Financial Independence

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Quite simply, we strive to protect and grow your money and, where needed, develop a holistic plan to ensure a smooth transition through life's financial phases. Could there be setbacks? Yes. As you know, there are no guarantees. But all the more reason for having a well-developed plan to minimize the downside and maximize the upside. Your money is too important - and financial products are too complex - to invest without a solid long-term plan.

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Rick Campbell, President of Financial Independence, and Mark Lavallee, Vice President, receive theFive Star Professional Wealth Manager Award for the third year in a row. The recognition isthe largest and most widely published financial services award program in North America. Award candidates are evaluated against ten objective criteria including educational and professional designations, credentials as a Registered Investment Advisor, favorable regulatory and complaint history reviews, client retention rates, client households served, and assets under management.

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Financial Independence

How much does financial independence cost? It depends on your …

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How much money do you need to save if you plan to retire early? For some, retiring as young as your 30s means having accrued a million or more dollars. For others, a few hundred thousand dollars might suffice.

There is a debate raging in the FIRE community which stands for financial independence, retire early about how much a person needs to have set aside before quitting their 9-5 job. One side, known as Fat FIRE, believes retirees should have enough saved so they have a $75,000 annual budget in retirement, the other side, Lean FIRE, maintains that a $40,000 a year budget will do.

There are a few other variations, such as Barista FI, where you save enough to quit your day job and instead take on small gigs (like working in a coffee shop) to supplement your retirement income.

Financial freedom is a dream for many, but for a lot of us, its only a fantasy. Despite low unemployment, wages for many arent keeping up with inflation and saving for retirement is hard, even for those lucky enough to have access to retirement savings vehicles like 401(k) or 403(b) plans. Many 30-somethings say its already unrealistic to save for retirement, what with student loan debt and daily financial responsibilities. Still, there are countless blogs devoted to the topic, and as many ways to live in extended retirement.

See: You can retire early without adopting Mr. Money Mustaches extreme frugality

Fat FIRE makes the most sense for people who want to maintain their preretirement standard of living (like paying for rent or a mortgage) if not go beyond that, whereas Lean FIRE is for the more frugal at heart. Vicki Robins, who retired at 25 five decades ago and is considered one of the pioneers of the financial independence movement, said she accomplished such by being extremely frugal and conscious investing. She told MarketWatch that for people to accomplish financial independence they must first get out of debt and save six months of income and then earn as much as possible without compromising their health and integrity (and of course not spend all of it).

Justin McCurry, 38, a blogger at Root of Good who retired at 33, and his wife, budgeted for between $1.3 million and $1.4 million to cover $40,000 a year. He said one rule of thumb people could use is multiplying your expenses by 25. In that case, a lifestyle that costs $100,000 a year would require $2.5 million saved for retirement, for example, whereas someone who intends to live off just $20,000 a year in retirement would only need $500,000 (and maybe have to take freelance work to supplement other goals).

Jillian Johnsrud from Montana Money Adventure, 32, took a frugal approach to her financial independence. She and her husband looked at their expenses and cash flow and saw they had enough passive income through a military pension and investments, as well as cash, to cover all their basic needs. They set out to experiment with financial independence for a year, which became two, and then continued on. We are more interested in just creating a life so perfect for everything important to us, she said.

To them, financial independence simply means the freedom to make their own choices. She and her husband never earned high incomes and didnt come from privileged backgrounds. (We always lived below the poverty line, Johnsrud said.) Within a decade, they paid off their debt, bought their home with cash, adopted four children (and had two biological children) and traveled abroad. They had to be creative, such as reducing the grocery bill (she has written about $1 meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner), and relentlessly keep their goals in mind. You might not be able to have the same metrics someone else has, she said. Saving $5 million may take years for one person, and decades for another.

Dont miss: Think saving for retirement is unrealistic? Try retiring with no savings

Financial independence ultimately relies on a very personal strategy what people want in their lives, how much they need to fund those goals and a dedication to save enough to do so. Fat FIRE versus Lean FIRE suggests numerical boundaries, said Tanja Hester, personal finance blogger behind Our Next Life who is now working on a book called Work Optional. Along with having a vision for the future, everyone is coming at early retirement from different points in their lives some are younger with more years to accrue returns and interest on their assets, others might be living in very economical cities (not expensive hubs like New York City and Los Angeles) and others might have one spouse earning a much higher income to more quickly attain their savings goal.

Still, people should factor in unexpected emergencies or health care costs. For other reasons too, I think it makes sense to save a little bit more than they think is necessary, regardless of the budget or the 25x rule, Hester said. Not everyone especially millennials plan for how much theyll need in retirement. More than half of millennials guessed how much they would need to save, according to a 2014 Transamerica Center report, and only one in 10 used a calculator or spreadsheet to make those estimates. That generation in particular also has other financial considerations to make, such as how much they may really get in Social Security paychecks (theyll still get a benefit, but it may be reduced by the time they retire) or potentially having to care for an elderly parent or loved one.

J, the personal finance blogger behind Millennial Boss and the podcast FIRE Drill, said she believes $2 million is enough, and she and her husband have incomes high enough to reach that goal. Using the so-called 4% rule, where you withdraw that much of your assets every year to live on, would be more than enough for the average person, especially if they pay off their home like they plan to do. But even then, she understands other expenses will pop up. We dont know what will happen with health care and we dont know what the situation will be like with family, and we may need to support older members of the family, she said. To me, that number seems more safe.

Also see: The 3 most surprising things I learned when I got serious about early retirement

After determining how much money it will take to retire early, those interested should learn how to invest. A few other tasks to consider: automate paying bills and saving in various accounts; put aside enough cash to offset volatility in the markets; and focus on the long term.

After all, retirement will last a lot longer if you start in your 30s.

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Uber Kills Self-Driving Truck Division, Clearing the Road for Tesla

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Uber just announced plans to shutter its self-driving truck division, at least temporarily, while it focuses on its self-driving cars.

BYE, BYE AUTONOMOUS SEMI. Just under two years ago, Uber bought Otto, a startup focused on developing self-driving trucks. Now, Uber is bidding adieu to its plans for autonomous shipping, at least for the time being. On Monday, the company revealed in a statement that it’s closing its self-driving truck division.

Uber’s self-driving trucks were seen on the road as recently as March, where they were contracted to deliver freight in Arizona.

ONE FOCUS. The move won’t affect the employees of Uber’s self-driving truck division — they’ll just move to the self-driving car division, Eric Meyhofer, Head of Uber Advanced Technologies Group, said in an email statement to TechCrunch. The hope, according to Meyhofer, is that focusing all of Uber’s self-driving expertise and energy on its cars will help that division build momentum.

“I know we’re all super proud of what the Trucks team has accomplished, and we continue to see the incredible promise of self-driving technology applied to moving freight across the country,” Meyhofer told employees in an email reviewed by TechCrunch. “But we believe delivering on self-driving for passenger applications first, and then bringing it to freight applications down the line, is the best path forward. For now, we need the focus of one team, with one clear objective.”

Frankly, Uber’s self-driving car division could probably use the help. In March, one of the company’s vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona, and the incident put a halt on testing all self-driving cars nationwide. If Uber wants to stay competitive in the autonomous car space, it really can’t afford any more bumps in the road.

KEEP TRUCKING. With Uber out of the picture, its former competitors — Google subsidiary Waymo and Tesla — are poised to duke it out as they continue to develop their own vehicles. The timing of the announcement is particularly good for Tesla — CEO Elon Musk has a call scheduled with Tesla shareholders on Wednesday to update them on Tesla’s Q2 financial results. Now he’ll have a little positive news to include.

READ MORE: Uber’s Self-Driving Trucks Division Is Dead, Long Live Uber Self-Driving Cars [TechCrunch]

More on Uber: Uber’s Self-Driving Car Just Killed a Pedestrian

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Scientists Shed New Light on What Life-Producing Planets Require

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Through a series of experiments, UK researchers identify abiogenesis zones around stars, helping narrow down the list of planets that could form life.

NARROWING THE FIELD. The observable universe is home to at least one hundred billion galaxies that host a near-infinite number of planets. If we have any hope of finding extraterrestrial life among all those planets, we need to narrow down our search to the ones most likely to produce results.

To that end, a team of U.K.-based researchers conducted a series of experiments to determine what combination of temperature and light is mostly likely to result in abiogenesis — the emergence of life — on a planet. They published their research Tuesday in the journal Science Advances.

IN THE BEGINNING. Life as we know it begins with what we call precursor molecules — things like nucleosides, amino acids, and lipids, which eventually become DNA and RNA. These molecules can only form under certain chemical conditions, one of which, as past research indicates, is the presence of ultraviolet (UV) light.

For their study, the researchers wanted to figure out what combination of temperature and UV light works best to produce these chemical conditions. They experimented by testing what combinations would cause sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide to react chemically to hydrogen cyanide, since these reactions play a role in the way RNA’s precursor forms on Earth.

IDEAL CONDITIONS. The researchers observed the reactions at different temperatures, sometimes including UV light and sometimes not. Through these experiments, they identified the ideal conditions and used that information to identify what they call an “abiogenesis zones” around a variety of star types — zones with both ideal temperatures and the right amount of UV light.

Then, they looked at exoplanets that previous astronomers had noted are in the “habitable zones” in around their stars, meaning those planets could support liquid water. This cross referencing allowed them to determine which of those exoplanets had conditions best suited to form life.

While this research can’t tell us for sure whether a planet does host life, it can help us narrow our search to those most likely, especially as we have the technology to better see (or even visit) expolanets that may host life. After all, how can a planet host life if it doesn’t have the right conditions to form life?

READ MORE: The Origin of RNA Precursors on Exoplanets [Science Advances]

More on the hunt for extraterrestrial life: The Atmospheres of Distant Planets Guide Scientists in the Search for Alien Life

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We Can Now Successfully Transplant Lab-Grown Lungs in Pigs

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Researchers successfully transplanted lab-grown lungs into four pigs, with none of the animals rejecting the lungs within two months of the surgery.

LUNGS-ON-DEMAND. In the U.S. alone, more than 1,400 people are waiting for a lung transplant — there simply aren’t enough donor lungs available to meet the need. Soon, though, patients might have a new source for brand new lungs: the lab.

On Wednesday, researchers from University of Texas Medical Branch published a new paper in the journal Science Translational Medicine. In it, they detail their latest milestone along the path to creating lab-grown lungs for humans: they can now successfully transplant these bioengineered lungs into pigs.

THIS LITTLE PIGGY GETS A NEW LUNG. To grow the lungs, the researchers first created four lung scaffolds. To do this, they removed all of the cells and blood from pig lungs using a mix of sugar and detergent. This left them with just the proteins of each lung — essentially, its skeleton.

Next, they placed each scaffold in a tank containing a special mix of nutrients. They then added cells from recipient pigs’ own lungs to each of the scaffolds and let the lungs grow for 30 days. Finally, they transplanted the four lab-grown lungs into the four recipient pigs.

Within two weeks, the transplanted lungs had already begun to establish the robust networks of blood vessels they need to survive. During two months of post-transplant observation, the researchers found no signs that the animals’ immune systems had rejected the new lungs. But they next want to study the long-term viability of the organs.

MOVING TO HUMANS. Bioengineered organs are something of a holy grail in transplantation research. Because they are grown from the recipient’s own cells, the body is less likely to reject the organ, and we could grow them in the lab as needed — no more organ shortages.

If all goes as hoped with the pig experiments, the researchers believe they could be just five to 10 years away from being able to create lab-grown lungs to transplant into people in compassionate use circumstances (people with life-threatening conditions and essentially no other treatment options).

Eventually, bioengineered lungs could replace donor ones altogether. And that could make the transplant waiting list a thing of the past.

READ MORE: Production and Transplantation of Bioengineered Lung Into a Large-Animal Model [Science Translational Medicine]

More on bioengineering: Researchers Can Now Bioengineer Lungs With the Original Blood Vessels Intact

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Google’s Censored Chinese Search Engine Shows It’s No Longer Afraid of U.S. Backlash

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Leaked documents reveal Google's plan to launch a censored search engine in China, a nation that strictly monitors the content its citizens can access.

GOOGLE EAST. On Wednesday, investigative outlet The Intercept published a report detailing Google’s plans to create a censored search engine for China.

A whistleblower provided the site with internal documents on the project, codename Dragonfly, which launched in the spring of 2017. Through Dragonfly, Google is building a special Android search app that follows the Chinese government’s strict censorship guidelines.

The government has already seen a version of the app, and the final product could launch in the nation within the next six to nine months, according to The Intercept’s report.

A SHIFT IN SENTIMENT. China already keeps a tight rein on the information its citizens can access online. Tens of thousands of “internet monitors” sit at the ready to remove any content the government deems inappropriate. Citizens can’t use unapproved words (such as “disagree”) online, nor can they access Facebook, Instagram, The New York Times — and, yes, Google — that are popular elsewhere in the world. In some cases, homegrown apps that accomplish similar functions have popped up.

Google wasn’t always banned, though. From 2006 to 2010, Google provided Chinese citizens with a censored version of its search engine, stirring up intense backlash from the U.S. government. “Google has seriously compromised its ‘don’t be evil’ policy,” Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) said during a 2006 congressional hearing. “Indeed, it has become evil’s accomplice.”

In March 2010, Google bowed to the pressure back home, granting Chinese users access to an uncensored version of the site. The company cited the Chinese government’s increased attempts to censor web content and limit free speech as one of the reasons for the move. Shortly thereafter, China officially blocked Google, which meant citizens could no longer access the site at all.

At the time, this was a solid move for Google, both for its PR and for its finances. But things change, and Google’s decision to return to China confirms that U.S. sentiment on censorship is shifting — maybe restricting access to some information online is OK, after all.

FOLLOW THE WORLD LEADER. Indeed, recent events back in the U.S. show that we’re just generally more chill with censorship. Net neutrality is now a thing of the past, clearing the way for corporate control and restriction to certain kinds of content. President Trump has established a national discourse that consistently antagonizes the press and even encourages government censorship of the media.

With 750 million internet users, China is a huge untapped market for Google. The move to launch a censored search engine in the nation is likely to be great for both Google’s stock and its shareholders.

Google has already proven it’s more comfortable in moral gray areas these days. Now that the U.S. government is less likely to discourage Google from helping a government censor its media, why wouldn’t Google cash in on the opportunity?

READ MORE: Google Plans to Launch Censored Search Engine in China, Leaked Documents Reveal [The Intercept]

More on Chinese censorship: Chinese Citizens Are Using Blockchain to Warn Each Other of Unsafe Vaccines

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Facebook Just Shut Down Dozens of Fake Pages

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CAUGHT RED- (AND BLUE) HANDED. Facebook just removed 32 pages (public-facing profiles for organizations and brands) and accounts from its platform after finding they were “involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior,” according to a post on the Facebook Newsroom blog published Tuesday. With the help of law enforcement agencies, Facebook identified 17 profiles, eight pages, and seven Instagram accounts that have been removed because they “mislead others about who they are, or what they’re doing,” as the post notes.

The discovery marks the first time Facebook has actually caught this kind of coordinated effort while it was operating — and before it had a significant impact.

That may not sound like a lot, but as the New York Times points out, more than 290,000 accounts “followed at least one of the suspect pages.” The people or organizations that ran those accounts spent $11,000 (in both US and Canadian) on 150 separate ads so that the pages would attract even more followers.

ROCKING THE BOAT. So what does Facebook consider “inauthentic behavior?” The names of the Facebook pages in question — “Aztlan Warriors,” “Black Elevation,” and “Resisters” — and some of thier posts make it pretty clear: they provoke a strong reaction and pit one side of the political spectrum against the other.

The accounts even went so far as to post events for real-life protests, often in response to other protests. The names of several relevant organizations were tacked on the bottom, apparently endorsing them (whether the organizations agreed to this remains unclear).

Facebook turned its attention to these pages because their activity was awfully similar to those pages run by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), the Russian company that was found to be a “troll factory” last year.

But Facebook isn’t blaming Russia directly — at least, not yet. “We don’t have all the facts, but we’ll work closely with others as we continue our investigation,” the post reads. “We may never be able to identify the source with the same level of confidence we had in naming the IRA last year.”

Translation: whoever did this may never face retribution. But at least that uncertainty didn’t stop Facebook from shutting the accounts down before they could cause more damage.

NIP IN THE BUD. The timing for Facebook’s announcement isn’t a coincidence. An event organized by one of the now-deleted pages was scheduled to take place on August 10 in Washington, D.C. according to Recode. It’s not clear what exactly would have happened if the pages weren’t deleted beforehand, but we know what happened when Facebook didn’t intervene with similar accounts during the lead up to the 2016 presidential election: the accounts fanned the flames of dissent, pushed Americans farther towards extreme views, and cemented those beliefs with confirmation bias.

This is a small, face-saving measure for Facebook, which has rushed to make its platform secure from the kinds of lapses that put it under federal scrutiny after the 2016 election. But it likely won’t be the last time we’ll see these kinds of coordinated efforts influencing the political landscape via Facebook in the U.S. In fact, we’ll likely see more of it as we get closer to the November midterm elections. For now, we can hope that Facebook’s coordinated efforts with U.S. intelligence will be enough to limit the scope of any future attempts to destabilize political discourse.

READ MORE: Removing Bad Actors on Facebook [Facebook Newsroom]

More on Facebook trolls: We Knew Russian Hackers Infiltrated Americans’ Inboxes. Now We Know How.

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Scientists Say We Can’t Terraform Mars. Elon Musk Says We Can.

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A new NASA-funded study drawing on 20 years of research says we simply can't terraform Mars using technology available today.

SORRY, ELON. To be ready for human occupants, Elon Musk has long called Mars a “fixer-upper of a planet.” But according to a new NASA-sponsored study, a better description might be a “tear-down.” The scientists behind that project say it’s simply not possible to terraform Mars — that is, change its environment so that humans can live there without life support systems — using today’s technology.

BUILDING AN ATMOSPHERE. Mars has a super thin atmosphere; a human unprotected on the surface of Mars would quickly die, mostly because there’s not enough atmospheric pressure to prevent all your organs from rupturing out of your body (if you survived a little longer, you could also suffocate from lack of oxygen, freeze from low temperatures, or get fried from too much ultraviolet radiation).

This study, published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, considers how difficult it would be to increase the atmospheric pressure on the Red Planet enough so that humans can walk on Mars’s surface without a pressurized suit and, ideally, without a breathing apparatus.

One suggested plan to increase this atmospheric pressure: to release the carbon dioxide (CO2) trapped in Mars’s surface. In 2015, Musk famously suggested accomplishing this by dropping nuclear weapons on the planet’s poles.

According to the new study, there simply isn’t enough CO2 on the planet to increase the atmospheric pressure to terraforming levels. At most, they claim we could only raise the atmospheric pressure of Mars from about .6 percent that of Earth’s to 7 percent. That’s not exactly enough to keep all your organs in.

NOT TODAY, BUT TOMORROW? The researchers reached this conclusion by drawing on 20 years’ worth of spacecraft observations of Mars, but that wealth of research isn’t enough to dissuade Musk. On Monday night, he took to Twitter to assert that Mars has plenty enough CO2 trapped in its soil for terraforming. He didn’t specify what research backed up his claims.

Still, as the NASA report admits, we don’t have the technology today to make terraforming a possibility. That doesn’t mean we won’t in the future. Musk doesn’t plan to send any humans to Mars until 2024, and a lot can change in six years.

READ MORE: SpaceX’s Elon Musk Defends Terraforming Mars After Study Says It Won’t Work [Inverse]

More on Mars colonization: Elon Musk Is Officially Sending Humans to Mars in 2024

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Stop And Look Up: Mars Is Super Close To Earth Right Now

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On Tuesday July 31, Mars will come closer to Earth than it will for another 269 years. Take a look now before it moves on.

Put down your smartphones, look away from your smart watches. Right now, at this very moment, Mars is closer to Earth than it will be for a long, long time. And you should take a look at the sky for a change.

If you do, you’ll get to see Mars up close for the first time since 2003, when it last made an approach like this. But don’t let that trick you into thinking this is a common occurrence. When Mars knocked on our door in 2003, it was the first time the Red Planet came that close in some 60,000 years, according to Space.com. And if you miss it this time around, you’ll have to wait another 269 years before it comes around again.

The best view of Mars happened early Tuesday morning, but you can still see it Tuesday night, from anywhere in the world, if you simply look up. And unlike last summer’s solar eclipse, you’ll be a-okay if you want to stare straight at this floating red ball.

Mars is particularly close to the Earth now because the two planets’ orbits are roughly in the same point in their orbit around the sun. This fly-by means that Mars, Earth, and the Sun are all lined up with each other. Because a Mars year and Earth year take different amounts of time, their orbits will soon desynch and the planets will separate.

Mars will be lined up with Earth again in 2020, 2022, and 2025, but it won’t get quite as close to Earth as it did Tuesday (it was just 35.8 million miles (57.6 million kilometers) from Earth Tuesday morning, and will be 38.6 million miles (62.1 million km) from us in 2020, according to Space.com) because of oscillations in their orbits.

So, we beg you: stop tweeting, stop playing Fortnite, stop reading this article, and just look up. Find that orangey-red circle in the sky that looks bigger and brighter than usual. Pause and marvel. You’ll be happy you did.

More about Mars: There’s A Huge Subterranean Lake of Liquid Water on Mars

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Stop And Look Up: Mars Is Super Close To Earth Right Now

This AI-Operated Robotic Hand Moves With “Unprecedented Dexterity”

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OpenAi just unveiled Dactyl, an AI system trained to control a robot hand using the same algorithms used to train computer game playing AIs.

ROBOTIC HIGH FIVE. On Monday, researchers at OpenAI, the nonprofit AI research company co-founded by Elon Musk, introduced Dactyl, an AI system trained to control a robotic hand. According to the researchers, the system can manipulate physical objects in the hand with dexterity never before possible for AI.

The task Dactyl tackled might sound like something you’d teach a toddler: take this six-sided block and move it around until a certain side is on top. Unlike a toddler, though, Dactyl needed more than a century’s worth of experience to learn how to expertly complete the task. But thanks to powerful computers, the researchers were able to pack all that experience into just 50 “real-world” hours.

PRACTICE MAKES (ALMOST) PERFECT. The researchers trained Dactyl in a simulated environment — that is, a digital setting with a computer-generated hand — using a technique called domain randomization. They built certain parameters into their simulated environment, such as the cube’s size or the angle of gravity, and then randomized those variables. They had multiple simulated hands doing this at once. By pushing Dactyl to adapt to so many different virtual scenarios, the researchers prepared the AI’s ability to adapt to scenarios in the real world.

After 50 hours of training in the simulated environment, the AI could manipulate a real-world robotic hand to successfully complete its given task 50 times in a row (a successful completion was one in which the system didn’t drop the block or take longer than 80 seconds). To figure out how to move the hand to complete the task, it simply needed to look at the block through a trio of cameras.

ONE ALGORITHM TO TRAIN THEM ALL. As the researchers note in their blog post, they trained Dactyl using the same algorithm that they used for OpenAI Five, a team of five neural networks trained to play the computer strategy game DOTA 2. Dactyl’s success proves it’s possible to build a general-purpose algorithm that can teach AI to complete two very different tasks. This could make it much easier for researchers to train AI for lots of different purposes in the future, since they wouldn’t need to start the process from scratch.

READ MORE: Learning Dexterity [OpenAI Blog]

More on OpenAI: The Digest: Five AI Algorithms Worked Together to Beat Humans at a Strategy Game

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Rising Stocks Show Tesla Investors Are Warming up to Musk’s Cool Attitude

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The Elon Musk that chatted with investors and reporters during the Q2 2018 earnings call was a far cry from the erratic Musk we've come to know.

OLD MUSK, NEW TRICKS. On Wednesday, Elon Musk had his quarterly phone call with investors and reporters to update everyone on Tesla’s quarterly earnings. And from the sound of it, the CEO appears to be learning from his past mistakes — and doing what he can to avoid repeating them.

THE BOTTOM LINE. First, Tesla’s finances: the company lost $717 million in the second quarter of 2017 — that’s the company’s biggest quarterly loss in history, which is saying something. However, it also has $2.2 billion in cash reserves, so no need to borrow any money. According to Musk, the company’s goal is to be profitable by the end of 2018 and then every quarter after that.

While the financial news wasn’t the best, Tesla’s stock soared after the call, jumping by 12 percent. One possible reason? Musk himself.

MUSK CLASSIC. In the last call, Musk declined to answer what he called “dry” and “boring bonehead questions” — not exactly the kind of behavior you’d expect from the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

And he’s been even more erratic since then, calling a British cave diver involved in the Thai soccer team rescue a “pedo” on Twitter. Historically, he’s had a penchant for making big promises he can’t keep, a habit that hasn’t won him any favor with investors.

NEW MUSK. The Elon Musk that jumped on the phone with investors Wednesday seemed to be a far cry from that Musk.

First, he reportedly started the call by apologizing for “being impolite” on the previous one. Then, he managed to make it through the entire call without making any of the big, bold claims he’s known for. In fact, he even walked back one of his predictions, telling Wall Street Journal reporter Tim Higgins that Tesla was more likely to produce 750,000 or so vehicles in 2020 rather than the 1 million he predicted during the Q1 2017 earnings call.

If Tesla’s rising stock is any indication, investors are digging Musk’s new calm, cool, and collected approach. Now it’s just a matter of seeing if the “new” Elon sticks around long enough for Tesla to become profitable. After all, as long as the money’s flowing in, investors might not mind a CEO who is occasionally less than diplomatic.

READ MORE: Tesla Loses More Money Than Ever, but Says Profits Are Coming [Wired]

More on Musk’s promises: Tesla Failed to Meet Elon Musk’s Model 3 Goals. Now What?

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SpaceX Will Be Ready to Transport Humans in April 2019, NASA Estimates

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According to new NASA estimates, Elon Musk's SpaceX will be ready for a crewed test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft in April 2019.

PRIVATE/PUBLIC PARTNERSHIP. NASA wants to stop relying on Russia to get American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). And little by little, SpaceX is making that happen.

Back in 2014, the U.S. agreed to pay Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX $2.6 billion for a spacecraft that could carry the nation’s astronauts into orbit. It struck the same deal with Boeing, to the tune of $4.2 billion.

Since then, both projects have repeatedly delayed their launch dates. But we might finally have some that are definite (or, you know, as definite as these things can be).

SAVE THE DATE. On Thursday, NASA announced that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon (its spacecraft designed to transport astronauts) will be ready for an uncrewed test in November 2018 and a crewed test in April 2019. Boeing’s comparable CST-100 Starliner, meanwhile, will be ready for an uncrewed test in late 2018/early 2019 and a crewed test in mid-2019, according to NASA.

Following the crewed tests, each craft will undergo NASA’s certification process. If those go well, the crafts can then achieve their primary purpose: transport U.S. astronauts to the ISS.

ISS OR BUST. This delayed timeframe isn’t entirely unexpected. In July, the Government Accounting Office (GAO), an independent agency that investigates federal spending for Congress, released a report predicting that SpaceX would complete its certification process in February 2020; Boeing is likely to wrap it up a month earlier.

So, these dates aren’t surprising, but they also aren’t good news.

NASA astronauts currently hitch rides to the ISS aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, but that contract ends in November 2019. That means NASA could find itself without any way to get astronauts to or from the ISS between November 2019 and whenever the SpaceX and Boeing craft are finally ready — that is, unless something happens to somehow move these launch dates up.

READ MORE: NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Target Test Flight Dates [NASA]

More on the commercial crew program: SpaceX and Boeing Delays Could Cost NASA Access to the ISS

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Engineers Use CRISPR to Create A New Species With Just One Chromosome

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Two teams of researchers have used gene-editing tool CRISPR to decrease the number of chromosomes in baker's yeast from 16 to one or two.

CRISPR “MAGIC.” Thought your baker’s yeast could never do anything more exciting than make bread rise? Well, think again. Two teams have remixed your yeast, with the help of gene editing tool CRISPR.

The first team, a group out of the NYU School of Medicine, took a yeast species with 16 chromosomes and used CRISPR to fit all the DNA it needed to function into just two chromosomes. The other team, this one from China, packed it all into just one chromosome.

Both teams published their studies in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

THE CHROMOSOME ZONE. Nearly every cell in the human body contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, tiny packages of DNA and proteins nestled in the cell’s nucleus. All eukaryotes (a group that includes plants, animals, and humans) have chromosomes, and they play a major role in helping our cells divide and function.

Not every eukaryote species has the same number of chromosomes, though. In fact, the numbers vary widely — the spider mite has just two pairs, while the Atlas Blue butterfly has 224 pairs — and no one is sure why. Studies like this one could help researchers figure it out.

NO BIGGIE. Using CRISPR, each team was able to fuse the yeast’s chromosomes until they reached just one or two. And surprisingly, the yeast didn’t function all that differently.

“That was the biggest shocker — that you can just get away with this and yeast seem to shrug its shoulders,” Jef Boeke, senior author of the NYU study, told Nature.

While the two-chromosome yeast survived, divided (reproducing asexually), and grew at the same rate as normal yeast, the one-chromosome yeast was a little slower at dividing. Neither yeast could successfully “breed” with other strains, either — for example, the yeast with two chromosomes couldn’t breed with yeast with 16 chromosomes.

A NEW SPECIES. This inability to breed with other yeasts could qualify the new yeast as a brand new species, said Boeke. That could have some substantial real-world applications — researchers could take strains of yeast capable of breaking agricultural byproducts into biofuels, for example, and adjust their chromosomes so they won’t breed with other yeast when released in the wild.

Additionally, this research could help us understand what causes chromosome abnormalities in human cells, the kinds that can cause miscarriages or Down’s syndrome.

And finally, it could help us figure out why different species have different numbers of chromosomes. Is is just a matter of chance?  Or is there something we’re missing?

READ MORE: Entire Yeast Genome Squeezed Into One Lone Chromosome [Nature]

More on CRISPR: A CRISPR Future: Five Ways Gene Editing Will Transform Our World

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Engineers Use CRISPR to Create A New Species With Just One Chromosome

Augmented Reality Recreates A New York City Not Seen for Centuries

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Inventing America takes travelers to Governor's Island, New York back to the 17th century via an augmented reality simulation that covers the whole island.

If you’re looking to augment your walking tour of New York, but you grew tired of catching pokémon, shooting zombies, and hiding virtual graffiti, there’s a new AR app to help you make more of your stroll through the Big Apple.

Inventing America is a new AR experience mapped to real-world Governor’s Island, an (yep you guessed it) island that sits squarely in the East River, due East of the Statue of Liberty.

Today, Governor’s Island is a scenic destination broken up into a small national park and several historic sites. But originally, it was a seasonal outpost for Native Americans (who inhabited the whole region) to set up camp and collect fish. The British arrived, and the island changed hands several times between the English and Dutch — specifically, the West India Company, which made the island the base of its operations.

This post-colonial scene is what you step into on the Inventing America app. Viewed through a phone or tablet, Governor’s Island becomes the locus of a rip in the very fabric of spacetime. Step through the simulated time warp and you’re thrown back to the 17th century as a cartoony colonist, animated through 3D rendering and motion capture technology, work to settle the future New York City.

The brainchild of mixed reality artist Roi Lev (a former Israeli intelligence officer but more recently a master’s graduate from New York University), Inventing America features a cast of virtual characters and a branching storyline that users can freely follow, explore, or ignore as they see fit. It’s entirely up to each person how much they want to interact with the app’s narrative and cast of virtual colonists. And because the project relies on augmented reality rather than a virtual reality simulation or standard video, the only way to explore the virtual island is to wander the physical island.

The animation isn’t perfect by any means — the project’s official trailer shows a virtual character’s hands and arms clipping through his vest as he gestures. But it’s OK to suspend your disbelief — many indie-made video games share similar design glitches and the literally island-sized undertaking that is Inventing America can surely afford a couple of bugs.

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Given Magic Leap’s much-anticipated but utterly-disappointing demo, augmented reality could use some cool new projects that are more fun than high-tech body-shaming. And for Lev, Governor’s Island is just the beginning of his New York City time travel adventures.

“This is a first episode of experiences of the city in different times,” Lev told Futurism. “We recently started developing an experience set in the Lower East Side in the beginning of the 20th century.”

More about the future of augmented and virtual reality: Virtual Reality Has Reached A “Tipping Point.” It’s Officially Here to Stay.

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A Warm Water Mass Called “The Blob” Is Killing Alaska’s Cod

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The cod population in the Gulf of Alaska is at the lowest levels ever recording, which is wreaking havoc on the state's economy.

THE DESTRUCTIVE BLOB. In 2013, an unstoppable entity began terrorizing the Pacific. At times it spanned the entire stretch of ocean from Alaska to South America. No, it wasn’t some hyper-aggressive shark or killer whale — it was “the blob,” a mass of water several degrees warmer than the ocean’s average temperature. It’s the kind of thing you might (foolishly) welcome in a chilly swimming pool, but can cause absolute havoc in the ocean.

The cause, according to scientists: man-made climate change.

DEVASTATING FOR MAN AND FISH. Early in 2017, temperatures in parts of the ocean, including the Gulf of Alaska, returned to normal, but the blob’s effects continue to linger in the region.

Thanks mainly to the blob, the Gulf’s cod population is now at the lowest level ever recorded, an expert at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),  a U.S. agency focused on the world’s bodies of water and atmosphere, told NPR. In March, Alaskan governor Bill Walker even reached out to the federal government to ask it to declare the state’s cod fishery a disaster so former workers, and the governments that collected their taxes, would qualify for relief funds.

“Throughout the Gulf of Alaska, direct impacts will be felt by vessel owners and operators, crew, and fish processors, as well (as) support industries that sell fuel, supplies, and groceries,” he wrote in his letter. “Local governments will feel the impact to their economic base and the State of Alaska will see a decline in fishery-related tax revenue.”

CODLESS FOREVER? While some researchers think the cod population could eventually recover, fisheries biologist Mike Litzow from the University of Alaska doesn’t think it will. “When you push a population down really hard, the resources that population used to rely on can be exploited by other populations,” he told NPR.

Ultimately, this could be another example of the widespread devastation caused by climate change, this time in the form of a murky ocean dweller known as the blob.

READ MORE: Gulf of Alaska Cod Are Disappearing. Blame ‘the Blob’ [NPR]

More on climate change: Marine Food Webs Are on the Brink of Collapse Because of Climate Change

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A Warm Water Mass Called “The Blob” Is Killing Alaska’s Cod

Think You Could Do More if You Just Had an Extra Hand? You’re Probably Right.

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BEYOND HUMAN. Prosthetic limbs have come a long way in recent years. From primitive designs that were little more than useless placeholders for the real thing, we now have high-tech devices that wearers can control with their thoughts. These prostheses can help people with missing limbs feel “whole” again. But in a new study, researchers set out to see if such devices could make humans more than whole.

Specifically, a pair of researchers from the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute in Japan wanted to know if giving someone a supernumerary robotic limb (SRL), a mind-controlled robotic limb that worked alongside the person’s two biological ones, could give that person multitasking abilities beyond those of the average human.

They published their research in the journal Science Robotics on July 25.

TWO TASKS, THREE HANDS. For their study, the researchers asked 15 volunteers to sit in a chair with an SRL positioned as if it were a third arm coming from their own body. On the head of each volunteer, the researchers placed special cap that tracked the brain’s electrical activity. The cap transmitted that data to a computer that then translated it into movement in the SRL.

The result: all a volunteer had to do to control the SRL was think about an action.

Next, they asked the volunteers to complete two tasks. To accomplish one — balancing a ball on a board — they used their natural limbs. For the other (grasping and releasing a bottle), they used the SRL system. The researchers asked the volunteers to complete the tasks sometimes separately, sometimes simultaneously.

In 20 trials, the volunteers successfully completed both tasks using the three limbs about 75 percent of the time. In other words, they were able to complete two tasks simultaneously that would have been essentially impossible with just two limbs.

TRAINING THE BRAIN. When you think you’re “multitasking,” you aren’t actually paying attention to two things at once — your brain just switches rapidly between the two tasks. Past SRL systems required the user to concentrate on just the task at fake hand — this system is the first that could “read” a multitasking mind, sifting out the user’s intentions for the SRL. It can do this simply because it’s more advanced than previous versions.

The researchers even believe their system could essentially help humans become better at multitasking even when they don’t have a third limb helping out. “By operating this brain-machine interface, we have an idea that we may be able to train the brain itself,” researcher Shuichi Nishio told The Verge.

Future research will endeavor to figure out whether that’s true or not. If it is, we might be able to enhance our minds by temporarily enhancing our bodies.

READ MORE: This Mind-Controlled Robotic Limb Lets You Multitask With Three Arms [Singularity Hub]

More on prosthetics: New Thought-Controlled Prosthetics Restore the Sensation of Touch

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Redhead (bird) – Wikipedia

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The redhead (Aythya americana) is a medium-sized diving duck. The scientific name is derived from Greek aithuia an unidentified seabird mentioned by authors including Hesychius and Aristotle, and Latin americana, of America.[2] The redhead is 37cm (15in) long with an 84cm (33in) wingspan. It belongs to the genus Aythya, together with 11 other described species. The redhead and the common pochard form a sister group which together is sister to the canvasback.[3]

The redhead goes by many names, including the red-headed duck and the red-headed pochard.[4] This waterfowl is easily distinguished from other ducks by the males copper coloured head and bright blue bill during the breeding season.[5]

The redhead is in the family Anatidae (ducks, swans, geese) and genus Aythya (diving ducks). There are currently no described subspecies of the redhead.[4]

The redhead and the common pochard form a sister group which itself is sister to the canvasback.[3] This group is then sister to the monophyletic group consisting of the white-eyes (hardhead, Madagascar pochard, and the sister species ferruginous duck and baer's pochard) and scaups (New Zealand scaup, ring-necked duck, tufted duck, greater scaup, lesser scaup).[3]

The redhead is a pochard, a diving duck specially adapted to foraging underwater. Their legs are placed farther back on the body, which makes walking on land difficult, the webbing on their feet is larger than dabbling ducks and their bills are broader, to facilitate underwater foraging. In addition, pochards have a lobed hind toe.[4] No pochard has a metallic coloured speculum, something that is characteristic of other ducks.[6]

During breeding season, adult males have a copper head and neck, with a black breast. The back and sides are grey, the belly is white and the rump and tail are a light black. Male bills are pale blue with a black tip and a thin ring separating the two colours. Non breeding males lose the copper colour and instead have brown heads.[5]

Adult females, however, have a yellow to brown head and neck. The breast is brown, the belly is white and the rest of the body is a grey to brown. The female bills are slate with a dark tip that is separated by a blue ring. Females remain the same colour year round.[5]

During breeding season, redheads are found across a wide range of North America, from as far north as Northern Canada to the lower United States. Their preferred areas include the intermontane regions of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Dakotas with some small localities in Ontario, Quebec and southern United States. These pochards then migrate south to winter in warmer climates. These areas include southern United States where breeding does not occur and extends to Mexico and Guatemala.[4][5] In either season, redheads use wetlands as their main habitat.[5]

Small, semi-permanent wetlands in non-forested country where the water is deep enough to provide dense emergent vegetation is considered ideal breeding habitat for redheads.[4][7] When wintering, redheads switch to large areas of water near the coast that are protected from wave action but can also be found in reservoirs, lakes, playa wetlands, freshwater river deltas, coastal marshes, estuaries and bays.[4][5][7]

Redheads do not have many predators and are most likely to die of disease or indirect human impact. These ducks are not the most common waterfowl, as mallards are, so hunting is minimal. Adults can be preyed upon by northern river otters, red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, bald eagles, golden eagles and to a greater extent, minks.[8] Most predation comes in the form of duckling predation and egg foraging. Northern pike and snapping turtles are known to eat ducklings whereas skunks, minks, crows and magpies will steal and eat redhead eggs.[4][8]

The North American Waterfowl Management Plan for redheads is 760,000 North American birds.[9] The population size has increased in the past few decades to well over 1.4 million birds.[5] Redheads make up 2% of North America's duck population and only 1% of its harvested ducks.[9] Populations may be stable because of restrictive bag limits for the species. In addition, the species uses semi-permanent and permanent wetlands to breed and these habitats are less likely to be affected by drought. For future management of the species, organizations are looking into wetland conservation.[9]

Redheads leave their winter range in late January and February with all birds migrating by mid-March. In western North America, migrants begin arriving in Oregon, British Columbia] and Colorado in February. In central North America, migrants arrive as soon as temperatures open wetlands and lakes, which can range from late February (Nebraska) to early May (Alberta, Manitoba and Iowa). In the Great Lakes region and north-eastern North America, migrants will also arrive as soon as bodies of water open up.[10]

Western birds migrate through Great Basin to the Pacific Coast. In British Columbia, fall migration begins in September and continues through October. The Great Salt Lake region is of particular importance to migrants in western United States. Central North American redheads will begin migrating earlier, around August/September and go through the Great Plains to the Texas coast. Eastern populations will migrate through the Great Lakes region to the Atlantic Coast or Florida from October to November. Most redheads winter along the Gulf of Mexico (offshore Louisiana, Florida and Mexico) however eastern populations will winter in South Carolina.[10]

Redheads flock together on lakes and other bodies of water but will migrate in pairs, which are formed in December or January through elaborate courtship rituals.[4] Unpaired redheads will migrate together in a courting party that can be up to 25 individuals strong and hopefully find a mate within the group.[4] The pair bonds are established yearly through a long courtship process. Males begin this process through neck-kinking and head throwing displays while emitting a cat-like call.[10] The male will continue by initiating a neck-stretching display while producing a cough like call, a display and vocalization in which the females reciprocates. If interested, the female will herself produce inciting calls towards the male while performing alternate lateral and chin lifting movements. The male then swims ahead of her and turns the back of his head towards the female.[4] Once courtship is finished, the two birds are paired for the year. Eventually, the male initiates copulation by alternating bill dipping and preening dorsally towards the female, an action in which the female might return to the male.[6]

Once copulation is completed, female redheads begin forming nests. They are built with thick and strong plant material in emergent vegetation, such as hard stem bulrush, cattails and sedges, over or near standing water.[4][8] Redheads to not defend their territory or home range and are actually very social while in their breeding ground. This is thought to occur because some younger, inexperienced redhead females parasitize other pochards.[4] Some redheads lay their eggs in other pochards nests, including the canvasback, ring-necked duck and greater and lesser scaups and this social parasitism by redheads reduces the hatching success of other pochards eggs, especially those of the canvasback.[4] In contrast, because of the parasitic relationship between the redhead and other pochards, redhead hybrids with the ring-necked duck, canvasback and the greater and lesser scaups have been found.[6] Canvasback x redhead hybrids can be fertile.[11] Brood sizes range from 5-7 young, with the mother abandoning the chicks at 8 weeks old, before they are capable of flying.[9] They remain flightless for another 24 weeks.[9]

There is little information on redhead vocalizations outside of breeding calls. Males will emit calls when courting the female.[6] When the neck is fully extended in the neck-stretching display, males will emit a distinct wheee-oww, which sounds catlike.[4][6] Males may also produce a soft coughing call, although this call is less frequent.[4] Females will emit a soft errrr note when she is inciting a male.[4]

All pochards have similar diets that include both plant and animal materials. Redheads undergo a niche switch when breeding and when wintering. During the breeding season, redheads will eat as much animal matter as possible, including gastropods, mollusks and insect larvae.[4][5] They will eat the occasional grass and other emergent vegetation.[5] However, once they fly south, redheads will change their diet to include mostly plant material, including pondweeds, wild rice, wild celery, wigeon grass, bulrushes, muskgrass and shoal grass.[4][5]

Gastropods known as food of Aythya americana include: Acteocina canaliculata, Acteon punctostriatus, Anachis avara, Anachis obesa, Caecum nitidum, Calliostoma sp., Cerithidea pliculosa, Cerithium lutosum, Crepidula convexa, Diastoma varium, Melanella sp., Mitrella lunata, Nassarius acutus, Nassarius vibex, Natica sp., Neritina virginea, Odostomia trifida, Olivella minuta, Olivella watermani, Polinices sp., Pyramidellidae, Pyrgocythara plicosa, Rissoina catesbyana, Sayella livida, Turbonilla sp., Turbonilla interrupta and Vitrinella sp.[12]

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Grey goo – Wikipedia

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Grey goo (also spelled gray goo) is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all biomass on Earth while building more of themselves,[1][2] a scenario that has been called ecophagy ("eating the environment", more literally "eating the habitation").[3] The original idea assumed machines were designed to have this capability, while popularizations have assumed that machines might somehow gain this capability by accident.

Self-replicating machines of the macroscopic variety were originally described by mathematician John von Neumann, and are sometimes referred to as von Neumann machines or clanking replicators.The term gray goo was coined by nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation.[4] In 2004 he stated, "I wish I had never used the term 'gray goo'."[5] Engines of Creation mentions "gray goo" in two paragraphs and a note, while the popularized idea of gray goo was first publicized in a mass-circulation magazine, Omni, in November 1986.[6]

The term was first used by molecular nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler in his book Engines of Creation (1986). In Chapter 4, Engines Of Abundance, Drexler illustrates both exponential growth and inherent limits (not gray goo) by describing nanomachines that can function only if given special raw materials:

Imagine such a replicator floating in a bottle of chemicals, making copies of itself...the first replicator assembles a copy in one thousand seconds, the two replicators then build two more in the next thousand seconds, the four build another four, and the eight build another eight. At the end of ten hours, there are not thirty-six new replicators, but over 68 billion. In less than a day, they would weigh a ton; in less than two days, they would outweigh the Earth; in another four hours, they would exceed the mass of the Sun and all the planets combinedif the bottle of chemicals hadn't run dry long before.

According to Drexler, the term was popularized by an article in science fiction magazine Omni, which also popularized the term nanotechnology in the same issue. Drexler says arms control is a far greater issue than grey goo "nanobugs".[7]

In a History Channel broadcast, a contrasting idea (a kind of gray goo) is referred to in a futuristic doomsday scenario:"In a common practice, billions of nanobots are released to clean up an oil spill off the coast of Louisiana. However, due to a programming error, the nanobots devour all carbon based objects, instead of just the hydrocarbons of the oil. The nanobots destroy everything, all the while, replicating themselves. Within days, the planet is turned to dust."[8]

Drexler describes gray goo in Chapter 11 of Engines of Creation:

Early assembler-based replicators could beat the most advanced modern organisms. 'Plants' with 'leaves' no more efficient than today's solar cells could out-compete real plants, crowding the biosphere with an inedible foliage. Tough, omnivorous 'bacteria' could out-compete real bacteria: they could spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days. Dangerous replicators could easily be too tough, small, and rapidly spreading to stopat least if we made no preparation. We have trouble enough controlling viruses and fruit flies.

Drexler notes that the geometric growth made possible by self-replication is inherently limited by the availability of suitable raw materials.

Drexler used the term "gray goo" not to indicate color or texture, but to emphasize the difference between "superiority" in terms of human values and "superiority" in terms of competitive success:

Though masses of uncontrolled replicators need not be grey or gooey, the term "grey goo" emphasizes that replicators able to obliterate life might be less inspiring than a single species of crabgrass. They might be "superior" in an evolutionary sense, but this need not make them valuable.

Bill Joy, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, discussed some of the problems with pursuing this technology in his now-famous 2000 article in Wired magazine, titled "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us". In direct response to Joy's concerns, the first quantitative technical analysis of the ecophagy scenario was published in 2000 by nanomedicine pioneer Robert Freitas.[3]

Drexler more recently conceded that there is no need to build anything that even resembles a potential runaway replicator. This would avoid the problem entirely. In a paper in the journal Nanotechnology, he argues that self-replicating machines are needlessly complex and inefficient. His 1992 technical book on advanced nanotechnologies Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation[9] describes manufacturing systems that are desktop-scale factories with specialized machines in fixed locations and conveyor belts to move parts from place to place. None of these measures would prevent a party from creating a weaponized grey goo, were such a thing possible.

Prince Charles called upon the British Royal Society to investigate the "enormous environmental and social risks" of nanotechnology in a planned report, leading to much media commentary on grey goo. The Royal Society's report on nanoscience was released on 29 July 2004, and declared the possibility of self-replicating machines to lie too far in the future to be of concern to regulators.[10]

More recent analysis in the paper titled Safe Exponential Manufacturing from the Institute of Physics (co-written by Chris Phoenix, Director of Research of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and Eric Drexler), shows that the danger of grey goo is far less likely than originally thought.[11] However, other long-term major risks to society and the environment from nanotechnology have been identified.[12] Drexler has made a somewhat public effort to retract his grey goo hypothesis, in an effort to focus the debate on more realistic threats associated with knowledge-enabled nanoterrorism and other misuses.[13]

In Safe Exponential Manufacturing, which was published in a 2004 issue of Nanotechnology, it was suggested that creating manufacturing systems with the ability to self-replicate by the use of their own energy sources would not be needed.[14] The Foresight Institute also recommended embedding controls in the molecular machines. These controls would be able to prevent anyone from purposely abusing nanotechnology, and therefore avoid the grey goo scenario.[15]

Grey goo is a useful construct for considering low-probability, high-impact outcomes from emerging technologies. Thus, it is a useful tool in the ethics of technology. Daniel A. Vallero[16] applied it as a worst-case scenario thought experiment for technologists contemplating possible risks from advancing a technology. This requires that a decision tree or event tree include even extremely low probability events if such events may have an extremely negative and irreversible consequence, i.e. application of the precautionary principle. Dianne Irving[17] admonishes that "any error in science will have a rippling effect....". Vallero adapted this reference to chaos theory to emerging technologies, wherein slight permutations of initial conditions can lead to unforeseen and profoundly negative downstream effects, for which the technologist and the new technology's proponents must be held accountable.

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Censorship of Facebook – Wikipedia

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BangladeshEdit

Bangladesh (like Iran, China and North Korea) had banned Facebook before - the Bangladeshi ban operated for a short period of time[when?]. The Awami League-led government of Bangladesh announced a countrywide ban on Facebook and other social-network websites. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina (in office from 2009) proposed the establishment of an Internet monitoring committee with the help of Bangladesh's intelligence services. Right-wing political parties and groups in Bangladesh protested against bloggers and others they had considered "blasphemous" at the time of the proposal. Extremists in the country had murdered eight secularists , including atheist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider, who was fatally stabbed in February 2013. National riots over the country's war-crimes trials resulted in the deaths of 56 people between 19 January 2013 and 2 March 2013.

On 18 November 2015 the same Awami League government banned Facebook again on the eve of the final judgement of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leader Ali Ahsan Muhammad Mujahid and Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Salauddin Kader Chowdhury. Both the politicians and previous minister have been issued a death sentence by the War Criminals Tribunal and the review board of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh has finally given their judgement in favour of the previously given one.

The Bangladesh government lifted the ban on 20 December 2015. Facebook is accessible in Bangladesh as of late 2017.

In China, Facebook was blocked following the July 2009 rmqi riots because Xinjiang independence activists were using Facebook as part of their communications network.[5] Some Chinese users also believed that Facebook would not succeed in China after Google China's problems.[6] Renren (formerly Xiaonei) has many features similar to Facebook, and complies with PRC Government regulations regarding content filtering.

As of 20 August 2013, there have been reports of Facebook being partially unblocked in China.[7] However, according to the "Blocked in China" website, Facebook is still blocked.[8] Facebook is not blocked in Hong Kong and Macau.

Facebook was blocked for a few days in Egypt during the 2011 Egyptian protests.[9]

In July 2011, authorities in Germany began to discuss the prohibition of events organized on Facebook. The decision is based on numerous cases of overcrowding by people who were not originally invited.[10] In one instance, 1,600 "guests" attended the 16th birthday party for a Hamburg girl who accidentally posted the invitation for the event as public. After reports of overcrowding, more than a hundred police were deployed for crowd control. A police officer was injured and eleven participants were arrested for assault, property damage and resistance to authorities.[11] In another unexpectedly overcrowded event, 41 young people were arrested and at least 16 injured.[12]

In 2015, during the European migrant crisis with large numbers of immigrants entering the country unregulated, a broad discussion about the problems of mass immigration and politics of the actual government took place in social media. Early in 2016, a Bertelsmann company called "Arvato" was mandated to erase comments and contents from Facebook.[13] In the summer of 2016, police in fourteen German states began coordinated raids on the residences of individuals who praised the Nazi regime or referred to refugees as "scum" in a private Facebook group.[14] A law known as NetzDG went into effect starting in 2018 which mandates all websites in Germany, including Facebook, censor such illegal content.[15] A spokesperson for Facebook announced the company's opposition to the law on the grounds that it would lead to overblocking.[16]

The Hungarian government doesn't want to ban pages, but Facebook itself decided to ban a conservative website. Nobody can write posts or private messages if it contains the string "kuruc.info" or link to this conservative website.

The Indian government imposed a one-month ban on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites in Kashmir Valley in 2017, due to public safety because the Indian government believed social media were being misused by anti-national and anti-social elements backed by Pakistan Army and Pakistan intelligence agencies including Inter-Services Intelligence. The ban was also placed to cut communication between the rebels, who were countering the efforts made by the Indian Army. [17]

After the 2009 election in Iran, the website was banned because of fears that opposition movements were being organized on the website.[3] However, after four years of the blocking of Facebook website, as of September 2013, the blocking of both Twitter and Facebook was thought to have been lifted without notice.[18]Iranians lost unrestricted access to Facebook and Twitter the next day, leaving many people wondering whether the opening was deliberate or the result of some technical glitch.[19]

In September 2016, the Cabinet of Israel has said to have agreed with Facebook to remove content that is deemed as incitement.[20][21][22] This announcement came after top Facebook officials met with the Israeli government to determine which Facebook accounts should be deleted on the grounds that they constituted as incitement. The Israeli interior minister's office has said that they agreed with Facebook representatives to create teams that would figure out how best to monitor and remove "inflammatory content" online. Critics of Israels policies are not happy with this move as they claim this is being used as a way to silence outspoken Palestinian civilians, activists and journalists. The activists argue that when they post material meant to critique alleged occupation, Israel sees it as encouraging violence.[23]

Facebook was blocked for a few days in Malaysia during the 2011 Egyptian protests.[9]

The Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA) of Mauritius, ordered internet service providers of the country to ban Facebook on immediate effect, on the 8 November 2007 because of a fake profile page of the Prime Minister. Access to Facebook was restored on the next day.[24][25][26]

On February 5, 2008, Fouad Mourtada, a citizen of Morocco, was arrested for 43 days due to the alleged creation of a faked Facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco.[27][28]

In April 2016, North Korea started blocking Facebook, "a move underscoring its concern with the spread of online information," according to The Associated Press. Anyone who tries to access it, even with special permission from the North Korean government, will be subject to punishment.[4]

On May 19, 2010, Lahore High Court ordered Facebook to be blocked. Facebook was blocked until May 31 after a competition page encouraged users to post drawings of Muhammad. The controversial page named Draw Muhammad Day had been created by a Facebook user in response to American cartoonist Molly Noriss protest to the decision of US television channel, Comedy Central to cancel an episode of the popular show South Park over its depiction of Mohammed. Noris had however disavowed having declared May 20 Draw Muhammad Day and had condemned the effort and issued an apology. The ban, implemented by the PTA, also resulted in a ban on YouTube and restricted access to other websites, including Wikipedia.[citation needed]

On 25 November 2017, the NetBlocks internet shutdown observatory and Digital Rights Foundation collected evidence of nationwide blocking of Facebook alongside other social media services, imposed by the government in response to the violent Tehreek-e-Labaik protests.[29][30][31] The technical investigation found that all major Pakistani fixed-line and mobile service providers were affected by the restrictions, which were lifted by the PTA the next day when protests abated following the resignation of Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid.[32] Other websites including Twitter, YouTube and Dailymotion were also reportedly blocked by order of the PTA.[33]

In March 2018, Facebook was blocked in Sri Lanka due to racial hate speeches being rumored around the country via the social media which has caused many riots in the country by extremist groups. However this decision is not permanent.[34][35]

The Syrian government explained their ban by claiming the website promoted attacks on authorities.[36][37] The government also feared Israeli infiltration of Syrian social networks on Facebook.[36] Facebook was also used by Syrian citizens to criticize the government of Syria, as public criticism of the Syrian government used to be punishable by imprisonment.[36] In February 2011, Facebook was un-blocked from all ISP's and the website remains to be accessible.[38]

In November 2012, Tajikistan blocked access to Facebook in response to comments posted online, spreading mud and slander about President Emomalii Rahmon and various other officials.[39]

In the United Kingdom on April 28, 2011, the day before the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, a number of politically motivated Facebook groups and pages were removed or suspended from the website as part of a nationwide crackdown on political activity. The groups and pages were mostly concerned with opposition to government spending cuts, and many were used to organize demonstrations in a continuation of the 2010 UK student protests.[40][41][42] The censorship of the pages coincided with a series of pre-emptive arrests of known activists.[43] Amongst the arrestees were a street theater group planning an effigy beheading performance in opposition to the monarchy.[44]

A Facebook spokesman said the pages were disabled as part of a routine sweep because they were created with fake personal profiles, a violation of the companys term of service. In this case a number of the Facebook personal profile pages represented causes, rather than real people. Facebook "offered to help convert the profiles to pages that are designed to represent companies, groups or causes."[42] The spokesman went on to say that "the Met Police did not ask Facebook to take down this content."[41]

In March 2018, fascist far-right hate group Britain First, was removed by Facebook. The pages of the leaders of the party were also taken down following their arrest and incarceration.

Facebook was blocked in Vietnam for two weeks in May 2016 due to protest of dissidents.[45]

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Censorship of Facebook - Wikipedia