NASA signals openness to change with new Solar System exploration hire – Ars Technica

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Enlarge / Bobby Braun, seen in Mission Control at NASA's Jet Propulsion, will move to the lab in early 2020.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has found a new leader for its Solar System exploration program, and the choice of Bobby Braun signals a willingness to adapt to the changing world of aerospace.

Braun, an engineer who specializes in cutting-edge technology, will join the NASA laboratory from the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he served as dean. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (or JPL) has led NASA's efforts to explore the Solar System with uncrewed spacecraft from the beginning.

"JPL has always been a special place to me," Braun said in an interview. "It is the center of our nation's planetary exploration efforts, with flagship missions that have rewritten our textbooks." Those missions have included the Voyager excursions through and beyond the Solar System, dedicated probes to Jupiter and Saturn, and multiple landings on Mars.

JPL's preeminence as the world leader in planetary probes is not in doubt, but several threatssuch as budget pressures and competition from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for missionsmay have led Center Director Michael Watkins to conduct a broad search for a new leader of the lab's programs for Solar System exploration.

In a Monday memo to JPL employees announcing Braun's appointment to the position, effective January 15, 2020, Watkins wrote, "Over the past several months, I have conducted a national search for the right leader to carry forward implementation of our present planetary exploration missions and, in concert with the external community, plan the future of this enterprise which is critical to the Lab, NASA, and the nation."

Braun has experience working with JPL, as well as for NASAfrom 2010 to 2011, he served as the NASA chief technologist and created what is now the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate. But he also has spent half of his career in academia, so he is attuned to the needs of scientists who propose and lead these exploration missions, and he also has a reputation for working with private spaceflight companies to harness commercial ideas to improve government-led projects.

For example, Braun was heavily involved in setting up a partnership between JPL, NASA, and the rocket company SpaceX to use its Red Dragon proposal for the scientific exploration of Mars. This ultimately did not happen for a number of reasons, including the decision by SpaceX to move on to building the much larger Starship vehicle. But it is an example of Braun working beyond traditional means of Solar System exploration."Sometimes it takes somebody from the outside to bring organizations together around these kinds of ideas," Braun said.

As part of Braun's hiring, JPL will likely undergo a reorganization, according to Watkins' memo. The lab isconducting a study about merging significant portions of the existing Mars Exploration Directorate into the Solar System Exploration Directorate. This would bring about half of JPL's exploration activities under Braun's leadership of Solar System programs. The other half includes Earth science, astrophysics, and work JPL does for other NASA centers.

Braun will have to hit the ground running. The lab's next major mission, the Mars 2020 rover, is due to launch on July 17. Braun will also superintend work on an ambitious orbital mission to the Jupiter system focused on its icy moon Europa as well as the Psyche mission to a metallic asteroid. Both could launch in the early 2020s depending on budget and work schedules.

Beyond that, Braun said he hopes to further NASA's efforts to possibly find life elsewhere in the Solar System and help ensure that a long-awaited Mars Sample Return mission finally happens.

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NASA signals openness to change with new Solar System exploration hire - Ars Technica

Canadian scientists team up with Barbie to help girls imagine a ‘really cool career’ – University Affairs

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Barbies You Can Be Anything campaign matches girls up with female mentors excelling in male-dominated fields.

Girls everywhere have been fans of Mattels iconic Barbie doll since the toy debuted in 1959. Victoria Kaspi, an astrophysicist at McGill University, was no different; she loved Barbies feminine clothing when she was a child, and played with the doll as much as she played with her Lego and math toys.

Barbie didnt serve as an inspiration for the career Dr. Kaspi has today. But Mattels You Can Be Anything campaign, in partnership with National Geographic, could be the inspiration some girls need to see themselves in male-dominated fields like astronomy. The campaign, which is in its fourth year, included the launch of five new Barbie dolls in careers where women are underrepresented, and a contest that sends girls from across Canada to spend a day with female mentors who work in those fields all in an effort to encourage girls to believe they can be anything. This years dolls represent the fields of astrophysics, polar marine biology, wildlife conservation, entomology and wildlife photojournalism. Dr. Kaspi, one of the mentors chosen for 2019, spent a day with her six-year-old mentee in August.

The five new dolls (left to right): astrophysicist, polar marine biologist, photojournalist, wildlife conservationist, and entomologist.

Barbie dolls are very popular among girls, Dr. Kaspi says. Getting these kind of careers to be normalized, to seem normal to little girls is one of the many things I think is important to do to increase the number of women in STEM.

The two visited Mont Megantic Observatory and the Astrolab museum near Sherbrooke, Quebec, and discussed astronomy, how astronomical equipment works and why understanding weather patterns is important for stargazing. Dr. Kaspi says the conversation went on naturally, as if the experience of women and girls together discussing the details of scientific research was a common experience. It was all presented in a positive light, Dr. Kaspi says. She adds that her mentee was really fun to be with, curious, inquisitive, a little shy.

Dr. Kaspi with her six-year-old mentee, Zoey.

Dr. Kaspi says there are intangible barriers that make it harder for women in science. You have to prove yourself a little bit more. You dont quite fit the mold, she says. To make your point in a crowd, or have your expertise trusted and believed, you have to go the extra mile to be accepted as an authority. She says the campaign isnt the one silver bullet that will solve the problem of underrepresentation of women in careers like hers, but its a step forward.

Sara Iverson, a professor at Dalhousie University, shared her marine biology expertise with an 11-year-old mentee as part of the campaign in July. They tagged sharks in the Atlantic Ocean and visited Dr. Iversons lab to meet graduate students and learn about the marine biology work the students do. Although the water was rough and half the boat crew got sick, including the little girl, Dr. Iverson says her mentee is a huge fan of sharks and was ultimately thrilled by the experience.

Its no secret Barbie has faced criticism for presenting an unrealistic body image and beauty standards. And over the years, the dolls interests and career choices have tended to fields traditionally associated with women shes been a teacher, ballerina, babysitter and baby doctor, just to name a few. But the fact that Mattel moved to creating dolls with different body types and different skin colours, and really trying to embrace different kinds of careers, I think thats a really good message, Dr. Iverson says.

My opinion is simply that little girls are going to play with Barbie, she adds. What better way to play with them than to use it to imagine a really cool career? I think outreach and education and messaging about imagining what you can do can come in all sorts of forms. And play is one of those forms.

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Canadian scientists team up with Barbie to help girls imagine a 'really cool career' - University Affairs

Astronomers Discover Massive Galaxy Surrounded by an Unexpected Halo of Tranquil Gas – SciTechDaily

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An artists impression of CSIROs ASKAP radio telescope detecting a fast radio burst (FRB). Scientists dont know what causes FRBs but it must involve incredible energyequivalent to the amount released by the Sun in 80 years. Credit: OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology.

Astronomers studying the outskirts of a distant galaxy have discovered the galaxy sits in a serene ocean of gas.

The massive galaxy, which is about four billion light-years from Earth, is surrounded by a halo of gas that is much less dense and less magnetized than expected.

The finding was published on September 26, 2019, in the journal Science.

Co-author Associate Professor Jean-Pierre Macquart, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), said gas on the outskirts of galaxies has traditionally been hard to study.

The halo of gas can actually extend out 10 times further than the stars in a galaxy, and can contain a substantial amount of the matter thats in a galaxy, he said.

But its very difficult to see the gas directly with a telescope.

Associate Professor Macquart said this discovery was made using a new technique involving fast radio burstspowerful flashes of energy from deep space.

Fast radio bursts come from all over the sky and last for just milliseconds, he said.

They involve incredible energyequivalent to the amount released by the Sun in 80 years.

Were not sure what causes them, and have only recently been able to pinpoint the galaxies they come from.

Associate Professor Macquart said the research team looked at how a single fast radio burst distorted as it traveled five billion light-years through the Universe.

Along the way, the burst shot through a galaxys halo of gas, like a lighthouses beam cutting through the fog.

Associate Professor Macquart said the researchers expected the signal from the fast radio burst to be distorted by the galaxy.

If you go out on a hot summers day, you see the air shimmering and the trees in the background look distorted because of the temperature and density fluctuations in the air, he said.

Thats what we thought would happen, that the signal from the fast radio burst would be completely distorted after passing through the hot atmosphere of the galaxy.

But instead of the stormy galactic weather we were expecting, the pulse we observed had traveled through a calm sea of unperturbed gas.

The finding suggests that galaxy halos are much more serene than previously thought, with gas that is less turbulent, less dense and less magnetized than expected.

One reason astronomers are so interested in galaxy halos is because they can help us understand why material is ejected from galaxies, causing them to stop growing.

An artists impression of Fast Radio Burst 181112 traveling through the halo of a galaxy 4 billion light-years from Earth. J. Josephides, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology.

University of California Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics J. Xavier Prochaska, who led the research, said halo gas provides a fossil record of these ejection processes.

So our observations can inform theories about how matter is ejected and how magnetic fields are transported from the galaxy, he said.

Professor Prochaska said the team now plans to test other galaxies.

Our research appears to reveal something entirely new about galactic halos, he said.

Unless of course, this galaxy happens to be just some weird exceptionand with only one object you cant be sure about that.

A fast radio burst leaves a distant galaxy, traveling to Earth over billions of years and occasionally passing through clouds of gas in its path. Each time a cloud of gas is encountered, the different wavelengths that make up a burst are slowed by different amounts. Timing the arrival of the different wavelengths at a radio telescope tells us how much material the burst has traveled through on its way to Earth and allows astronomers to detect missing matter located in the space between galaxies. Credit: CSIRO/ICRAR/OzGrav/Swinburne University of Technology.

The research used a fast radio burst that was detected in November by CSIROs Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), in outback Western Australia.

The telescope is a precursor to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which will be the worlds largest radio telescope when its built in the next decade.

The study was led by Professor Xavier Prochaska from the University of California and involved 19 researchers from around the world.

We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamaji as the traditional owners of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) site and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

Read Galaxys Tranquil Halo Illuminated by Enigmatic Radio Burst for more coverage of this topic.

Reference: The low density and magnetization of a massive galaxy halo exposed by a fast radio burst (PDF) by J. Xavier Prochaska, Jean-Pierre Macquart, Matthew McQuinn, Sunil Simha, Ryan M. Shannon, Cherie K. Day, Lachlan Marnoch, Stuart Ryder, Adam Deller, Keith W. Bannister, Shivani Bhandari, Rongmon Bordoloi, John Bunton, Hyerin Cho, Chris Flynn, Elizabeth K. Mahony, Chris Phillips, Hao Qiu and Nicolas Tejos, 26 September 2019, Science.DOI: 10.1126/science.aay0073

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Astronomers Discover Massive Galaxy Surrounded by an Unexpected Halo of Tranquil Gas - SciTechDaily

"Abodes of Advanced Life?" –Oldest Objects in the Universe Orbiting the Milky Way – The Daily Galaxy –Great Discoveries Channel

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Globular clusters, of which seem to have formed together with the Milky Way, among the oldest objects in the universe, provide astronomers with natural laboratories for the study of stellar evolution processes and, perhaps, some speculate, may harbor advanced extraterrestrial life. An international group of astronomers using the CanadaFranceHawaii Telescope (CFHT) and Keck Observatory, has zoomed in on a satellite globular cluster, Laevens 3, one of 160 known to orbit the Milky Way in its galactic outer halo.

Globular clusters are among the oldest objects that formed about 11.5 billion years ago, 2.3 billion years after the Big Bang and shortly before the rate of cosmic star formation reached its peak, 10 billion years ago. This period is known as cosmic high noon. The clusters are very bright and can be seen at very large distances, which means that they can give us clues as to how the galaxies were assembled during this period of maximum star formation, says astrophysicist Rosa Amelia Gonzlez-Lpezlira, researcher at the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico who was not involved in the new study.

Possible Abodes of Advanced Civilizations

In January of 2016 we quoted Rosanne DiStefano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) who said that a globular cluster might be the first place in which intelligent life is identified in our galaxy. Globular star clusters are extraordinary in almost every way. Theyre densely packed, holding a million stars in a ball only about 100 light-years across on average, dating back almost to the birth of the Milky Way. And according to DiStefanos research, they also could be extraordinarily good places to look for space-faring civilizations.

Globular Clusters Orbiting the Milky Way Might Be the First Place Intelligent Life is Identified (CfA)

Located some 470,00 light-years away from the Earth, Laevens 3 (or Lae 3 for short) discovered in 2015 using the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope is a faint cluster, about eight billion years old, with a half-light radius of around 23 light-years and low metallicity. To put its distance in perspective, the Milky Ways disk is only 100,000 light years across, or about an amazing sixth of the distance to the Andromeda Galaxy.

Observation of Laevens 3 Globular Cluster

Observations of such faint and distant satellite systems, reports Tomasz Nowakowski at Phys.org, could shed more light on the formation and evolution of our home galaxy, which inspired a new study by a team of astronomers led by Nicolas Longeard of the Observatory of Strasbourg in France.

We present a photometric and spectroscopic study of the Milky Way satellite Laevens 3. Using MegaCam/CFHT g and i photometry and Keck II/DEIMOS multi-object spectroscopy, we refine the structural and stellar properties of the system, the astronomers wrote in the paper.

Globular Cluster Opportunity Harbors Milky Ways Oldest Known Planet

The study found that Laevens 3 is larger and older than previously thought. The color-magnitude diagram shows that it is about 13 billion years old.

According to the paper, all the results suggest that the cluster exhibits the main characteristics of Milky Way outer halo globular clusters. Moreover, the study found that Laevens 3 showcases signs of mass segregation, which confirms the globular cluster nature of this system.

Overall, Laevens 3 shares the typical properties of the Milky Ways outer halo globular clusters. Furthermore, we find that this system shows signs of mass segregation, which strengthens our conclusion that Laevens 3 is a globular cluster, the researchers concluded with an outer halo orbit with a pericenter of about 133,000 light-years and an apocenter of approximately 279,000 light-years..The Daily Galaxy via Phys.org and New Scientist

The Hubble image at the top of the page, Messier 54, could be just another globular cluster, but this dense and faint group of stars was in fact the first globular cluster found that is outside our galaxy.

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"Abodes of Advanced Life?" --Oldest Objects in the Universe Orbiting the Milky Way - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

Faith And The Environment: Why Climate Change Is An Everything Issue – KJZZ

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Katharine Hayhoe never meant to become a climate scientist. In fact, in college she started out studying astrophysics, but she needed one more class to finish her degree, and she found one in the geography department on climate science.

She said taking that class completely changed her perspective. It showed her that climate change isnt an environmental issue its an everything issue.

Since then, Hayoe has dedicated her life to the cause.

Shes now the director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, and she was just named a U.N. Champion of the Earth, the United Nations highest environmental honor.

Shes also an evangelical Christian who wrote a book with her husband whos also a pastor called "Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions."

She was in Phoenix for the Geological Society of Americas annual meeting last week. The Show spoke with her about her work and why she calls climate change a threat multiplier.

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Faith And The Environment: Why Climate Change Is An Everything Issue - KJZZ

Galactic gas: A bump in the radio road – Particle

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Galactic gas: A bump in the radio road

When you think about the shape of a galaxy, most of us can imagine the Milky Way and its spinning disc of stars.

But where a galaxy ends, theres still a lot of material surrounding it an area referred to as the galactic halo.

Astronomers have been studying these haloes over the years with the hope of learning more about the life cycle of galaxies.

A group of physicists have discovered something unusual about the galactic halo, and it could be a piece in the puzzle of why galaxies stop growing.

Image|J. Josephides, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology.

An artists impression of Fast Radio Burst 181112 travelling through the halo of a galaxy 4 billion light-years from Earth.

To explain what was found by this multinational team of astrophysicists, we first need to talk about fast radio bursts (FRBs).

FRBs are powerful flashes of energy from deep space that appear for mere milliseconds in our night sky.

Depending on what these bursts pass through as you can see in the video below the light can arrive distorted in a variety of ways.

In November 2018, an FRB was detected that had passed through a galaxy 4 billion light years away.

This burst was picked up by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope in outback Western Australia.

When this burst passed through the galaxy, researchers expected the wild and stormy gases in its galactic halo would distort the signal.

What they found instead was a tranquil sea of gas surrounding the galaxy.

Video|CSIRO/ICRAR/OzGrav/Swinburne University of Technology.

A fast radio burst leaves a distant galaxy, travelling to Earth over billions of years and occasionally passing through clouds of gas in its path

Galactic haloes have always been difficult to study, according to astrophysicist Associate Professor Jean-Pierre Macquart.

The halo of gas can actually extend out 10 times further than the stars in a galaxy and can contain a substantial amount of the matter thats in a galaxy, he says.

But its very difficult to see the gas directly with a telescope.

Jean-Pierre is from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), which manages ASKAP, and is a co-author of the study.

The study brought together astronomers from around the world with researchers from Australia, Japan, Korea, America and Chile.

He says the research team looked at how a single FRB distorted as it travelled 5 billion light years through the universe.

They believed the signal would be distorted by the galactic halo, much in the same way heat can cause air to shimmer.

Thats what we thought would happen that the signal from the fast radio burst would be completely distorted after passing through the hot atmosphere of the galaxy, says Jean-Pierre.

But instead of the stormy galactic weather we were expecting, the pulse we observed had travelled through a calm sea of unperturbed gas.

It means these gas haloes could be a lot less turbulent than astronomers thought, with less density and magnetisation.

Image|OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology.

An artists impression of fast radio bursts (FRBs).

University of California Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics J. Xavier Prochaska led the research and says halo gas has a similar use to fossil records only on a galactic scale.

Our observations can inform theories about how matter is ejected and how magnetic fields are transported from the galaxy, he says.

Our research appears to reveal something entirely new about galactic haloes.

Unless of course, this galaxy happens to be just some weird exception and with only one object, you cant be sure about that.

Finding another FRB which has travelled through a galaxys halo is the next big test.

And if we find the same results, it could help us figure out why galaxies suddenly stop growing.

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Galactic gas: A bump in the radio road - Particle

‘Ad Astra’ is enjoyable, but fails to deliver on many expectations – The Massachusetts Daily Collegian

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'Ad Astra' is an unique popcorn flick packed with adventure, excitement and drama.

By Jeffrey Epro, Collegian CorrespondentOctober 1, 2019

Ad Astra, starring Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones, has been hailed as this years Interstellar. I walked into the theater expecting to be blown away with lots of science, character development and philosophical-thought-fostering questions. But out of all three, Ad Astra only delivers on one, maybe two and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

The opening scene is of Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) giving a meaningful monologue about his mission. Cosmic rays have been blasting the Earth from an unknown origin outside of Saturn. As McBride is en route to repair external damage of the satellite, he is hit yet again by another cosmic blast. It seems he is doomed, but he stays calm in the face of adversity. He becomes focused, analyzing the situation he is in and does everything in his power to stay conscious during his descent to Earth. After recovering from his fall, he is enlisted by the space agency yet again this time to travel to Mars and send a message to Neptune in hopes of establishing contact with his long-lost father, played by Tommy Lee Jones.

It is unfair to walk into Ad Astra with hopes of feeling scientifically satisfied. Even though the film is branded as a science fiction movie, director James Gray only puts emphasis on the fiction aspect of this genre. The science of Ad Astra, whether it be astrophysics or space travel, could have been written by a middle-schooler in a creative writing class, to the point where it is almost insulting. It feels like the writers made a conscious decision to involve as little science as possible. In one scene, while Clifford McBride is gathering himself in the safety of a spaceship traveling to another planet, his fellow astronauts are seen in the background amusing themselves by playing with food in zero gravity. Their whole purpose of this scene is to see the astronauts play with their food and laugh about it. Other examples include impossible zero gravity leaps from spacecraft to spacecraft, characters not being ripped apart by space shrapnel and space monkeys. Science and the accuracy of space travel wasnt just set on the back burner in this film, it never made it on the grill.

Despite failing to live up the science that is expected with a space movie, Ad Astra uses the genre of science fiction as a medium to convey a story. What makes science fiction unique is that it allows storytellers to explore ideas otherwise unavailable in other genres, such as infinite, extraterrestrial life and time dissonance. One might claim that the genre of fantasy or fiction can accomplish the same goal in expressing abstract ideas, but science fiction is different in the way that it involves modernity. The presence of political turmoil and social commentary enrich the world-building of Ad Astra.

Theres plenty of common genre tropes that are present in the movie. The only reason that there is even a resemblance of meaningful character development is because of the monologues delivered in the form of video transmissions and journal entries. Without these, the intentions and thoughts of the main character McBride would be completely unknown and viewers would be devoid of any sympathy for the characters in this film. At some points in the film I had to wonder if McBride was actually a superhero because of his robust showcase of strength and intelligence. His ability to make all the right decisions is astonishing, but he is emotionally unavailable due to trauma hes experienced as a young child. This internal struggle aims to be the heart of the film.

McBride is a textbook astronaut hero. It almost seems like propaganda at some points with how well Brad Pitt personifies a perfect American astronaut. Despite this, it is still entertaining to watch. McBride has never had his heartbeat break 80 BPM while hes in the field on a mission. He has a wife, but remains detached so his emotions do not impede his decision-making. He has dedicated his life to space. He lives by the Latin quote Per aspera ad astra through hardship to the stars.

Gray perfectly captures the essence of space with beautiful cinematic shots expressing the magnitude of the position that these astronauts are in. This is a beautiful constant throughout the movie and reinforces the idea that the astronauts are in a foreign yet shockingly stunning environment. Ad Astra is rife with gorgeous cinematography and production design.

All in all, Ad Astra is a beautiful mess. I didnt get the Interstellar that I was prodded to expect from the trailers, but it had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. If you can look past some of the questionable decisions that the writers made and some glaring plot holes, it is an action-packed and exciting movie to enjoy.

Jeffrey Epro can be reached at [emailprotected]

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'Ad Astra' is enjoyable, but fails to deliver on many expectations - The Massachusetts Daily Collegian

talkSPORT Super Computer predicts where every club will finish in the 2019/20 Premier League table *October – talkSPORT.com

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Were now two months into the Premier League season and, quite frankly, its even more chaotic than we imagined.

Sure, unbeaten Liverpool and title holders Manchester City look by far and away the best teams but elsewhere were seeing unpredictable results and performances from every team.

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Newcastle United looked a smart and solid outfit in their victory over Tottenham but against Leicester City looked incapable of battling against relegation to the Championship.

Top four contenders Arsenal have looked excellent one minute and laughable the next in several of their matches, while Manchester United are also rotating between sublime and ridiculous.

Its making for interesting viewing with teams like Leicester now seeing a real opening to break into the top six but just how will it all play out across the season?

We booted up the talkSPORT Super Computer to find out just what is going to happen.

You can see the results and the predicted Premier League table below

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Saturday is GameDay on talkSPORT and talkSPORT 2 as we become your go to destination for all the Premier League action.

Well bring you LIVE commentary of Premier League games across all three time slots on Saturday 12.30pm, 3pm and 5.30pm delivering award-winning coverage to moreGameDaylisteners than ever.

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India is on its way to become a supercomputer power – Quartz India

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Indias recent Chandrayaan-2 mission, which almost soft landed a probe on the moon, had a palpable zeal, which, as prime minister Narendra Modipointed out, will be felt in other realms of the knowledge society.

With renewed aspirations to excel in science, engineering, and business, the time is ripe for India to invest in the infrastructure that will help achieve these goalsamong them, supercomputers.

Developed, and almost-developed, countries have begun investing heavily in high-performance computing to boost their economies and tackle the next generation of social problems.

With their unique ability to simulate the real world, by processing massive amounts of data, supercomputers have made cars and planes safer, and fuel more efficient and environment friendly. They help in the extraction of new sources of oil and gas, development of alternative energy sources, and the advancement of medical science.

Supercomputers have also allowed weather forecasters to accurately predict severe storms, enabling better mitigation planning, and warning systems. They are increasingly being deployed by financial services, manufacturing and internet companies, and in vital infrastructure systems such as water supply networks, energy grids, and transportation.

Future applications of artificial intelligence (AI), running at any moderate degree of scale, will depend on supercomputing. This explanatory video brings the potential of high-performance computing (HPC) to life.

Thanks to the potential of HPC, countries like the US, China, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia have created national-level supercomputing strategies and are investing substantial resources in these programmes. These are the nations with which India has to compete in its bid to become a centre for scientific and business excellence.

Yet, the list of top 500 supercomputers, counts fewer than five in the country.

A pertinent question here is whether it makes economic sense for India to invest in expensive technology like supercomputers? Cant we make do with something more frugal? After all, we launched our Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Mission with a budget of $73 million and we almost made it to the moons south pole, where no country has ever gone before, for less than $150 million.

India is not typically considered a pioneer or leader when it comes to adopting newer technologies. While it has the most number of IT professionals in the world, it is a laggard in adopting innovation.

By harnessing the power of supercomputing, there is an opportunity to reverse this trend. India has reached a stage where it has the will and wherewithal to provide better lives to its citizens. It wants to enhance the impact of its welfare programmes by formulating the right schemes for the right beneficiaries in the right parts of the country. It wants to improve its prediction of cyclones and droughts and better plan infrastructure for its fast-expanding cities.

To realise these goals, India can no longer afford to ignore supercomputers. It needs the capacity to solve complex scientific problems which have real-life implications. It needs its workforce to have the skills to participate and lead in new innovations across various academic and industrial sectors.

To do all of this a country needs the appropriate infrastructuredigital as well as physical. Case in point:Chinas Jiangsu.

In the province, the supercomputer Sunway TaihuLight performs a range of tasks, including climate science, weather forecasting, and earth-system modelling to help ships avoid rough seas, farmers improve their yield and ensure the safety of offshore drilling. TaihuLight has already led to an increase in profits and a reduction in expenses that justify its $270 million cost.

In the US, too, supercomputers are radically transforming the healthcare system. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has used supercomputers to create a far more detailed model of the Hepatitis-C virus, a major cause of liver disease that costs $9 billion in healthcare costs in the US alone.

Using supercomputers, the researchers have now developed a model that comprehensively simulates the human heart down to the cellular level and could lead to a substantial reduction in heart diseases, which costs the US around $200 billion each year.

On Aug. 14, 2017, the SpaceX CRS-12 rocket was launched from the Kennedy Space Center to send Dragon Spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) National Lab. Aboard the Dragon was a Hewlett Packard enterprises (HPE) supercomputer, called the Spaceborne, which is part of a year-long experiment conducted by HPE and NASA to run a supercomputer system in space.

The goal is for the system to operate seamlessly in the harsh conditions of space for one yearroughly the amount of time it would take to travel to Mars.

If India truly wants to become a knowledge-driven, multi-trillion-dollar economy, which is able to support cutting-edge science to benefit its economy, its society and the businesses that operate within it environment, investment in supercomputing is a necessity.

Without it, India risks being surpassed on the global stage by other nations and will consequently miss the huge benefits that come from having this vitally important technology at the disposal of Indias best and brightest minds. The Modi government has big ambitions for India and supercomputing can help make them a reality.

This piece is published in collaboration with India Economic Summit. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

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Why build your own cancer-sniffing neural network when this 1.3 exaflop supercomputer can do if for you? – The Register

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The worlds fastest deep learning supercomputer is being used to develop algorithms that can help researchers automatically design neural networks for cancer research, according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The World Health Organisation estimates that by 2025, the number of diagnosed new cases of cancer will reach 21.5 million a year, compared to the current number of roughly 18 million. Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Stony Brook University reckon that this means doctors will have to analyse about 200 million biopsy scans per year.

Neural networks could help ease their workloads, however, so that they can focus more on patient care. There have been several studies describing how computer vision models can be trained to diagnose cancerous cells in the lung or prostate. Although these systems seem promising theyre time consuming and expensive to build.

The team working at ORNL, a federally funded research facility working under the US Department of Energy, however, want to change that. They have developed software that automatically spits out new neural network architectures to analyse cancer scans so that engineers dont have to spend as much time designing the model themselves.

Known as MENDLL, the Python-based framework uses an evolutionary algorithm and neural architecture search to piece together building blocks in neural networks to come up with new designs. Millions of new models can be generated within hours before the best one is chosen, according to a paper released on arXiv.

The end result is a convolutional neural architecture that can look for seven different types of cancers within a pathology image, Robet Patton, first author of the study and a researcher at ORNL, told The Register.

The software is computationally intensive to run and requires a deep learning supercomputer like Summit. The ORNL supercomputer contains 4,608 nodes, where each one contains two IBM POWER9 CPUs and six Nvidia Volta GPUs. MENDLL can achieve 1.3 exaflops - a quintillion or 1018 floating point operations per second - when the code is running at mixed precision floating point operations on a total of 9,216 CPUs and 27,648 GPUs.

Although millions of potential architectures are created, the best one is chosen based on the neural networks size, how computationally intensive it is to train, and its accuracy at detecting tumors in medical scans.

The images in the training dataset are split into patches; 86,000 patches were manually annotated to classify the tumors, where 64,381 patches contained benign cells and 21,773 contained cancerous ones. All the images represent seven different cancer types in the breast, colon, lung, pancreas, prostate, skin, and pelvic forms.

The seven different cancer types are considered to be a single data set. As a result, MENNDL starts with some initial set of architectures, and then evolves that set toward a single network architecture that is capable of identifying seven different types, said Patton.

The winning model achieved an accuracy score of 0.839, where 1 is the perfect score, and could zip through 7,033 patches per second. For comparison, a hand designed convolutional neural network known as Inception is slightly more accurate at 0.899 but can only analyse 433 patches per second.

Currently, the best networks were still too slow, creating a backlog of images that needed to analyzed. Using MENNDL, a network was created that was 16x faster and capable of keeping up with the image generation so that no backlog would be created, said Patton.

In other words, the one built by MENNDL has a comparable performance to a hand-built design and can process cancer scans at a much faster rate. The researchers believe the network can bring the rate of image analysis up to the speed of the rate of image collection.

But the software is still a proof of concept, however. It is important to note that the goal of MENNDL is not to produce a fully trained model - a network that can immediately be deployed on a particular problem - but to optimize the network design to perform well on a particular dataset. The resulting network design can then be trained for a longer period of time on the dataset to produce a fully trained model, the paper said.

Our goal with MENNDL is to not only create novel neural architectures for different applications but also to create datasets of neural architectures that could be studied to better understand how neural structures differ from one application to the next. This would give AI researchers greater insights into how neural networks operate, Scott concluded.

Sponsored: Beyond the Data Frontier

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Why build your own cancer-sniffing neural network when this 1.3 exaflop supercomputer can do if for you? - The Register

Luxembourg’s ‘Meluxina’ Supercomputer Project to be Overseen by LuxProvide SA – HPCwire

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Sept. 26, 2019 Luxembourg is acquiring a supercomputer called Meluxina which will be co-financed by European funds and will join the European network of EuroHPC supercomputers. Based on the business plan for the installation of this High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure prepared by the Ministry of the Economy and LuxConnect, LuxProvide SA was recently created to provide acquisition, launch and operation of Meluxina. The company is a subsidiary of LuxConnect and is headquartered in Bissen.

In addition to the implementation of the 10 petaflops power supercomputer, LuxProvide SA will also provide the various activities related to this high-performance computing capability and the provision of related services, in particular in terms of broadband connectivity and mobile applications. point. Ultimately employing up to 50 people, LuxProvide also aims to facilitate access to the use of Meluxinas capabilities by setting up a skills center to guide and support companies in their high-performance computing projects. .

Meluxina will focus on the needs of its users, including companies and players in the Luxembourg economy, with particular emphasis on the use by SMEs and start-ups as well as on applications in the context of research, personalized medicine and eHealth projects.

LuxProvide will install the Meluxina ECU in LuxConnects DC2 data center in Bissen, which is powered by green energy sourced in part from Kiowatt, the cogeneration power plant fueled by waste wood. The computing power of Meluxina will be 10 petaflops, which corresponds to 10,000,000,000,000,000 calculation operations per second.

The Luxembourg supercomputer Meluxina is a key element of the data-driven innovation strategy of the Ministry of the Economy, which aims to develop a sustainable and reliable digital economy and supports the digital transition of the economy by facilitating competitiveness and business innovation in an increasingly digital world.

A video presenting the supercomputer Meluxina is available under the following link:

Source: Ministry of Economy, Luxembourg

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Luxembourg's 'Meluxina' Supercomputer Project to be Overseen by LuxProvide SA - HPCwire

Rugby World Cup predictions: Super Computer predicts results for every match in Japan – Express

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Eddie Jones is hoping he can lead England to glory in Japan - the team he coached over in England four years ago - as he looks challenge the likes of New Zealand and South Africa.

England are third favourites with most bookmakers with holders New Zealand heavy favourites to retain their crown.

The action is underway with the hosts beating Russia in the first game to kick the tournament off, and QBE Business Insurance have run the numbers to predict how things will turn out.

And its good news for the home nations who should all qualify from their pools.

Japan 40-12 Russia

Australia 36-11 Fiji

France 22-20 Argentina

New Zealand 28-17 South Africa

Italy 36-11 Namibia

Ireland 23-16 Scotland

England 33-11 Tonga

Wales 30-9 Georgia

Russia 16-22 Samoa

Fiji 35-12 Uruguay

Italy 29-12 Canada

England 45-9 USA

Argentina 29-19 Tonga

Japan 21-37 Ireland

South Africa 72-0 Namibia

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Rugby World Cup predictions: Super Computer predicts results for every match in Japan - Express

Russian Nuclear Engineer Fined for Trying to Mine Bitcoin on One of the Country’s Most Powerful Supercomputers – Newsweek

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A Russian scientist has been fined the equivalent of $7,000 for using a supercomputer inside a secretive nuclear facility to mine for bitcoin cryptocurrency.

Denis Baykov, an employee of the Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov, was fined 450,000 rubles on September 17 after being found guilty of violating the lab's internal computer policies, RIA Novosti reported via The Moscow Times, citing a ruling published by the city court.

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Two additional staff members, Andrei Rybkin and Andrei Shatokhin, are still facing legal action. The employees were charged with unlawful access to computer information and using unauthorized computer software, RIA Novosti reported

Bitcoin, the most popular type of cryptocurrency, is created using computing power, which requires a lot of energy resources. The process is known as mining.

News of the arrests came to light in February 2018, when the Interfax news agency reported that security at the nuclear facility was alerted to the illicit mining activity. According to the BBC, the scientists raised a red flag by connecting the computer to the internet. "There was an attempt at unauthorized use of office computing power for personal purposes, including for the so-called mining," the institute said in a statement at the time.

Alexei Korolev, the lawyer for one of the defendants, told state media outlet RT that the engineers developed a special program that was supposed to keep their activities undetected. He said they managed to mine some bitcoin, but the exact amount was not immediately clear.

Korolev confirmed the nuclear scientists had pleaded guilty after their arrest. "They regret what they did," he noted. "But I think they went for it out of professional interest, not for the purpose of profit."

According to RT, the hearing date for Rybkin and Shatokhin has not yet been scheduled, but the case was received by the city court on September 11.

RT is a news outlet financed by the Russian government. The Sarov lab, founded in 1946, was responsible for producing the first Soviet nuclear weapon, The Moscow Times reported. The lab houses a supercomputer capable of conducting 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

In August, employees of a power plant in Ukraine exposed secret information after installing cryptocurrency mining rigs into the network, the website SecurityWeek reported at the time.

The Security Service of Ukraine found staffers of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Station had been using the plant's systems to power their mining devices, but they appeared to have aided the leak of classified data after the equipment was linked up to the internet. Typically, critical computer networks can be isolated from the internet, or "air-gapped," for security purposes.

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Russian Nuclear Engineer Fined for Trying to Mine Bitcoin on One of the Country's Most Powerful Supercomputers - Newsweek

iPhone 11 Cinematography: The 5 Breakthroughs of the New Camera, Explained – IndieWire

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Despite major annual updates, progress can be incremental in the world of iPhone cinematography and photography. And Apple events feature an avalanche of impressive specs and gimmicky features geared toward making consumers feel like the latest and greatest will make them a professional shooter.

To get past the hype, IndieWire spoke with Filmic Pro CTO Chris Cohen. He shared the stage with filmmaker Sean Baker at the big Apple unveiling, and its Cohens app that allows every serious filmmaker, from Baker to Steven Soderbergh, to use the iPhone like a professional camera. We also talked to the iPhone experts at Moment, a five-year-old company that creates apps and tools for professional iPhone shooters.

Here are the five actual breakthrough camera advances in the iPhone 11 that should have filmmakers excited.

iPhone 11 Ultra Wide Lens

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1. The Ultra Wide Lens

If youve ever shot anything on an iPhone, youll notice that switching from photo to video mode tightens the image to create a more limited field of view. To widen that view, filmmakers rely on a third-party lens attachments: Soderbergh used Moments 18mm on Unsane, Baker the anamorphic Moondog lens on Tangerine. With the new iPhone 11, Apples Ultra Wide lens solves this problem.

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It looks to sit right around a 13mm, said Caleb Babcock, chief content creator at Moment. Which is perfect, because any wider on the iPhone and you start to get that fish-eye look.

Director Rian Johnson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Knives Out) experimented with an early iPhone 11 Pro. He shot footage in Paris (shared below). It features some of the first shots weve seen from the new ultra wide lens, which he tweeted was a real game changer. The optics look solid, while being, as Babcock speculated, right on that edge of being too wide.

iPhone cinematography will likely continue to be most effective when shooting subjects who are relatively close to iPhone. The camera still lacks the ability to capture detail for images with too much scope, which makes the ability to get wider and see more in intimate situations an incredibly important feature.

2. The Selfie Camera

Until the iPhone 11, the user-facing camera commonly used for FaceTime and selfies has not been a pro tool, lacking the optics and sensor of the back-facing lenses.

Weve always discouraged it to our users, said Cohen. Weve even had internal conversations of whether we should even let users use the front-facing lens, because the quality was just poor.

Apples user-facing camera is now TrueDepth, and represents one of the most significant upgrades made to its camera system. The camera is now 12 megapixels, has a significantly wider lens, and the ability to capture in 4K up to 60 frames per second. Cohen, who got early access to the camera in order to build the new software used in Bakers demo with jazz musicians, said everyone at Filmic Pro was blown away by the massive upgrade, adding, Its a worthy addition to the lens kit now.

Heres why this matters:

iPhone 11 Shot-Reverse-Shot using upgraded user facing camera

screenshot

3. Shot Reverse Shot

Much attention has been placed on the iPhone 11s ability to simultaneously record two video streams from the back-facing cameras a great feature for photographers, less so for filmmakers. To seamlessly cut together multi-camera coverage, and avoid jump cuts, the two shots need both a different image size (which the iPhone can now do), and a change of angle (which the iPhone still cant do).

One of the only ways to make two shots cut together is a straight ahead, perfectly centered symmetrical frame think Stanley Kubrick or Wes Anderson. So while those real-world applications are limited, theres a lot more potential in the new shot-reverse-shot capabilities.

As a filmmaker, theres some really practical use cases for it, said Babcock. If someone wanted to record a podcast, youre sitting across the desk from someone, one camera in the middle, and youre getting both angles. That goes for documentary use as well.

In fact, when Apple first invited Filmic Pro into look at the technology and asked them how they could best represent its capabilities to users, Cohen and his team suggested an interview demo.

That was the first version of the pitch: A news reporter conducting an interview, with shot-reverse-shot, and in the end they wanted something more artsy, said Cohen. But thats how we envisioned this feature. We wanted to empower storytellers, and those will be our early adopters with this feature.

Director Sean Baker and Filmic Pro CTO Chris Cohen at the Apple Event unveiling the iPhone 11

Screenshot

4. Camera + Super Computer

Smartphone companies love to hype the power of their newest processing chips, and eye rolls from the software engineers usually follow. We always joke, Great all this power, I wonder how fast this will throttle. 30 seconds? 40 seconds?, said Cohen. Because even though there is a lot of peak performance on tap with the processors Apple has been making, theyre sandwiched between two pieces of glass, so for a high performance application like Filmic Pro that has a computation imagining pipeline, we can only really tap into about 30 percent of that maximum potential before the system fails.

However, the new A13 chips in all iPhone 11s are another matter. At one point, while building the demo app using an iPhone 11 prototype, Cohens Filmic team had six composites showing at once. This thing wasnt even getting hot to the touch, said Cohen. Its a breakthrough in terms of sustaining performance, and thats going to have huge implications for what we do.

Phil Pasqual, the head of Moments App team, agrees. These phones are extremely powerful and the benchmarks on the chips in them are not far off from a laptop computer, said Pasqual. Youre basically pairing a camera with a super computer.

Pasqual said the cameras ability to take multiple photos simultaneously, combined with an algorithm that can merge them intelligently and in real time, is a paradigm shift. The next two years are going to be very interesting, said Cohen. Youre going to see things with real time imaging software thats going to blow you away.

An important iPhone professional advance of the last two years was Filmic Pros Log V2. This gave cinematographers the ability to record video images that preserved maximum dynamic range information, simulating the process of recording in Log or Raw on professional cameras. These images could then be accessed in a professional post-production color grade setting.

I would say Log V2 was as far as we could push it in terms of previous versions of software, said Cohen. Now, our heads are spinning. We have a lot of things we were planning to put on the road map that we werent planning to put in there for the next two or three years. Now we are seriously considering fast-tracking them, because the sustaining performance is so good.

Apples iPhone 11

screenshot

5. Its Not Just the iPhone 11 Pro

For professional cinematographers, the focus has been on the most expensive Pro model. However, most of the camera advances are in all the new iPhone 11 models. The Pro does have the third telephoto lens in back, extra battery power, and a matte finish. Most importantly, all iPhone 11s have the A13 chip, ultra wide lens, upgraded user facing camera, and the newest capture sensors which increases the native dynamic range of the iPhone.

Apple, to their credit, said Cohen. They could have arbitrarily made the pro artificially superior to the other ones, but they did not do that.

The Local Tone Mapping Problem: Soderbergh and others have pleaded with Apple to fix, or at least allow the ability to turn off, the iPhones local tone mapping that can adjust the exposure of a portion of the frame in the middle of a shot. It would appear that issue will become more manageable with the iPhone 11.

Im not in a position to speak for Apple, said Cohen. What I am going to say is that issue looks like it Im going to use my words carefully here I dont think itll be such a problem.

When Can We Expect the new Filmic Pro App?: We have never been beholden to hard deadlines because of our internal process, said Cohen. We give early access to filmmakers and educators and, with their feedback, we go to market or we may re-tool. Were just saying the end of the year. That said, we do reserve the right to go behind that if part of the user experience need to improve.

And will some of the features shown with Baker at the Apple launch event be accessible, through updates, before then? Cohen declined to answer.

Is a Composite Zoom Through all Three Pro Lens Possible? Its possible to zoom through all the focal lengths using a combination of digital zoom and lens switching, said Cohen. It comes with some caveats. Switching between lenses, you are going to have different effective apertures. Youre also going to have different characteristics of lens compression. If you were to do, lets call it a composite, multi-cam zoom, you wouldnt notice it if the zoom was relatively fast, but you would notice it if it was very, very slow.

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iPhone 11 Cinematography: The 5 Breakthroughs of the New Camera, Explained - IndieWire

Local King of Blues Ronnie Peterson dies aged 62 – The Jerusalem Post

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Blues musicians Ronnie Peterson (right) and Lazer Lloyd. (photo credit: CHAIM RAVYA)

Ronnie Petersons sudden death, at the age of 62, has left the Israeli rock and blues community stunned.

The guitarist-vocalist and producer strutted stages across the country for over 30 years, playing with a very varied cross-section of Israeli artists in the pop, Mizrahi, rock and blues sectors.

He worked his way through the ranks in New York, and at one stage managed a jazz and blues club there. Many years ago he told me how hed had an altercation with legendary jazz trumpeter Chet Baker over the latters substance abuse.

By the mid-Eighties Peterson was well established on the blues and rock scene in the Big Apple and, in 1987, he came to the notice of Israeli rock megastar Shalom Hanoch who asked him over here, along with Petersons bass playing brother Ray and the siblings joined Hanochs Rak Ben Adam tour. That was a life changer for Peterson who soon made Tel Aviv his home, and he went on to perform and record with Hanoch from them on.

Local artists quickly got wind that someone from over there was in town, and a whole slew of Israeli pop-rock stars including Rita, Yizhar Ashdot and Dafna Armoni were quick to cash in on Petersons rock- blues pedigree. For over three decades Peterson kept busy creating his own projects he put out five albums under his own name and working with a glittering roll call of Israeli rock and pop pantheon members, such as Meir Ariel, Yuval Banai and Rami Kleinstein.

But the blues were always dearest to Petersons heart and he was one of the leading lights on the scene here. While the likes of Hanoch and Dani Litani certainly have the blues in their musical system, Peterson did the business where it really mattered, in the States.

Peterson brought more than a whiff of the real American blues deal when he came here he officially made aliyah in 1991 he also brought over some of his musical brothers in arms so local audiences could see and hear them work their thoroughbred magic firsthand. Harmonica player-vocalist Tad Robinson did the rounds of the country alongside Peterson as did Chicagoan guitarist-vocalist Dave Specter. Petersons crowning moment was when he shared the ICC stage in Jerusalem with iconic bluesman BB King. When I interviewed Peterson at his Tel Aviv apartment, quite a few years ago now, there was a large monochrome print of the two of them on his living room wall. Man, that was such a thrill, he told me at the time.

Typically, Peterson worked right until his last moment on Earth. On Sunday he was busy with rehearsals for a show to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Woodstock pop festival when he felt ill. He soldiered on for a while, despite the advice of singer Mei Finegold who was due to perform with him in the show.

Eventually he went home and died in his sleep.

Peterson once said that everyone is happy to have his CDs but, in a virtual, online musical-listening world, no one wants to pay for them. Anyone who caught the man doing his thing live knew he was real deal.

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Impeachment push puts centrist Peterson in the spotlight – Insurance News Net

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WASHINGTON Judy Flicker led a small group of activists from the western Minnesota town of Morris last week to deliver a message that U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson should support the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

There has to be a point where we cant let the president continue to do things that are wrong with impunity, said Flicker, a retired early childhood educator.

The reply from a member of Petersons staff in Willmar, she said, was that the congressman was being careful with his public statements. Its frustrating, Flicker said of Peterson, one of a handful of centrist Democrats in Congress to withhold support for the impeachment push now rocking the Trump administration. Still, Flicker said she understands Petersons precarious spot in a constitutional and political showdown that could cast a long shadow up and down ballots in 2020 all over the nation.

Petersons survival next year depends on holding a House district that supported Trump by huge numbers in 2016. By the end of last week, he was one of just 13 House Democrats publicly against an impeachment inquiry that has been picking up momentum. Eleven are, like Peterson, from districts Trump carried.

With Trump under fire for allegedly trying to induce the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt against former Vice President Joe Biden, one of the leading Democratic challengers, Peterson has not defended the presidents actions. But he has called the impeachment process futile, unnecessarily divisive and a bad use of Congress time.

How that plays in a rural conservative district will say a lot about whether Democrats can retain any foothold in less populated parts of the country, where Trump remains popular.

Western Minnesotas Seventh Congressional District backed Trump over Hillary Clinton by 31 points in the last presidential election. No House Democrat nationwide represents a district with a wider Trump margin. It was the Republicans biggest percentage of all eight Minnesota districts, higher even than in Rep. Tom Emmers Sixth District.

Petersons winning margins have shrunk the last few elections: from 26% in 2012 to 4% last year.

Former Lt. Gov. Michelle Fischbach, a Republican vying to challenge Peterson next year, calls Petersons anti-impeachment stance political expedience.

He still voted for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker. And that empowers her to pursue this baseless and futile impeachment, said Fischbach, whos been lining up establishment Republican backing.

The political jockeying intensified Friday when Democrats voted unanimously to table a GOP resolution disapproving of Pelosis impeachment inquiry. Though it was a procedural vote that wouldnt have ended the inquiry, Fischbach characterized it as sign of Petersons support for impeachment. Her campaign attacked him in a news release, though all the anti-impeachment Democrats had opposed the GOP gambit.

Fischbachs move underscored how next years race could test the GOPs theory that an impeachment drive will rally Trumps base. Petersons deeply red district offers a prime spot to harness that energy, if it materializes.

New revelations in a White House whistleblower complaint released at the end of last week all but ensure a politically fraught impeachment debate will tumble into 2020. Trumps re-election campaign is already directing resources into Minnesota aimed at driving up the vote in Republican-leaning areas next year. Petersons main bulwark: Hes a leading player on federal agriculture policy, with one of the most conservative voting records of all Democrats in Washington.

Adding to the uncertainty, Peterson has yet to commit to another re-election bid. He has said previously that he wont publicly reveal his 2020 plans until January. He declined an interview request for this story, relying instead on a public statement opposing impeachment.

If anyone thinks a partisan impeachment process would constrain President Trump, they are fooling themselves, his statement read. He predicted a failed process that will end up even further dividing our country and weakening our ability to act together on issues.

Longtime allies still expect Peterson, 75, to make a bid for a 16th term. The Democratic takeover of the House this year restored Peterson to the chairmanship of the House Agriculture Committee, which he previously led from 2007 to 2010.

Hes certainly a champion for agriculture, said Kevin Paap, president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau. The more conservative of Minnesotas two major farmer interest groups, the bureau is a longtime Peterson backer.

Peterson was a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate-to-conservative House Democrats that has dwindled as the Democratic base shifts more squarely to cities and suburbs. He is opposed to legal abortion and gun control, and often votes with Republicans on a wide range of issues.

Back in 1998, Peterson voted in favor of an impeachment inquiry against President Bill Clinton. He was one of 31 Democrats to do so. But he later voted against actually impeaching Clinton. The House, then controlled by Republicans, did impeach Clinton, but the vote to remove him from office fell short in the Senate.

In an interview in June, Peterson said his success in a strong Trump district had improved his standing with fellow House Democrats. While he differs with his party on many issues, he said he had a good working relationship with Pelosi, who understands the politics of his district. Peterson also explained his ready reply to DFLers from his district unsettled by his conservative bent. Im the best youre going to get.

Progressives in the Seventh District have absorbed that message, even if they dont like it.

I voted for him in the last election, but its only ever because hes against more awful people, said PZ Meyers, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota-Morris who blogs about science and public policy. Meyers said he thinks there are risks for Peterson if hes too dismissive of allegations from the White House whistleblower.

I do think theres going to be tremendously strong Democratic turnout in the next election, Meyers said. It may not turn Stevens County red, but I think if he wants that turnout to benefit him he should be a little more progressive than hes been.

In 2016 and 2018, Peterson beat Republican Dave Hughes, a retired Air Force pilot who served in Iraq. Hughes is running a third time.

Fischbach, who served two decades in the state Senate and has close ties to the states movement opposing abortion rights, will fight Hughes for the Republican endorsement. D.C. Republicans have signaled a preference for Fischbach, who was urged to run by Emmer, the current chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee.

Fischbachs position on impeachment is unambiguous, and she plans to run on it: Its time to be done, she said.

Meanwhile Flicker, who co-founded the Morris chapter of the anti-Trump group Indivisible, said Democrats in Petersons district know he walks a fine line.

Patrick Condon 202-662-7452

___

(c)2019 the Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

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Impeachment push puts centrist Peterson in the spotlight - Insurance News Net

Athlete of the Week: Zane Peterson of Sebring McKinley – The-review

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SEBRING Using his feet along with his head, Sebring McKinley senior Zane Peterson has developed into a true dual-threat quarterback.

After missing more than half of his junior season with an injury, Peterson showed resiliency through offseason preparation and intense commitment to help a struggling football program begin to turn the corner and establish a winning culture.

Through the first five Sebring games this season, Peterson's offensive play helped the Trojans go 2-3 and lay a positive foundation for the future. He has been accurate throwing the football, completing 50 of 83 attempts (60 percent) for 737 yards, six touchdowns, a pair of two-point conversions and only two interceptions. Peterson also has rushed for 289 yards on 61 tries (4.7 avg.), with five touchdowns and three two-point conversions.

For his play and positive impact on the team, Peterson was selected The Review Athlete of the Week.

"It's been a good year," Peterson said. "We have more numbers, because a lot of seniors who played when they were younger decided to come back out and play. Those guys have bonded well with the guys who returned and we've gotten better since our first game."

Peterson, who stands 6-foot-1 and weighs 175 pounds, has been an impact player in each contest, both at quarterback and outside linebacker. The Trojans, who struggled to score in several games last season, are averaging 18.4 points this season and have yet to be blanked. Peterson's arm and legs helped propel the attack, but so have running backs Jake Hunter and Cody Horning, and wideouts Carson Rouse, Noah Fredrick and Isaiah Bivins.

"We have a lot of [offensive] weapons," Peterson said. "Jake can plow through the line, Cody is fast and can jump, Carson is [about] 6-5 and can go up and get the ball, Noah has good moves and Isaiah is so fast."

Sebring lost 29-12 to Lowellville in its last game, but the Trojans amassed 262 yards of total offense. Peterson was 15 of 21 passing for 163 yards, successfully distributing the football to Hunter, Horning, Fredrick and Rouse, and just missing Bivins on a fly pattern.

Although he was forced to scramble occasionally and he was sacked a couple of times, Peterson managed to have ample time most of the game to throw. He credited the offensive line of center Noah Dennis, tackles Matt Byrd and Donovan Seruch, and guards Austin Haas and Frank Lozoya for protecting him and also opening holes for Hunter, who rushed for 73 yards and scored twice.

"Our offensive line did a great job against Lowellville," Peterson said. "The coaches have moved guys around and they're getting comfortable with their positions and working together."

That is part of Petersons maturation process, assuming a leadership role.

"The coaches want me to lead and I feel the best way to do that is to offer words of encouragement," he said.

Peterson began playing football when he was in elementary school, taking part in the Sebring Little Trojans program. His coach when he played on the 5th-6th grade team and the 7th-8th grade team was Matt Seidel, now the high school coach.

Seidel inherited a program which went 0-20 the two previous years.

"We knew him, because we had played for him before," Peterson said. "We also knew he's a Sebring guy and is passionate about wanting to help make the program succeed. We also knew he had the type of personality to get [increased] numbers, because he has a job [salesman] where you know how to [reach] people."

While Peterson had three years of high school football playing experience, he was starting over this year after recovering from a torn tendon in his right ring finger which forced him to miss the final six games last year.

Diving into the offseason weight lifting program run by assistant coach Dalton Smith, Peterson got into better physical condition His teammates also bought into the program. Peterson noticed it after Sebrings second game, a 37-29 win over Southington Chalker.

"We watched Chalker play the night after our Leetonia [season-opening] game and we thought we could beat them because we were in better shape," Peterson said. "When we played them, we noticed they were getting tired, so our conditioning and lifting paid off."

Peterson has been receptive pupil, both in the football meeting room and in a high school classroom. He carries a 4.0 grade-point-average and aspires to attend college and study physical therapy. He also would relish getting a chance to play football at a higher level.

"My favorite subject is anatomy," Peterson said. "It's going to help me get ready for studying [physical therapy]. Id like to play more football. If I dont, I want to have a career that's involved with athletics."

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Athlete of the Week: Zane Peterson of Sebring McKinley - The-review

Flashback: Peterson carries Vikings to win over Bears in 2007 – The Viking Age

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This Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears (both 2-1) are set to faceoff inside Soldier Field. Both the Vikings and Bears are coming off a victory last week and this early divisional matchup is very critical for each team.

Divisional games are always very important regardless of when they take place on the schedule. Both Minnesota and Chicago could be in the race for the NFC North title this season and whoever wins this week could play a factor in who finishes on top of the division at the end of the year.

This will be a tough game for the Vikings to win, no doubt. Aside from Minnesotas struggles at Soldier Field, the Bears also have a good team this season and they are the defending NFC North champions.

Currently, the Vikings lead the all-time series against Chicago 60-54-2. One of the most memorable matchups between these two teams came back in 2007 when the Bears hosted a visiting 1-3 Minnesota team in Week 6.

This contest in Chicago was one of the best performances by Vikings rookie running back Adrian Peterson. In addition to rushing for 224 yards and three touchdowns on 20 carries, Peterson also returned a kick 53 yards to help set up a 55-yard game-winning field goal by Ryan Longwell.

During this matchup, Minnesota wide receiver Troy Williamson caught a 60-yard touchdown and linebacker Ben Leber recorded a sack and interception. The Vikings defense also recorded two interceptions and two fumble recoveries.

For the Bears, quarterback Brian Griese went 26-of-45 for 381 yards, three touchdowns, and two interceptions. Devin Hester chipped in with an 81-yard touchdown reception and also returned a punt for an 89-yard score. Chicago receiver Bernard Berrian ended his afternoon with five receptions for 78 yards and a touchdown.

Minnesota ended up winning by a final score of 34-31 to improve to 2-3 on the season. This was Minnesotas first win in the Windy City since the 2000 seasonand since this game in 2007, they have only been able to come out with a victory in Chicago twice.

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Flashback: Peterson carries Vikings to win over Bears in 2007 - The Viking Age

The Rise of Jordan Peterson Review: New Documentary Captures the Tumultuous Celebrity of the Famous Academic – legal Insurrection

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As the old saying goes, he contains multitudes.

It would be easy to take a side on the issue of Jordan Peterson. Certainly at this point most everyone has. The controversial Canadian professor, author, free speech activist and public speaker has developed a massive international reputation over the past three years since he initially spoke out against the Canadian Bill C16, which threatened to make anti-transgender speech illegal.

In leftist circles, Peterson has been branded a transphobe and a clown. But hes developed a bad reputation in the fringe corners of the right where hes been written off as everything from a globalist, socialist, a mentally ill sociopath projecting his insecurities onto a generation of young men, a cult leader, an atheist spreading misinformation about Christianity, a Jewish stooge and, according to one unnamed far right forest creature, a wizard.

Certainly hes not without criticism. Still its hard to deny his work hasnt been a boon to western civilization. By all rights, Petersons ideas are a wart on the face of modern life, evidence that the modern progressive status quo isnt sustainable. Any world where Dr. Jordan Peterson can rise to fame with basic truism and life advice isnt in a good place.

Thus is the central contradiction explored in the new documentary The Rise of Jordan Peterson. The film, from first time director Patricia Marcoccia, follows the life behind the scenes of Dr. Peterson from 2016s free speech protests until the moment his star rose and he began his international book tour for 12 Rules for Life.

While overall a mostly positive exploration of Dr. Petersons celebrity, the movie does offer a somewhat nuanced opinion on the professor. The movie is mostly about him, his internal life and thoughts and the reaction the world has had to his rise but it doesnt shy away from some harsh points against him.

We meet friends of Dr. Peterson including supporters like Jonathan Pageau but we also get comprehensive interviews with critics of his both in and outside of his immediate circle. Most notable of these includes an extensive interview with one of the leaders of the transgender/non-binary protesters from the 2016 protests who is concerned his fame has created an atmosphere of open hostility towards government policies that protect trans people.

The only real problem with this is that it focuses the entire narrative around Peterson in a way that mostly marginalizes his critics. The movie does a good job giving his critics a chance to plainly speak their minds but the movies attention is so focused on him that it makes those critiques feel trivial at times. Still the portrait it paints isnt designed to worship him.

Overall we see Dr. Peterson is a delicate, conflicted man whose ideas have been thrust onto the stage of history. Hes a man dealing with having been declared a savior. This realization sparks fears of both wanting to reject that title and egotistically feeling the need to embrace it.

Maybe the most interesting contradiction it captures is the way he expresses himself at home. Hes the kind of man who fears totalitarianism more than anything yet lines his home with Soviet Realist paintings to contemplate them.

As the old saying goes, he contains multitudes.

Its clear from the footage just how much celebrity has affected him physiologically. In his earliest interviews he talks extremely stiffly with an air of fear. Three years on you can tell that the effects of his fame have been quite prominent. Hes lost a lot of weight; likely from stress.

While its not addressed in the documentary, Dr. Peterson recently checked himself into rehab as a result of an addiction to clonazepam which he was prescribed after discovering his wife was gravely ill. I can only wish the best for him as hes dealing with such horrific, serious personal and family problems.

The best takeaway from The Rise of Jordan Peterson one can take is that more than anything, hes just a person. Hes not the savior of western civilization. Hes not a messiah figure. Hes also not some malicious globalist figure attempting to control the minds of the youth. Hes a man whos unique psychology, position, intelligence and willingness to put his freedom on the line thrust him into prominence.

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The Rise of Jordan Peterson Review: New Documentary Captures the Tumultuous Celebrity of the Famous Academic - legal Insurrection

Trina Peterson Is Riding 140 Miles to Save the Planet – 5280 | The Denver Magazine

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In June 2017, the Nederland-based cyclist sustained a traumatic brain injury that nearly ended her cycling adventures. This weekend, she'll be biking 140 miles in support of Climate Ride.

Two years ago, Trina Peterson experienced a cycling accident that could have taken her life. Now, shes about to embark on a two-day, 140-mile rideand shes convinced it wouldnt be possible without the healing powers of community and nature.

This weekend, Peterson, 54, will join 200 cyclists in Petaluma, California, for the Green Fondo Weekend. The term is a playful spin on the Italian Gran Fondo, which loosely translated means Big Ride. Its just one of many cycling and hiking events organized by Climate Ride, a nonprofit that organizes charity bike rides and hikes to support a greener planet.Climate Ride participants commit to a fundraising minimum, which goes toward a nonprofit organization of their choosing, such as 1% For the Planet, National Geographic, and the Nature Conservancy.

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Peterson did her first Climate Ride in 2013, welcoming the chance to mix philanthropy, athleticism, and nature. Its like this trifecta, she says. Today, shes grateful that, despite sustaining a traumatic brain injury, she can do it again.

On June 25, 2017, Peterson was biking with her dad on the Peak to Peak Highway, just six miles away from her Nederland home. About a half-mile into the ride, the pair pulled over to take a selfie, before hopping back on their bikes and continuing along the road.

That selfie is the last thing Peterson remembers.

Her recollection of what happened next is based on what she was told by the first responders and family members who rushed to help her that afternoon and in the days that followed. Upon hitting a rock at 22 mph, she and her bike catapulted into the center of the road while her dad, not realizing what had happened, continued on. When he finally discovered she wasnt behind him, he turned around, encountering a scene that was every parents nightmare. Peterson was foaming at the mouth, her body splayed out on the pavement.

Another passing cyclist, Dorin McClish, was the first to find Petersen. Coincidentally, McClish is also the head nurse on Boulder Community Hospitals ortho-neuro unit. Knowing Peterson had suffered a head injury and was having a seizure, McClish organized her husband, who was riding with her, and a team of passersby to move her off the road and call 911. She is my guardian angel, Peterson says.

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Peterson arrived at Boulder Community Hospital with a cracked helmet and a shaky prognosis. In addition to sustaining a TBI, which caused an intraparenchymal hemorrhage, Peterson had a skull fracture, a burst elbow bursa, and a hip contusion. Initially, doctors were unsure if shed survive. The surgeon was telling [my husband], you know, every head injury is different. It could be two years, it could be five years before Trina gets her cognitive abilities back. We just dont know.

After several days in the ICU and a week of inpatient rehabilitation, Peterson went home with extensive bruising behind her ear, along with headaches, fatigue, vertigo, and slowed speech that would continue for months.

While shes grateful to her speech, occupational, and physical therapists, Peterson credits much of her healing to nature. Pointing toward a charm of hummingbirds outside her kitchen window, she recalls watching them as a tracking exercise to help restore her visual scanning ability. They were my friends, she says.She also spent a lot of time lying on a futon on her patio, feeling the sunshine and listening to the birds and the breeze in the aspens. Every day it was my job to sit out there and nap and nap and nap some more, she says, recalling the months following her accident. And every day it was my job to just look for beauty [in nature].

A former soccer and lacrosse player at Princetonbefore a career-ending ACL injury her sophomore yearPeterson has always felt connected with nature. Upon graduating high school, she took a summer job as a wilderness educator at National Outdoor Leadership School(NOLS). That summer, and every summer through her college years, she spent her days leading wilderness courses in Wyomings Wind River Range. [The] incredibly wild, open spaces made an imprint on me, she says. It taught me to always look for beauty.

Participating in a Climate Ride event is a way for Peterson to pay tribute to the birds, trees, and mountain views that supported her recovery. This year, she selected Climate Ride as her fundraising beneficiary. In addition to raising roughly $25,000 through participating in their events over the years, shes also served on Climate Rides board since 2015.

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Aside from nature, Peterson says her near-full recoveryshe has yet to regain her sense of smellhinged on the support of her community. She describes the cards, the Facebook messages, and the acts of kindness she received during her recovery. It was like this buoy, just lifting me up and motivating me, she says. I kind of felt like Id been to my own funeral and wow. These people, they liked me. I felt so overwhelmed with their support that I felt like I owed it to them to come back.

Peterson has certainly made a comeback. Of the six Climate Ride events shes completed, this is her second bike event since her accident (the first was in summer 2018, just months after her first post-accident bike ride). Though she struggles with fear every time she gets on her bike, shes grateful for the ability to participate in the Climate Ride. You get to be active, you get to give back, and you get to do it all for beautiful places and for our natural environmentWhat could be better?

Get Involved: To support Trina Petersons effort to raise awareness of climate change, sustainable solutions, and active transportation advocacy, visit her Climate Ride fundraising page.

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Trina Peterson Is Riding 140 Miles to Save the Planet - 5280 | The Denver Magazine