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Bitcoin slammed by more than 10% to below $2500; Ethereum down big too – CNBC

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Bitcoin fell to its lowest in five days Tuesday amid uncertainty over whether the digital currency will still avoid a split.

Bitcoin dropped more than 10 percent to $2,487.13, its lowest since last Thursday when it hit a low of $2,276.16, according to CoinDesk.

The digital currency last traded just below $2,500, unchanged for the month but still more than double in value for the year.

Bitcoin one-week performance

Source: CoinDesk

Last Thursday, more than 80 percent of developers signaled support for BIP91, a bitcoin improvement proposal intended to resolve differences between the Aug. 1 User Activated Soft Fork and SegWit2x.

Now, there's worry that activation of SegWit2x might not go smoothly.

"I believe the market is currently somewhat torn between the optimism around BIP 91 locking in, which could lead to SegWit activating if all goes smoothly, and the fear of the second half of SegWit2x proposal, the 2MB block size hard fork, still being contested," Alex Sunnarborg, research analyst at CoinDesk, told CNBC in an email.

Developers must unanimously agree on the 2MB block size by its scheduled November implementation, otherwise bitcoin will split.

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Bitcoin slammed by more than 10% to below $2500; Ethereum down big too - CNBC

Bitcoin exchange chief arrested amid new questions about Mt Gox theft – The Verge

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Greek police have arrested one of the central figures in the Bitcoin exchange BTC-e on suspicion of money laundering. Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik was arrested in Greece at the request of US law enforcement, according to a Reuters report.

The BTC-e exchange has long been a favorite of criminals, as its headquarters in Russia places it outside the reach of US and European law enforcement. Recent Google research found that 95 percent of ransomware cash-outs occurred through the BTC-e exchange, although its unclear whether the exchange itself would be liable for those payments.

Those payments have made BTC-e one of the largest bitcoin exchanges, regularly handling more than 3 percent of total Bitcoin transactions. The exchange has been down since Tuesday evening.

Our chief suspect for involvement in the Mt Gox theft

The charges against Vinnik are still sealed, and are likely to remain sealed as prosecutors attempt to extradite him to the US. However, law enforcement officials indicated that as much as $4 billion is suspected to have been laundered through the platform.

Some analysts also believe Vinnik is connected the massive theft that brought down the Mt Gox bitcoin exchange in 2014. In a report released shortly after the arrest, the security firm Wizsec described Vinnik as our chief suspect for involvement in the Mt Gox theft (or the laundering of the proceeds thereof). Analyzing transactions on the blockchain, the group claims to have seen the proceeds from several high-profile Bitcoin thefts pass through wallets listed under Vinniks name.

Mt Gox was the most popular exchange of early Bitcoin users, until it was revealed to be catastrophically insolvent as a result of a long-running theft, which made off with as much as $400 million in bitcoin. The culprit has never been identified, and has remained a subject of intense speculation throughout the bitcoin community.

Early analysis of the theft indicated the crucial compromise occurred as early as 2011, with subsequent withdrawals going unnoticed until years afterward. BTC-e was founded in July 2011.

Sarah Jeong contributed additional reporting to this article.

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Bitcoin exchange chief arrested amid new questions about Mt Gox theft - The Verge

Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz Are Secretly Backing This Cryptocurrency Hedge Fund – Fortune

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

It's a hedge fund savvy enough to have scooped up Bitcoin when it was free. One of its founders is the well-known CEO of AngelList, Naval Ravikant . It's backed by a roster of Silicon Valley's top venture capital firms, and boasts returns of more than 500%. And you've probably never heard of it.

Meet MetaStable Capital, a stealthy startup hedge fund based in San Francisco that invests only in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Since its launch in September 2014, MetaStable has delivered such eye-popping performance that it apparently lets the numbers mostly speak for themselves; it shuns publicity and never announced its recent fundraising round.

Still, Fortune has learned many of the details. In the spring, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Union Square Ventures, Founders Fund and Bessemer Venture Partners all invested in MetaStable, according to several of the VCs and other people close to the fund.

Notably, it's only Sequoia's second investment in a blockchain-related company in that venture capital firm's 45-year history; the first was earlier this year, in Polychain Capital , in a $200 million round in which Andreessen, Union Square Ventures and Founders Fund also participated.

In contrast to MetaStable, though, Polychain has been much more welcoming of press (its founder, Olaf Carlson-Wee, is on the cover of Forbes ' latest issue). It also differs in its strategy: Whereas Polychain specializes in investing in other blockchain companies through what's known as an initial coin offering (or ICO)an investment style that has been likened to venture capitalMetaStable invests directly in digital currencies that it believes could become a new form of money.

Now, MetaStable owns about a dozen different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (which one of the fund's co-founders, Lucas Ryan, originally received for free in 2011), Ethereum, and Monero (of which the fund holds nearly 1%, or about $6 million worth, of all outstanding coins), according to a pitch deck seen by Fortune.

Josh Seims, MetaStable's third co-founder, says the fund takes a value investing approach, "sort of what you imagine a Warren Buffett doing, but its kind of oxymoronic to use these terms in the space because everything is so ephemeral." An example in the pitch deck illustrates the fund's skill in "Bitcoin crisis investing," a Buffett-like concept of investing when others are fearful: When Bitfinex, a major cryptocurrency exchange, was hacked last summer, the price of Bitcoin swiftly plunged more than 20% to under $550, and MetaStable took the opportunity to double its Bitcoin position within the next few hours. The price of Bitcoin has since more than quadrupled.

Rather than try to time the market or buy into the newest blockchain trend, MetaStable looks closely at the real-world use cases of various digital currencies, and aims to make at least decade-long bets on the most "credible candidates," Seims tells Fortune . "There's a handful of, say between five and 10 of these major use cases that could be trillion-dollar blockchains," he says. "Its all very long-term focused, and we think were in super early days right now. It really comes down to which do we think is the strong enough technology, that we think can win." (So far, MetaStable has also exhibited an edge in dodging some of the duds: It skipped The Dao's token offering last year, correctly predicting that it would be hacked; and also steered clear of the cryptocurrency Steem, which has largely turned out to be a flop.)

Through mid-March, MetaStable's flagship fund had returned 539% over its short lifetime, including 86% in the first two-and-a-half months of 2017 (a time period in which the Bitcoin price was up almost 28%).

Since then, though, Bitcoin and Monero have each more than doubled; Ethereum, meanwhile, is worth more than five times what it was four months ago. (Year to date, the Ethereum price has risen more than 2,300%.) That means that MetaStable's returns are actually much, much higher than the ones listed in its March presentation documents. A person close to the fund simply says it has "vastly outperformed Bitcoin;" that puts its 2017 returns at a minimum of 170% and likely far greater. Fortune estimates that MetaStable's returns since its inception now exceed 1,000%.

One caveat is that the fund is likely relatively small by hedge fund standards, which makes it somewhat easier to post outsized return figures. Still, in the fledgling industry of cryptocurrency hedge funds, MetaStable appears to be one of the heavyweights. A recent Forbes report listed its assets at $45 million, but that was before the recent surge in cryptocurrency prices over the last few months. MetaStable's portfolio more than doubled in value in May alone, according to a source close to the fund; on June 23, after a Bitcoin and Ethereum price crash , the hedge fund reported total assets of $69 million in a regulatory filing.

It's not clear how much of those assets are venture capital dollars; typically, when VC firms invest in other funds (the startup accelerator Y Combinator, backed by Sequoia, is one prime example), they can choose to invest in the company itself (or "general partner") or in the actual fund that company manages, or both. In the case of Polychain, for one, Union Square Ventures said it backed the firm but also put some money into the hedge fund.

The abundance of capital is also enticing a slew of other cryptocurrency hedge funds to test the waters for themselves. According to Hedge Fund Alert , there are at least 15 such funds already up and running, but as many as 25 more are in the works.

Investors should expect similar restrictions and high fees as the ones that exist with traditional hedge funds: MetaStable requires a minimum investment of $1 million, and has a "2 and 20" structure for one of its funds, charging a management fee of 2% of assets, and a performance fee of 20% of the profits. A riskier fund has a 1.5% management fee and a 25% performance fee.

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Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz Are Secretly Backing This Cryptocurrency Hedge Fund - Fortune

Some Bitcoin Backers Are Defecting to Create a Rival Currency – New York Times

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Bitcoin Cash could easily dissolve into irrelevance the level of support for it is still unclear but the concrete plans to move forward have underscored, once again, how hard it is to govern a decentralized, open-source technology like Bitcoin with no single set of leaders or ownership.

In the long run it will be forced to develop some real political structure to take these kinds of decisions, but it just isnt there yet, so the result has been chaos, said Joseph Bonneau, who has studied Bitcoin and is a fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which describes itself as a nonprofit defending digital privacy, free speech and innovation.

The Bitcoin divide is part of a wider splintering of the world that has sprung up around virtual currencies.

Many people who initially got excited about the unique technology behind Bitcoin have taken advantage of the public, open-source nature of the technology and created their own new virtual currencies, like Ethereum, Ripple and Litecoin. These other systems run according to different rules than Bitcoin, with some emphasizing more speed and complexity, and some more focused on anonymity and security.

The divisions have, if anything, increased the excitement and the value of all the virtual currencies in the world and banks and governments have announced their own projects to harness the technology.

The price of Bitcoin has recently been at record highs, near $3,000, and several other coins have grown to be worth billions of dollars on their own. A whole class of companies have raised money in recent months by creating and selling their own new digital tokens.

Until now, though, Bitcoin has remained the most valuable digital token of them all, and it has kept its followers united by a single set of rules, despite all the warring behind the scenes.

The divisions, though, appear to have grown too stark to keep everyone on the same blockchain, as the ledger of all Bitcoin transactions is known.

Mr. Ver has been one of the leaders of a contingent that has long wanted to change the rules governing the Bitcoin network so that it can handle more transactions and compete with the likes of PayPal and Visa.

Bitcoin Cash is set to increase the limit on the number of transactions that can be processed by the Bitcoin network every 10 minutes. Currently, the network can process only blocks of transactions that are smaller than one megabyte, which allows for roughly five transactions in a second.

The move to increase the size of the so-called blocks, though, has run up against intense opposition from the programmers who maintain the Bitcoin software.

These programmers, known as the core developers, have said that increasing the amount of data included in each block of transactions would make it harder for individual users to process the blocks and easier for a small number of companies to take control of the Bitcoin network.

It destroys the Bitcoin ethos, which is open and permissionless, where nobody is telling you what to do, said Samson Mow, the chief strategy officer at Blockstream, a company that employs some of the most prominent core developers.

The core developers have come up with their own solution to increase the number of transactions flowing through the system with software known as Segregated Witness, or SegWit. Mr. Ver and others, though, have said SegWit does not expand Bitcoin fast enough to keep up with its recent growth in popularity.

The arguments have given way to vicious mudslinging and hacking attacks against the leaders on both sides, leading some prominent developers to leave the project.

Proponents of increasing the block size, like Mr. Ver, have put forward proposals in the past that have failed to garner majority support in the community, in part because of concerns about the sophistication of the programmers working on the projects.

But the big block camp has not, until now, announced a definite plan to split off from the rest of Bitcoin.

While Bitcoin Cash will not exist until next week, a small number of exchanges have begun trading futures contracts, tied to the expected price of Bitcoin Cash. On Tuesday, it was trading around $450, or a fraction of the $2,600 value of an ordinary Bitcoin.

As recently as last week, it appeared that the major Bitcoin players had found a compromise that would avert a split in the network, or a fork as it is known in Bitcoin world.

Many of the largest Bitcoin companies agreed in May that they would install the SegWit software the core developers created, while also moving toward a doubling of the size of each block of transactions, to two megabytes, in November.

The largest Bitcoin processors had signaled last week that they intended to begin running the new software on Aug. 1. But the developers have suggested that they do not intend to move forward with any increase in the size of the blocks in the coming months.

One of Mr. Vers many investment holdings, Bitcoin.com, announced on Tuesday that it would put all of its resources behind Bitcoin Cash if the block size has not been doubled by November.

To gain traction more broadly, Bitcoin Cash will have to win backing from the broader community of so-called Bitcoin miners.

Bitcoin miners are best known for using specialized computers to unlock, or mine, new Bitcoins. But miners also process Bitcoin transactions and have voting power over any changes to the Bitcoin network in direct proportion to the amount of computing power they dedicate to the network.

Most of the largest mining operations are now in China, thanks to the availability of cheap hardware and electricity.

One significant Chinese mining operation, ViaBTC, has been an outspoken supporter of Bitcoin Cash and has said it will begin backing the system next week.

The largest Bitcoin mining operator in the world, a company known as Bitmain, is a primary investor in ViaBTC. That has led many in the Bitcoin world to expect that Bitmain will also provide backing to Bitcoin Cash. But Bitmain has so far said only that it does not rule out supporting Bitcoin Cash.

When Bitcoin Cash comes into existence, every current holder of Bitcoins will have access to an equivalent amount of Bitcoin Cash, but from that point forward the two systems will diverge.

In the coming weeks, Bitcoin enthusiasts on all sides of the debate will be watching closely to see which big Bitcoin companies offer support for people who want to hold, trade and mine Bitcoin Cash.

A version of this article appears in print on July 26, 2017, on Page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Some Bitcoin Backers Defect To Create a Rival Currency.

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Some Bitcoin Backers Are Defecting to Create a Rival Currency - New York Times

This is what it will take for bitcoin to become a legit currency – MarketWatch

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Bitcoin still has a lot to prove.

As the debate rages on whether bitcoin is a legitimate currency or just imaginary money, one Wall Street analyst stripped down the argument to three simple parameters safety, liquidity and return.

These attributes are the hallmarks of reserve currencies like the U.S. dollar, the euro or gold, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynchs head of global commodities and derivatives research, Francisco Blanch.

For now, bitcoin BTCUSD, -3.66% falls short in making the cut even though it is gaining in popularity among a certain class of investors who believe the cryptocurrency will soon come out of the shadows and claim its rightful place as a legal tender.

See story: SEC concludes initial coin offerings are securities

Safety

Of the three criteria, safety remains the biggest problem as the absence of a central governing authority not only makes the digital currency more vulnerable to chaos but also susceptible to hacking, identity theft and fraud, according to Blanch.

Other issues more specific to the functioning of cryptocurrencies, such as finding an agreement regarding the adoption of certain protocols, are also worth mentioning. For example, should bitcoin split into two digital tokens because miners cannot find common ground, a collapse in confidence and value could follow, writes Blanch.

Bitcoins value nose-dived earlier in July on fears that a possible split could result in multiple versions. That event was averted last week, but investors are now bracing for what is known as a hard fork, which will lead to a splinter blockchain.

Read: Bitcoin, digital currencies retreat from records

The volatile nature of the cryptocurrency also undermines its credibility.

Volatility is the key parameter to understand the concept of safety in a reserve currency, in our view, he said. In that regard, bitcoins score has improved in recent years as volatility has continued to drop.

Even compared to emerging market currencies, bitcoin is viewed as extremely volatile. Some of that, according to Blanch, may be due to the fact that many of these countries China, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and India have repressive capital controls in place.

Nonetheless, as the chart shows, on at least two occasions last year, bitcoins volatility fell below silver, which was for some 400 years the worlds currency.

Liquidity

Interest in digital currencies has soared recently with daily trading volume in the cryptomarket jumping to $2 billion today from $400 million in 2012.

For a digital token to become a currency, it must build to a certain scale, said Blanch. In some ways, this is exactly what has been happening in recent quarters, with the total market value of digital tokens growing exponentially from $1.5 billion to around $87 billion at present. Put differently, cryptocurrencies have built scale rapidly and are now accepted as a means of payment by some corporations and individuals.

At last check, companies like Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -0.38% Expedia Inc. EXPE, +1.38% and CVS Health Corp. CVS, -0.61% are among U.S. enterprises accepting bitcoin.

Returns

Unlike reserve currencies, bitcoin does not have an interest rate that is set by a central bank so it is difficult to quantify its returns. It also does not offer much in the way of diversification given its lack of correlation to other major currencies, precious metals, bonds or equities.

Still, bitcoin has offered phenomenal returns in terms of absolute value that few assets can come close to matching.

But exceptional returns do not make for a fiat currency and bitcoins ultimate test will be whether banks will capitulate and accept it as collateral.

Most regulated financial institutions allow their clients to borrow against financial or physical assets, but we are not aware of any major institution that takes cryptocurrency as collateral at the moment. Thus, in our view, a key step for bitcoin would be for it to become pledgeable collateral, said Blanch.

In other words, bitcoin still has a long way to go.

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This is what it will take for bitcoin to become a legit currency - MarketWatch

Big, Dangerous Comets Are More Common Than Scientists Thought – Space.com

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

This NASA animation depicts a comet as it enters the inner solar system, with light from the sun warming the comet to create its comet and tail.

There are a lot more big, potentially dangerous comets zooming through deep space than scientists had thought, a new study suggests.

Astronomers have likely underestimated by a factor of seven the number of "long-period" comets those that take at least 200 years to complete one lap around the sun that are at least 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) wide, according to the study.

"Comets travel much faster than asteroids, and some of them are very big," co-author Amy Mainzer, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. "Studies like this will help us define what kind of hazard long-period comets may pose." [Best Close Encounters of the Comet Kind]

The study team, led by University of Maryland professor James Bauer, analyzed data gathered by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft.

This illustration shows how scientists used data from NASA's WISE spacecraft to determine the nucleus sizes of comets. They subtracted a model of how dust and gas behave in comets in order to obtain the core size.

The data set includes observations of long-period comets and Jupiter-family comets. Long-period comets are thought to arise in the distant Oort Cloud, a spherical shell of icy bodies that begins perhaps 186 billion miles (300 billion km) from the sun, researchers said. The long-period comets that WISE spotted were likely booted inward, toward the sun, by gravitational interactions with other Oort Cloud denizens millions of years ago, the researchers added.

Jupiter-family comets are quite different beasts. They lie relatively close to the sun, completing one lap around the star in less than 20 years. (They are so named because Jupiter's powerful gravity has shaped their orbits.)

The WISE data revealed an unexpected abundance of long-period comets, the researchers said. For example, over an eight-month stretch, three to five times more of these objects zoomed by the sun than scientists had predicted.

"The number of comets speaks to the amount of material left over from the solar system's formation," Bauer said in the same statement. "We now know that there are more relatively large chunks of ancient material coming from the Oort Cloud than we thought."

The study team also determined that long-period comets are up to twice as large, on average, as Jupiter-family comets. The size discrepancy is likely a consequence of the Jupiter-family comets' more frequent trips past the sun, the researchers said: Every time these icy wanderers get close to Earth's star, the sun's intense heat drives off water and other volatile substances, which drag dust with them as they jet into space.

"Our results mean there's an evolutionary difference between Jupiter-family and long-period comets," Bauer said.

The WISE spacecraft launched to Earth orbit in December 2009 and successfully carried out an all-sky survey in infrared light. NASA put WISE into hibernation in February 2011 but reactivated the spacecraft two years later to search for asteroids and other near-Earth objects. (Mainzer is the principal investigator for this new mission, which is called NEOWISE.)

The new study, which was published earlier this month in The Astronomical Journal, looked at data the spacecraft gathered during its prime mission, in 2010.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSpace.com.

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Big, Dangerous Comets Are More Common Than Scientists Thought - Space.com

Comets And Trn: Moses Hightower On Knowing How To Break The Rules – Reykjavk Grapevine

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Photos by

Hrefna Bjrg Gylfadttir

Published July 26, 2017

Moses Hightower might be one of the busiest bands in Reykjavk. As we sit down to talk, lead singer and keyboardist Steingrmur Steini Karl Teague is about to embark on a monthlong tour; drummer Magns Maggi Trygvason Eliassen is in more bands than theres space to list here.

Both are full-time working musicians, plying their trade as session artists and score composers between albums while also contributing to other bands. Their bandmateslead singer and bassist Andri lafsson, and guitarist and singer Danel Fririk Bvarssonare similarly busy, and unavailable for the interview due to prior engagements.

Pop music can sometimes be predictable its fun to make something that breaks the rules.

Somehow, though, they found time to release a record this year. The third Moses Hightower album, Fjallaloft (Mountain Air) is an eclectic collection that has proven a local hit. But finding the time to record and practice can be challenging. Its even more difficult now than it used to be, says Maggi. Steini concurs: I think we work faster now when we actually find the time, but keeping things going and not losing the thread can be a struggle.

A slow process

Its partly their busy work schedules that led to Fjallaloft being so long in the making. The temperature of the world probably went up by like 0.3 degrees in the time it took us to finish it, jokes Maggi.

Reflecting back on such a drawn-out creative process can be difficultbut slow work also has its benefits. Its like growing a beard, says Steini. You see no difference from one day to another, and then all of a sudden its there. You dont feel used up when you finally find the time to recordtheres a lot of time to gather things that you want to try. When the four of us get together, were all ready with something to contribute.

The big picture

One distinctive element of their music that might go over the heads of non-Icelandic speakers is their eccentric and yet tender lyrics, on subjects like the rituals of drunken heart-to-heart conversations (on Trn) to the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter in 1992 (on Geim).

Some bands like to have their lyrics really open, so its easy to relate to them and apply them to your own life, says Steini. We tend to go the other way, narrowing things down and zooming ingetting so close that you cant see the big picture any more, and have to fill in the blanks. Adds Maggi: The lyrics are usually the last thing we add.

Anything goes

The soundscape behind the music is complex, with miniscule details working together to provide the ambience in amongst the instruments. Theres no right or wrong, says Maggi. Well try anything. In one song, I used lighters to get the right sound and played them until I bled. Well try out different things, different sounds and different moods. For us, its important to have fun.

This playfulness is evident on the album, whichdespite its softness and the lazy drawl of its drumshas a tendency to shake things up, catching the listener off-guard and grabbing their attention with sudden transitions. The band refer to their sound simply as pop, citing inspirations from across the genres, but they dont want to be too easily defined.

Pop music can sometimes be a bit predictable, says Steini, so its fun to make something that manages to break the rules without transitioning into other genresjust too see if its possible.

Fjallaloft is out now. A release party takes place Sept. 22 at Hsklab; tickets are on sale at tix.is.

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Comets And Trn: Moses Hightower On Knowing How To Break The Rules - Reykjavk Grapevine

Sky Surprises: New Comet ASASSN1, Nova in Scutum, and Supernova in Pisces! – SkyandTelescope.com

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Between the discovery of Comet ASASSN1 and two stellar explosions, there's a lot happeningin the sky this week. Take your telescope out and see what all the excitement's about.

New Comet ASASSN1 (C/2017 O1) already glows aqua from carbon-laced gases. The comet is currently visible in the pre-dawn sky through modest-sized telescopes. Rolando Ligustri

It feels like the FedEx guy just pulled up and dropped off atruckload of astronomical goodies. News arrived in my e-mail Monday about a new comet discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae(ASAS-SN).Founding member Benjamin Shappee and team have 498 bright supernovae and numerous other transient sources to their credit, but this is the group'sfirst comet discovery, ASASSN1 (C/2017 O1).

The 15th-magnitude object was caught before dawn on July 19th in the constellation Cetus using data from the quadruple 14-cm "Cassius" telescope on Cerro Tololo, Chile. Don't be put off by that magnitude. The comethas brightened quickly in the past few days; visual observers are now reporting it at around magnitude +10 with a large (7), weakly condensed coma. Chris Wyatt of Australia relates that a Swan band filter does a great job enhancing the apparent brightness and contrast of the coma, a sign this is a "gassy" comet.

This wide-view map shows Comet ASASSN1's location at the CetusEridanus border south of Alpha () Ceti (Menkar) on July 26th. Stellarium

Assuming the orbit remains close to the current calculation, Comet ASASSN1 will move northeast across Cetus and Taurus this summer and fall,slowly brightening as it approaches perihelion on October 14th in Perseus. It comes closest to the Earth four nights later, missing the planet by a cool 67 million miles. In a fun twist, ASASSN1 will slow down and spend the entire month of December and much of January within a few degrees of the North Star!

Comet ASSASN1 (C/2017 O1) moves steadily to the northeast in the coming month, becoming higher and easier to see before dawn. Stars are shown to magnitude +9 and comet positions are marked every 3 days at ~4 a.m. CDT. North is up. Chris Marriott's SkyMap

Still, don't count your comets before they hatch. Or even after. Hairy stars can be fickle. There's a fair chance we're only seeing a temporary bright outburst of an intrinsically faint comet.But who knows? You and I will have to keep track of it to find out. Right now, ASASSN1 stands about 20 high in the southeastern sky as it crosses from Cetus into Eridanus. An 8-inch telescope should have no problem bringing it to life, especially now that the Moon's out of view and won't return to the morning sky until August 6th. You can stay in touch with the latest developments on Shappee's Twitter page.

In this photo from July 22nd, the new supernova SN 2017fgc shines at magnitude +13.7, far from the core of the elliptical galaxy NGC 474 in Pisces. You can use the comparison star magnitudes to estimate the supernova's brightness. North is up. Stan Howerton

While you're out waiting for the comet to climb out of the haze, why not check out the new supernova, SN 2017fgc, which recently exploded into view in the 11th-magnitude galaxy NGC 474 in Pisces. At magnitude +13.7, you wouldn't call it "bright," but it's been rising since the DLT40 Surveydiscovered it on July 11th. Based on spectra taken of the object, it was still a couple weeks before maximum in mid-July,so I wouldn't be surprised if it continues to brighten.

This wide-field chart will help get you to NGC 474. It shows stars to magnitude +8. Use the photo above to navigate to the supernova. North is up. Stellarium

Lots of supernovae appear close to the nuclei of their host galaxies and are notoriously difficult to discern in the dense fuzz of unresolved starlight. Not this one.It's "in the clear" 116 east and 45 north of the galaxy's center, so you won't break an eyeball trying to see it. An 8-inch scope magnifying around 150-200 should coax it into view on a dark, moonless morning.

Use this chart to find the nova, ASASSN17-hx. Then click here and here for more detailed AAVSO charts you can use to pinpoint its position and estimate its brightness. Stellarium

When you bring this catastrophic pinpoint into focus, you'll be looking at what happens whena white dwarf star gains too much weight. After siphoning material from a close companion star for millennia, the dwarf exceeded its maximum weight of 1.4 solar masses and underwent a catastrophic gravitational collapse. The runaway fusion reaction that followed raced through the star, destroying it in one titanic blast. Overnight, a lowly white dwarf became aType Ia supernova, bright enough to see from 96 million light years, the distance to the host galaxy.

The nova ASASSN-17hx jumps in brightness between June 23 and July 13 in this then-and-now animation. Gianluca Masi / Virtual Telescope Project

Finally, a nova that's been dozing away at 12th-magnitude has started kicking out the jams!Since it's discovery on June 23rd, ASASSN-17hx has brightened nearly two full magnitudes, putting it within range of large binoculars and small telescopes.

As you can tell from the object's name, the ASAS-SN crew has been busy! Currently at about magnitude +9.5 (and still rising) inthe Scutum Milky Way, it's well-placed for viewing at nightfall a few degrees below the tail of Aquila, the Eagle.

Like a Type Ia supernova, a nova occurs in a close binary star system where a normal star like our Sun is paired up with a white dwarf. Material pulled from the companion finds its way by way of accretion disk to the surface of the dwarf, where it accumulates, heats up, and ignites in a thermonuclear explosion. Asudden increase in brightness follows on the heels of the blast that raises the star from obscurity to binocular or even naked-eye visibility.

Novae occur in close binary systems where one star is a tiny but extremely compact white dwarf star. The dwarf pulls material from its companion into a disk around itself; some of the adopted material funnels to the surface and ignites in a nova explosion. NASA

Unlike a supernova, the dwarf in this system remains intact and theprocess begins anew. It's estimated that small white dwarfs have repeat nova outbursts about once every 5 million years; for larger dwarfs, it's about every 30,000 years. The most massive musttake care as they teeter close to the 1.4-solar mass limit. If a dwarf doesn't burn and destroy the accumulated fuel in time, the extra mass can push itpast the limitto supernova-dom.

Guess it's time to open up those packages. Clear skies!

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Sky Surprises: New Comet ASASSN1, Nova in Scutum, and Supernova in Pisces! - SkyandTelescope.com

Lilly’s catch-up act in psoriasis is working, but now it has to catch up in cancer – FiercePharma

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Eli Lilly has been playing catch-up in the psoriasis market ever since it launched its drug to treat the condition, Taltz, last spring into a crowded field dominated by Novartis Cosentyx. But if second-quarter results are any indication, Lilly is proving to be a formidable competitor.

Sales of Taltz skyrocketed 618% year-over-year to $138.7 million, which handily beat the consensus analyst estimate of $122 million. Other new medications also outperformed, including diabetes treatments Jardiance, up 157% to $103.2 million, and Trulicity, which rose 139% to $480.2 million.

All told, Lillys revenues jumped 8% to $5.8 billion during the second quarter. The companys non-GAAP net income was up 30% to $1.2 billion (95 cents a share). Analysts had been boosting their sales forecasts over the last month but were still pleasantly surprised, having expected $5.6 billion in sales.

RELATED: Top 15 pharma companies by 2016 revenue14. Eli Lilly

Net-net, todays earnings update is good news, wrote Leerink analyst Seamus Fernandez in a morning note to investors. He did add, however, that the pressure will be on Lilly to continue delivering standout results to justify its stock price, which is up 15% for the year.

Towards that end, Lillys executives spent much of the conference call after the earnings release telling investors how it plans to be competitive in the red-hot market for cancer drugs. The company has charted some successes in oncologynotably Cyramza to treat gastric cancer, which was up 27% during the quarter to $186.3 million. But Levi Garraway, Lillys new senior vice president of global development and medical affairs, acknowledged during the call that Lilly would need to prioritize many more medicines that change the standard of care in cancer if its to compete in new treatment modes like immuno-oncology and mutation-specific tumor targeting.

Much of the companys new strategy will hinge on testing patients in clinical trials for mutations and other molecular characteristics that will boost the chances of success and help overcome treatment resistance in targeted patient populations. So Lilly is prioritizing seven oncology drugs in its pipeline, including prexasertib, a CHK1 inhibitor being tested in high-grade ovarian cancer. In early trials, 35% of patients with a particular BRCA mutation responded to the experimental drug, Garraway said.

Together, these assets have the potential to be foundational agents or to anchor foundational regimens, Garraway said during the call. Lilly intends to test many of its oncology drugs in combination with other cancer drugs that are in trials or already marketed, he added. We remain excited about the quality of our compounds but believe that the optimal development path will be best implemented in partnership with external entities that have specific or niche biological expertise, he said. Lilly also intends to aggressively pursue acquisitions of early-stage immuno-oncology assets, executives said.

RELATED: New diabetes meds push Lilly to earnings beat but pipeline worries abound

The pressure on Lilly to continue to drive innovations out of its pipeline is only intensified by patent losses on key blockbusters. Strattera to treat ADHD, for example, was down 17% for the quarter to $186.6 million. Lillys $1.5 billion ED blockbuster Cialis scored a bit of a reprieve last week, reaching a settlement that will extend its patent through September of next year. But the product is showing its age: Sales were flat at $627 million, driven largely by price increases, the company said.

Lillys pipeline challenge has been highlighted recently by beleaguered baricitinib, its much anticipated JAK inhibitor to treat rheumatoid arthritis, which was handed a surprise complete response letter from the FDA in April. In a separate announcementtoday, the company said it would take a minimum of 18 months to address the FDAs concerns. The agency has suggested a new clinical trial would be necessary to prove that the risk/benefit profile is acceptable, according to Lilly.

The delay was surprising to some analysts, including Tim Anderson of Bernstein, who declared in a note to investors that Lillys management recently indicated it was hopeful a resubmission might occur in early 2018not happening!

Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said the company remains committed to baricitinib, even after one analyst pointed out that the rheumatoid arthritis field is already crowded with entrenched players. When will the company just give up, she wondered?

Ricks replied that Lilly is a long way from giving up. After discussions with the FDA, the company has clarity on what the FDAs point of view is. Its just not our point of view, he conceded. But give up? Not a chance, he said. Its definitely disappointing but were committed.

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Lilly's catch-up act in psoriasis is working, but now it has to catch up in cancer - FiercePharma

Meet the woman photographing the world — via Google Street View … – CNN International

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

(CNN) In a single day Londoner Jacqui Kenny continent-hops from Sun City, Arizona to Naryn, Kyrgyzstan -- and back again.

Kenny's travel itinerary is unconstrained by the usual limits of money, transportation or logistics. That's because she travels the world without leaving her house -- via Google Street View.

Kenny suffers from agoraphobia -- an anxiety condition that makes real world traveling very difficult.

The project came about by accident -- but she now has over 35,200 followers.

Kenny began exploring the world via Google Street View in early 2016.

"I thought it was a little bit magic, Google Street View, it feels like a parallel universe, frozen in time," Kenny tells CNN Travel. "There's all these billions of images that are yet to be explored."

The project began early 2016. Kenny was in the process of closing down a company she had co-founded a decade previously. It was a difficult time and her explorations via Street View were comforting -- and provided an outlet for her creativity.

"I wasn't really ready to go back into the world," she recalls. "So I thought, I needed a creative project, so that I can still be doing something creative and keeping myself focused."

Initially the New Zealand native was exploring blindly -- unsure what aesthetic she would be drawn to, but it didn't take her long to realize she had a knack for spotting striking settings.

Her images depict arid, desert landscapes. Sporadic pops of color bringing the photos to life.

"I realized pretty quickly that I really liked those kind of extreme environments," she says. "That might be connected to the fact that due to my agoraphobia, these are places that I would never go to in real life."

Kenny's images have a specific look that has proved popular with Instagram users.

Kenny's Instagram feed is a visual smorgasbord of scenes from across the world -- all presented in Kenny's carefully framed aesthetic.

Buildings are low-roofed, often half the image is taken up with blue sky. Colors burst through the otherwise minimalist scene.

Only occasionally do people appear in her images. When they do, their blurred faces add to the photos' otherworldly appeal.

The overall look is more akin to a scene from a Wes Anderson movie than real life.

But the images aren't carefully directed scenes -- but real life moments recorded by Google and captured by Kenny.

Kenny makes no effort to hide the reality of her images.

She embraces the Google Street View car's intrusion into the scene. Her penchant for desert scenes is in part because of the effect the car has on the dust.

"I love the dust," she says, "Because the Google car kicks up the dust it adds another layer -- something that feels a little bit surreal."

She avoids the oddities that can be spotted on the digital platform. "I try to be as respectful as I possibly can, I always think about that," she says.

People rarely appear on Kenny's Instagram feed, which is carefully curated and framed.

As Kenny embraces her project's unconventional digital roots, she's also learning to embrace her agoraphobia.

"I've always wanted to do something about mental health. But I was never sure what to do," she says. "I'd never really told anybody about my agoraphobia, I mean I've had it for many, many years and the only people I'd ever told were my family and my close friends."

Kenny initially worried about telling her followers, but soon realized her fears were unfounded.

"When I put it up on Instagram, it was amazing," she says, "Obviously there's still so much stigma attached and I thought people were going to judge me, but I've had nothing but support."

Kenny is constantly getting messages from other agoraphobics -- and people who suffer from other mental health conditions, thanking her for getting the word out.

"I get people contacting me pretty much every day, especially over the past six months, and I've built this really amazing community," she says. "But it's not just a community of people who are going through similar struggles, it's also a creative community too."

Kenny is considering hosting an exhibition of her images.

Kenny's work has even attracted the attention of Google.

She says she's been chatting to the company about upcoming projects.

With all the buzz, she has even been considering tackling her issues head on and visiting some of her favorite locales in real life.

"I feel quite a connection now to some of these places that I immerse myself in. When I get a town I really, really love, I'll spend quite a lot of time there," Kenny adds.

There has been talk of exhibitions and events in some of these spots.

"I think I would go to these places if there was a reason to go to them," she says. "I would love to have an exhibition in the places that I travel to the most. And that would give me enough reason to go."

The photographer acknowledges it would be incredibly difficult -- but rewarding: "It would be very, very hard for me, to do it [...] but for something like, I would."

In the meantime Kenny is excited to see where the project goes -- she is considering branching out into virtual reality and other new technologies.

"It's kind of amazing how spending a lot of time at home on this project has actually really opened my world," she says.

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Meet the woman photographing the world -- via Google Street View ... - CNN International

Climate concerns fuel more travel to fragile corners of the world – MyAJC

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka Amid piles of dried chiles, straw baskets and ripe papaya, Jeevanti Chatuvinas wares represented by her sister modeling a gold-studded red sari, dramatic eyeliner and a perfectly coiffed chignon glamorized the weekly market found on the edge of a lagoon lush with mature mangroves about an hours drive north of Colombo in Sri Lanka.

Her bridal beauty business, like the others at the pop-up, represents the economic link between protecting the mangroves as nurseries of the islands fish stocks, tsunami buffers and CO2 sinks and sustaining communities dependent on them.

We cant do mangrove conservation without the people, said Anuradha Anu Wickramasinghe, co-founder of Sudeesa, a Sri Lanka nonprofit advocating for small-scale fishing and farming operations. It was his idea to provide business training and $100 micro-loans to some of the poorest women in coastal fishing communities in exchange for their protection of the vital ecosystem, applying a social fix to an environmental problem caused by logging, mass prawn farming and, in the northern areas, civil war. They get training from us and seed money from Seacology.

This spring, I joined Seacology, the California-based environmental nonprofit, on one of its tours that showcase its projects. Mangrove restoration in Sri Lanka is its largest ever, with the organization donating $5 million over five years to protect more than 21,000 acres of coastal mangroves by bringing the micro-loan program to 15,000 rural women. Meeting the programs budding entrepreneurs and exploring solutions to environmental challenges with field experts were the highlights of an itinerary also filled with more tourist-friendly activities, like a walking tour of Colombo, visits to Hindu and Buddhist temples, and meals both traditional and trendy.

From the broken Paris climate pact to the collapsing ice shelf in Antarctica, climate issues have dominated recent headlines. Providing access to those front lines, the travel industry has mirrored eco-concerns with the growth of climate-focused trips.

Many of these trips are concentrated at the poles. In Greenland, for example, the number of tourists rose almost 24 percent in 2015. Last year, tourism grew by nearly 10 percent more than double the global average. American travelers represented one-third of the 34,539 travelers who visited Antarctica this past winter, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, by far the largest contingent (Chinese travelers come in second at 12 percent).

The Arctic and the Antarctic are changing in dramatic ways, more so than anywhere on Earth, said Sven Lindblad, founder and CEO of Lindblad Expeditions, the pioneer of cruise travel to Antarctica and the Galapagos. Clearly, there is a greater sense of urgency and interest on the part of travelers to see and understand these environments.

The travel industry contributes to carbon emissions, of course, but tour operators argue that exposure to threatened regions converts the curious to conservation. As oceanographer Jacques Cousteau once said, People protect what they love.

Our most significant contribution to the realm of sustainability is utilizing the experiences our travelers are having as Aha! moments to come back and do more to protect the planet and our species, said Ted Martens, vice president of marketing and sustainability at Natural Habitat Adventures, a wildlife-focused tour company that offsets the carbon emissions of its operations by funding green technology projects.

Natural Habitat runs trips in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund that have generated $10 million since 2003 for WWF programs confronting deforestation in the Amazon and preserving orangutan habitats in Borneo, among others. Natural Habitats six-day trips to see polar bears in Canada cost $6,195 (all rates are per person).

With World Wildlife Fund-Canada, Adventure Canada is offering an Arctic Safari from July 30 to Aug. 10 that explores Greenlands communities and ice fjords, from $5,995.

Some operators encourage citizen scientists to help researchers with their work. The nonprofit EarthWatch Institute runs Climate Change at the Arctics Edge trips, in which travelers take water and tree core samples to measure the health of animals and plants (from $2,014 for seven days). EarthWatch Institute also offers teen-only departures.

Over the next two summers, Poseidon Expeditions will run trips to the North Pole featuring a citizen science program to collect data on sea ice thickness and melting (from $6,960 for 10 days). Data from the operators first citizen science launch, in 2015, is already being used by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States Sea Ice Prediction Network.

Lindblad is celebrating its 50th anniversary in the Galapagos this summer with cruises aboard the 96-passenger National Geographic Endeavor II (10 days from $6,960) and the new National Geographic Global Explorers Program. The latters educational activities include collecting plankton, recording wildlife sightings and earning an inflatable Zodiac boat drivers license.

During the 2017/2018 Antarctic travel season, Abercrombie & Kents Classic Antarctica departure Jan. 6 is devoted to Understanding Climate Change and features noted Antarctic researcher Dr. James McClintock (from $13,495 for 12 days).

Naturalist Richard Polatty, a veteran of 60 trips to Antarctica and guide for International Nature and Cultural Adventures (from $10,995 for 11 days), views familiarity as a source of support for the region.

Antarctica is the author of global climate in some ways and is a very sensitive indicator of global climate change, he said.

But it is felt as far away as Sri Lanka, where fishermen in the north say the tides have changed in the past two years, and at least 50 feet of new mangroves planted near Jaffna stand in parched dirt instead of being flooded by water. With the assistance of the navy, Sudeesa continues to plant seedlings with the goal of repopulating the sea with fish and empowering women to be protectors of the coastal forests by ensuring a family income.

We take care of the mothers, who will pass on their knowledge to their children, said Sudeesas Anu as we drove down a sand road separating woven fishing huts from the sparkling turquoise sea on a community-based tour of the island better known for luxury resorts. To the children we say, This is your wealth.

(Elaine Glusac is a freelance writer.)

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Climate concerns fuel more travel to fragile corners of the world - MyAJC

World Travel Awards joins AHIF and AviaDev in Kigali … – Travel Daily News International

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Rwanda will welcome World Travel Awards for the first time, with the Africa Gala Ceremony 2017 set to take place in the countrys thriving capital, Kigali, on 10th October.

Spanning several valley and hillsides, Kigali renowned for its cleanliness and warm hospitality is arguably one of the most attractive African capitals. Its ideal location, in the centre of Rwanda, also makes it an ideal base for exploration.

World Travel Awards President and Founder, Graham Cooke, said: It will be an honour for the World Travel Awards to visit Rwanda for the first time, later this year."

The heart of Africa, Rwanda has become rightfully known for its spectacular scenery think thundering waterfalls, towering mountains and virgin rainforests and rare wildlife. This is a fantastic opportunity for Rwanda to claim its rightful place as Africas rising star.

World Travel Awards Africa Gala Ceremony 2017 will take place at the five star Radisson Blu Hotel & Convention Centre which features the first convention centre in Rwanda with room for up to 5,000 delegates alongside the Africa Hotel Investment Forum (AHIF) and AviaDev Africa (10-12 October).

The leading hotel investment conference that connects business leaders from the international and local markets, driving investment into tourism projects, infrastructure and hotel development across Africa, AHIF is attended by the highest calibre international hotel investors of any conference in Africa.

Meanwhile AviaDev Africa is a unique event bringing together airports, airlines, governments, industry suppliers and tourism authorities to determine the future air connectivity and infrastructure development of Africa. The event provides an opportunity for the aviation and hotel development communities to share intelligence on their future plans, catalysing tourism development on the continent.

Jonathan Worsley, Chairman, Bench Events, said: Im delighted that the World Travel Awards has chosen to hold its Africa ceremony on the main stage at AHIF. The combination of AHIF for hotel investment, AviaDev for aviation route planning and the WTA for excellence in travel, all happening at the same time and in the same place, is bound to focus more attention on the importance of a successful travel and hospitality industry to the economic future of Africa and that has to be a good thing.

Voting for the World Travel Awards Africa Gala Ceremony concludes on the 21st August 2017.

World Travel Awards was established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry.

Today, the World Travel Awards brand is recognised globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire.

Each year, World Travel Awards covers the globe with a series of regional gala ceremonies staged to recognise and celebrate individual and collective success within each key geographical region.

World Travel Awards Gala Ceremonies are widely regarded as the best networking opportunities in the travel industry, attended by government and industry leaders, luminaries and international print and broadcast media.

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World Travel Awards joins AHIF and AviaDev in Kigali ... - Travel Daily News International

Airport Dubbed the ‘World’s Most Useless’ Just Got Its First Commercial Flight – Travel+Leisure

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

At long last, a windy little airport on a tiny island in the South Atlantic might actually see some tourists.

The airport, on the island of Saint Helena, was dubbed the worlds most useless due to severe windy conditions.

The site also plagued with construction delays, the Independent reported, and ever since its opening in May 2016, the airport has struggled to schedule commercial flights.

It is staggering that the Department commissioned and completed the St Helena airport before ascertaining the effect of prevailing wind conditions on landing commercial aircraft safely at St Helena, a U.K. House of Commons committee wrote in a report on the airport.

It wasnt until May of this year that the airport finally had a breakthrough when a passenger test flight successfully landed.

Saint Helena Airport announced that it will now have an official scheduled passenger flight: South African carrier Airlink will fly from Johannesburg via Windhoek in Namibia to St. Helena each Saturday.

No start date or estimated airfares for the flight have been announced.

But the airport isn't getting off the ground without any help: The U.K. government will subsidize the first year of operation, to the tune of about 1.9 million (or $2.4 million USD), according to the Independent.

The flight time from Johannesburg to Saint Helena will be six hours, a big improvement on the previous option: a two-week round-trip voyage by ship. However, the flight schedule requires planes to leave Johannesburg minutes before the first handful of daily arrivals from Heathrow, and the return flight is too late for any connections back to London.

That doesnt sound too convenient for tourists, but Saint Helena does offer an intriguing destination. Napoleon was imprisoned on the island after the Battle of Waterloo, and an incredibly remote and difficult-to-reach island can't be beat for pristine wilderness.

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Airport Dubbed the 'World's Most Useless' Just Got Its First Commercial Flight - Travel+Leisure

What the Gay Lobby Doesn’t Want You to Know – Church Militant

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

A decade ago, personal video testimonials of people "coming out" as gay exploded on YouTube. Now, search the term "ex-gay," and you'll find an explosion of testimonials from those who've left the homosexual lifestyle and have never looked back.

But this is the news the LGBT lobby doesn't want anyone to know, because it bursts the myth that people are "born that way" and they can never really change. So invested are they in the narrative that they've lobbied states to outlaw reparative therapy voluntary counseling that helps diminish or eliminate unwanted same-sex attraction. Currently, nine states and counting have banned such therapy for minors, meaning youth who seek help in ridding themselves of homosexual desires can no longer do so with a licensed therapist in those states.

But counselors are hitting back. Remarkably, in a stunning federal filing in May, tens of thousands of licensed therapists and clients lodged a massive fraud claim against the LGBT lobby accusing them of misinformation and outright lies regarding the "born that way" narrative and reparative therapy. And secular media are propping up the fraud, promoting the false notion that reparative therapy resorts to torture, shaming and "shock treatment" none of it true.

The late Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, a pioneer in reparative therapy, helped many men recapture their heterosexual orientation.

"Homosexuality is not about sex," Nicolosi said. "It is about a person's sense of himself, about his relationships, how he forms and establishes relationships, his self-identity, his self-image, personal shame, his ability to sustain intimacy."

"Homosexual behavior is always prompted by an inner sense of emptiness," he explained.

Often, when childhood wounds were healed, men would find their same-sex desires diminish or disappear completely, replaced with a healthy, heterosexual attraction.

"Findings from preliminary data collected over a 12-month period indicated statistically significant reductions in distress and improvements in well-being, significant movement toward heterosexual identity, and significant increases in heterosexual thoughts and desires with accompanying significant decreases in homosexual thoughts and desires," he summarized.

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SIMPLE CREATURE Review – Film Pulse

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

2.5

Release Date: July 25, 2017 (DVD and VOD platforms)Director:Andrew FinniganMPAA Rating: NR Runtime: 92 mins

The very concept of transhumanism, the belief that the human body can be pushed past its physical and mental limitations through an incorporation of technology, seems like a narrative concept that is almost impossible to make mundane and stale. The implications, possibilities and risks of the wavering status of humanity transhumanism challenges would supply even the most basic science fiction writer with a wealth of existential questions.

Simple Creature, however, never bothers to ask any of these questions in its Bionic Woman-like fable because, beyond skimming the surface of the possibilities of mechanical augmentation, director Andrew Finnigan shows he hasnt the drive or perhaps the budget to delve any further.

Bearing its catchpenny budget on its shoulders with sets of laughably barren mise-en-scne, the film unfolds uneasily as if confused to what particular issue related to the transhuman debate it wants to address. Millennial college student Em (Carollani Sandberg), whose supposed mastery of modern technology is marked by her dependence on a smartphone, is involved in a near-fatal bus accident that prompts her father to rebuild her because of course we have the technology.

Mind you, we never actually see any of this technology due to budgetary constraints, but the script poorly fills us in with its bizarre, layman techno jargon, making one doubt that Finnigan, who along with directing and writing this dreck is also responsible for the screenplay, hasnt the slightest clue about medical technology. Hes more comfortable with employing buzzwords like nanotechnology as insipid catchalls to the process to ensure no one could be intellectually stimulated by his story.

As Em recovers from her condition, Finnigan demonstrates how uninterested he was in transhumanism to begin with by diverting the films attention to her boyfriend, Seth (DAngelo Midili), and his struggle to keep his family farm operational after his fathers passing. For some unknown reason, Finnigan thought it was prescient to draw parallels between human augmentation and corporate farms infringing on the family-owned business under Simple Creatures blanket thesis: technology does not equal humanity. These scenes before Ems reintegration into the films narrative are only useful to highlight its atrocious sense of pacing.

Half of the film is presented in flowing montage, which dances around things like character building and story through excessive cutting, while the other half is comprised of monotonous dialogue exchanges that played more like the actors building a demo reel, seeing how much personality they could cram into their blank characters.

It is as if the film is permanently stuck its own Kickstarter promotional video, trying to secure enough budget to have makeup effects beyond Em sticking an iPhone cord into her arm to check her vitals. Filming, as he does, from natural light obstructing long shots of utter apathy, Finnigans inconsistent aesthetic practically broadcasts the fresh-out-of-film-school pretensions that one harbors when they earnestly think they can be the next Shane Carruth. As the film goes on, it spirals into a lackluster conspiracy thriller involving the facility in which Em was transformed and the farmers plotting to expose them before limply petering out. Simple Creature is a surprising film in that it somehow made transhumanism boring. Not sure where it wants to place its mistrust of technological advancement that stems from its own ignorance of the topic, Simple Creature spins its wheels futilely without a solid point to make or the means to do so.

Simple Creature review

Written by: Chris Luciantonio

Date Published: 07/25/2017

2.5 / 10 stars

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Met Office supercomputer predicts 10 years of record rain in … – Wired.co.uk

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Getty Images / Dan Kitwood / Staff

Prepare to complain about the weather even more than usual - the Met Office has predicted that a record amount of rain could fall each winter for the next decade.

Its new supercomputer, from computer company Cray, has forecast a one in three chance of record-breaking rain falling every year in at least one region in England and Wales between October and March.

The supercomputer simulated hundreds of winters based on the current climate to predict what the weather could look like for years to come.

And the results are not looking sunny. Some of the predicted winters were more extreme than any we've seen, and analysis of these simulated events showed the risk of record monthly rainfall in winter was seven per cent for south east England.

This chance increased to 34 per cent when other regions were included.

"We shouldn't be surprised if events like this occur," says Nick Dunstone, second author of the report. "Some people think this is a crazy, new risk. It's not. If we'd had these simulations before the floods of January 2014 we could have expected them. Models like this aren't perfect, but they give better estimations than observations alone, which are now largely outdated due to the changing climate."

Jim Dale, senior risk meteorologist at British Weather Services, says a prediction is only as good as its outcome, but that doesn't mean it should be taken lightly.

"The crux of this prediction is that the more heat that is in the atmosphere, the more vigorous the storms get as they hold and release more water, making a much wetter climate not just during winter," he says.

"Climate change predictions should be treated with caution rather than disregard or seen as a scare-tactics - we are already seeing the effects of melting icebergs," Dale continues. "It's a crystal ball exercise, but preparation is key. We will see if the government reacts."

The supercomputer, which was fully installed at the beginning of this year following a 97m government grant, is the largest supercomputer dedicated to weather and climate science in the world.

The research was conducted for the National Flood Resilience Review, which asked the Met Office to look into the likelihood of extreme rainfall for the next ten years.

This new research has been named the UNSEEN (UNprecedented Simulated Extremes using ENsembles) method because it predicts future events.

As extreme flooding is relatively rare, simulations can provide data on 1,750 years of winters, whereas real observations can only do so for 35.

If it's developed further, this prediction method could be used to assess the risk of heatwaves, droughts, and cold spells and could help the government, contingency planners and insurers prepare for future events.

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Met Office supercomputer predicts 10 years of record rain in ... - Wired.co.uk

MEDIA ADVISORY: Most Powerful Supercomputer at an Academic Institution in the US 12th in the World Coming to … – UT News | The University of Texas…

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

In 2016, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a $30 million award to the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin to acquire and deploy a new large scale supercomputing system, Stampede 2, as a strategic national resource to provide high-performance computing capabilities for thousands of researchers across the U.S. Photo courtesy of Texas Advanced Computing Center

What: The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin will host a dedication for a new $30 million supercomputer that is the most powerful in the U.S at an academic institution. The system, called Stampede2, will be used for scientific research and serve as a strategic national resource to provide high-performance computing capabilities.

When: 1:45 p.m. 3:45 p.m., Friday, July 28.

Where: J.J. Pickle Research Campus, 10100 Burnet Road, Advanced Computing Building, Building 205. Map and directions can be found at: https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/about/contact/

Media: The event is open to the media. To RSVP, contact Faith Singer-Villalobos at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, rsvp@tacc.utexas.edu.

Background: Funded by the National Science Foundation, Stampede2 builds on the technology and expertise from the first Stampede system, which was also housed at UT Austin and funded by the NSF in 2011. The new supercomputer will have about the equivalent processing power of 100,000 desktop computers and deliver a peak performance of up to 18 petaflops, or 18 quadrillion mathematical operations per second. This increased speed and power will allow scientists and engineers to tackle larger, more complex problems that were not previously possible.

Event activities:

1:45-2:15pm Tour of Stampede2 with TACC executive Dan Stanzione, Human Data Interaction Lab & Machine Room, Advanced Computing Building (ACB) and Research Office Complex (ROC)

2:30-3:30pm Remarks, ACB Auditorium

3:30-3:45pm Q&A from audience and media

3:45-4:45pm General Tours, Human Data Interaction Lab & Machine Room

Tour #1: 3:45-4:15pm

Tour #2: 4:00-4:30pm

Tour #3: 4:15-4:45pm

The system is deployed with vendor partners Dell EMC, Intel Corporation and Seagate Technology. Researchers from Clemson University, Cornell University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, Indiana University and Ohio State University will also be involved.

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MEDIA ADVISORY: Most Powerful Supercomputer at an Academic Institution in the US 12th in the World Coming to ... - UT News | The University of Texas...

Podcast: A Retrospective on Great Science and the Stampede … – insideHPC

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

https://archive.org/download/Stampede_201707/Stampede.mp3 TACC will soon deploy Phase 2 of the Stampede II supercomputer. In this podcast, they celebrate by looking back on some of the great science computed on the original Stampede machine.

In 2017, the Stampede supercomputer, funded by the National Science Foundation, completed its five-year mission to provide world-class computational resources and support staff to more than 11,000 U.S. users on over 3,000 projects in the open science community. But what made it special? Stampede was like a bridge that moved thousands of researchers off of soon-to-be decommissioned supercomputers, while at the same time building a framework that anticipated the eminent trends that came to dominate advanced computing.

Change was in the air at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2010, two years into the operation of the soon-to-be retired Ranger supercomputer of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). Ranger represented a new class of cutting-edge computing systems designed specifically for getting more people U.S. researchers from all fields of science and engineering to use them. Ranger and a few other systems of the NSF-funded Teragrid cyberinfrastructure, such as Kraken at the National Institute for Computational Sciences at UT Knoxville, were going to come offline in the next few years.

Supercomputers live fast and retire young. Thats because technology advances quickly and each generation of computer processors is significantly faster, and cheaper to operate, than the one before it. Expectations were high for the successor to Ranger, a system called Stampede built by TACC that proved to be 20 times more powerful than Ranger and only used half the electricity.

We knew, as we were designing Stampede that we had to inherit a huge amount of workload from the systems that were going offline, said Dan Stanzione, executive director of TACC and the principal investigator of the Stampede project. And at the same time, you could see that architectural changes were coming, and we had to move the community forward as well. That was going to be a huge challenge, Stanzione said.

The challenge was and still is to match the breakneck speed of change in computer hardware and architectures. With Ranger, one fundamental architectural change was going to four, four-core processors on a computer node. It was clear that this trend was going to continue, Stanzione said.

This trend toward manycore processors, as they are known, would force changes to the programming models that researchers use to develop application software for high-tech hardware. Since scientific software changes its structure much more slowly than hardware, sometimes over the course of years, it was critical to get researchers started down the road to manycore.

We needed to take on this enormous responsibility of all of the old workload that was out there for all of the systems that were retiring, but at the same time start encouraging people to modernize and go towards what we thought systems were going to look like in the future, Stanzione said. It was an exciting time.

Designing the Stampede supercomputer required foresight and awareness of the risks in planning a multi-million dollar computing project that would run seven years into the future. Stanzione and the team at TACC wrote the proposal in 2010 based on hardware the Intel Xeon E5 (Sandy Bridge) processor and Intel Xeon Phi co-processor, as well as the Dell servers that were being developed but didnt yet exist. TACC deployed Stampede on schedule in 2013 and consistently met and exceeded its proposed goals of providing to the open science community the computing power of 10 petaflops. An upgrade in 2016 added Knights Landing processors a standalone processor released by Intel that year and 1.5 petaflops to the system. Whats more, TACC operated a world-class facility to support, educate, and train users in fully using Stampede.

One of the things that Im proud of is that weve been able to execute both on time and on budget. We delivered the exact system we had forecast, Stanzione said.

NSF awarded The University of Texas at Austin $51.5 million for TACC to deploy and support the Stampede supercomputer, which included a hardware upgrade in 2016. During its five years of operations, Stampede completed more than eight million successful computing jobs and clocked over three billion core hours of computation.

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Podcast: A Retrospective on Great Science and the Stampede ... - insideHPC

NVIDIA Releases First V100 GPUs into the Wild | TOP500 … – TOP500 News

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

NVIDIA has donated 15 V100 Tesla GPUs to researchers attending the recent Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in Honolulu. The giveaway was described in a blog posted by the company on July 22.

Recipients of the first V100 GPUs. Source: NVIDIA

The Volta-class graphics processors were presented to representatives of each of the 15 research institutions attending the conference, and represent the first such GPUs that the company has made available to users. The new hardware is expected to become more widely available in the current (third) quarter of the year.

The V100 is NVIDIAs latest and greatest GPU computing processor, and includes special-purpose hardware called Tensor Cores that are specifically designed to accelerate deep learning applications. The 640 Tensor Cores on the chip deliver 120 teraflops of performance for both training and inferencing neural networks. Thats about five times faster than what can be achieved on the current-generation P100 Tesla GPUs.

The V100 can also deliver 7.5 teraflops of double precision (64-bit) floating point power, but to the AI researchers who received the new GPUs, this feature is unlikely to be used. Most deep learning algorithms use 32-bit, 16-bit, and, in some cases, 8-bit arithmetic to perform their AI magic.

While at the conference, NVIDIA also demonstrated V100 hardware doing inferencing on a Resnet-152 trained network. Running with just one of the four V100 GPUs on a DGX Station and NVIDIAs TensorRT inference optimizer software, the system was able to classify 527 flower images per second. That was 100 times faster than a CPU-only setup equipped with an Intel Skylake processor. Its noteworthy that even the 5 images-per-second rate for the CPU system is faster than what a human could manage.

Speaking at the event, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang spoke to the attendees about the significance of artificial intelligence and their research. AI is the most powerful technology force that we have ever known, said Jensen Ive seen everything. Ive seen the coming and going of the client-server revolution. Ive seen the coming and going of the PC revolution. Absolutely nothing compares.

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NVIDIA Releases First V100 GPUs into the Wild | TOP500 ... - TOP500 News

Brain’s Stem Cells Slow Ageing in Mice – Scientific American

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Danzig

Stem cells in the brain could be the key to extending life and slowing ageing. These cells which are located in the hypothalamus, a region that produces hormones and other signalling molecules can reinvigorate declining brain function and muscle strength in middle-aged mice, according to a study published on July 26in Nature1.

Previous studies have suggested that the hypothalamus is involved in ageing, but the latest research shows that stem cells in this region can slow the process. That makes sense, because the hypothalamus is involved in many bodily functions, including inflammation and appetite, says Dongsheng Cai, a neuroendocrinologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

In their study, Cai and his colleagues found that stem cells in the hypothalamus disappear as mice grow older. When the researchers injected their mice with viruses that destroy these cells, the animals seemed to grow older faster, experiencing declines in memory, muscle strength, endurance and coordination. They also died sooner than untreated mice of the same age.

Next, the team injected stem cells taken from the hypothalami of newborn mice into the brains of middle-aged mice. After four months, these animals had better cognitive and muscular function than untreated mice of the same age. They also lived about 10% longer, on average.

The researchers found that these stem cells release molecules called microRNAs, which help to regulate gene expression, into the cerebrospinal fluid. When the team injected these microRNAs into the brains of middle-aged mice, they found that the molecules slowed cognitive decline and muscle degeneration.

It's an interesting paper, says Leonard Guarente, a molecular biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who studies ageing. He adds that it could lead to various ways of developing anti-ageing therapies in people.

Stem-cell therapies might enhance the ability of the hypothalamus to act as a master regulator, given that the latest results suggest it controls ageing through signalling peptides such as hormones and microRNAs, Cai says. He says that his team is trying to identify which of the thousands of types of microRNA produced are involved in ageing, and hopes to investigate whether similar mechanisms exist in non-human primates.

The findings represent a breakthrough in ageing research, says Shin-ichiro Imai, who studies ageing at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. The next steps would be to link these stem cells with other physiological mechanisms of ageing, he says. For instance, these cells may have a role in regulating the neurons that release a hormone called GnRH, which is secreted by the hypothalamus and is associated with ageing. Imai would also like to know whether the microRNAs from the cells can pass into the bloodstream, which would carry them throughout the body.

Cai suspects that anti-ageing therapies targeting the hypothalamus would need to be administered in middle age, before a persons muscles and metabolism have degenerated beyond a point that could be reversed.

It is unclear by how much such a therapy could extend a human lifespan, but Guarente says that slowing the effects of ageing is the more important goal. Living longer isnt important if youre not healthy, he says.

This article is reproduced with permission and wasfirst publishedon July 26, 2017.

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Brain's Stem Cells Slow Ageing in Mice - Scientific American

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