Patch.com | 'Sheer Abuse' Of Town Beaches As Litter Piles Up Sparks Crackdown: Supervisor Patch.com SOUTHOLD, NY The sight is familiar after summer weekends in Southold: Trash cans overflowing at local beaches and road ends, garbage spilling out onto the sand. And the cost of cleanup to Southold Town is proving too high, Southold Town Supervisor ... |
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'Sheer Abuse' Of Town Beaches As Litter Piles Up Sparks Crackdown: Supervisor - Patch.com
As the skies darken, temperatures drop and an eerie quietness fills the air during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, bride Samantha Adams and groom Cameron Kuhn will be saying I do.
The couple is holding their midday wedding ceremony in the path of totality in St. Joseph, Missouri.
It is perfect. It is totally 100 percent us, the astronomy-loving bride told ABC News.
Adams, 28, had already been over the moon about the upcoming total solar eclipse, the first in the contiguous U.S. in 38 years, when Kuhn proposed on Sept. 15, 2016, but it wasnt until they started discussing potential dates for their ceremony that she realized how much shed love to merge the two special occasions.
I was telling everybody about this eclipse coming up, the bride recalled. He was not surprised he was marrying someone that wanted to get married during an eclipse, on a Monday.
Ever since Adams was in third grade, she said shes been mind-boggled by space, even wanting to become an astronaut until seven knee surgeries derailed those plans.
Since then its completely fascinated me, she explained. We were told to pick a planet to do a report on and I picked Jupiter and it was the first time I started reading into space and once I realized the planets were out there and we were all suspended in this solar system, I couldnt wrap my head around it but I loved that. It completely fascinated me.
The bride-to-be even has a tattoo on her forearm of a minimalistic version of the Voyager Spacecraft.
Jutting out of it are all the planets and at the end of that is a pulsar map, a map of how you can find us in the Milky Way, she added.
Kuhn, 27, said its amazing how well the eclipse worked out for their upcoming nuptials.
While Sammy is undoubtedly more interested in astronomy, I've always liked the northern lights and dark starry skies, said the groom. We'd talked about someday road tripping to see a full eclipse but never imagined we'd get to merge our special day with such an awe-inspiring event.
The bride is sticking with the solar eclipse theme throughout the entire celebration, highlighting it with every decoration, bridal outfit accessory and party favor for her guests.
The couples save-the-date cards and formal invitations both reflect the solar eclipse theme. Adams, a graphic artist, designed them herself to help her guests get excited to take part in both epic events happening at once.
Were both pretty excited about how the ceremony will be customized for him and me. Were not very traditional, the bride said, adding there will be readings from her favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo as well as from her favorite astrophysicist, Carl Sagan.
After their vows, the bride and groom have timed it perfectly to have their guests put on their glasses to join them in observing the suns special moment hiding behind the moon.
We will ask all of our guests to step out from under the pavilion and get their glasses on so we can start watching the beginning of the eclipse before totality, said Adams. The moon will be shading during this whole time but when totality hits, we can take off our glasses and take in the ambiance.
It will be much darker and much cooler. A lot of neat things will happen in those two minutes, she added. They say it confuses animals. Nocturnal animals start creeping out. Youll start hearing crickets. Because of the quick change in temperature, youll feel a breeze go through. Usually, theres this kind of eerie quietness. Its really surreal and Im really looking forward to it.
I have my shoes for both the reception and ceremony, she said of the outer space-inspired heels and lace-up flats.
My hair will be dyed blue and fuchsia and a little bit of turquoise, Adams continued. I got some hair extensions to give it more volume. I have a star metal hair piece that will wrap around the top of my head.
Adams bouquet will be white roses with glitter and rhinestones on them, with cascading blue and purple Dendrobiums pouring out of the roses so theyre spacey-looking.
The bride and her family have been crafting galactic-themed centerpieces such as glitter-filled Mason jars and fuchsia-colored tea light candle holders to help illuminate the tables.
They also ordered 500 origami silver stars that will light up for an out-of-this-world experience.
Kuhn said he never imagined theyd get to merge their special day with such an awe-inspiring event, but hes thrilled his space-obsessed fiance is getting the wedding of her dreams.
I can't think of a more genuine and interesting person to be in the spotlight surrounding something as rare and wonderful as an eclipse, the groom said of his beautiful bride-to-be.
In that moment, Im going to be crying for happiness and for thankfulness and just being appreciative, Adams added of her grooms love for her. Ill allow myself to take in that moment and feel that joy.
The couple is honeymooning in Colorado to continue their stargazing.
"Were hitting the road with our dog to stay in a cabin for five days," said Adams. "We got a big enough cabin that well be alone with our pup for two days then we have a bunch of friends that are going to meet us to stay with us for a few days."
To watch this couples magical total solar eclipse wedding, tune into ABC News on Monday, Aug. 21, at 1 p.m. EST.
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Couple to wed during 'rare and wonderful' total solar eclipse - ABC News
Sitting in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy is a monster black hole. And by middle, I mean the exact center of the galaxy; it probably formed at the same time as the galaxy, itself, billions of years ago, and grew large as the galaxy did, too. It sits right there at the core, like a drain in the middle of a vast bathtub, mostly minding its own business but occasionally eating the odd star or gas cloud.
We think every big galaxy has one of these supermassive black holes in their hearts. Mostly, those are detected because they have disks of gas swirling madly around them, and observations can detect the motion of the gas via the Doppler shift as it orbits (we dont usually see the disks themselves, which are too small).
But our galaxy is different. Were in it, so were close to the black hole, and we have a better view. Not too close; were still halfway out to the edge of the galaxy, so were safe! But there are a few dozen stars that orbit the black hole far more closely, and because of our closer seat we can actually see them move as they do!
As an aside, this is one of the all-time coolest things I know about astronomy. It takes the Sun over two hundred million years to circle the galaxy once, but these stars are so close to the center, so close to the black hole, that they only take decades. That means that we can literally see them move year after year:
Scientifically, this is a very big deal. Weve known for centuries that if you can observe an object orbiting a more massive object, you can calculate the mass of that second object. If you know the first objects orbital velocity (how fast its moving as it goes around) you can also calculate the distance to them.
So, if we observe the stars orbiting that black hole in the center of the Milky Way (astronomers call it Sgr A*, literally pronounced Sagittarius A star or Saj A star if you feel more informal about it), we can, in principle, figure out the mass of the black hole and our distance from it.
Not that thats easy...but its been done. Powerful telescopes observing in the infrared (to make it easier to see the stars through all the dust and muck toward the center of the galaxy) have been able to watch these stars in their orbits, and also measure their Doppler shifts. That gives their velocities, too.
Using this method, weve been able to measure the mass of the black hole as being around 4 million times that of the Sun, and its distance as about 26,000 light years.
As amazing as that is, a team of astronomers decided they might be able to do more.
One of the stars orbiting the black hole is called S2. Its orbit brings it pretty close to Sgr A*, a hair-raising 18 billion kilometers, the equivalent of four times the distance from the Sun to Neptune. When its at that point in its orbit its screaming through space at the colossal speed of 6000 kilometers per second, 0.02 times the speed of light.
This is so close to the black hole that Einsteinian relativistic effects can kick in. There are quite a few, but one, in particular, is very interesting. If an object is in an elliptical orbit around something massive, the orientation of that ellipse will rotate over time. In other words, if you draw a line through the long axis of the ellipse, that line will rotate a little bit every time the object orbits. The effect is strongest at periapsis, the point when the orbiting object is closest to the object it orbits.
We actually have measured this effect; Mercurys orbit does this. The effect is tiny, and difficult to measure, because the Sun isnt very massive (in the relativistic sense) and mercury doesnt get that close. But we do see it, and its exactly as Einsteins equations of General Relativity predict.
This new team of astronomers thought that perhaps they could see this effect as the star S2 orbits Sgr A*. They looked at the observational data from 2002 (when S2 was last at periapsis) to 2015 and found that S2 maybe, barely, shows this effect. Their results certainly are at least consistent with what Einstein predicted.
Thats amazing. This has never been seen on this scale, before. And while their results are a touch iffy, well know better soon enough: S2 reaches periapsis once again sometime between April and July 2018 (the orbital characteristics arent perfectly known, so theres a bit of uncertainty there). During that time, telescopes will be peering intently at the center of our galaxy, very carefully measuring the position of the star.
...and a few others. S2 is just the nearest bright star to Sgr A*. Theres another thats closer but fainter, and harder to get accurate positions for it, but quite a few other stars have been seen orbiting the black hole as well. The team looked at them too, and by calculating their orbits were able to narrow down the mass and distance to the black hole: 4.15 million times the mass of the Sun, and at a distance from us of 26,700 light years (with some small uncertainties).
Again being able to do this is, quite simply, incredible, in the awe-inspiring sense of the word. Scientifically, its amazing enough; we know that there are characteristics of these supermassive black holes that seem to correlate with the galaxy around them (the way stars orbit the center, for example, seems to scale with the mass of the black hole), so being able to nail down the mass and distance our own local supermassive beastie is stunning.
But the fact of the matter is that its astonishing that we can do this at all. This is a ridiculously finicky set of observations coupled with ridiculously complicated mathematics describing the overall shape and character of space itself.
Yet, we can make these observations, and we can apply that math, and we can couple them to discover what a hole in spacetime 260 quadrillion kilometers away is doing as it tosses around multiple-octillion ton stars.
Why do we do this? Because were curious. Because were smart. Because we want to discover, and, most importantly, to understand.
This has driven us to investigate the Universe, itself...and to know our place in it.
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Seeing Einstein's hand in stars orbiting a supermassive black hole - SYFY WIRE (blog)
On Monday, the Slidell Branch of the St. Tammany Parish Library will be the place to be for astronomy lovers of all ages with a solar eclipse viewing party from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and a virtual trip through the galaxy at Armchair Astronomy at 6 p.m.
The viewing party will be held in the Herb Garden of the Slidell branch, 555 Robert Blvd., and will include crafts and an astronomy presentation before the eclipse begins. Eclipse glasses will be handed out for safe viewing. Participants should bring blankets and chairs to enjoy Mother Natures show.
Armchair astronomers can watch beautiful images of galaxies, planets and stars while learning about library resources that can help amateur astronomers on their learning journey.
For information about these programs, call (985) 646-6470.
LIT WITS BOOK CLUB: The club will discuss Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Abita Springs Library, 71683 Leveson St. For information about the club, call (985) 893-6285.
INTERMEDIATE INTERNET: Adults who already know the basics of using the internet can build on their skills at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Covington Library, 310 W. 21st Ave. For information, call (985) 893-6280.
CHAPTER CHAT BOOK CLUB: The club will discuss Oleander Girl by Chitra Divakaruni at 2 p.m. Thursday at the Slidell Library, 555 Robert Blvd. For information about the club, call librarian Noelle Williams at (985) 646-6470.
COLLEGE FINANCIAL PLANNING: Teens and their parents can learn the ins and outs of college financial aid at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Causeway Library, 3457 U.S. 190, Mandeville. For information, call (985) 626-9779.
TRUTH BE TOLD BOOK CLUB: The club will discuss Lab Girl by Hope Jahren at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the Covington Library, 310 W. 21st Ave. For information about the club, call branch manager Sue Ryan at (985) 893-6280.
BAYOU BOOKMARKERS BOOK CLUB: The club will discuss The Tigers Wife by Tea Obreht at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Lacombe Library, 28027 U.S. 190. For information about the club, call branch manager Rhonda Spiess at (985) 882-7858.
DROP-IN TECH HELP: Adults can get one-on-one help with downloading the librarys free apps at noon Wednesday at the Madisonville Library, 1123 Main St. For information, call (985) 845-4819.
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Check It Out: Eclipse party to cover the basics of astronomy - The Advocate
Dr. Rory Barnes, an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrobiology Program at the University of Washington, arrived at this finding by questioning the long-held assumption that only those stars that are much smaller and dimmer than our Sun could host tidally-locked planets.
This artists conception shows a hypothetical tidally-locked planet with two moons orbiting in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star. Image credit: D. Aguilar / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Tidal locking results when there is no side-to-side momentum between a body in space and its gravitational partner and they become fixed in their embrace.
Tidally-locked bodies such as the Earth and the Moon are in synchronous rotation, meaning that each takes exactly as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its host star or gravitational partner.
The Moon takes 27 days to rotate once on its axis, and 27 days to orbit the Earth once.
Earths only permanent natural satellite is thought to have been created by an object the size of Mars, known as Theia, slamming into the proto-Earth at an angle that set the world spinning initially with approximately 12-hour days.
The possibility of tidal locking is an old idea, but nobody had ever gone through it systematically, Dr. Barnes said.
In the past, researchers tended to use that 12-hour estimation of Earths rotation period to model exoplanet behavior, asking, for example, how long an Earth-like exoplanet with a similar orbital spin might take to become tidally locked.
What I did was say, maybe there are other possibilities you could have slower or faster initial rotation periods.
You could have planets larger than Earth, or planets with eccentric orbits so by exploring that larger parameter space, you find that in fact the old ideas were very limited, there was just one outcome there,
He said: planetary formation models, however, suggest the initial rotation of a planet could be much larger than several hours, perhaps even several weeks.
And so when you explore that range, what you find is that theres a possibility for a lot more exoplanets to be tidally locked.
For example, if Earth formed with no moon and with an initial day that was 4 days long, one model predicts Earth would be tidally locked to the Sun by now.
The results of this work suggest that the process of tidal locking is a major factor in the evolution of most of the potentially habitable exoplanets to be discovered in the near future.
Being tidally locked was once thought to lead to such extremes of climate as to eliminate any possibility of life, but astronomers have since reasoned that the presence of an atmosphere with winds blowing across a planets surface could mitigate these effects and allow for moderate climates and life.
I also considered the planets that will likely be discovered by NASAs next planet-hunting satellite, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and found that every potentially habitable planet it will detect will likely be tidally locked, Dr. Barnes said.
The results will be published in the journal Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, but have been published on arXiv.org ahead of time.
_____
Rory Barnes. 2017. Tidal Locking of Habitable Exoplanets. Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, in press; arXiv: 1708.02981
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Tidally-Locked Planets More Common than Previously Thought, Astronomer Says - Sci-News.com
Its a question solar astrophysicist Henry TraeWinter started thinking about several months ago after a blind colleague asked him to describe what an eclipse was like.
I was caught completely flat-footed, Winter said. I had no idea how to communicate what goes on during an eclipse to someone who has never seen before in their entire life.
Winter remembered a story a friend told him about how crickets can start to chirp in the middle of the day as the moon covers the sun during an eclipse. So, he told his colleague that story.
The reaction that she had was powerful, and I wanted to replicate that sense of awe and wonder to as many people as I could across the country, Winter said.
[Learn about some of the experiments that will be conducted during the Great American Eclipse.]
So Winter, who works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, decided to build an app to do just that: help blind people experience this summers eclipse.
[The blind] community has been traditionally left out of astronomy and astrophysics, Winter said, and I think that that is a glaring omission that its time to answer.
Eclipse Soundscapes, which launched for iPads and iPhones Thursday, features real-time narration of different aspects of the eclipse timed for the users location.
A rumble map allows users to hear and feel the phenomenawhen they touch photos of previous eclipses.
Dark areas in the photos, like the solid black face of the moon, are silent when you touch them. Wispy strands of sunlight radiating out from behind the moon emit lower hums. And touching brighter areas, like the shards of light that peek out from behind the moons valleys, produce higher frequencies.
The sounds are paired with vibrations, soft for darker areas and more intense for brighter spots.
We managed to create frequencies that resonate with the body of the phone, said the apps audio engineer Miles Gordon, so the phone is vibrating entirely using the speaker.
[Need a last minute plan for the eclipse? No problem.]
The goal of this app is not to give someone whos blind or visually impaired the exact same experience as a sighted person, Winter said. What I hope this is, is a prototype, a first step, something we can learn from to make the next set of tools.
Other tools exist to allow blind people to experience the eclipse, including tactile maps and books, but its still understood largely as visual phenomena.
Less well-known are the changes in temperature, weather patterns and wildlife behaviors that accompany total eclipses.
Chancey Fleet, the colleague who first asked Winter to describe an eclipse at a conference months ago, was skeptical when she learned about his idea for an app.
The first time I heard that blind people were being asked to pay attention to the eclipse, I kind of laughed to myself, and tried to contain my really dismissive reaction, said Fleet, whos an accessible technology educator at a library in New York. It almost sounds like a joke.
But after learning about the sounds associated with the eclipse, shes interested in trying out Winters app.
Im looking forward to experiencing it for myself, and not just hearing or reading about it, Fleet said. Nothing is ever just visual, really. And [this] just proves that point again.
The app development team has gotten help from Wanda Diaz Merced, an astrophysicist who is blind, to make sure the software is easy to navigate.
She believes the app will show people that theres more to an eclipse than spooky midday darkness.
People will discover, Oh, I can also hear this!Diaz Merced said. And, I can also touch it!'
She also sees the app as a tool to get more blind kids interested in science.
That is very, very, very important, she said.
The Eclipse Soundscapes team, which is backed by a grant from NASA, has recruited the National Park Service, Brigham Young University and citizen scientists to record audio of how both people and wildlife respond during the eclipse.
Phase two of the project is to build an accessible database for those recordings, so blind people can easily access them.
Thats the element of the project Diaz Merced is most excited about from a scientific standpoint.
[How to throw an eclipse party thats out of this world.]
After she lost her sight in her late 20s, she had to build her own computer program to convert telescope data to sound files so she could continue her research (heres her TED talk).
She hopes this project spurs more interest in making data accessible to researchers like her.
What I do hope is that databases in science will use [this] database model for us to be able to have meaningful access to the information, Diaz Merced said. And that perhaps through [the] database, we will not be segregated.
In that way, she hopes the impact of the eclipse will last much longer than a day.
Continued here:
KETCHUM Three solar eclipse experts will speak in Ketchum days leading up to the big event. All presentations are free and open to the public.
Eclipse chaser Leona Rice and astronomer Carolyn Rankin-Mallory will speak at noon on Saturday in Town Square. Rice was elected to the California legislature for three terms and retired after 20 years as executive director of The Doctors Company Foundation. Rankin-Mallory was recently a member of the NASA team that discovered 17 previously unknown stars and divides her time between NASA research participation and college teaching.
Astronomer Jeff Silverman will speak at noon on Sunday in Town Square. Silverman is a data scientist, but was a National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. He received his PhD. in astrophysics at the University of California at Berkeley, working on observations of exploding stars and dark energy. He is heavily involved in science communication and public outreach programs. Silverman will also speak on Monday at the viewing party hosted by the cities of Ketchum and Sun Valley at Festival Meadow.
The partial phase of the eclipse will begin at 10:12 a.m. on Monday, with full totality beginning at 11:29 a.m. and lasting for over a minute. Special viewing glasses are needed to provide adequate protection for those wishing to look directly at the sun during the eclipse.
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3 solar eclipse experts to speak in Ketchum - Twin Falls Times-News
SPHEREx would map hundreds of millions of galaxies to look for signs of cosmic inflation, a rapid expansion just after the big bang.
NASA JPL
By Daniel CleryAug. 16, 2017 , 9:00 AM
From exoplanet atmospheres to the dynamics of galaxies to the stretch marks left by the big bang, the three finalists in a $250 million astrophysics mission competition would tackle questions spanning all of space and time. Announced last week by NASA, the three missionswhittled down from nine proposalswill receive $2 million each to develop a more detailed concept over the coming 9 months, before NASA selects one in 2019 to be the next mid-sized Explorer. A launch would come after 2022.
Explorer missions aim to answer pressing scientific questions more cheaply and quickly than NASAs multibillion-dollar flagships, such as the Hubble and James Webb (JWST) space telescopes, which can take decades to design and build. The missions are led by scientists, either from a NASA center or a university, and NASA has launched more than 90 of them since the 1950s. Some Explorers have had a big scientific impact, including the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, which last decade mapped irregularities in the cosmic microwave background (CMB), an echo of the universe as it was 380,000 years after the big bang; and Swift, which is helping unravel the mystery of gamma-ray bursts that come from the supernova collapse of massive stars.
One finalist, the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), will map galaxies across a large volume of the universe to find out what drove inflation, a pulse of impossibly fast expansion just after the big bang. The physics behind inflation is unclear, says Principal Investigator Jamie Bock of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and it happened at energy scales too high for earthbound particle accelerators to investigate. The prevailing theory is that a short- lived quantum field, mediated by a hypothetical particle called an inflaton, pushed the universes rapid growth. But rival theories hold that multiple fields were involved. Those fields would have interfered with each other, leaving irregularities in the distribution of matter across the universe that would differ statistically from the distribution expected in conventional inflation.
By mapping hundreds of millions of galaxies across a huge volume of space, SPHEREx should be 10 times more sensitive to this cosmic lumpiness than the best maps of the CMBperhaps sensitive enough to distinguish between the two inflation scenarios. The all-sky infrared survey should also map out the history of light production by galaxies andcloser to homethe distribution of ices in embryonic planetary systems. SPHEREx is more powerful than the sum of its parts, Bock says.
The Arcus mission will also study distant galaxies but in x-rays, in search of what makes galaxies themselves tick. Powerful radiation from supermassive black holes at the center of most large galaxies creates winds that can blow gas out of the galaxies, halting star formation. But astronomers are unsure whether the gas falls back in to restart star formation because they cannot see it. This expelled matter has got to be out there somewhere, says Principal Investigator Randall Smith of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He says Arcus will be able to see the winds by using more distant x-ray sources as backlights.
The project draws heavily from a past mission that never flew: the International X-ray Observatory. When NASA withdrew from that project in 2012, U.S. researchers continued to develop the optics required to focus x-rays, which simply pass through flat mirrors. Based on sophisticated metal honeycombs that focus the high-energy photons by deflecting them at shallow angles, Arcuss optics should turn as many as 40% of the incoming photons into a usable spectrumup from 5% in NASAs current flagship Chandra X-ray Observatory. That should give the mission the resolution to see the expelled gas and measure its movement and temperature.
The third contender, the Fast Infrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer (FINESSE), aims to probe the origins and makeup of the atmospheres around exoplanets. The probe will gather light shining through a planets atmosphere as it passes in front of its star as well as light reflected off its dayside surface, just before it passes behind. This will reveal both the signatures of atmospheric ingredients such as water, methane, and carbon dioxide, and also how heat flows from the planets dayside to its nightside. With greater knowledge of the composition of exoplanet atmospheres and their dynamics, astronomers hope to figure out which formation theories can explain the diversity of planet types revealed over the past 2 decades.
The 6.5-meter JWST will be able to scrutinize exoplanet atmospheres in more detail, but its many other roles could limit it to studying fewer than 75 exoplanets. FINESSE will have the luxury of analyzing up to a thousand planets, albeit with a smaller 75-centimeter telescope. Is our solar systems formation scenario exceptional or typical? asks Principal Investigator Mark Swain of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Some questions can only be answered by statistical samples. We need hundreds of planets.
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Microsofts autonomous glider soars through the air above Hawthorne, Nev. Once airborne, the glider uses artificial intelligence to find and rely on thermals, or columns of air that rise due to heat, to stay aloft. (Microsoft Photo / John Brecher)
Paying attention to the rise of the machines increasingly means scanning the skies for things other than conventional aircraft or birds. But what if the line between the two begins to blur and autonomous planes can somehow be taught to mimic nature?
Thats the hope of researchers from Microsoft who are using artificial intelligence to keep a sailplane aloft without the help of a motor. A new report on the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giants website details the efforts of scientists launching test flights in a Nevada desert.
The researchers have found that through a complex set of AI algorithms, they can get their 16 1/2-foot, 12 1/2-pound aircraft to soar much like a hawk would, byidentifying things like air temperature and wind direction to locatethermals invisible columns of air that rise due to heat.
Birds do this seamlessly, and all theyre doing is harnessing nature. And they do it with a peanut-sized brain, Ashish Kapoor, a principal researcher at Microsoft, said in the report.
Kapoor said its probably one of the few AI systems operating in the real world thats not only making predictions but also taking action based on those predictions. He said the planes could eventually be used for such things as monitoring crops in rural areas or providing mobile Internet service in hard-to-reach places.
Beyond those practical tasks,Andrey Kolobov, the Microsoft researcher in charge of the projects research and engineering efforts, said the sailplane is charting a course for how intelligent learning itself will evolve over the coming years, calling the project a testbed for intelligent technologies. Its becoming increasingly important for systems of all kinds to make complex decisions based on a number of variables without making costly or dangerous mistakes.
Read more about what Microsoft is learning this summer in the desert via the story from the companys News Center.
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The AI (artificial intelligence) revolution is well and truly upon us, and we are at a significant watershed moment in our lives where AI could become the new electricity pervasive and touching every aspect of our life. While many industries including healthcare, education, retail and banks have already started adopting AI in key business aspects, there are also new business models which are predicated on AI.
With the global market of AI expected to grow at 36% annually, reaching a valuation of $3 trillion by 2025 from $126 bn in 2015, new age disruption is not only redefining the way traditional businesses are run, but is also unfolding as a new factor of production.
However, the fear of what might happen once AI evolves into artificial general intelligence which can perform any intellectual task that a human can do has now taken centre stage with the ongoing debate between two tech titans Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. Similarly, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had also voiced his views that in a few years, AI would have evolved enough to warrant wide attention, while Facebook has ended up shutting down one of its AI projects as chatbots had developed their own language (unintelligible to humans) to communicate.
Beyond this, the common citizen wants to know if she should be worried about AI taking away her job? This calls for broader thinking, including the evolution of industry protocols, while making sure that the public is ready for these futuristic advancements.
Will AI move my cheese?
The emergence of AI has seen criticism because of the probability that it could replace human jobs by automation. However, as we see the shift of AI from R&D stage to various real-life business prototypes, it seems evident that goal of most AI applications is to augment human abilities through hybrid business models.
According to McKinsey, AI would raise global labour productivity by 0.8% to 1.4% a year between now and 2065. I believe that both policy makers and corporates must recognise AIs potential to empower the workforce and invest in creating training programmes/workshops to help the labour force adapt to these newer models.
For instance, Ocado, the UK online supermarket has embedded robotics at the core of warehouse management. Robots steer thousands of product-filled bins to human packers just in time to fill shopping bags which are then sent to delivery vans whose drivers use AI applications to pick the best route based on traffic conditions and weather.
Technology will create more new jobs than it eliminates
We must learn from the history of the industrial and technological revolutions over the last 500 years that jobs eliminated in one sector have been replaced by newer jobs requiring refreshed skill-sets. As a corollary, countries such as Japan, Korea or Germany, which have the highest levels of automation, should have seen large scale unemployment over the past 4-5 decades. This is not necessarily the case.
Having said that, in the near future, every routine operational task is certainly likely to become digitised and AI could be running the back-office of most businesses. Over the next few decades, many middle skill jobs are also likely to be eliminated. However, AI is unlikely to replace jobs which require human to human interaction. Consequently, fundamental human thinking skills such as entrepreneurship, strategic thinking, social leadership, connected salesmanship, philosophy, and empathy, among others, would be in even greater demand.
Further, till a point of singularity is reached, AI will not be able to service or program on its own leading to new, high-skilled jobs for technicians and computing experts.
Lets be prepared
Globally, policymakers and corporations will need to significantly revamp the education system to address technology gaps.
In India, this represents an enormous opportunity for policymakers to make better informed decisions, tackle some of the toughest socio-economic challenges, and address the woeful shortage of qualified doctors, teachers etc.
We need to immediately plan for state and nation-wide university hubs, and MOOCs (massive open online courses) built on the framework of DICE (design, innovation, creativity led entrepreneurship). Curricula should be focussed on developing basic skills in STEM (science, technology , engineering and mathematics) fields, coupled with a new emphasis on creativity, critical and strategic thinking. Adaptive and individualised learning systems need to be established to help students at different levels work collaboratively amongst themselves as well as with AI in the classroom.
The National Skills Development Corporation will need to evolve into National Future Skills Development, as we as a civil society prepare to bring the future into the present!
Rana Kapoor is MD and CEO, YES Bank; and Chairman, YES Global Institute
The views expressed are personal
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The artificial Intelligence wave is upon us. We better be prepared - Hindustan Times
In the mid-1990s, Douglas Eck worked as a database programmer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, while moonlighting as a musician. After a day spent writing computer code inside a lab run by the Department of Energy, he would take the stage at a local juke joint, playing what he calls punk-influenced bluegrass Johnny Rotten crossed with Johnny Cash. But what he really wanted to do was combine his days and nights, and build machines that could make their own songs. My only goal in life was to mix AI and music, Mr. Eck said.
It was a naive ambition. Enrolling as a graduate student at Indiana University, in Bloomington, not far from where he grew up, he pitched the idea to Douglas Hofstadter, the cognitive scientist who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on minds and machines, Gdel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid . Mr. Hofstadter turned him down, adamant that even the latest artificial intelligence techniques were much too primitive.
But during the next two decades, working on the fringe of academia, Mr. Eck kept chasing the idea, and eventually, the AI caught up with his ambition.
Last spring, a few years after taking a research job at Google, Mr. Eck pitched the same idea he pitched to Mr. Hofstadter all those years ago. The result is Project Magenta, a team of Google researchers who are teaching machines to create not only their own music but also to make so many other forms of art, including sketches, videos and jokes.
With its empire of smartphones, apps and internet services, Google is in the business of communication, and Mr. Eck sees Magenta as a natural extension of this work. Its about creating new ways for people to communicate, he said during a recent interview inside the small two-story building here that serves as headquarters for Google AI research.
Growing effort
The project is part of a growing effort to generate art through a set of AI techniques that have only recently come of age. Called deep neural networks, these complex mathematical systems allow machines to learn specific behaviour by analysing vast amounts of data.
By looking for common patterns in millions of bicycle photos, for instance, a neural network can learn to recognise a bike. This is how Facebook identifies faces in online photos, how Android phones recognise commands spoken into phones, and how Microsoft Skype translates one language into another. But these complex systems can also create art. By analysing a set of songs, for instance, they can learn to build similar sounds.
As Mr. Eck says, these systems are at least approaching the point still many, many years away when a machine can instantly build a new Beatles song or perhaps trillions of new Beatles songs, each sounding a lot like the music the Beatles themselves recorded, but also a little different.
Tools for artists
But that end game is not what he is after. There are so many other paths to explore beyond mere mimicry. The ultimate idea is not to replace artists but to give them tools that allow them to create in entirely new ways.
In the 1990s, at that juke joint in New Mexico, Mr. Eck combined Johnny Rotten and Johnny Cash. Now, he is building a software that does much the same thing. Using neural networks, he and his team are cross-breeding sounds from very different instruments say, a bassoon and a clavichord creating instruments capable of producing sounds no one has ever heard.
Much as a neural network can learn to identify a cat by analysing hundreds of cat photos, it can learn the musical characteristics of a bassoon by analysing hundreds of notes. It creates a mathematical representation, or vector, that identifies a bassoon. So, Mr. Eck and his team have fed notes from hundreds of instruments into a neural network, building a vector for each one.
Now, simply by moving a button across a screen, they can combine these vectors to create new instruments. One may be 47% bassoon and 53% clavichord. Another might switch the percentages. And so on.
For centuries, orchestral conductors have layered sounds from instruments atop one other. But this is different. Rather than layering sounds, Mr. Eck and his team combine them to form something that did not exist before, creating new ways that artists can work.NYT
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How Artificial Intelligence is reshaping art and music - The Hindu
Elon Musk's recent remark on Twitter that artificial intelligence (AI) is more dangerous than North Korea is based on his bedrock belief in the power of thought. But this philosophy has a dark side.
If you believe that a good idea can take over the world and if you conjecture that computers can or will have ideas, then you have to consider the possibility that computers may one day take over the world. This logic has taken root in Musk's mind and, as someone who turns ideas into action for a living, he wants to make sure you get on board too. But hes wrong, and you shouldnt believe his apocalyptic warnings.
Here's the story Musk wants you to know but hasn't been able to boil down to a single tweet. By dint of clever ideas, hard work, and significant investment, computers are getting faster and more capable. In the last few years, some famously hard computational problems have been mastered, including identifying objects in images, recognizing the words that people say, and outsmarting human champions in games like Go. If machine learning researchers can create programs that can replace captioners, transcriptionists, and board game masters, maybe it won't be long before they can replace themselves. And, once computer programs are in the business of redesigning themselves, each time they make themselves better, they make themselves better at making themselves better.
The resulting intelligence explosion would leave computers in a position of power, where they, not humans, control our future. Their objectives, even if benign when the machines were young, could be threatening to our very existence in the hands of an intellect dwarfing our own. That's why Musk thinks this issue is so much bigger than war with North Korea. The loss of a handful of major cities wouldn't be permanent, whereas human extinction by a system seeking to improve its own capabilities by turning us into computational components in its mega-brainthat would be forever.
Musks comparison, however, grossly overestimates the likelihood of an intelligence explosion. His primary mistake is in extrapolating from recent successes of machine learning the eventual development of general intelligence. But machine learning is not as dangerous as it might look on the surface.
For example, you may see a machine perform a task that appears to be superhuman and immediately be impressed. When people learn to understand speech or play games, they do so in the context of the full range of human experiences. Thus when you see something that can respond to questions or beat you soundly in a board game, it is not unreasonable to infer that it also possesses a range of other human capacities. But that's not how these systems work.
In a nutshell, here's the methodology that has been successful for building advanced systems of late: First, people decide what problem they want to solve and they express it in the form of a piece of code called an objective functiona way for the system to score itself on the task. They then assemble perhaps millions of examples of precisely the kind of behavior they want their system to exhibit. After that they design the structure of their AI system and tune it to maximize the objective function through a combination of human insight and powerful optimization algorithms.
At the end of this process, they get a system that, often, can exhibit superhuman performance. But the performance is on the particular task that was selected at the beginning. If you want the system to do something else, you probably will need to start the whole process over from scratch. Moreover, the game of life does not have a clear objective functioncurrent methodologies are not suited to creating a broadly intelligent machine.
Someday we may inhabit a world with intelligent machines. But we will develop together and will have a billion decisions to make that shape how that world develops. We shouldn't let our fears prevent us from moving forward technologically.
Michael L. Littman is a professor of computer science at Brown University and co-director of Brown's Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative.
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Elon Musk Is Wrong Again. AI Isn't More Dangerous Than North Korea. - Fortune
Like mobile technology, cloud computing, big data and IoT before it, artificial intelligence may just be the next big thing that channel partners should have on their radars. But as with any new technology that comes along, partners need to ensure they have the right business skill sets for system implementations.
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The hype about AI is rising, although the jury is still out on whether the artificial intelligence market will be a great opportunity for the channel, said Seth Robinson, senior director of technology analysis at CompTIA.
"AI is not going to be on its own something that is all that tangible that you can grasp and pursue," he said.
A sure sign of the growing interest is recent vendor product releases, noted Steve White, program vice president of channels and alliances at IDC. "When we spoke to channel and alliance folks 18 months ago, it was IoT, and now it's AI. It's the new golden child," he said.
Once vendors like Microsoft, Google, Salesforce and Cisco have announced offerings it creates greater access and interest for the technology, "and they're not investing unless they see opportunity," White said. "That's definitely why the channel should be interested."
Another appeal of the artificial intelligence market is that the technology is applicable for use in most industries, observers said.
That said, AI is still "very early in overall adoption cycle" and people are mainly curious about the technology and are in the exploratory phase right now, Robinson said.
He believes AI platforms will be complicated and there needs to be a deeper conversation with customers about the business needs for deploying the technology. That conversation should be about what AI is and how it fits into their business, Robinson said. "We haven't seen much readiness to move into that strategic conversation yet."
Without a clear understanding of the business objectives, companies may not utilize the technology's features, such as machine learning and cognitive computing, and then they obviously won't reap the benefits, he said. For example, if a company spends extra on help desk software with AI baked in but uses it in a standard way without utilizing AI, "you haven't moved the needle," he cautioned. "So, channel firms have to be careful about overselling without helping companies transition to new processes and workflows and the best usage of these things that are available today."
Probably the best and earliest example of AI in the enterprise is IBM's Watson technology, Robinson said. Within the channel, he said, there has been a lot of buzz about CrushBank, a spinoff of a managed service provider (MSP) that built an IT help desk application on top of Watson. "They're building a help desk application that utilizes Watson, so if you want to get CrushBank's product or are working with them, you'll get this new app with AI baked into it," he said. This is not an example of reselling or installing AI, but rather, incorporating the technology into apps, "which a lot of MSPs and VARs [value-added reseller] aren't thinking about,'' Robinson said.
In CrushBank's case, they are helping customers change workflow processes to utilize help desk features in a more efficient way, he said. "And that gets out of the wheelhouse of channel firms," since the channel historically has been built on management of technology, Robinson added.
"AI is a very natural way to supplement the tasks and work we do every day to support our clients," CrushBank co-founder and CTO David Tan said."I think the need has been there, but the growth in technology and platforms has made it more pronounced, and the technology to power the solutions is finally becoming mature."
CrushBank sells its platform to other MSPs, Tan said. The next step the channel needs to focus on is to really integrate technology into a business, which is at the core of what digital transformation is all about, he said. AI, according to Tan, can be particularly effective at making that happen.
Another example of a company using AI to change business processes is Actionable Science. The company has created AI-powered bots to help medium- and large-sized businesses improve productivity, enhance customer experiences, increase employee satisfaction and reduce costs, said Manish Sharma, co-founder and head of business development.
The bots address a range of tasks for sales, servicing, IT help desk, HR help desk and other functions. Actionable Science's advanced bots have natural language conversations, evolve using machine learning and execute tasks by leveraging robotic process automation, Sharma said.
The company has about a dozen partners so far, he said, adding that the artificial intelligence market "has got to be one of the top priorities for channel partners that want to stay relevant and grow their business in the future." They can do that by developing "an expertise in one or several specific applications," Sharma said.
The skills he believes a partner needs for AI work include a combination of process analytics, user experience and "requirements management that is very specific to AI."
This [technology] is going to be a lot more consulting-heavy, so you have to have those professional consulting folks with a depth of knowledge around [AI]. Steve Whiteprogram vice president of channels and alliances, IDC
White concurred that if a partner is already doing work in business intelligence or analytics, AI "would seem like a fairly obvious add-on that they should be looking at" because it takes the products they're offering to their customers to the next level.
"At the end of the day, AI is even smarter to leverage that platform you've already built,'' and expand upon it as an opportunity for growth, White said.
Partners also need to be able to build a consulting practice around AI, White believes. "This [technology] is going to be a lot more consulting-heavy, so you have to have those professional consulting folks with a depth of knowledge around [AI]. Like most tech trends, we see the partners who act quicker, funnily enough, are the ones who are more successful."
Learn about robotic process automation
How to get started in IoT managed services
Opinion: Why BI and AI are a natural fit
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Artificial intelligence market: Weighing the IT channel's role - TechTarget
Messenging app 'Messenger' launched a range of new artificial intelligence (AI) features in Australia on Wednesday.
The AI, called 'M', works almost like a prompting service, where it recognises words and phrases used in a conversation and then suggests relevant content and actions based on the chat between the two users.
For example, if you're speaking to someone on their birthday, 'M' will recognise either through a phrase used or their Messenger profile when their birthday is and then prompt you to send a birthday message.
Similarly, if you are chatting about making plans or struggling to come to a group decision about something, the AI will suggest you make a plan or start a group poll respectively. If you are chatting in a one-on-one conversation, and one person rises the idea of making a call, 'M' will prompt you to start a video or voice chat.
Other features include stickers for commonly used phrases including 'thankyou' or 'bye-bye' and a prompt to share your location with someone if phrases like 'where are you?' and 'see you soon' are used. Messenger also launched a content saving option that encourages you to save videos, Facebook posts and pages from your conversations to look at later.
If you tire of the notifications and suggestions from Messenger, it's easy to opt-out of the AI technology by adjusting your Messenger settings. It's also possible to dismiss a suggestion made by 'M' if you feel it is irrelevant.
The 'M' artificial intelligence technology was first launched in the U.S. in April and is also currently available in Mexico and Spain. Canada, South Africa and the U.K. will gain assess to the technology at the same time as all of us here in Australia.
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Messenger Launches New Artificial Intelligence Features - Huffington Post Australia
For some, the sight of the buffer circle is enough to bring on spasms of existential angst. When that spinning circle of death appears, the digital world cracks, its illusory sense of control slips from your sweaty palm, and you are reminded, however briefly, that you are not the master of this realm, and you have no real idea how the machine you are using works. Its also very annoying if youre trying to show a video to someone.
Researchers at MIT may have come up with a way to stave of techno-existential panic for good, thanks to a new artificial intelligence system that can keep video steaming buttery smooth.
Buffering happens because video streaming occurs in chunks, with your device downloading sequential portions of a file that are then stitched together. This means you can start watching the video before downloading the entire thing, but if connection wavers you might finish one chunk before the next has been fully downloaded.
Sites like YouTube use Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) algorithms to work out what resolution a video should display at. In a nutshell, these allow the system to maintain the flow of images be measuring a networks speed and lowering the resolution appropriately, or by working to maintain a sufficient buffer at the tip of the video. The issue is that neither of these techniques on their own can prevent annoying pauses in a clips if the network has a sudden drop in traffic flow say, if youre in a particularly crowded area, or if youre moving in and out of tunnels.
MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) AI, dubbed Pensive, takes these algorithms, but uses a neural network to intelligently work out when a system should flip between one and the other. The AI was trained on a months worth of video content, and was given reward and penalty conditions, to push it to calculate the most effective times to switch between ABR algorithms.
This system is adjustable, meaning it can be tweaked depending on what a content provider might want to prioritise such as consistent image quality or smoother playback. "Our system is flexible for whatever you want to optimise it for," commented MIT professor Mohammad Alizadeh in a statement. "You could even imagine a user personalising their own streaming experience based on whether they want to prioritise rebuffering versus resolution."
While the death of the buffer symbol might be cause for celebration, the researchers also point to the benefits the AI system could have for virtual reality potentially making it much easier for people to stream high-resolution VR games and films. This is really just the first step in seeing what we can do, noted Alizadeh.
Original post:
MIT's new artificial intelligence could kill buffering - Alphr
The Milwaukee Bucks will host an event this fall aimed at connecting students with Wisconsins aerospace industry.
More than 150 high school and college students from 28 schools will convene at the BMO Harris Bradley Center for the first-ever Aerospace Jam, where they will be able to engage with companies in Wisconsins aerospace industry.
The Bucks are partnering with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Wisconsin Aerospace Partners, Greater Oshkosh Economic Development Corporation and the NASA Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium on the half-day event. It will be held before a Bucks game in October or November. The date and time are expected to be announced soon.
Wisconsin companies that serve the aerospace industry and representatives of state colleges and universities will be on hand to talk to students about career opportunities in the industry.
Wisconsins aviation and aerospace industry employs more than 24,000 people and generates nearly $7 billion in annual economic activity, according to a news release. The state is home to more than 300 companies with ties to the aerospace sector, including more than 140 suppliers to Boeing.
The event will give high school students the opportunity to research colleges that offer degrees in STEM-related disciplines and college students the opportunity to interact with representatives from companies in the aerospace industry.
Wisconsin is positioned to support the success of aerospace-based companies and the next generation of young people who want to pursue careers in STEM-related fields, said Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who is vice chair of the Aerospace States Association, an organization of lieutenant governors and delegates dedicated to advancing the economic interests in the aerospace industry. Wisconsin has over 300 companies active in this industry, and a new partnership that connects them to one another and our universities. Now we need a talent pipeline that keeps pace with this growth, and these students will be the dreamers and doers who make the machines that carry us to the skies.
The Wisconsin Aerospace Partners, an Oshkosh-based organization, is aimed at growing the economic vitality of the states aerospace industry.
The Aerospace Jam is an excellent opportunity for Wisconsin aerospace manufacturers and suppliers to proactively connect with the best and brightest students in the state, said Meredith Jaeger, co-founder of AeroInnovate, an aerospace networking and consulting organization that conceived the Wisconsin Aerospace Partners program. This event is a proactive approach to addressing one of the greatest need gaps our aerospace companies in Wisconsin are facing today: finding qualified talent.
The NASA Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, based at Carthage College in Kenosha, is a part of the national network of Space Grant Consortia funded by NASAs National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program.Kevin Crosby, director of the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, said the event will help grow an awareness of the in-state opportunities available to graduates with STEM degrees.
This exciting event will demonstrate to our top students that they can pursue a career in aerospace without having to leave the state after finishing school, Crosby said.
The Milwaukee Bucks will host an event this fall aimed at connecting students with Wisconsins aerospace industry.
More than 150 high school and college students from 28 schools will convene at the BMO Harris Bradley Center for the first-ever Aerospace Jam, where they will be able to engage with companies in Wisconsins aerospace industry.
The Bucks are partnering with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, Wisconsin Aerospace Partners, Greater Oshkosh Economic Development Corporation and the NASA Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium on the half-day event. It will be held before a Bucks game in October or November. The date and time are expected to be announced soon.
Wisconsin companies that serve the aerospace industry and representatives of state colleges and universities will be on hand to talk to students about career opportunities in the industry.
Wisconsins aviation and aerospace industry employs more than 24,000 people and generates nearly $7 billion in annual economic activity, according to a news release. The state is home to more than 300 companies with ties to the aerospace sector, including more than 140 suppliers to Boeing.
The event will give high school students the opportunity to research colleges that offer degrees in STEM-related disciplines and college students the opportunity to interact with representatives from companies in the aerospace industry.
Wisconsin is positioned to support the success of aerospace-based companies and the next generation of young people who want to pursue careers in STEM-related fields, said Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who is vice chair of the Aerospace States Association, an organization of lieutenant governors and delegates dedicated to advancing the economic interests in the aerospace industry. Wisconsin has over 300 companies active in this industry, and a new partnership that connects them to one another and our universities. Now we need a talent pipeline that keeps pace with this growth, and these students will be the dreamers and doers who make the machines that carry us to the skies.
The Wisconsin Aerospace Partners, an Oshkosh-based organization, is aimed at growing the economic vitality of the states aerospace industry.
The Aerospace Jam is an excellent opportunity for Wisconsin aerospace manufacturers and suppliers to proactively connect with the best and brightest students in the state, said Meredith Jaeger, co-founder of AeroInnovate, an aerospace networking and consulting organization that conceived the Wisconsin Aerospace Partners program. This event is a proactive approach to addressing one of the greatest need gaps our aerospace companies in Wisconsin are facing today: finding qualified talent.
The NASA Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, based at Carthage College in Kenosha, is a part of the national network of Space Grant Consortia funded by NASAs National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program.Kevin Crosby, director of the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, said the event will help grow an awareness of the in-state opportunities available to graduates with STEM degrees.
This exciting event will demonstrate to our top students that they can pursue a career in aerospace without having to leave the state after finishing school, Crosby said.
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Bucks event to connect students with Wisconsin's aerospace industry - BizTimes.com (Milwaukee)
Tampa Bay Business Journal | See where Florida ranks on PwC's aerospace list Tampa Bay Business Journal The United States was ranked first in the world in PricewaterhouseCoopers' 2017 Aerospace Manufacturing Attractiveness Rankings, and Florida was No. 6 among the best states for the aerospace and defense industry manufacturing. While Florida fell four ... Georgia Best State For Aerospace Manufacturing How New York stacks up when it comes to aerospace manufacturing Texas among 10 best states for aerospace manufacturing attractiveness |
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See where Florida ranks on PwC's aerospace list - Tampa Bay Business Journal
Investors seeking momentum may have iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF(BATS:ITA)on radar now. The fund recently hit a new 52-week high. Shares of ITA are up approximately 34.9% from the 52-week low of $142.7/share.
But could there be more gains ahead for this ETF? Lets take a look at the fund and the near-term outlook to get a better idea of where it might be headed.
ITA focuses on providing exposure to the Aerospace and Defense companies in the U.S. equity market. It charges 44 basis points in fees per year and has top holdings in Boeing Co(NYSE:BA), United Technologies Corp(NYSE:UTX)and Lockheed Martin Corporation(NYSE:LMT)with 10.98%, 7.83% and 7.81% allocation, respectively (as of August 14, 2017).
Why the Move?
Lately, the defense sector has been in the spotlight. Following threats from the North Korean premier Kim Jong-Un, President Donald Trump pledged that the threats will be met with fire and fury. Increasing tensions between the two regions have brought these sector ETFs into play again. Moreover, the earnings season has also been quite impressive for companies in this sector.
More Gains Ahead?
Currently, ITA has a Zacks ETF Rank #1 (Strong Buy) with a Medium Risk outlook. Moreover, the ETF has a weighted alpha of 29.10. So, there is a promising outlook ahead for those who want to ride this surging ETF a shade further.
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Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, http://investorplace.com/2017/08/us-aerospace-defense-etf-ita-hits-new-52-week-high-ggsyn/.
2017 InvestorPlace Media, LLC
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US Aerospace and Defense ETF (ITA) Hits New 52-Week High - Investorplace.com
Bitcoin: The Blow-Off Stage Is Now Upon Us
Cryptocurrencies are the latest rage, and nothing quite grabs headlines like Bitcoin and Bitcoin prices. This past weekend, the Bitcoin price crossed the $4,000 threshold, and for someone like myself who expresses his opinions on investment products, this feat marked quite a significant accomplishment.
In a January 5, 2017 article titled "The Bitcoin Price Bubble Is Far from Over," I expressed my opinions on Bitcoin and Bitcoin prices. My opinion is a tad bit conflicted because on one hand, I believed that Bitcoin in its current form is.
The post Bitcoin Prices Have Entered the Blow-Off Stage appeared first on Profit Confidential.
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Bitcoin Prices Have Entered the Blow-Off Stage
State media also declared that the North Korean army is not afraid to back down from nuclear war should tensions bubble over, stating that Pyongyang is capable of fighting any war the US wants.
The editorial added the US now finds itself in an ever worsening dilemma, being thrown into the grip of extreme security unrest by the DPRK. This is tragicomedy of its own making.
It continues: If the Trump administration does not want the American empire to meet its tragic doom in its tenure, they had better talk and act properly."
It comes after Trumps most recent comments, with the President claiming the US is locked and loaded and ready to deal with the threat posed by the hermit kingdom.
GETTY/REUTERS
GETTY
He said military solutions were in place to take out the rogue state, as the North Korean crisis continues to escalate.
He urged Kim not to act "unwisely" and to choose "another path".
Meanwhile North Koreas propaganda mouthpiece has declared it already has more than 3.5 million people had signed up to fight.
Eric lafforgue/Exclusivepix medi
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The Pyongyang subway The best place to escape american fire and fury
The propaganda rag claimed these millions were volunteers and included students and former soldiers - although the truth is likely to be far more grim.
The piece said: "All the people are rising up across the country to retaliate against the US thousands of times. In North Hwanghae Province, 89,000 young men pleaded to enlist or reenlist on August 9 alone.
GETTY
In Daedong County of South Pyongan Province, more than 20,000 students, party members and labourers filed enlistment or reenlistment requests.
And Japan has moved missiles and defence systems to its major cities in preparation for a missile attack.
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