence opinion, thwart the popular will and protect themselves.

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The treatment of Indigenous people in Canada remains appalling. Their plight is a wound that never heals. Any mention of it easily evokes pain, misunderstanding, resentment and anger. We measure the freedom of a democratic society by the extent to which all of its members are free. A free society is one where those who are less fortunate and more vulnerable are respected and helped by all so that they enjoy almost as much liberty as the person who lives in the big house on the hill. So long as Indigenous people are badly treated, and until a desperate history is overcome and ceases to determine the future, our country will continue to fall short of freedom.

And then there are the horrors of climate change and the collapse of biodiversity, catastrophes now sidelined by obsession with the coronavirus. How much freedom will we have when fires sweep across our country, the seas rise relentlessly, the animals die and the beauty of nature is gone? How much freedom will we have when there are vast migrations of people across continents, fleeing natural disasters, ignoring national borders, fighting for scarce resources?

What is to be done? There can be no freedom without selfless, principled, informed and courageous leaders. There can be no freedom without selfless citizens committed to civic engagement and the common good. The general welfare must trump personal interest if we are to survive, let alone prosper. If political leaders care mostly for themselves and their personal political ambition, and average citizens care mostly for themselves and their immediate families, the result will be societal and state dysfunction, a pointless and unproductive butting of heads leading to a dystopia where freedom has been lost and social progress reversed. If that happens, there will be nothing left to lose and there really will be a simple, one-word answer to the question of whether Canada is truly free.

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Canadians are not as free as wed like to believe we are - The Globe and Mail

Film it over: Racial stereotypes in cinema and literature – Telegraph India

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Of the various Academy Awards that the film, Gone with the Wind, won in 1940, Hattie McDaniel, who played Mammy, the housekeeper in the OHara household, received Best Supporting Actress. It made her the first African-American actor to be so acknowledged. But Queen Latifah, the singer and actor who said after George Floyds killing that Gone with the Wind should be gone forever, suggested that McDaniels success was hardly glamorous. The actor was not let into the auditorium till her turn came to receive the award, and she had to read out a speech written by the studio. This incident, whether or not it happened exactly this way, exemplifies the hypocrisy that underlies the political correctness cloaking discrimination. HBO Maxs decision to take the film off its streaming platform after Floyds death, the Black Lives Matter movement and an article criticizing the films and by extension, Margaret Mitchells novels racial stereotypes is not entirely free of this piousness. The romanticization of the happy slave and the imagined grace of life in the pre-Civil War South that first produced the Ku Klux Klan, and the complete erasure of the humiliation, pain, violence and oppression associated with slavery in the novel and the film produced sharp criticism even in the 1940s. Neither is George Floyd the first African American to fall victim to police or State injustice and brutality.

The nub of the problem lies elsewhere. HBO Max has announced it will bring back the film with a note on its context. But if each creative product had to have a cautionary note because the age has changed, then the world of art would be a rather bristly space. Each creation is a product of its time and is, in that sense, always political even without being partisan. It reflects, often through resistance, the power structures within which it is produced. Whether it transcends time and place in its vision depends on the maker. The passage of time changes perceptions and values, because power structures change: so interpretations change too. Thus the reader, viewer or listener also confers meaning. If a film needs a context before it can be streamed in 2020 then there is need to worry about the emancipation of mind achieved by non-African-Americans since the Civil War and the civil rights movement. A warning note for a particular film not the only one with the theme suggests that its continuing appeal relies on an echo in many. Much of the politics, evidently, remains secretly unchanged.

India excels in discrimination. It runs so deep that it is invisible. But an indication that times may change minds may change is heralded, for example, by the burgeoning of Dalit literature and its translation. That does not mean that older works, some considered classics, must be banned or made politically correct. Should all works that glorify women at home and curse them when they step out be given explanatory notes too?

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Film it over: Racial stereotypes in cinema and literature - Telegraph India

The birth of the culture wars – Spiked

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Many pundits and politicians seem to blame UK prime minister Boris Johnson for provoking the latest installment of the culture wars that now dominate Anglo-American public life. Sections of the media, from the New York Times to the Guardian, have claimed that Johnson wants to argue over statues to distract from his poor handling of the Covid pandemic. Others, such as Labours David Lammy, reckon Johnsons defence of the statue of Winston Churchill, against those who would deface or dismantle it, was a deliberate attempt to stoke the culture wars, and deflect attention from the Tories lack of progress on racial injustice.

These are massively disingenuous claims. After all, is it really surprising that a British prime minister would defend a memorial devoted to arguably the nations greatest modern figure? Moreover, Johnson was not initiating anything. He was responding to a movement that has been directing its energy towards the destruction of the symbols of Britains national history and culture. It takes tremendous bad faith to characterise Johnsons defensive response to an attack on British culture as an attempt to launch a culture war.

But those on Johnsons side, defending the Churchill statue, indulge in the same finger-pointing. They claim that it is their opponents, from Black Lives Matter to the identitarian left, who started the culture wars.

What is striking is that neither side seems to have anything positive to say about the culture wars. Their characterisation as poisonous, by veteran conservative commentator Charles Moore, is a sentiment shared by virtually all sides of the political argument. They disagree merely on the questions of who is to blame for them, and what they mean.

The origins of the culture war

One reason why so many observers are confused by the dynamics of the culture war is because it rarely assumes an explicit conflict-like character. It is often a silent conflict over what seem to be disparate issues gay marriage, national identity, euthanasia rather than a war between two clearly defined sides. In this sense, the modern culture war is very different to the German Kulturkampf of the 19th century, when there was an overt cultural struggle between Chancellor Bismarck and the Catholic Church.

Back then, in the late 19th century, it was evident to all observers that cultural conflict in Germany was a very real phenomenon. Matters are different today. Until recently, most commentators would insist that talk of the polarisation of culture is exaggerated; some went so far as to deny the very existence of a culture war. Those who denounced the cultural politics of Sixties radicals were often simply dismissed as backward-looking traditionalists social conservatives trying to justify their prejudices by attacking new ways of thinking and speaking.

But the culture war is real. Historically, it was set in motion in Western societies by a powerful impulse to detach the present from the past, which emerged at the turn of the 20th century. This project of liberating the present from the cultural values of the past was most clearly formulated by the Progressive movement in the US, and by the New Liberals in Britain. But it was the experience of the First World War that gave this sentiment real momentum. For the war fundamentally undermined the cultural continuity of the West.

Disconnected from the past, post-war Western societies found it difficult to develop a compelling narrative through which to transmit their cultural legacy to young people. One outcome of this development was the phenomenon known today as the generation gap. It emerged in the aftermath of the First World War precisely because it was not simply a generational gap, but also a cultural one a gap, that is, between the pre- and post-war eras. In the decades that followed, these generational tensions would come to be experienced as the problem of identity.

Some contemporary observers were indeed aware of the cultural war against the past then being waged. Writing in the 1930s, Churchill himself observed:

I wonder often whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything, material or established, which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure, or was taught to be sure, was impossible has happened.

However, many commentators at the time, and in the decades to come, were blind to this cultural conflict. They focused on the ideological conflict between communism and capitalism, and the rise of fascism, rather than the loss of cultural authority of Western values.

One reason why Western ruling elites failed to address the loss of their moral authority was because of the difficulty they had in acknowledging that their own way of life was being unravelled by powerful corrosive influences internal to it. During the 1940s and 50s, even conservative commentators failed to appreciate the scale of the problem confronting their tradition. This became clear during what was the first significant, explicit conflict in the culture war: Senator Joseph McCarthys battle with communism and its supposed threat to American values.

The rise of McCarthyism in the US is often seen as an attempt to deploy anti-communist hysteria to silence political dissent. Yet it was also an attempt to roll back the cultural influences threatening traditional norms and values. McCarthyism in the 1950s, observed the political sociologist Daniel Bell, represented an effort by some traditionalist forces to impose a uniform political morality on the society through conformity to one ideology of Americanism and a virulent form of anti-communism. (1)

At the time, McCarthyism was influential and it did intimidate many liberal and left-wing individuals. But it failed to establish cultural hegemony. In particular, McCarthy never made serious headway among intellectuals or gained any cultural credibility. McCarthyisms failure to gain and retain moral authority is demonstrated by its almost entirely negative legacy. As one critic recalled in 1997, McCarthy soon became a symbol of the moral exhaustion of the right so much so, in fact, that he is generally held in cultural contempt (2).

McCarthys anti-communist crusade can be seen as one of the earliest attempts (and failures) after the Second World War to revitalise traditional values in the face of their rapid demise. One of the most astute analyses of the McCarthy episode was provided by the conservative commentator, Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick understood that McCarthyism was not so much about communism as it was a struggle for jurisdiction over the symbolic environment (3). What was at issue was who would serve as the arbiter of culture and whose narrative would prevail.

Senator Joseph McCarthy stands before a map which charts Communist activity in the United States, 9 June 1954.

The failure of McCarthy to hold the line and the rapid decline of his reputation had important implications. These things indicated that, although a potent political resource, anti-communist ideology on its own could not contain the corrosive outcomes of the moral depletion of Western culture. Kirkpatrick asserted that McCarthys demise and the victory of his critics was a precondition of the rise of the counterculture in the 1960s (4). Whereas during the McCarthy era, the term loyalty was rarely openly contested, by the 1960s it had lost some of its cultural value. Anti-war demonstrators, draft-dodgers and ordinary members of the public rejected loyalty as an unwelcome imposition on their ability to be themselves. As Kirkpatrick recalled, the peace marchers were far more aggressive in their defiance of traditional taboos than the timid victims of Joe McCarthy. This, Kirkpatrick concluded, reflected the distance that the cultural revolution had proceeded (5).

The moral depletion of the West

The casual manner with which traditional taboos were derided in the 1960s showed that those who upheld traditional values could no longer assume that they occupied the moral high-ground. In this, the cultural assault on the values of capitalist consumer society played a significant role. However, this assault should be seen as a catalyst for, rather than a cause of, the unravelling of the Cold War consensus on Western values. The inner corrosion of the ethos of capitalism had been at work for many decades, and the lack of self-belief among the ruling elites contributed to its diminishing influence.

Since the interwar era, capitalism as a social system has found it increasingly difficult to justify itself against its critics. Matters were made worse by the reluctance of conservative and liberal thinkers to confront this problem directly.

The absence of an intellectually compelling, normative foundation for capitalism meant that even at the height of the postwar boom, capitalism was exposed to a cultural critique of its values. Consequently, even in these very favourable circumstances, capitalism acquired only a limited influence over intellectual and cultural life. This estrangement of capitalism from its own culture emerged with full force in the late 1960s, when many of its values were explicitly challenged in what would turn out to be an interminable culture war.

Writing in 1973, Irving Kristol, a leading conservative commentator, drew attention to the moral depletion of Western culture:

For well over 150 years now, social critics have been warning us that bourgeois society was living off the accumulated moral capital of traditional religion and traditional moral philosophy, and that once this capital was depleted, bourgeois society would find its legitimacy ever-more questionable. (6)

The depletion of moral capital became evident with the emergence of the counterculture, or what its opponents called adversarial culture.

Samuel Brittan, a British economist and journalist, offered a sobering analysis on the difficulty that capitalism faced in offering a compelling and authoritative account of its values. He wrote:

For a long time capitalist civilisation was able to live on this feudal legacy, and the aura of legitimacy was transferred from the feudal lord to the employer, from the mediaeval hierarchy of position to that derived from the luck of the marketplace. But this feudal legacy was bound to be extinguished by the torchlight of secular and rationalistic inquiry, which was itself so closely associated with the rise of capitalism. (7)

Brittan believed that modern politicians and middle-class leaders lacked the glamour and the heroic qualities of the leaders of the past. And therefore their authority over the masses was limited. At most they are tolerated on the strict condition that they bring results, he wrote. Brittan asserted that the personal qualities of middle-class leaders did not help to kindle that affection for the social order which is probably necessary if it is not to be blamed for the inevitable tribulations and disappointments of most peoples lives (8).

By the 1970s, it became clear that supporters of adversarial culture had gained the upper hand. As a memo from Daniel Moynihan to Nixon in 1970 stated:

No doubt there is a struggle going on in this country of the kind the Germans used to call a Kulturkampf. The adversary culture which dominates almost all channels of information transfer and opinion formation has never been stronger, and as best I can tell it has come near to silencing the representatives of traditional America.

Since the 1970s, the representatives of traditional America have been constantly on the defensive. Instead of initiating debates and attempting to set the agenda, they have been continually forced to react to the latest blow directed at their way of life. This cycle of defensive responsiveness can be seen on many issues, from gay marriage or trans rights to claims about white privilege.

The paralysis of traditionalists

The pessimistic diagnosis offered by Moynihan and Brittan was widespread among conservative thinkers. Periodic attempts to promote back to basics campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s proved to be singularly ineffective. At this point in time, the mainstream conservative and right-wing parties attempted to evade the consequences of their cultural isolation by emphasising their ability to achieve economic success. The high point of this strategy arrived during the Thatcher-Reagan years, when their brand of economic liberalism gained hegemony over public life. However, what the supporters of Thatcher and Reagan failed to notice, or acknowledge, was that despite the electoral success of their parties, their opponents were winning the culture war. Paradoxically, it was during the Thatcher and Reagan years that what came to be known as political correctness gained ascendancy and identity politics became institutionalised, first on campuses and later in the public and private sectors.

Today, when the reality of a culture war is widely recognised, it is worth noting that until recently almost all sides of the political divide were reluctant to draw attention to it. That is why supporters of political correctness went out of their way to deny there was such a thing as PC. Similarly, until recently, advocates of identity politics insisted that identity politics was a dishonest invention of their opponents.

Patrick Buchanan delivers his 'culture-war speech' at the Republican Party conference, August, 1992 (YouTube).

The culture war was not a suitable topic for discussion in polite elite circles. When Patrick Buchanan made his famous culture-war speech at the 1992 Republican Party conference, he faced a tirade of hostile criticism for what was described as his extreme rhetoric. Buchanans call to arms went against the grain of the prevailing narrative. Buchanan insisted that differences over values were far more significant than who gets what arguments over economic resources:

It is about who we are. It is about what we believe. It is about what we stand for as Americans. There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as the Cold War itself

His denunciation of what he perceived as a threat to the American way of life showed that this was now being conceived of as a war, rather than as party-political rivalry within a shared moral universe. Buchanan later expanded on this point by contrasting the conflict faced by 1990s America with that of the interwar depression. Citing Roosevelt, who said that our common difficulties concern thank God, only material things, Buchanan noted that, in contrast, our national quarrel goes much deeper.

What was noteworthy about this speech was not simply its content but that Buchanan articulated it in public, at a major party conference and in front of television cameras. Hitherto, the conflict that Buchanan drew attention to had essentially been a silent one.

One reason why Buchanans speech caused such a stir was because, by 1992, the old traditional elites had more or less been entirely sidelined by their adversaries. The countercultural movement had been institutionalised, and its representatives dominated institutions of culture, higher education and the public sector. And, since then, businesses and the private sector have also come under its sway.

Having gained hegemony, members of this countercultural establishment are now less and less afraid to impose their own values on the rest of society. From their standpoint, Boris Johnson is an elite outlier, and his defence of Churchill offers them a reminder that there are still obstacles to the realisation of the project of detaching society from the legacy of its past. They now constitute the cultural establishment, and people who wish to defend the statues of Churchill or Abraham Lincoln are their countercultural adversaries.

At present, the culture war is a one-sided conflict that is directed at a defensive traditionalist target. Why this is so, and what are the issues at stake, will be discussed in part two of this essay, next Friday.

Frank Furedis How Fear Works: The Culture of Fear in the Twenty-First Century is published by Bloomsbury Press.

All pictures, unless otherwise stated, by: Getty.

(1) The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, by Daniel Bell, Heinemann, 1976, p77

(2) Dynamics of Destruction: Culture and Mass Killing in the First World War, by A Kramer, Oxford University Press, 2007

(3) Politics and the new class. by JJ Kirkpatrick, Society, 16(2), 1979, p42

(4) Politics and the new class. by JJ Kirkpatrick, Society, 16(2), 1979, p43

(5) Politics and the new class. by JJ Kirkpatrick, Society, 16(2), 1979, p44

(6) Capitalism, Socialism and Nihilism, by Irving Kristol, Public Interest, issue 31, 1973, p12

(7) The Economic Contradictions of Democracy, by S Brittan, British Journal of Political Science, Vol 5, No 2, 1975, p149

(8) The Economic Contradictions of Democracy, by S Brittan, British Journal of Political Science, Vol 5, No 2, 1975, p149

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The birth of the culture wars - Spiked

Proposed overhaul of university fees nothing short of radical – Sydney Morning Herald

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This is the latest development for a sector caught in the escalation of the culture wars. The government changed the rules to its $130 billion JobKeeper wage subsidy three times, in order to ensure no university could claim it. Smashed by a decline in international student revenue due to coronavirus travel restrictions, universities face a difficult future without government assistance.

Universities have been caught in an escalating culture war.Credit:Louise Kennerley

Its clear, though, that sympathy isnt forthcoming. Many members of the government harbour suspicions of tenured radicals stalking the corridors of academe. Conservatives have come to think of universities as incubators of progressive thinking and so-called political correctness.

But what will be the effects of education policy being conducted as culture war politicking?

Its tempting to see this as a step towards a university system aimed at cultivating quiet Australians. Before and after last years election victory, Scott Morrison spoke of these compliant compatriots: hard-working people in the suburbs who neither campaign in the streets nor follow the political news every day, and are happy for politics to happen without them.

These are the very opposite of the kind of people who are formed through a liberal arts education. Students of the humanities and social sciences are taught to ask questions about power and democracy. Theyre trained to be critical, curious and to think for themselves. Theyre trained to be active citizens who wont just faithfully leave it to others to govern without scrutiny. By discouraging students from the arts, the government makes clear it doesnt see the virtues of a certain kind of citizenship.

This proposed fee move also shift things further towards a model of universities as job factories. Universities are being tasked with churning out degrees for the purpose of directing labour into the job market. Its a crude view of education. Surely, there must remain a place for pursuing knowledge for its own sake. We must see education not as an extended exercise in economics, but essentially as an exercise in civilising the mind.

Former prime ministers Malcolm Fraser, Julia Gillard, Bob Hawke, Tony Abbott, John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Paul Keating at the memorial service for Gough Whitlam.Credit:AAP

At the same time, an arts education is too often derided for not being job relevant. The opposite is true. Just ask our political leaders. Seven of the last nine Australian prime ministers were arts or social science university graduates: Malcolm Turnbull, Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Bob Hawke, Malcolm Fraser, Gough Whitlam. Were their degrees not job relevant?

There remain many uncertainties about these proposed changes (which will first need to make it through Parliament). Its far from clear whether hiking course prices will change student preferences. But if there is some impact, one possibility is that, in the future, only those from affluent families will feel comfortable enough to study the arts, humanities and social sciences. Were that to happen, it would seriously diminish our public culture.

Either way, the message of this weeks announcement is clear. The traditional liberal arts education provided by universities is under challenge. The civic purpose of universities is being fundamentally contested. And its all because of this now perpetual culture war that defines our national politics.

Tim Soutphommasane is a political theorist and professor at the University of Sydney.

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Proposed overhaul of university fees nothing short of radical - Sydney Morning Herald

Definition from WhatIs.com – whatis.techtarget.com

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A supercomputer is a computer that performs at or near the currently highest operational rate for computers. Traditionally, supercomputers have been used for scientific and engineering applications that must handle very large databases or do a great amount of computation (or both).Although advances likemulti-core processors and GPGPUs (general-purpose graphics processing units)have enabled powerful machinesfor personal use (see: desktop supercomputer, GPU supercomputer),by definition, a supercomputer is exceptional in terms of performance.

At any given time, there are a few well-publicized supercomputers that operate at extremely high speeds relative to all other computers. The term is also sometimes applied to far slower (but still impressively fast) computers. The largest, most powerful supercomputers are really multiple computers that perform parallel processing. In general, there are two parallel processing approaches: symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and massively parallel processing (MPP).

As of June 2016, the fastest supercomputer in the world was the Sunway TaihuLight, in the city of Wixu in China. A few statistics on TaihuLight:

The first commercially successful supercomputer, the CDC (Control Data Corporation) 6600 was designed by Seymour Cray. Released in 1964, the CDC 6600 had a single CPU and cost $8 million the equivalent of $60 million today. The CDC could handle three million floating point operations per second (flops).

Cray went on to found a supercomputer company under his name in 1972. Although the company has changed hands a number of times it is still in operation. In September 2008, Cray and Microsoft launched CX1, a $25,000 personal supercomputer aimed at markets such as aerospace, automotive, academic, financial services and life sciences.

IBM has been a keen competitor. The company's Roadrunner, once the top-ranked supercomputer, was twice as fast as IBM's Blue Gene and six times as fast as any of other supercomputers at that time. IBM's Watson is famous for having adopted cognitive computing to beat champion Ken Jennings on Jeopardy!, a popular quiz show.

Year

Supercomputer

Peak speed (Rmax)

Location

2016

Sunway TaihuLight

93.01PFLOPS

Wuxi, China

2013

NUDTTianhe-2

33.86PFLOPS

Guangzhou, China

2012

CrayTitan

17.59PFLOPS

Oak Ridge, U.S.

2012

IBMSequoia

17.17PFLOPS

Livermore, U.S.

2011

FujitsuK computer

10.51PFLOPS

Kobe, Japan

2010

Tianhe-IA

2.566PFLOPS

Tianjin, China

2009

CrayJaguar

1.759PFLOPS

Oak Ridge, U.S.

2008

IBMRoadrunner

1.026PFLOPS

Los Alamos, U.S.

1.105PFLOPS

In the United States, some supercomputer centers are interconnected on an Internet backbone known as vBNS or NSFNet. This network is the foundation for an evolving network infrastructure known as the National Technology Grid. Internet2 is a university-led project that is part of this initiative.

At the lower end of supercomputing, clustering takes more of a build-it-yourself approach to supercomputing. The Beowulf Project offers guidance on how to put together a number of off-the-shelf personal computer processors, using Linux operating systems, and interconnecting the processors with Fast Ethernet. Applications must be written to manage the parallel processing.

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Definition from WhatIs.com - whatis.techtarget.com

Top 10 Supercomputers

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If someone says "supercomputer," your mind may jump to Deep Blue, and you wouldn't be alone. IBM's silicon chess wizard defeated grandmaster Gary Kasparov in 1997, cementing it as one of the most famous computers of all time (some controversy around the win helped, too). For years, Deep Blue was the public face of supercomputers, but it's hardly the only all-powerful artificial thinker on the planet. In fact, IBM took Deep Blue apart shortly after the historic win! More recently, IBM made supercomputing history with Watson, which defeated "Jeopardy!" champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a special match.

Brilliant as they were, neither Deep Blue nor Watson would be able to match the computational muscle of the systems on the November 2013 TOP500 list. TOP500 calls itself a list of "the 500 most powerful commercially available computer systems known to us." The supercomputers on this list are a throwback to the early computers of the 1950s -- which took up entire rooms -- except modern computers are using racks upon racks of cutting-edge hardware to produce petaflops of processing power.

Your home computer probably runs on four processor cores. Most of today's supercomputers use hundreds of thousands of cores, and the top entry has more than 3 million.

TOP500 currently relies on the Linpack benchmark, which feeds a computer a series of linear equations to measure its processing performance, although an alternative testing method is in the works. The November 2013 list sees China's Tianhe-2 on top of the world. Every six months, TOP500 releases a list, and a few new computers rise into the ranks of the world's fastest. Here are the champions as of early 2014. Read on to see how they're putting their electronic mettle to work.

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Top 10 Supercomputers

Honeywell Says It Has Built The Worlds Most Powerful Quantum Computer – Forbes

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Honeywell says its new quantum computer is twice as fast than any other machine.

In the race to the future of quantum computing, Honeywell has just secured a fresh lead.

The North Carolina-based conglomerate announced Thursday that it has produced the worlds fastest quantum computer, at least twice as powerful as the existing computers operated by IBM and Google.

The machine, located in a 1,500-square-foot high-security storage facility in Boulder, Colorado, consists of a stainless steel chamber about the size of basketball that is cooled by liquid helium at a temperature just above absolute zero, the point at which atoms stop vibrating. Within that chamber, individual atoms floating above a computer chip are targeted with lasers to perform calculations.

While people have studied the potential of quantum computing for decades, that is, building machines with the ability to complete calculations beyond the limits of classic computers and supercomputers, the sector has until recently been limited to the intrigue of research groups at tech companies such as IBM and Google.

But in the past year, the race between those companies to claim supremacy and provide a commercial use in the quantum race has become heated. Honeywells machine has achieved a Quantum Volume of 64, a metric devised by IBM that measures the capability of the machine and error rates, but is also difficult to decipher (and as quantum computing expert Scott Aaronson wrote in March, is potentially possible to game). By comparison, IBM announced in January that it had achieved a Quantum Volume of 32 with its newest machine, Raleigh.

Google has also spent significant resources on developing its quantum capabilities and In October said it had developed a machine that completed a calculation that would have taken a supercomputer 10,000 years to process in just 200 seconds. (IBM disputed Googles claim, saying the calculation would have taken only 2.5 days to complete.)

Honeywell has been working toward this goal for the past decade when it began developing the technology to produce cryogenics and laser tools. In the past five years, the company assembled a team of more than 100 technologists entirely dedicated to building the machine, and in March, Honeywell announced it would be within three months a goal it was able to meet even as the Covid-19 turned its workforce upside down and forced some employees to work remotely. We had to completely redesign how we work in the facilities, had to limit who was coming on the site, and put in place physical barriers, says Tony Uttley, president of Honeywell Quantum Solutions. All of that happened at the same time we were planning on being on this race.

The advancement also means that Honeywell is opening its computer to companies looking to execute their own unimaginably large calculations a service that can cost about $10,000 an hour, says Uttley. While it wont disclose how many customers it has, Honeywell did say that it has a contract with JPMorgan Chase, which has its own quantum experts who will use its machine to execute gargantuan tasks, such as building fraud detection models. For those companies without in-house quantum experts, queries can be made through intermediary quantum firms, Zapata Computing and Cambridge Quantum Computing.

With greater access to the technology, Uttley says, quantum computers are nearing the point where they have graduated from an item of fascination to being used to solve problems like climate change and pharmaceutical development. Going forward, Uttley says Honeywell plans to increase the Quantum Volume of its machine by a factor of 10 every year for the next five years, reaching a figure of 640,000 a capability far beyond that imagined ever before.

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Honeywell Says It Has Built The Worlds Most Powerful Quantum Computer - Forbes

Lost Eight-Billion Light Years of the Universes Evolution – The Daily Galaxy –Great Discoveries Channel

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Posted on Jun 18, 2020 in Astronomy, Black Holes, Physics

Its likely there are another two million gravitational wave events from merging black holes a pair of merging black holes every 200 seconds and a pair of merging neutron stars every 15 seconds that scientists are not picking up, says Rory Smith at OzGrav (ARC Center of Excellence in Gravitational Wave Discovery), about a new method of detection being tested that means that we may be able to look more than 8 billion light years further than we are currently observing. This will give us a snapshot of what the early universe looked like while providing insights into the evolution of the universe, adds Smith.

Smith and his colleagues at Australias Monash University have developed a method to detect the presence of these weak or background events that to date have gone unnoticed, without having to detect each one individually. The method is currently being test driven by the Advanced LIGO-VIRGO gravitational-wave detector network that recorded data from 35 merging black holes and neutron stars in 2019.

The paper, recently published in the Royal Astronomical Society journal, details how researchers will measure the properties of a background of gravitational waves from the millions of unresolved black hole mergers.

Evolutionary Rosetta Stones Binary Black Hole Mergers

Binary black hole mergers release huge amounts of energy in the form of gravitational waves and are now routinely being detected by the Advanced LIGO-Virgo detector network. According to co-author, Eric Thrane from OzGrav-Monash, these gravitational waves generated by individual binary mergers carry information about spacetime and nuclear matter in the most extreme environments in the Universe. Individual observations of gravitational waves trace the evolution of stars, star clusters, and galaxies, he said.

Spacetime Uncertainty LIGO Going Quantum

By piecing together information from many merger events, we can begin to understand the environments in which stars live and evolve, and what causes their eventual fate as black holes., says Thrane. The further away we see the gravitational waves from these mergers, the younger the Universe was when they formed. We can trace the evolution of stars and galaxies throughout cosmic time, back to when the Universe was a fraction of its current age.

Vast Amounts of Missed Data

The researchers measure population properties of binary black hole mergers, such as the distribution of black hole masses. The vast majority of compact binary mergers produce gravitational waves that are too weak to yield unambiguous detections so vast amounts of information is currently missed by our observatories.

Flashbacks Gravitational Waves Create Memories of the Universe

Moreover, inferences made about the black hole population may be susceptible to a selection bias due to the fact that we only see a handful of the loudest, most nearby systems. Selection bias means we might only be getting a snapshot of black holes, rather than the full picture, Smith warned.

The analysis developed by Smith and Thrane is being tested using real world observations from the LIGO-VIRGO detectors with the program expected to be fully operational within a few years, according to Smith.

The Daily Galaxy, Sam Cabot, via Phys.org and Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery

Image credit: The OzStar Super Computer

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Lost Eight-Billion Light Years of the Universes Evolution - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

Supercomputer predicts final Premier League table – and it is good news for Watford and West Ham – Hertfordshire Mercury

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Premier League football returns this week for Watford and their top flight rivals.

When the action finally resumes on Wednesday, it will have been three months since the campaign was suspended due to the coronavirus crisis and there is a very short timeframe for the season to be concluded, with 92 matches still to be played, all of which will be televised on live TV and take place behind closed doors.

But there are still some big issues to be determined in the remaining games, with several clubs battling to avoid relegation, including Watford, West Ham and Brighton, who currently sit just outside the bottom three, with Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Norwich City currently in the relegation zone.

Renowned data analysts FiveThirtyEight have assessed the remaining fixtures and crunched the data to predict how the final rankings will look - and it's great news for Watford and West Ham.

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According to their calculations, Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Norwich are predicted to suffer relegation to the Championship, with West Ham, Watford and Brighton narrowly avoiding the drop.

Meanwhile, its great news for Leicester, Chelsea and potentially Manchester United when it comes to the top four battle.

Man Citys appeal against a two-year ban from UEFA competitions was heard last week with a decision expected in July. If upheld, fifth-place could secure Champions League football - which would benefit United, according to these predictions.

You can see the full predictions below.

2019/20 predicted Premier League table

1. Liverpool - 101 points

2. Man City - 81 points

3. Leicester - 67 points

4. Chelsea - 64 points

5. Manchester United - 62 points

6. Wolves - 57 points

7. Sheffield United - 55 points

8. Tottenham - 55 points

9. Arsenal - 53 points

10. Everton - 51 points

11. Burnley - 49 points

12. Crystal Palace - 48 points

13. Southampton - 44 points

14. Newcastle - 44 points

15. Brighton - 39 points

16. Watford - 39 points

17. West Ham - 38 points

18. Bournemouth - 36 points

19. Aston Villa - 34 points

20. Norwich - 30 points

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Supercomputer predicts final Premier League table - and it is good news for Watford and West Ham - Hertfordshire Mercury

Using nature to beat COVID-19 – whnt.com

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Posted: Jun 18, 2020 / 10:38 PM CDT / Updated: Jun 18, 2020 / 10:38 PM CDT

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. Whittling 50,000 down to 125 sounds pretty daunting, especially when youre talking about analyzing chemical compounds. Researchers are taking that first number of naturally occurring compounds and finding which of them have an effect on the COVID-19 virus.

In this case, the original big number became the promising 125. We have been looking at what chemicals out there in nature in plants, for instance, could be used to help us kill the virus or cure the virus, said Dr. Jerome Baudry, the leader of the effort at the Baudry Lab at UAH.

Ultimately the Baudry Lab in partnership with researchers at the University of Mississippi, will be testing some 400,000 naturally occurring compounds. The first tests were done in just days, and there is a good reason for that.

Ten years ago we probably would have been able to do it, but it would have taken months and we were able to do it in a few days thanks to this supercomputer that weve had at our disposal, said Dr. Baudry.

The Hewlett Packard Cray Sentinel super computer is located in Texas. It made it possible to test the 50,000 compounds in multiple ways against proteins in the virus. The goal was find which compounds inhibited the virus from doing what it wants to do. Were finding a way to use todays technology, and do something special.

Link it to this very old and ancestral knowledge of humanity about what plants exist, and what they do. Will they kill you? Will they save you, said Dr. Baudry.

Its the second question that is most on the mind of Dr. Baudry and all the people helping with this project. As the compounds are tested, the ones that appear to have an effect on the the virus will be sent to lab and tested on live virus. Make no mistake, this is a project that isnt looking for help years from now.

If we are really efficient, I would say within a year, probably a year is a safe optimistic, but safe estimate. It may take more than that. Normally it takes more than ten years to find a drug. We have to cut that down by an order of magnitude, and we think we can. said Dr. Jerome Baudry.

So, the first results are in, and everyone is excited, but the work is not nearly over. No one is sure which plants, fungi, or even bacteria will provide the magic compound. Dr. Baudry said it may very well be a combination, something like the combination of drugs that fight HIV and AIDS.

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Using nature to beat COVID-19 - whnt.com

Sugar-Coating Disguise Allows for Coronavirus Infection – UC San Diego Health

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According to Mary Poppins, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. In the case of coronavirus, a cloak of sugar helps the virus infect. This sugary-coating disguise, made of molecules called glycans, tricks the human immune system into identifying the microbe as harmless. The resulting recognition failure keeps the body from generating the defensive antibodies needed to destroy the invading coronavirus.

Rommie Amaro, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, UC San Diego

Using the National Science Foundation-funded Frontera supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), Professor ofChemistry and BiochemistryRommie Amaroalong with her UC San Diego colleagues and researchers from Maynooth University in Dublin, Ireland, led by Elisa Faddahas uncovered the atomic makeup of the coronavirus's sugary cloak. The simulation and modeling reveal that glycans also prime the coronavirus for infection by changing the shape of its spike protein. Scientists hope this basic research will add to the arsenal of knowledge needed to defeat the COVID-19 virus.

The more we know about it, the more of its abilities that we're going to be able to go after and potentially take out, Amaro said. It isof such great importance that we learn as much as we can about the virus. And then hopefully we can translate those understandings into things that will be useful either in the clinic or the streets; for example, if we're trying to reduce transmission for what we know now about aerosols and wearing masks. All these things will be part of it. Basic research has a huge role to play in the war against COVID-19. And I'm happy to be a part of it. It's a strength that we have Frontera and TACC in our arsenal.

Glycans coat each of the 65-odd spike proteins that adorn the coronavirus. The sugar-like molecules account for about 40 percent of the spike protein by weight. The spike proteins are critical to cell infection because they lock onto the cell surface, giving the virus entry into the cell.

Amaro, along with her UC San Diego colleagues Lorenzo Casalino, Zied Gaieb, Abigail Dommer, Emilia Barros and Bryn Taylor, explained that even to make an initial connection, one of the pieces of the spike protein in its receptor binding domain has to lift up. It is one of the things Fronterapart of the COVID-19 HPC Consortium along with San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diegohelped reveal: that in the open conformation, there are two glycans that basically prop up the spike protein.

That was really surprising to see. It's one of the major results of our study. It suggests that the role of glycans in this case is going beyond shielding to potentially having these chemical groups actually being involved in the dynamics of the spike protein, said Amaro, a corresponding author of the study published online June 12, 2020, by bioRxiv,org, a preprint repository.

Glycan shield in SARS-CoV-2 spike. (A) Molecular representation of the Open. Glycans at several frames (every 20 ns) are represented with blue lines, and the receptor binding domain within chain A is highlighted with a cyan transparent surface. (B-C) Plot of the surface area covered by glycan shielding at multiple probe radii from 1.4 (water molecule) to 15 for the head (B) and stalk (C). The area of the protein covered by the glycans is depicted in blue, while the grey line is the accessible area of the protein without glycans. Highlighted in green is the area that remains accessible in the presence of glycans, which is also graphically depicted on the structure in the panels located above the plots. Credit: Lorenzo Casalino (UC San Diego), et al.

When that receptor binding domain lifts up into the open conformation, it actually lifts the important bits of the protein up over the glycan shield, Amaro said, adding that this contrasts with the closed conformation, where the shield covers the spike protein. Our analysis gives a potential reason why it does have to undergo these conformational changes, because if it just stays in the down position those glycans are basically going to block the binding from actually happening, she said, adding that the shifts in the conformations of the glycans triggered changes in the spike protein structure.

Amaro compared the action of the glycan to pulling the trigger of a gun. When that bit of the spike goes up, the finger is on the trigger of the infection machinery. That's when it's in its most dangerous modeit is locked and loaded, Amaro said. When it gets like that, all it has to do is come up against an ACE2 receptor in the human cell, and then it's going to bind super tightly and the cell is basically infected.

The research team used computational methods to build data-centric models of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and then used computer simulations to explore different scientific questions about the virus. They started with various experimental datasets that revealed the structure of the virus. This included cryo-EM structures from the Jason McLellan Lab of The University of Texas at Austin; and from the lab of David Veesler at the University of Washington.

Their structures are really amazing because they give researchers a picture of what these important molecular machines actually look like, Amaro said.

SARS-CoV-2 virus spike protein system overview. (A) Sequence of the full-length spike protein contains the N-terminal domain (NTD), the receptor binding domain (RBD), the furin cleavage site, the fusion peptide (FP), the central helix (CH), the connecting domain (CD), the heptad repeat 2 (HR2) domain, the transmembrane domain (TD) and the cytoplasmic tail (CT). (B) Assembly of head, stalk, and cytoplasmic tail (CT) sections into a full-length model of the spike protein (C) Equilibrated, fully glycosylated and palmitoylated model of the Open system. (C-E) Magnified view of the N-/O- glycans (C, D) and S-palmitoylation of the cytoplasmic tail (E). Image by Lorenzo Casalino, et al.

Unfortunately, even the most powerful microscopes on Earth still can't resolve movement of the protein at the atomic scale.

What we do with computers is that we take the beautiful and wonderful and important data that they give us, but then we use methods to build in missing bits of information, Amaro said.What people really want to knowfor example, vaccineand drug developersare the vulnerabilities that are present in this shield.

The computer simulations allowed Amaro and colleagues to create a cohesive picture of the spike protein that includes the glycans.

The reason why the computer resources at TACC are so important is that we can't understand what these glycans look like if we don't use simulation, Amaro said.

In order to animate the dynamics of the 1.7 million atom system under study, a lot of computing power was needed, said Amaro.

That's really where Frontera has been fantastic, because we need to sample relatively long dynamics, microsecond to millisecond timescales, to understand how this protein is actually working. We've been able to do that with Frontera and the COVID-19 HPC Consortium, Amaro said. Now we're trying to share our data with as many people as we can, because people want a dynamical understanding of what's happeningnot only with other academic groups, but also with different pharmaceutical and biotech companies that are conducting neutralizing antibody development, she said, adding that basic research is making a difference in winning the war against the SARS-Co-V-2 virus.

This research was supported by NIH (GM132826), NSF (RAPID MCB-2032054), an award from the RCSA Research Corp., a UC San Diego Moore's Cancer Center 2020 SARS-COV-2 seed grant, the Visible Molecular Cell Consortium and the Irish Research Council.

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Sugar-Coating Disguise Allows for Coronavirus Infection - UC San Diego Health

Have Some Dad Fun: Tell Him That Self-Driving Cars On Earth Might Discover Intelligent Life On Other Planets And See What He Says – Forbes

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Talking with your dad and having some fun.

Dads know everything.

Well, almost.

Ask him if there is intelligent life beyond our planet.

Nobody yet knows, though there are plenty of efforts to find out.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been going on for many years, seeking to answer that very question.

The most common means for conducting this vexing search consists of examining electromagnetic pulses coming from outer space. By intercepting such pulses as they are radiating across space, we hope to spot anything that might be a telltale clue of intelligent life that is beaming out those rays.

It could be that some intelligent creatures are purposely trying to send us a message, doing so from far away, and they are hoping that we are astute enough to detect the message. In that sense, the communique could be a purposeful one.

Or, it might be that there are intelligent creatures inadvertently broadcasting electromagnetic exhaust or spillover from the machines theyve made and by how they live and travel on their own planet.

In that case, we might get lucky and detect the leakage, remarkably discovering the intelligent life and yet perhaps it has not yet discovered us.

What are the odds of making such an incredible discovery?

You might have heard of the famous Drake equation, a formula that was devised in the early 1960s by scientist Frank Drake to help estimate the odds of their being intelligent life in our galaxy. His equation is relatively simple and yet powerful enough to have been long-lasting. Many have expanded upon his equation.

In any case, he had tried to estimate the odds that there are detectable civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy.

By monitoring narrow-bandwidth radio signals and doing copious analysis of the signals, maybe we can ferret out that intelligent life is close to home (somewhere in our own galaxy). Various scientists have played with Drakes equation and some say that the probability of there being other intelligent life in our galaxy and that we are able to detect them is near to zero (so close to zero that we should assume it is zero), while others claim that it is definitely a non-zero chance and we have a reasonable basis to keep looking.

Recently, the Astrobiological Copernican Limit theory has been proposed, which postulates that there are perhaps 36 such planets, but there is controversy associated with this latest approach and some still argue that the actual number remains at or much closer to zero.

We can continue to look even if the odds are slim.

People are undertaking the off-world search for various reasons.

One reason is out of pure curiosity.

Another is that if there is intelligent life, maybe we can learn something from them that will help us.

Yet another reason is the sci-fi portrayal that maybe an intelligent life will ultimately come to take over our planet, and thus we ought to find them before they start their invasion.

As part of the search, computers can be used to examine the radio signals coming from outer space that scientists are in the process of collecting. It is a tedious effort by computers and involves mathematically looking for patterns within the radio signals.

By-and-large, the radio waves are just noise, random bits of this or that, and the assumption is that if there a distinct pattern within the signals, it could mean that those are emanating as a purposeful signal.

Supercomputers of massive computational capability have been and are continuing to be used to examine the voluminous radio signal data.

It is a never-ending task.

Years ago, some enterprising searchers realized that it might be possible to harness everyday desktop computers and laptops to also aid in the electronic hunt.

A screen saver program was developed that could be easily loaded onto a PC and be used as an active participant in the search. Essentially, via the Internet, segments of radio signal data could be downloaded and the computer would crunch away, ultimately reporting its analysis back to the master cloud-based search system.

If you could get lots and lots of home computers doing this, and if you carefully coordinated the data being parceled out, you could do as much or even more than a supercomputer might be able to do.

Some liken this to the democratization of the search for intelligent life, while others say it is merely a practical way to leverage the millions upon millions of everyday desktop and laptop computers that now exist on our planet.

Those that download and employ the software are willingly allowing their computers to be used in the search effort. Much of the time your desktop computer is likely idle and has nothing especially important to do.

Why not let it participate in a larger than life kind of effort, quietly aiming to discover intelligent life elsewhere?

You might say that you dont want to know whether there is other intelligent life, and therefore decide to not be part of the search. Sure, thats fine.

Or, you might not want your computer to be used for anything other than for your own purposes. Thats fine too.

Those that relish conspiracy theories are apt to even believe that if their computer happens to be the one that detects intelligent life, those intelligent beings might decide that the owner of that particular computer is the first to go.

Ironically, you could have done yourself in by simply participating in the search process.

For those of you that have already participated in the search, you likely made use of SETI@home, which has been provided and maintained by the University of California Berkeley (heres the link).

Earlier this year, they announced that the SETI@home software was going into hibernation and that they would no longer be distributing new tasks. Meanwhile, the SETI@home message boards are continuing to operate, and they are working fervently on the back-end data analysis.

As they say, maybe they will find ET.

Heres an intriguing question: Could the advent of true self-driving cars potentially help us in the search for discovering intelligent life on other planets?

Lets unpack the matter and see.

The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars

It is important to clarify what I mean when referring to true self-driving cars.

True self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isnt any human assistance during the driving task.

These driverless cars are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-ons that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).

There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we dont yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).

Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, computer processing capabilities are typically less powerful than the computers used on truly autonomous cars. As will be explained shortly, the powerful computers employed in true self-driving cars will be the key to the suggestion that driverless cars can help find intelligent life outside of our planet.

For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that I mention a disconcerting aspect, namely that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, do not be misled into believing that you can take away your attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.

You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the car, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.

Self-Driving Cars And The Search For Intelligent Life

For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving cars, since they are going to be equipped with quite powerful computers, we can consider how those self-driving cars can be an aid in the search for intelligent life.

The AI software will be running on the on-board in-car computers and has the revered life-or-death role of driving the car.

There isnt a human driving the car.

Occupants inside a self-driving car are passengers.

While a self-driving car is in motion, the AI is dutifully churning away and examining the sensory data to figure out what the driving scene consists of. The AI must interpret the data and make decisions about what the self-driving car should do next. This is a computationally intensive task and requires some rather impressive computing capabilities to be included in the self-driving car.

To get software updates for the AI system, there is an on-board electronic communication capability known as OTA (Over-The-Air). The OTA is also used to take the collected data from the on-board sensors and push it up into the cloud, allowing cloud-based servers to use the data to uncover additional Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) improvements about the driving task.

At some point, if the driverless car is an EV (Electrical Vehicle), it likely needs to be parked and plugged into a charger to get the electrical power pumped back up. While the self-driving car is sitting there, presumably the AI has nothing much to do. The computers on-board the driverless car are relatively idle at that time.

This brings us to a crucial point to be considered.

You could potentially use those idle computing cycles to search for intelligent life.

One means of leveraging the topnotch processors of a self-driving car would be to engage them in the same kind of radio signal processing that your desktop computer can do. A downloaded and bona fide variant of a SETI program could be residing in the computer memory of the self-driving car and be activated when the car is parked and doing nothing else of merit.

Via OTA, radio signal data would be downloaded into the on-board computer memory, and once the analysis is done, the results could be pushed back into the cloud.

Might as well use the self-driving car on-board computers for something that can possibly help mankind.

Now, it might seem puzzling to think that a solitary self-driving car is going to somehow demonstrably help in this matter. Keep in mind that there are about 250 million conventional cars in the United States today. Eventually, inexorably, it is assumed that those conventional cars will be retired and gradually be replaced by true self-driving cars.

Some argue that we might not need the same number of driverless cars, meaning that we might end-up with some lesser number of driverless cars to provide the equivalent transport volume as todays 250 million conventional cars.

Meanwhile, an equally compelling argument is that we might end up with more driverless cars than the number of todays conventional cars, doing so because of the principle of induced demand. Induced demand is the concept that once you start something new it can bring forth added demand that was previously being suppressed.

If people that today are mobility disadvantaged opt to use driverless cars, and if we all become expectant of near-instantaneous mobility-on-demand, the number of driverless cars needed to fulfill societal needs could well exceed the number of todays conventional cars.

Anyway, putting aside this unresolved debate about the count, perhaps we can all agree that there is likely to be at least some hundreds of millions of driverless cars in our future.

If all those millions upon millions of self-driving cars were using their top-end computers to analyze the radio signals, during idle moments, it would be a huge boost in the extraterrestrial search effort.

It could be a resounding game-changer in the search for intelligent life.

Fleet owners of driverless cars could establish a SETI search capability into their fleet.

As a passenger, you might be utterly unaware that the fleet is supporting the intelligent life search effort. Or, the fleet owner might intentionally want you to know about the search activities, using their largess as a kind of marketing ploy to lure you to using their set of self-driving cars.

Ive so far emphasized that the on-board computers would be only leveraged when the self-driving car is parked and has no other task at hand, but this is not the only circumstance that might allow for doing the radio signal analyses.

As a human driver, you know that there are times while driving a car that involves sitting still and idling such as when you are waiting at a red light, or waiting for a pedestrian crossing in the crosswalk.

During those idle moments, while the vehicle is still in traffic, the on-board self-driving computer could spare a few cycles and digest further the proffered radio signal data.

We can up the ante.

Your driverless car is on the freeway and zipping along. Assume that there is no other significant traffic nearby. The driving scene is barren of anything other than simply driving straight ahead. In theory, the on-board self-driving computers could potentially do some alien outer space life searching during those moments too.

Conclusion

Two birds with one stone.

You can have self-driving cars and meanwhile also be undertaking monumental search efforts to discover intelligent life on other planets.

It seems like a great combo deal.

There are though some potential drawbacks.

First, some might argue that any spare moments of the on-board self-driving computers ought to go toward the number one priority of driving the car.

Even though a car is perhaps sitting at a red light, there is still the opportunity to be continually examining and re-examining the driving scene. The argument can be made that the on-board computers in a self-driving car should be exclusively used toward the driving task, at all times, including even when the self-driving car is parked (reviewing the totality of the driving efforts of the day, finding improvements in how to do a better job at driving in the future).

Another concern is that the SETI-like program used to search for intelligent life might somehow go awry. Suppose the specialized search software causes the on-board computers to get into a locked-up loop and those self-driving computers are unable to be switched over into the driving mode.

Not a good outcome.

Worse too, suppose someone attaches a computer virus to the extraterrestrial search program. A fleet owner that has downloaded the search software is providing a goldmine form of access to the nefarious computer virus maker. In a Trojan horse manner, the evildoer virus could be easily pushed out to millions of self-driving cars, doing so under the guise of trying to help mankind.

You can see why there are some that eschew the idea of using self-driving cars to aid in the intelligent life search.

Should though all that state-of-the-art computing power inside the self-driving car be doing nothing of consequence when there is otherwise idle time?

Some ask whether we can just make sure to put in place enough safeguards to ensure that the search for intelligent life by self-driving cars is intelligently and safely devised.

Right now, the automakers and tech firms are struggling with simply trying to get self-driving cars to drive properly, let alone be worried about the search for intelligent life. You likely wont see anyone directly considering this topic for years to come, only once the advent of true self-driving cars seems more assured.

One final thought.

Suppose that the sooner we could find intelligent life, the sooner we might learn of tech advances that we havent yet conceived of. Perhaps any delay in using self-driving cars for finding intelligent life might postpone our discovering that we can beam humans, just like in Star Trek, being able to do away with automobiles of any kind.

Well, all in all, consider asking your dad about the matter and see what he says.

Im sure hell know best.

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Have Some Dad Fun: Tell Him That Self-Driving Cars On Earth Might Discover Intelligent Life On Other Planets And See What He Says - Forbes