Beaches are closed in Chatham after shark attacks seal – The … – The Boston Globe

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A shark was spotted off the coast of Chatham after it bit a seal around 3:15 p.m. Thursday, town officials said.

Beaches between Lighthouse Beach and Andrew Hardings Lane were cleared of all swimmers, said Dan Tobin, director of parks and recreation in Chatham.

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The beaches will remain closed for at least two hours, Tobin said, while officials from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy track and tag the shark.

When a shark is spotted, protocol is to close the beaches in the area for an hour, but Tobin predicted this incident will take longer to clear because the shark attacked another animal and did not immediately leave the scene.

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It didnt simply just pass by, it had attacked a seal, Tobin said. Were just making sure its not looking for an additional snack.

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Beaches are closed in Chatham after shark attacks seal - The ... - The Boston Globe

Beaches at Padre Island National Seashore reopened – WOAI

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South Padre Island (Photo: File)

The beaches at Padre Island National Seashore have been reopened to driving.

The National Park Service said Friday morning both the north and south beaches at Padre Island National Seashore are once again open to vehicle traffic. They offered the following driving tips concerning a trip to the seashore:

1) Use a four-wheel drive 2) Bring a tow rope and shovel 3) Check the tides before you get on the beach 4) Know the limitations of your vehicle 5) Bring a spare key kept on your person 6) USE CAUTION!

To learn more about driving on the beaches of Padre Island National Seashore, CLICK HERE.

The National Park Service closed the Padre Island National Seashore to drivers Thursday morning due to 'super high tides' from waves associated with Hurricane Franklin. Rangers said there was a very high danger of rip currents at that time and advised swimmers to reconsider going into the water.

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Beaches at Padre Island National Seashore reopened - WOAI

Hong Kong scoops up 158 tonnes of palm oil; reopens five beaches – Reuters

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HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong has reopened five of 13 beaches closed since last Sunday following a palm oil spill, after authorities collected more than 150 tonnes of acrid-smelling clumps in one of the Chinese territory's worst environmental disasters.

The spill last week after two vessels collided in the Pearl River estuary left white globs of jelly-like palm oil in the water and strewn across beaches, along with dead fish, rocks, shells and rubbish smothered in the oil.

On Friday the government said five of the 13 popular beaches around the former British colony have been reopened. All of these beaches had been closed since last Sunday.

Over 300 staff had been deployed to tackle the oil waste, the government said, while scores of volunteers also helped to scoop up the waste into black plastic bags.

The spill sparked outrage among some residents and environmentalists and comes just a year after mountains of rubbish washed up on Hong Kong's beaches, with labels and packaging indicating most of it had come from mainland China.

The Under Secretary for the Environment Tse Chin-wan said on Thursday the situation was becoming more stable.

The spill comes at the peak of summer, when visitors, campers and holiday makers throng to beaches and outlying islands, especially at weekends.

Environment groups have warned the spill could have severe ecological consequences, with Hong Kong's sweltering summer temperatures raising the threat of a harmful algae bloom that would compete with fish for oxygen.

The government said water samples in affected areas showed oil content remained at low levels, but Tse warned that there might still be traces of the palm oil pellets in the sand.

Hong Kong's Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) said it was monitoring the impact on the fishing industry and the marine parks.

The effect on marine life, which includes the endangered Chinese white dolphins - also known as pink dolphins - and green turtles was not immediately clear.

Hong Kong's coastal waters and beaches are often strewn with rubbish from mainland China, where some companies discharge waste into the sea to cut costs, conservationists say.

Reporting by Farah Master; Editing by Richard Pullin & Shri Navaratnam

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Hong Kong scoops up 158 tonnes of palm oil; reopens five beaches - Reuters

All South Shore beaches open – Wicked Local Hingham

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Egypt, Sand Hills and Peggotty beaches in Scituate have reopened for swimming after being closed on Thursday by high bacteria counts.

Follow-up testing done Thursday on water samples showed almost no contamination atEgypt and Sand Hills. The bacteria level at Peggotty Beach was elevated but within acceptable limits, and the water was not retested.

The other 62 salt-water beaches on the South Shore are open.

See water quality test results for each community and for Cape Cod, the South Coast and North Shore.

For more on Quincy beaches, call 617-376-1288, or visit tpl-beaches. For more on Wollaston Beach, call 617-626-4972.

HOW BEACHES ARE TESTED

Sixy-five beaches on the South Shore are tested for intestinal bacteria found in humans and animals.

High levels indicate the possible presence of disease-causing microbes that are present in sewage but are more difficult to detect. Bacterial colonies are filtered from three ounces of water and placed on a gel infused with nutrients and chemicals designed to promote growth.

Left in an incubator, the single cells isolated on the filter grow explosively, forming colonies visible to the naked eye. After one day, the colonies are counted and if they exceed 104 colonies, the beach is closed to swimming.

If the past five samples have a mean exceeding 35 colonies, the beach must also be closed to swimming.

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All South Shore beaches open - Wicked Local Hingham

Reining In Beach-Spreading, Not to Be Confused With Manspreading – New York Times

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In the last few years Ive been noticing more people with their gear, Ms. Rosenberg said. She was originally looking to make a comparison between beach-spreading maximalists and just-a-towel-and-a-book minimalists. But the maximalists just won over, she said. Because thats all there really is in New Jersey. Its the maximalists.

It has become such a scourge that towns are now taking steps to rein in the expansive behavior. This year, Seaside Heights imposed limits on cooler and tent sizes and banned serving trays, warming trays, pots, pans, and other food preparation devices. Belmar has introduced legislation to ban tents. Manasquan already has similar rules, but added a ban on balls.

Its to the point that it looks like tailgating at MetLife stadium, Matt Doherty, the Belmar mayor, said. And I love tailgating at MetLife stadium, I really do. Its just not what were looking for on the beach.

On just about any given sunny weekend or weekday, evidence of the contagion is rampant.

With a tall, black pop-up cabana and the nasally vocals of Omis Cheerleader wafting across the beach, Andrea Julius and her friends from Philadelphia spread out toward the back of Jenkinsons beach here to celebrate her 29th birthday.

We like to be secluded but still connected to everyone, and this tent does it, she said, while two friends volleyed a beach ball nearby.

They were, of course, there on a Tuesday, and the surrounding space allowed them some courtesy.

Were respectful back here, Ms. Julius said. All they have to do is tell us, and well turn it down or take it down.

On the weekends the situation can get thornier.

Farther down the beach from the Weal spread, Rob Trumbo, 31, and Jessica Helfrich, 31, opted for foldable beach chairs, even though they usually bring along an umbrella, which wasnt really necessary since the sun was hidden behind clouds.

In front of them, the Roman family from Fair Lawn gathered under a navy cabana, hanging towels from the canopy as a way to maximize shade while drying the towels. The weight of small ice coolers tied with short pieces of rope to the legs of the tent added stability.

Ms. Helfrich, a medical coder from Scranton, Pa., said that families with canopies should consider setting up toward the back of beaches.

Susan Roman, 55, said she and her husband, Robert Roman, 61, had arrived early to claim a clear view of the beach, right behind a sand berm.

We stay in the back if its too crowded, Ms. Roman said.

While beach gear is often readily attainable at boardwalk shops, sometimes a simple cabana wont do.

We had a guy last year bring in a coffin, said Mayor Anthony Vaz of Seaside Heights. Im not lying, a wooden coffin with his food and his drinks and so forth. And we said, No we cant have that.

But where theres a will, theres a way to spread.

The Kiernan family, which had gone to Seaside Heights on a Tuesday, carried a tie-dyed surfboard with the word Peace scrawled across it. But tucked underneath were some table legs, and the board quickly became a table for a rousing game of cards.

In Belmar, Bobbie Sue Hoffman, 47, who had gone there for the day from Levittown, Pa., carried a tent that looked more like an umbrella when it was folded. She often checks to make sure shes not blocking anybodys view, but having arrived early on a Tuesday, beach locations were hers for the choosing.

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Reining In Beach-Spreading, Not to Be Confused With Manspreading - New York Times

Beaches police chiefs sound off on July 4 safety – Florida Times-Union

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Police chiefs from Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach are already planning ahead for next years July 4 festivities at the beach, and said that this years unique challenges have shaped future security and traffic control.

During last Wednesdays Beaches Watch meeting, chiefs from all three coastal cities reported average or less than average arrests during the holiday. Neptune Beach Police Chief Richard Pike said that officers only made two arrests, and Jacksonville Police Chief Pat Dooley said officers made 15 arrests on the holiday and 34 arrests over the July 4 weekend. He said thats an average number of arrests for a weekend in Jacksonville Beach.

The murder of 23-year-old Glen McNeil Jr. near the Seawalk Pavilion parking lot late July 4 have prompted the Jacksonville Beach Police Department to update the entire surveillance camera system in the downtown area. Dooley said the department has been in the process of updating the camera system for months.

Another challenge for Jacksonville Beach was closing the beach around the pier for fireworks. Due to Hurricane Matthew shortening the pier, the department had to close the area of the beach around the pier for visitors safety. The department also used smaller firework shells due to how much closer the fireworks would be to downtown businesses.

Both Jacksonville Beach and Neptune Beach recruited the help of the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office for traffic control and to assist in controlling the increased crowds.

Pike said the Neptune Beach Police Department met with Jacksonville Sheriffs Office Special Events and Homeland security before July 4 to get their feedback on its traffic and patrol plans.

With input from JSO Special Events and Homeland Security, Pike increased the security on First Street by completely closing it off to vehicles, including police vehicles. The department closed the street to parking the year before, and decided to take it one step further this year.

Our first concern is somebody entering First Street either intentionally or unintentionally running into a crowd with a vehicle out of control, said Pike. So we took the steps. We put the barricades up. We had an officer at every intersection. Not only for the safety issue, but to allow the residents in and out and their guests in and out (of the street).

The Sheriffs Office supplied 20 officers to the department at no charge.

Atlantic Beach interim Police Chief Vic Gualillo said the department faced a large increase in pedestrian and bicycle traffic over the holiday, especially on the intersection of Atlantic Boulevard and Third Street. During the day on July 4, he reported that groups of up to 40 bicyclists crossed the street. This caused cars to stop in the middle of the intersection to let them through.

Weve seen it in the last two years where we saw this unusual number of people just cruising on bikes. What we try to do is put officers down there to try to manage the cars at that intersection, said Gualillo. So we try to get the people in vehicles to realize, you know, gee theres a big bunch of bikes coming through we need to stop.

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Beaches police chiefs sound off on July 4 safety - Florida Times-Union

Total eclipse in the hearts of astronomy fans at Ohio State – The Ohio State University News (press release)

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A full room listens to Jamie Tayar discuss the science behind the eclipse

On Aug. 21, the first total solar eclipse of the millennium will turn day into night across the heart of the United States, and interest in this astronomic event is peaking.

The Ohio State University Libraries and the Ohio State chapter of Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society, hosted a presentation about the 2017 eclipse this week. More than 50 guests filled a large conference room (after swamping a smaller classroom) to listen to Department of Astronomygraduate student Jamie Tayar discuss the science behind the eclipse.

It was 1979 when the United States last witnesseda total eclipse, when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun and blocks out the light of the sun. Hotel rooms in cities along the path of totality, where the eclipse will be most complete, have been booked for months. Astronomy experts are making regular appearances on local and national news.

Tayar is not surprised.

The eclipse is very accessible this time. Its going across the entire country and everybody in the U.S. is going to see something, she said. And its not a small something; its the sun being partially blocked out.

The uniqueness of the event depends on three celestial bodies the Earth, moon and sun -- lining up just so. Scientists from Ohio State and across the country will be traveling to locations in the path of totality to observe the eclipse.

Eclipses are one of the oldest astronomical techniques. You sit around and wait for something to go in front of something else and you study it while its happening, Tayar said.

Sigma Xi member Brian Hajek and his wife, Edith, searched for rooms along the route of the eclipse but, failing to find any, they are headed out to sea.

Royal Caribbean repurposed one of their cruises at the last minute so we jumped at the opportunity, Hajek said. Normally the ship would head to the Caribbean, but it will now sit off the South Carolina coast in an attempt to let passengers observe the eclipse.

Both Hajeks came away from Tayars presentation more prepared for their trip and the eclipse. They also left armed with a pair of Ohio State-branded eclipse glasses. Eye safety is critical when staring at the sun.

Researchers have done studies about eye damage during the most recent partial eclipse. Thats not a study you want to be a part of, Tayar said.

Tayar expects to be in Nashville for the eclipse with a former classmate. She hopes the interest in the eclipse will serve as a gateway for people to learn more about astronomy.

Its a really accessible way to get people excited about science.

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Total eclipse in the hearts of astronomy fans at Ohio State - The Ohio State University News (press release)

Two space rocks will (safely!) buzz Earth this fall – SYFY WIRE (blog)

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In the coming months, two asteroids will make relatively close passes by the Earth. Called 3122 Florence and 2012 TC4, neither will hit us so dont panic! though TC4 will come pretty dang close.

Lets talk about TC4, first. It was discovered in 2012, and is small, about 20 meters across. It takes just over two years to orbit the Sun, going out as far as the orbit of Mars and back to just inside the Earths orbit. It will pass the Earth once again on October 12, 2017.

Until very recently, it wasnt clear just how close it would get to Earth at that time; the last observations were made back in 2012, and the farther into the future you try to project an asteroids orbit, the fuzzier that prediction gets. Ive likened it to being an outfielder in a baseball game: The longer you can keep your eyes on the ball, the better youll know just where it is. If you had to close your eyes a second after the batter hit it, youd only have a vague idea where the ball would be when it gets near you!

Even though we knew the orbit of TC4 well enough from the previous observations to rule out an impact, the news gets better: It was recovered (that is, seen again since the first set of observations) on July 27, 2017 using the Very Large Telescope in Chile. These new observations improved the orbital calculations a lot, and we now know itll most likely pass about 44,000 km above Earths surface! A close shave, to be sure, (about three times Earths diameter), but a miss, nonetheless.

In fact, this asteroid gets close enough that it makes a great test case for detecting incoming asteroids and determining their orbits. Astronomers from NASA are using TC4s approach as an exercise to test their systems, initially setting things up to recover it, track it, and characterize the asteroids orbit.

It wasnt expected to be visible again for a few weeks, but the VLT observations threw something of a monkey in the wrench of that. Im not surprised they were surprised by the early recovery; when VLT saw it, TC4 was incredibly faint. At magnitude 26.8 (!), the faintest star you can see with your naked eye is 200 million times brighter. But VLT has an 8-meter mirror, so it has quite an advantage in detecting ridiculously faint objects.

Still, theres much that can be done. Astronomers all over the world will track it and, most excitingly,it will be observed using the Goldstone radio antenna, which can ping it with radar and get good measurements of its size, rough shape, and rotation rate. Observations from 2012 clearly showed TC4 changing in brightness as it passed us, which indicates it is elongated and rotating about once every 12 minutes.

Itll be a challenging target for small telescopes; itll be faint (around magnitude 16) until a few hours before closest approach, and, even then, itll only brighten to about magnitude 13 (about 600 times fainter than the faintest star you can see naked eye). Itll also be screaming across the sky, at least as far as asteroids go, moving at several degrees per hour. Hopefully, as more observatories watch it, the orbit will get nailed down, and its position in the sky can be more accurately predicted.

By the way, since I know people will ask: A collision with TC4 would be bad, though not apocalyptic. Its roughly the same size as the rock that blew up over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013. I dont want to downplay this, nor do I want to exaggerate it: That one exploded with the force of about a half million tons of TNT, which is substantial (like a small nuclear weapon), but localized. It was fortunate that no one was killed in that event (though a thousand were injured by flying glass when the shock wave from the explosion shattered windows), but had circumstances been slightly different, there could have been fatalities. So, an impact like that is a concern.

And, in fact, thats one of the major reasons astronomers want to study TC4. If another asteroid like it does come in on an impact trajectory some day, then our best weapon is our scientific knowledge of it. Well that, and a rocket with a kinetic impactor on it.

The other rock that will pass us soon is 3122 Florence, which will sail past Earth on September 1, 2017 at a distance of about 7 million kilometers (more than 15 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon). Thats a much larger margin than for TC4, but this encounter is no less interesting. Why? Because Florence is big.

Florence is about 5 kilometers (3 miles) across, and is, in fact, one of the biggest near-Earth asteroids known. Technically, Florence is what we call a potentially hazardous asteroid, because not only does its orbit brings it very close to Earth, but its also large enough to do serious, global damage should it hit us.

However, to be very clear, at the present time, an impact isnt possible. Thats because of the way its orbit is tipped as it goes around the Sun: It doesnt physically cross Earths orbit; it just gets close to us. And 7 million kilometers is a long way; even though its a big rock, it wont get bright enough to see without optical aid. Itll be visible in binoculars from a dark site, but a small telescope is what youd really need to see it (JPL has software to calculate ephemerides coordinates on the sky over time if you have some observational experience and want to see it, yourself).

Having said that, orbits do change over time due to the gravitational influences of the planets and other forces, so its possible some time in the distant future it might hit us, but that day wont be for a long, long time. In fact, this encounter is the closest it will get for at least the next 160 years! There will be several close encounters between now and the year 2177, but all are at least slightly farther away than this one will be.

So, far from being scared about this, you should be excited. This is the closest a large asteroid will safely get to us for some time, so the potential for scientific observations is great. I havent heard a lot about whats planned, just yet, but hopefully well hear something soon, and also get some fun images of it once it passes us by.

Asteroids are scientifically fascinating; rubble thats suffered countless impacts from other rocks over the billions of years of history of our solar system. By studying them, we learn so much about how our cosmic neighborhood came to be, and how its changed since its formation. And while the threat from them at any one time is low, its still real. So, studying them is critical.

As is usually the case, science may very well save the world.

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Two space rocks will (safely!) buzz Earth this fall - SYFY WIRE (blog)

IU Northwest astronomy professor explains fascination with upcoming solar eclipse – Chicago Tribune

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Few subjects captivate minds young and old quite like astronomy.

Short of boarding a space shuttle, a planetarium offers the best possible environment to satisfy one's celestial curiosity, and better still, earn credits to fulfill a science requirement at Indiana University Northwest.

On Saturdays while classes are in session, Adjunct Professor Gregg Williams' astronomy students file into the Merrillville Community Planetarium, where Williams also happens to be the director, and has been for the past 35 years.

The planetarium, housed inside Clifford Pierce Middle School in Merrillville, greets visitors with a model space shuttle suspended from the ceiling and murals of stars and planets adorning the walls. When exiting the 64-seat planetarium, visitors even exit into a mini gift shop.

Having created at least half of the 50-plus shows that the planetarium shows to the entire region's K-12 audiences, Williams seems an obvious choice for college-level instruction as well.

Williams teaches The Solar System (A100), Stars and Galaxies (A105), and just this past summer, he added Charting the Night Sky (A109), rounding out a full three semesters of consecutive courses.

The new course examines what Williams calls "naked-eye astronomy," or what astronomy was like for the Earth-bound before the advent of technology and telescopes.

Speaking of "naked-eye astronomy," Williams, his students, and anyone with a passing interest will have an opportunity to learn about astronomy when a total eclipse of the sun will be visible across the continental U.S. on August 21, coinciding with the first day of classes at IU Northwest.

Solar eclipses occur during the new moon, when the moon is directly between the Earth and sun, causing the disk of the moon to partially or totally cover the disk of the sun. In Gary, the eclipse begins at 11:54 a.m., achieves its maximum view at 1:20 p.m. and ends at 2:43 p.m.

Williams said that eclipses provide a chance for modern people to re-connect with their ancient ancestors' awe of the sky.

"Besides checking the weather, most people give only a passing glance to the sky," Williams said. "By contrast, ancient people felt a connection to the heavens since they depended on the sun and stars to tell time and mark their calendars. Many people who observe a total eclipse of the sun report experiencing a sense of awe bordering on the spiritual. This response is probably very similar to the emotions our ancient ancestors felt as they saw the sun, upon which our planet depends for light and heat, temporarily blotted from view."

This observation reflects the type of discussions students will experience in Williams' newest course, as well as the others, which he says are "perfect for non-science majors." They are not mathematical, as some might assume, but rather, descriptive.

"The last time I had any kind of astronomy was probably in middle school which was many moons ago," laughs Denise Maragos, a 48-year-old from Schererville who is majoring in history.

"Having the class at a planetarium is awesome," she said, "because the shows really drive home the concepts from the unit we are working on. I have learned a lot and it has reignited my curiosity of the universe."

Anthony Taylor, 58, of Merrillville admitted that science was never his strong suit, so when he learned that astronomy would satisfy his major's science requirement, he was happy to register.

"I've learned so much from the course and have a greater appreciation every time I look into the night sky," said Taylor, who is pursuing a bachelor's degree in general studies.

Erika Rose is a media communications specialist for Indiana University Northwest. Kevin Fryling of IU Communications contributed to this article.

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IU Northwest astronomy professor explains fascination with upcoming solar eclipse - Chicago Tribune

YT Project Awarded NSF Grant to Expand to Multiple New Science Domains – HPCwire (blog)

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URBANA, Ill., Aug. 11, 2017 Theyt Project, an open science environment created to address astrophysical questions through analysis and visualization, has been awarded a $1.6 million dollar grant from theNational Science Foundation(NSF) to continue developing their software project. This grant will enable yt to expand and begin to support other domains beyond astrophysics, including weather, geophysics and seismology, molecular dynamics and observational astronomy. It will also support the development of curricula forData Carpentry, to ease the onramp for scientists new to data from these domains.

The yt project, led by Matt Turk along with Nathan Goldbaum, Kacper Kowalik, and Meagan Lang at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at theUniversity of IllinoisUrbana campus and in collaboration with Ben Holtzman atColumbia University in the City of New Yorkand Leigh Orf at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, is an open source, community-driven project working to produce an integrated science environment for collaboratively asking and answering questions about simulations of astrophysical phenomena, leading to the application of analysis and visualizations to many different problems within the field. It is built in an ecosystem of packages from the scientific software community and is committed to open science principles and emphasizes a helpful community of users and developers. Many theoretical astrophysics researchers use yt as a key component of all stages of their computational workflow, from debugging to data exploration, to the preparation of results for publication.

yt has been used for projects within astrophysics as diverse as studying mass-accretion onto the first stars in the Universe, to studying the outflows from compact objects and supernovae, to the star formation history of galaxies. It has been used to analyze and visualize some of the largest simulations ever conducted, and visualizations generated by yt have been featured in planetarium shows such asSolar Superstormscreated by theAdvanced Visualization Labat NCSA.

Im delighted and honored by this grant, and we hope it will enable us to build, sustain and grow the thriving open science community around yt, and share the increase in productivity and discovery made possible by yt in astrophysics with researchers across the physical sciences, said Principal Investigator Matt Turk.

ThisNSF SI2-SSI awardis expected to last from October 2017 September 2022. A copy of the grant proposal may befound here.

Source: NCSA

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YT Project Awarded NSF Grant to Expand to Multiple New Science Domains - HPCwire (blog)

NASA watches the Sun put a stop to its own eruption – Phys.Org

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August 11, 2017 by Lina Tran

On Sept. 30, 2014, multiple NASA observatories watched what appeared to be the beginnings of a solar eruption. A filamenta serpentine structure consisting of dense solar material and often associated with solar eruptionsrose from the surface, gaining energy and speed as it soared. But instead of erupting from the Sun, the filament collapsed, shredded to pieces by invisible magnetic forces.

Because scientists had so many instruments observing the event, they were able to track the entire event from beginning to end, and explain for the first time how the Sun's magnetic landscape terminated a solar eruption. Their results are summarized in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal on July 10, 2017.

"Each component of our observations was very important," said Georgios Chintzoglou, lead author of the paper and a solar physicist at Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, California, and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "Remove one instrument, and you're basically blind. In solar physics, you need to have good coverage observing multiple temperaturesif you have them all, you can tell a nice story."

The study makes use of a wealth of data captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, JAXA/NASA's Hinode, and several ground-based telescopes in support of the launch of the NASA-funded VAULT2.0 sounding rocket. Together, these observatories watch the Sun in dozens of different wavelengths of light that reveal the Sun's surface and lower atmosphere, allowing scientists to track the eruption from its onset up through the solar atmosphereand ultimately understand why it faded away.

The day of the failed eruption, scientists pointed the VAULT2.0 sounding rocketa sub-orbital rocket that flies for some 20 minutes, collecting data from above Earth's atmosphere for about five of those minutesat an area of intense, complex magnetic activity on the Sun, called an active region. The team also collaborated with IRIS to focus its observations on the same region.

"We were expecting an eruption; this was the most active region on the Sun that day," said Angelos Vourlidas, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, principal investigator of the VAULT2.0 project and co-author of the paper. "We saw the filament lifting with IRIS, but we didn't see it erupt in SDO or in the coronagraphs. That's how we knew it failed."

The Sun's landscape is controlled by magnetic forces, and the scientists deduced the filament must have met some magnetic boundary that prevented the unstable structure from erupting. They used these observations as input for a model of the Sun's magnetic environment. Much like scientists who use topographical data to study Earth, solar physicists map out the Sun's magnetic features, or topology, to understand how these forces guide solar activity.

Chintzoglou and his colleagues developed a model that identified locations on the Sun where the magnetic field was especially compressed, since rapid releases of energysuch as those they observed when the filament collapsedare more likely to occur where magnetic field lines are strongly distorted.

"We computed the Sun's magnetic environment by tracing millions of magnetic field lines and looking at how neighboring field lines connect and diverge," said Antonia Savcheva, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and co-author of the paper. "The amount of divergence gives us a measure of the topology."

Their model shows this topology shapes how solar structures evolve on the Sun's surface. Typically, when solar structures with opposite magnetic orientations collide, they explosively release magnetic energy, heating the atmosphere with a flare and erupting into space as a coronal mass ejectiona massive cloud of solar material and magnetic fields.

But on the day of the Sept. 2014 near-eruption, the model indicated the filament instead pushed up against a complex magnetic structure, shaped like two igloos smashed against each other. This invisible boundary, called a hyperbolic flux tube, was the result of a collision of two bipolar regions on the sun's surfacea nexus of four alternating and opposing magnetic fields ripe for magnetic reconnection, a dynamic process that can explosively release great amounts of stored energy.

"The hyperbolic flux tube breaks the filament's magnetic field lines and reconnects them with those of the ambient Sun, so that the filament's magnetic energy is stripped away," Chintzoglou said.

This structure eats away at the filament like a log grinder, spraying chips of solar material and preventing eruption. As the filament waned, the model demonstrates heat and energy were released into the solar atmosphere, matching the initial observations. The simulated reconnection also supports the observations of bright flaring loops where the hyperbolic flux tube and filament metevidence for magnetic reconnection.

While scientists have speculated such a process exists, it wasn't until they serendipitously had multiple observations of such an event that they were able to explain how a magnetic boundary on the Sun is capable of halting an eruption, stripping a filament of energy until it's too weak to erupt.

"This result would have been impossible without the coordination of NASA's solar fleet in support of our rocket launch," Vourlidas said.

This study indicates the Sun's magnetic topology plays an important role in whether or not an eruption can burst from the Sun. These eruptions can create space weather effects around Earth.

"Most research has gone into how topology helps eruptions escape," Chintzoglou said. "But this tells us that apart from the eruption mechanism, we also need to consider what the nascent structure encounters in the beginning, and how it might be stopped."

Explore further: Image: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory watches a sunspot

More information: Georgios Chintzoglou et al. Magnetic Flux Rope Shredding By a Hyperbolic Flux Tube: The Detrimental Effects of Magnetic Topology on Solar Eruptions, The Astrophysical Journal (2017). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa77b2

On July 5, 2017, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory watched an active regionan area of intense and complex magnetic fieldsrotate into view on the Sun. The satellite continued to track the region as it grew and eventually ...

A dark solar filament above the sun's surface became unstable and erupted on Dec. 16-17, 2015, generating a cascade of magnetic arches. A small eruption to the upper right of the filament was likely related to its collapse.

Large and small scale solar eruptions might all be triggered by a single process, according to new research that leads to better understanding of the Sun's activity.

Solar material twists above the sun's surface in this close-up captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on June 7-8, 2016, showcasing the turbulence caused by combative magnetic forces on the sun.

A dark, almost circular filament broke away from the sun in a gauzy, feathery swirl, on Nov. 15, 2015, in this video from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. This filament eruption was followed by a second filament breaking ...

(Phys.org) Solar jets are ejections from the surface of the Sun, where 1-10 tonnes of hot material are expelled at speeds of up to 1000 kilometres per second. Using space based observatories like Hinode and STEREO, solar ...

On Sept. 30, 2014, multiple NASA observatories watched what appeared to be the beginnings of a solar eruption. A filamenta serpentine structure consisting of dense solar material and often associated with solar eruptionsrose ...

The world's smallest space probe, conceived at Menlo Park's visionary Breakthrough Starshot, has phoned home.

A new experiment set for an Aug. 14 launch to the International Space Station will provide an unprecedented look at a rain of particles from deep space, called cosmic rays, that constantly showers our planet. The Cosmic Ray ...

Scientists have helped solve the mystery of what lies beneath the surface of Neptune the most distant planet in our solar system. A new study sheds light on the chemical make-up of the planet, which lies around 4.5 billion ...

The universe is incomprehensibly vast, with billions of other planets circling billions of other stars. The potential for intelligent life to exist somewhere out there should be enormous.

In 1887, American astronomer Lewis Swift discovered a glowing cloud, or nebula, that turned out to be a small galaxy about 2.2 billion light years from Earth. Today, it is known as the "starburst" galaxy IC 10, referring ...

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NASA watches the Sun put a stop to its own eruption - Phys.Org

Richard Dawkins on artificial intelligence, agnosticism, and utopia – Boing Boing

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Evolutionary biologist and "passionate rationalist" Richard Dawkins has a new anthology of essays out today, titled Science in the Soul. Over at Scientific American, John Horgan posted an interview with Dawkins in which the two discuss a range of topics, from A.I. to agnosticism. From SciAm:

At the Templeton (Foundation) meeting, you described yourself as an agnostic, because you cannot be certain that God does not exist, correct?

This is a semantic matter. Some people define atheism as a positive conviction that there are no gods and agnosticism as allowing for the possibility, however slight. In this sense I am agnostic, as any scientist would be. But only in the same way I am agnostic about leprechauns and fairies. Other people define agnosticism as the belief that the existence of gods is as probable as their nonexistence. In this sense I am certainly not agnostic. Not only are gods unnecessary for explaining anything, they are overwhelmingly improbable. I rather like the phrase of a friend who calls himself a tooth fairy agnostichis belief in gods is as strong as his belief in the tooth fairy. So is mine. We live our lives on the assumption that there are no gods, fairies, hobgoblins, ghosts, zombies, poltergeists or any supernatural entities. Actually, it is not at all clear what supernatural could even mean, other than something which science does not (yet) understand....

...Do you share the concerns of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has said that artificial intelligence might pose an existential risk to humanity?

Elon Musk is a 21st-century genius. You have to listen to what he says. I am philosophically committed to mechanistic naturalism, from which follows the conclusion that anything humans can do, machines can in principle do, too. In many cases we already know they can do it better. Whether they can do it better in all cases remains to be seen, but I wouldnt bet against it. The precautionary principle should lead us to behave as though there is a real dangera danger we should take immediate steps to forestall. Unless, that is, we think robots could to a better job of running the world than we can. And a better job of being happy and increasing the sum of sentient happiness...

Why we secretly love our cords. Tamara Warren: Theres a certain security in the cord. Its the idea of connection, perhaps even dating back to our days in the womb. A battery, no matter how sophisticated, is fleeting. When we have our cords with us, we are in constant pursuit of power, even when []

The classic beatbox not an expensive clone or a collection of cleverly-tweaked samples is back. Rolands TR-08 directly models the original machines analog circuits to recreate its sound as accurately as possible with modern digital technology, and joins revived versions of the TR-909[Amazon] and TB-202[Amazon] in the companys lineup of boutique boxes. The []

Coming after improvements to Firefox and continued unease at Googles life-pervading insight, this image is outperforming the Virality Control Group today (via). It got me thinking about all the promises that were made. Heres the earliest article in Google News to contain Big browser in its headline, published by Time Magazine on Nov. []

This project management bundle will help you get organized and learn how to lead a team to success. You can pay what you want for these five courses when you pick them up from the Boing Boing Store.To help you become an invaluable asset for your company, this bundle includes a curated collection of professional []

Despite the push towards USB-C as the one connector to rule them all, most peripherals in the wild are still largely USB-A. Since theres little reason to upgrade all of your old flash drives, wired keyboards, and game controllers, youll need a decent hub to keep them all talking to your new computer.The MondoHub Master []

You dont always have to pay out the nose for household items, everyday accessories, or memorable gifts. If youre searching for something unexpected that can be had for less than two sawbucks, take a look at the following goods:20oz Insulated Water Bottle ($18.99)This stainless steel water bottle is double-walled with vacuum-sealed insulation to keep drinks []

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Richard Dawkins on artificial intelligence, agnosticism, and utopia - Boing Boing

US blockchain company in tie-up on medical artificial intelligence – Reuters

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. technology company The Bitfury Group has formed a partnership with Insilico Medicine, a Baltimore-based medical artificial intelligence (AI) firm, to create new applications for the healthcare industry using blockchain, Bitfury's chief executive officer said on Friday.

Blockchain is a digital ledger of transactions that gained prominence as the software underpinning the digital currency bitcoin. The technology, being developed in the public and private sectors, has gained attention globally for its ability to permanently record and track assets or transactions across all industries.

The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding last month for collaboration to study and develop blockchain and AI solutions for sharing, managing, tracking and validating healthcare data, said Bitfury founder and CEO Valery Vavilov in an email to Reuters. The collaboration is in an early stage and there were no details available about potential projects or specific uses.

Artificial intelligence in the healthcare sector uses algorithms and software to mimic human ability in analyzing complex medical data. Vast amounts of healthcare data are pushing the development of AI applications.

Vavilov said both companies will use Bitfury's Exonum blockchain platform to store and secure health data in a system compatible with artificial intelligence.

"AI has not reached its full potential for the healthcare industry yet because it requires a large and diverse range of data to learn from in order to ensure accuracy and provide actionable results," said the Bitfury chief executive.

Healthcare AI is expanding by an annual rate of 40 percent, research firm Frost & Sullivan said in a recent study. It said global revenue generated by artificial intelligence systems will soar to $6.7 billion by 2021 from $811 million in 2015.

"A blockchain-based medical records system could safeguard patient data and allow for improved interoperability between doctors and hospitals, while also giving patients more ownership over their own records," Vavilov said.

Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by David Gregorio

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US blockchain company in tie-up on medical artificial intelligence - Reuters

Artificial intelligence and creativity: If robots can make art, what’s left for us? – ABC Online

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Posted August 11, 2017 11:58:38

Artificial intelligence is becoming commonplace, from your smartphone and your Amazon account to the driverless cars that will soon grace public roads in Australia.

Often, the response to this reality is one of trepidation and concern, about mass unemployment and the dominance of Big Tech. But that's not always the case.

"Art is one of the last domains in AI where there is an optimistic view on how humans and machines can work together," says Dave King, founder of Move 37, a creative AI company.

He says creativity is not a God-given thing. It's a process, and it takes practice.

"One of the most interesting aspects of creativity is that ability to combine ideas or to draw things together," he says.

"If you have an algorithm that is working for you in the way you want it to it can source and discover lots and lots of different things."

AI is already being used in a range of artistic fields. Algorithms trained on millions of pages of romance novels have been used to write poems, and the recent Robot Art Competition showed a range of paintings with brushwork so sophisticated it could have been done by a human hand.

Jon McCormack is an artist and professor of computer science at Monash University whose work incorporates algorithms.

His series Fifty Sisters (2012) featured images of futuristic-looking plants that were "algorithmically grown" from computer code. In another work, titled Eden, he created an installation featuring "virtual creatures" whose movements were influenced by gallery visitors entering the space.

McCormack says when there is concern about AI, it is understandable.

"We're naturally scared of anything where we take away something from people, particularly something as precious as being creative and art, which we associate with being the most fundamental human [trait] that thing that differentiates us from every other species on the planet," he said.

After all, as AI expert Professor Toby Walsh notes: "We have one of the most creative brains out there."

"One of the oldest jobs on the planet, being a carpenter or an artisan, we will value most [in the future] because we will like to see an object carved or touched by the human hand, not a machine."

Artists have always used tools to create their work: for Van Gogh, it was a paint brush; for Henri Cartier-Bresson, a Leica camera.

With AI, however, the question becomes one of authorship.

"I see myself as being the artist," McCormack says of his compositions. "The computer is still very primitive it doesn't have the same capabilities as a human creative, but it's capable of doing things that complement our intelligence.

King says AI currently can only bring a limited perspective to artistic practice.

"They can only draw on what they've been trained on," he says, referring to the reams of data used to create artificial intelligence. "Whereas the human condition is expansive and broad and brings a lot more depth of perspective to it."

By itself, AI can certainly generate things that look like art, McCormack says. Whether you could consider it art is a harder question.

"So much of what we think about art is humans communicating to each other," he says.

"As soon as you bring a computer into the mix, suddenly you've got a non-human entity trying to fulfil the role that used to be occupied exclusively by people."

Soon, however, it may be possible to go further; to consider the machine not just a tool, but a partner or collaborator, with its own ability to create.

"We always think of Lennon and McCartney as being the great musical creative partnership," McCormack says.

"Will we eventually see a point in time where we have a human and computer partnership that we acknowledge as being more than the sum of its parts?

"If the art was really, really good if it moved us emotionally in the way the best art does then I think we would come to start to accept art that's made by machines."

Topics: arts-and-entertainment, robots-and-artificial-intelligence, science-and-technology, australia

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Artificial Intelligence Is Likely to Make a Career in Finance, Medicine or Law a Lot Less Lucrative – Entrepreneur

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Growing up, theres a good chance you heard the mantra go to a good school, get a good job, and make lots of money. On the surface, that seems like sound advice. After all, college graduates, on average,earn almost $1 million morein their lifetimes than those with only a high school education.

Perhaps you were encouraged to get a professional degree to land a high paying job like a doctor, dentist, lawyeror something similar.This also seems like great advice, considering a professional degree holder typically earns more than $2 million more in their lifetimes than the average college graduate.

But that was then, and this now.

Related: The Future of Productivity: AI and Machine Learning

Thanks to rapid advances in robotics, automation and artificial intelligence, jobs are falling to machines left and right. And its not just blue-collar jobs that are being taken over by automation. It's white-collar professions as well. According to an Oxford study, 47 percentof U.S. jobs could fall to automation in the next 20 years.

The safe, high paying jobs of the past are starting to look much less secure going forward. If youre currently in one of the following professions, or going to school to get into these fields, you should think twice before continuing.

If Wall Street is known for anything, its known for crazy high salaries and bonuses. For those who have wanted to get rich quickly post-college, there have been few better industries than finance. Alas, finance is one of the industries with the highest risk of automation.

Bridgewater Associates, the worlds largest hedge fund, announced late last year that it was going to be cutting staff in favor of more automation. Its getting harder to compete with AI driven hedge funds like Sentient and high-frequency traders in general, and an impressive swath of financial management services are now being handled by robo-advisors like Betterment and Wealthfront, both of which are growing rapidly.

In fact, according to Angel List, there are more than 15,000 finance startups right now working to actively disrupt finance, many of them utilizing artificial intelligence and other forms of automation. If youre in this field or planning to enter it, you might want to reconsider.

So, if not finance, then what? If youre good with numbers and detail-oriented, you should consider getting into data science. Data scientist salaries are rising rapidly, and theyre considered the new rock stars of the tech world. Of course, you could always try getting into venture capital to ride the massive transitional wave thats coming, but being a VC isnt all its cracked up to be either. Either way, traditional finance jobs are on the way out.

Related: How AI Machines Coudl Save Wall Street Brokers' Jobs

The work that doctors do is tremendously important, and on average, theyre very well paid for it. That said, there are numerous areas of medicine that are ripe for automation and improved efficiencies. One key example would be medical imaging and the fields of radiology, pathology and dermatology.

Using AI, IBMs Watson is now considered at least on-par with a professional radiologist in terms of ability to analyze an image and diagnose a patient, and it can do the analysis much faster while considering vastly larger amounts of information than any human could ever hope to. This is fantastic news for the people who need a diagnoses, but not so great for medical imaging jobs. If youre already in the field, or working to get into it, you could consider transitioning into some aspect of computer vision, be it research or training. If you cant beat the machines, you can always help to make them better.

There are numerous other technologies, such as telemedicine and mobile medical devices, that will also heavily disrupt this field going forward. And while there will still be a strong need for certain medical skills going forward, youll need to be highly selective in what you choose.

Ahh, lawyers. The world could probably use far fewer lawyers, and the machines are well on their way to making that a reality. While you can still make a pretty penny as a lawyer, depending on your specialty, its worth noting that lawyers spend a lot of time gathering and parsing data, creating or reviewing legal documentsand numerous other mundane tasks. For most lawyers, its far from a glamorous profession.

Much of this grunt work has already been automated, and there are more than 1,500 startups out there trying to streamline the legal world even further. While this wont immediately eliminate all legal jobs, it means that it will take far fewer lawyers -- and especially paralegals --to handle the same level of work.

Because lawyers tend to pay excellent attention to detail, and are highly versed in logic, a good alternative field would be programming. Programming languages are built around logicand require every bit as much attention to detail as any contract. Best of all, there are a ton of courses online that can help you learn, including some from top-tier universities like Stanford, MITand even Harvard.

And of course, programmers are incredibly well paid and in high demand virtually everywhere. Here are a few of the most in-demand programming languages to help you along if you decide to make the switch.

Related: Advancing Automation Means Humans Need to Embrace Lifelong Learning

There have been numerous times throughout history when a large number of old jobs have gone away, only to be replaced by new jobs as new technologies came along. Sometimes the transition from old to new is protracted enough to make a semi-smooth transition possible. That may or may not be the case this time around.

Sam McRoberts is the CEO ofVUDU Marketing, and the author ofScrew the Zoo. He has delved deep into the worlds of philosophy, cognitive psychology and neuroscience to better help his clients achieve their goals. When he isn't...

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DeepMind is Teaching AIs How to Manage Real-World Tasks Through Gaming – Futurism

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In BriefGoogle's DeepMind Labs has partnered with BlizzardEntertainment to release an application program interface thatenables artificial intelligence researchers to develop their own AIagents for playing StarCraft II. The hope is that the release willspur innovation in deep reinforcement learning and related areas ofAI research. Glorious Combat Is Upon Us

Last year, Googles DeepMind announced a partnership with Blizzard Entertainment to develop and test artificial intelligence (AI) agents in the popular real-time strategy game StarCraft II. Now, DeepMind has released a series of tools theyre calling StarCraft II Learning Environment (SC2LE)to test their agents against human competitors, as well as enable researchers to develop their own agents for the game.

Testing our agents in games that are not specifically designed for AI research, and where humans play well, is crucial to benchmark agent performance, DeepMinds team wrote in a blog post. The large pool of online StarCraft II players will provide a huge variety of extremely talented opponents from which the AI can learn.

Details of DeepMinds research werepublished in a paperalongside the released toolset, which includes a machine learning API; a dataset of game replays; an open source version ofPySC2, the Python component SC2LE;and more.

Artificially intelligent systems have already beaten humans in a number of games, including chess and some Atari games, and DeepMind has already succeeded at creating an AI that could dominate humans in the ancient Chinese game of Go.

However, StarCraft II presents a different challenge. The game is designed to be won by a single player who must successfully navigatean extremely challenging environment. AI agents have to be capable of managing sub-goals gathering resources, building structures, remembering locations on a partially revealed map, etc. in pursuit of a win, and when combined, these various tasks challenge its memory and ability to plan.

DeepMinds initial StarCraft II tests with AI agents showed that they can manage mini-games that focus on broken-down tasks, but when it came to the full game, the agents werent so successful. Even strong baseline agents [] cannot win a single game against even the easiest built-in AI, according to DeepMinds blog. If they are to be competitive, we will need further breakthroughs in deep [reinforcement learning] and related areas.

The release of the SC2LE toolset is DeepMinds way of asking the AI community for additional help in this endeavor. Our hope is that the release of these new tools will build on the work that the AI community has already done in StarCraft, encouraging more DeepRL research and making it easier for researchers to focus on the frontiers of our field, according to the blog post.

Of course, training AI agents to excel atStarCraft II isnt done just for glorys sake. The idea is that an AI will be more capable of managing real-world tasks if it can successfully navigate a gaming environmentthat requires it to perform layers of computation while engaging a human agent. In that respect, todays expert StarCraft II agent could be tomorrows AIcashierorcustomer service rep.

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DeepMind is Teaching AIs How to Manage Real-World Tasks Through Gaming - Futurism

Artificial intelligence identifies plant species for science – Nature.com

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Digitizing plant specimens is opening up a whole new world for researchers looking to mine collections from around the world.

Computer algorithms trained on the images of thousands of preserved plants have learned to automatically identify species that have been pressed, dried and mounted on herbarium sheets, researchers report.

The work, published in BMC Evolutionary Biology on 11 August1, is the first attempt to use deep learning an artificial-intelligence technique that teaches neural networks using large, complex data sets to tackle the difficult taxonomic task of identifying species in natural-history collections.

It's unlikely to be the last attempt, says palaeobotanist Peter Wilf of Pennsylvania State University in University Park. This kind of work is the future; this is where were going in natural history.

Natural-history museums around the world are racing to digitize their collections, depositing images of their specimens into open databases that researchers anywhere can rifle through. One data aggregator, the US National Science Foundations iDigBio project, boasts more than 150 million images of plants and animals from collections around the country.

There are roughly 3,000 herbaria in the world, hosting an estimated 350 million specimens only a fraction of which has been digitized. But the swelling data sets, along with advances in computing techniques, enticed computer scientist Erick Mata-Montero of the Costa Rica Institute of Technology in Cartago and botanist Pierre Bonnet of the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development in Montpellier, to see what they could make of the data.

Bonnet's team had already made progress automating plant identification through the Pl@ntNet project. It has accumulated millions of images of fresh plants typically taken in the field by people using its smartphone app to identify specimens.

Researchers trained similar algorithms on more than 260,000 scans of herbarium sheets, encompassing more than 1,000 species. The computer program eventually identified species with nearly 80% accuracy: the correct answer was within the algorithms top 5 picks 90% of the time. That, says Wilf, probably out-performs a human taxonomist by quite a bit.

Such results often worry botanists, Bonnet says, many of whom already feel that their field is undervalued. People feel this kind of technology could be something that will decrease the value of botanical expertise, he says. But this approach is only possible because it is based on the human expertise. It will never remove the human expertise. People would also still need to verify the results, he adds.

This approach can help herbaria process new samples, simplifying an arduous taks that sometimes requires hours of work. And similar efforts could help with other projects, such as a current crowdsourcing project that asks people to manually tick off which herbarium specimens feature a flower or a fruit. Researchers would certainly welcome an automated way of doing that, says botanist Gil Nelson of Florida State University in Tallahassee and a digitization specialist at iDigBio.

The algorithm could also aid smaller herbaria with their species identifications, Bonnet says. His team found that algorithms trained on large data sets from big herbaria improved the identification of plants from relatively data-poor regions of the world a finding that could be particularly useful for areas that are rich in biodiversity but have smaller plant collections.

And this deep-learning approach will allow researchers to perform additional analyses. Herbaria samples contain a wealth of data: when and where the sample was collected, for example, and characteristics such as whether the plant was flowering or fruiting at collection time and how densely clustered the flowers were. Because some samples are centuries old, that data can paint a portrait of how plants have adapted to shifting climates an area of growing interest in the face of concerns about climate change.

Such efforts, including the identification study, are the next phase of digitization, Nelson says. Weve been trying to transition to methods that we can use to mine those images and to pull out useful data, he says. Thats our focus right now.

The projects aren't limited to herbaria. Nelson points to ongoing efforts to automate the identification of fly larvae, and Wilf is working with collaborators to carry out a similar analysis on plant fossils. Such fossils pose other problems, in part because they come in a variety of forms fossilized fruits and flowers, petrified tree trunks or impressions of leaves in rock. Herbarium sheets, by contrast, are mercifully uniform: flat, dry and typically mounted on a standardized size of paper.

Still, Wilf has no doubt that the field will eventually work out these details. Its just going to get better, he says. Someday well have students who wont be able to remember when we didnt have these sorts of tools.

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North Korea saber rattling lights up aerospace & defense ETFs – Fox Business

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Following Pyongyang's threats and President Donald Trump's pledge to bring "fire and fury" on North Korea, aerospace and defense sector-related exchange traded funds are coming back under the spotlight as a Trump play.

Despite geopolitical risks weighing on the markets, many are putting a renewed focus on the aerospace and defense industry as a means to play Trump's more hawkish rhetoric and plans to expand U.S. military operations. For instance, the White House has proposed a nearly 10% hike in the military budget to $603 billion for the fiscal 2018 year in February.

"This budget will be a public safety and national security budget," Trump in late February, calling for a "historic increase in defense spending to rebuild the depleted military of the United States of America at a time we most need it."

The latest round of saber rattling has fueled the outlook on defense spending after North Korea promised to "turn the U.S. mainland into the theater of a nuclear war" at the first sign of U.S. aggression and Trump's threat of "fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before."

Looking ahead, the aerospace and defense sector may have more room to fly. Increasing geopolitical tensions that fuel the news cycle around the Mideast, North Korea and Russia could continue to support defense spending. The budget is expanding over the next few years after the recent contraction.

The sector also looks attractive on a technical basis.

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The positive outlook could drive "total return of ~12%, consisting of ~10% annual EPS growth and ~2% dividend yields, which should sustain relative valuations, according to a recent Morgan Stanley note.

Potential investors interested in the aerospace and defense segment have a few ETF options to choose from, including the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (NYSEArca: ITA), PowerShares Aerospace & Defense Portfolio (NYSEArca: PPA) and the SPDR S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF (NYSEArca: XAR).

ITA is a cap-weighted ETF, meaning it has larger weights to big-name defense stocks, including Dow components Boeing (NYSE: BA) and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX). XAR is an equal-weight ETF. PPA holds 50 stocks involved in the development, manufacturing, operations and support of US defense, homeland security and aerospace operations.

Additionally, the recently launched Direxion Daily Aerospace & Defense Bull 3x Shares (NYSEArca: DFEN) has experienced some rising demand among the trading community as a way to play the heightened tensions. DFEN, which was launched in May 2017, has $13.0 million in assets under management, and the ETF was trading at 77,000 shares Thursday, compared to its average daily volume of around 19,000 shares, according to Morningstar data.

This article was provided courtesy of our partners at etftrends.com.

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North Korea saber rattling lights up aerospace & defense ETFs - Fox Business

Aerospace and Defense ETFs Soar Amid Rising North Korea Tensions – Zacks.com

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Defense stocks have been rising with escalation of tensions between the US and North Korea, while the broader stock rally has stalled. Raytheon (RTN - Free Report) , Lockheed Martin (LMT - Free Report) and Northrop Grumman (NOC - Free Report) hit record highs after President warned North Korea against making any more threats to the US.

Trump said North Korea faces fire and fury like the world has never seen before and the rogue nation responded by threatening to launch a missile strike on Guam.

The sentiment for Aerospace & Defense stocks improves with rising geopolitical tensions. They surged after US missile strikes on Syria. And, that is one of main reasons why these stocks performed well in the last few years, despite defense budget cuts in the US and Europe.

Many developing countries including India, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Brazil have increased their defense spending over the past few years. Of late, Japan and South Korea have also boosted their defense spending in response to increased military spending by China. Trumps budget proposals call for a boost in US defense spending, which would be positive for these stocks.

Most aerospace & defense companies reported excellent earnings for Q2 and have seen continued positive momentum in earnings estimates. Aerospace & Defense ETFs have significantly outperformed the broader market this year.

To learn more about top ranked Aerospace & Defense ETFs--the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA - Free Report) , the SPDR S&P Aerospace & Defense ETF (XAR - Free Report) and thePowerShares Aerospace & Defense Portfolio (PPA - Free Report) , please watch the short video above.

Will You Make a Fortune on the Shift to Electric Cars?

Here's another stock idea to consider. Much like petroleum 150 years ago, lithium power may soon shake the world, creating millionaires and reshaping geo-politics. Soon electric vehicles (EVs) may be cheaper than gas guzzlers. Some are already reaching 265 miles on a single charge.

With battery prices plummeting and charging stations set to multiply, one company stands out as the #1 stock to buy according to Zacks research.

It's not the one you think.

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Aerospace and Defense ETFs Soar Amid Rising North Korea Tensions - Zacks.com

Northstar Aerospace Workers Occupy Plant Over Pension Cuts – Chief Investment Officer

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Northstar Aerospace workers have occupied their plant in Milton, Ontario, Canada, demanding that the company fulfill its pension obligations, after it announced the facility would be shuttered due to the loss of a major Boeing contract.

According to Unifor, the union representing the workers, current retirees, some of whom had worked for Northstar for more than 40 years, could face a 24% cut to their income because of Northstars insufficient funding of the companys pension plan, said Unifor.

This action sends a clear message to Northstar that the company cannot short-change workers and the pension of retirees that have made it profitable for so many years, said Jerry Dias, president of Unifor National in a statement. There is no financial reason for refusing to fund the plan. The only excuse is corporate greed.

The occupation began at 4 am on Aug. 10, and the workers said they have stopped production at the facility until Northstar holds up its end of a commitment to fully fund their pensions. After months the company has refused to discuss the matter, said Scott McIlmoyle, president of Unifor Local 112. Time is running out Northstar needs to do the right thing.

Although Unifor acknowledged that the loss of the Boeing contract makes it difficult to avoid closure, the union said the company is still very healthy and there is no financial excuse not to supplement the pension plan in order to protect future and current retirees.

The union said that the closure was unexpected by the facilitys 200 employees because Northstar workers had been assured that the Milton operation was on solid footing .

Our members helped build Northstar Aerospace into what it is today, said Scott McIlmoyle, president of Unifor Local 112. This is not right; the company has a moral obligation and the financial ability to make up the pension short fall. Northstar is a financially stable and profitable company.

Last week, more than 40 workers and Unifor members from the Greater Toronto Area picketed outside the Northstar facility in Milton, Ontario to pass out leaflets and speak with employees and management arriving for the morning shift. Unifor National President and Local 112 member Jerry Dias addressed the crowd.

We have blood and sweat in this place, and there is no way that theyre taking the machinery out of here and cutting our members pensions, Dias told the crowd. When we say my sisters and my brothers, we mean it and we will fight for you.

Northstar first announced the Milton plants closure in January, which it blamed on the loss of its contract with Boeing for gears.

This facility closure is the result of market factors, not the facilitys performance, said Thomas Smith, Northstars vice president and general manager, in a bulletin to the workers. The closing of the Milton facility is the result of the loss of content on the Boeing AH-64E Apache program. There is not sufficient additional new work to make up for the drastic loss of content on the Apache program for the operation to remain open.

Tags: Northstar Aerospace, pension, strike

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Northstar Aerospace Workers Occupy Plant Over Pension Cuts - Chief Investment Officer