Monthly Archives: July 2017

Lock Your Meds campaign combats prescription abuse among youths – The Advocate

Posted: July 5, 2017 at 11:25 pm

A media campaign launched by Ascension public schools and Capital Area Human Services is raising awareness of prescription drug abuse among teens.

Lock Your Meds is part of a national campaign including posters, a parent brochure, a public service announcement for radio and television and social media ads, a news release said. Local pharmacies and doctors offices are participating in the campaign, created by the National Family Partnership.

National data indicates 6.5 million people age 12 and older have abused prescription drugs, and 66 percent of youths older than 12 who abuse such drugs obtain them from friends and family, a news release said.

"Our latest data shows 4 percent of 10th-graders and 6 percent of 12th-graders in Ascension Parish admitted to abusing prescription drugs. It is even happening to 1 percent of sixth-graders right here in our community," Ascension public schools Superintendent David Alexander said. "The goal of this campaign is to bring awareness to parents and guardians about this problem and to encourage them to limit access to prescription drugs in their homes."

Learn more about the campaign and download materials at apsb.org/page/lock-your-meds. Those interested in partnering with Ascension Public Schools on the campaign can call Coordinator of Student Services Linda Lamendola at (225) 391-7272.

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Lock Your Meds campaign combats prescription abuse among youths - The Advocate

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Branson Aims Mid-2018 Space Trip as Virgin Resumes Powered Tests – Bloomberg

Posted: at 11:24 pm

More than 2 1/2 years after the fatal breakup of Virgin Galactics experimental rocket plane, Richard Branson is poised to revive powered test flights as the billionaire entrepreneur targets his first journey into space by the middle of next year.

Following the completion of a series of glide-only sorties, powered tests are set to take place every three weeks with the aim of extending them into space by November or December, Branson said in an interview. After his own flight, full commercial passenger operations should start by the end of 2018, he said.

QuickTake The New Space Race

Bransons update is the most detailed since the October 2014 crash of Virgin Galactics original SpaceShipTwo, in which co-pilot Michael Alsbury died when the craft was torn apart after he prematurely unlocked a braking mechanism. While the accident in the Mojave Desert came just months before the planned maiden commercial flight, Branson said the appetite for travel to the edge of space remains undimmed, leaving room for a number of competitors.

We will never be able to build enough spaceships, Branson said Wednesday in Hong Kong following the introduction of Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd. flights from Melbourne. The demand is enormous.

The Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo at the Farnborough International Air Show in Farnborough, U.K. in 2012.

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Branson was an early leader in the new space race after founding Virgin Galactic in 2004. Since then, rivals like the Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin LLC and Elon Musks Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, have gained momentum by focusing on reusable rockets to cut the cost of space travel.

On Wednesday, SpaceX successfully launched its 10th Falcon 9 rocket of 2017, little more than a week after sending a total of 11 communication satellites using two rockets, whose first-stage boosters were recovered for reuse later. Musks company has contracts with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration valued at about $4.2 billion to transport astronauts and supplies to the Space Station.

Blue Origins New Shepard rocket has flown to suborbital space five times since November 2015. Suborbital space is high enough for passengers to experience weightlessness, but not high enough to orbit the Earth.

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Branson, who turns 67 on July 18, said theres a role for various launch systems, especially in the deployment of satellites, viewed as a likely mainstay of Virgin Galactics future business. The companys Virgin Orbit arm is working on a two-stage air-launched rocket that would carry small satellites, with test rockets set to be dropped from an aircraft in the first quarter of 2018, the Briton said.

There is definitely the demand for all three, Branson said of the competing ventures. We can take off at 24-hours notice, put a couple of satellites up and come back again. With ground-based rockets, theres quite a long waiting time.Elon has bigger rockets, so he has advantages there.

Branson declined to comment directly on Donald Trumps June 30 announcement that hell revive a Cold War-era council that helped shape space policy, or on theU.S. presidents suggestion that private companies are set to play an important role in the next phase of space technology.

I think myself and Jeff Bezos and Elon are just getting on with it, he said. I dont think Ive heard of anything majorly exciting thats come out of the administration as far as space is concerned, but maybe theyll surprise us.

Virgin Galactic will also play a role in developing elements of Boom Technologiess planned supersonic plane, Branson said, and will build parts of the XB-1 demonstrator on which the U.S. startup plans to commence work before the end of this year, according to

Branson, a vocal opponent of the U.K. leaving the European Union, said hes hopeful the country is now headed for a Brexit kinder to business following the outcome of Mays general election, which left the ruling Conservatives with fewer seats and dependent on the support of a smaller party.

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Kennedy Space Center prepares for Pence – WESH Orlando

Posted: at 11:24 pm

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

The vice president's visit to the Kennedy Space Center Thursday may offer the clearest look yet at how NASA may change under the Trump administration.

Setup is underway for Vice President Mike Pences first Kennedy Space Center visit.

As the head of the newly re-established National Space Council, Pence will be the presidents point man for the space exploration program. Pence could provide a window into where space exploration is headed under the new administration, when he speaks to Kennedy Space Center employees Thursday.

Its a historic venue, one big enough to hold thousands.

Already, major changes are underway for space workers.

The administration has canceled NASAs big, centerpiece mission, a trip to an asteroid.

With a gigantic new rocket under development, NASA now has no official near-term goal.

Under discussion though, is a long ride for astronauts past the moon, possibly to build an outpost or small space station beyond Earths nearest neighbor. Pence could provide some hints as he tours KSC.

Trumps first budget proposes a small cut to NASA and eliminates some of its climate change work.

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Masdar nanotech promises to bring on the rain! – Green Prophet

Posted: at 11:24 pm

Dr. Linda Zou is leading the project. A professor of chemical and environmental engineering, she is one of the first scientists to explore nanotechnology to enhance a cloud seeding materials ability to produce rain. By filing a patent, the team is paving a way to commercialize their discovery, and aligning with Masdar Institutes aim to position the UAE as a world leader in science and tech, specifically in the realm of environmental sustainability.

It is a significant step towards achieving greater water security in the UAE. Rainfall enhancement via cloud seeding can potentially increase precipitation by 10% to 30%, helping to refresh groundwater reserves, boost agricultural production, and reduce the countrys heavy reliance on water produced by energy-intensive seawater desalination.

Using nanotechnology to accelerate water droplet formation on a typical cloud seeding material has never been researched before. It is a new approach that could revolutionize the development of cloud seeding materials and make them significantly more efficient and effective, said Dr. Zou.

Rain enhancement leverages cloud physics, atmosphere physics, and topographical studies to stimulate clouds to produce rain. Zou and her team complement such work through their focus on the cloud seeding material itself.

Conventional cloud seeding materials are tiny particles such as salt crystals, dry ice and silver iodide. A few microns (one-thousandth of a millimeter) in size, these act as the core around which cloud water condenses, stimulating water droplet growth. Once the air in the cloud reaches a certain level of saturation, it can no longer hold in that moisture, and rain falls. Cloud seeding essentially mimics what naturally occurs in clouds, but enhances the process by adding particles that can stimulate and accelerate the condensation process.

According to a Masdar Institute press release, Dr. Zou (pictured above, left) and her collaborators, Dr. Mustapha Jouiad, Principal Research Scientist in Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Nabil El Hadri and PhD student Haoran Liang, explored ways to improve the process of condensation on a pure salt crystal by layering it with a thin coating of titanium dioxide.

The coating measures around 50 nanometers, more than one thousand times thinner than a human hair. Miniscule in size, the coating has a massive effect on the salts condensation efficiency. Titanium dioxide is a hydrophilic photocatalyst, which means that when in contact with water vapor in the cloud, it helps to initiate and sustain the water vapor condensation on the nanoparticles surface, accelerating formation of large water droplets hence, rain.

Zous team found that their coating improved salts ability to absorb and condense water vapor by a hyndredfold compared to an uncoated salt crystal. Armed with the materials to increase in condensation efficiency, research will now move on to field testing.

The team was one of the inaugural recipients of a US$5 MIL grant from the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science last year, a program established to increase rain enhancement research in the UAE and arid and semi-arid regions across the world. That grant will fund another two years of research.

Awardees of the Programs Second Cycle grant of US$ 5 million were announced Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017, and include teams from the University of Reading (UK), the Finnish Meteorological Institute, and the American firm Spec Inc.

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Duke Neuroscientist: Brain Augmentation Will Allow Us to Make a New Kind of Human – Futurism

Posted: at 11:21 pm

Believe The Hype?

Brain augmentation is a hot topic; from nootropics, to brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), and even implants designed to restore movement to those with paralysis. But how much of the buzz is just hype? To find out, Edd Gent of SingularityHub interviewed Duke University neuroscientist Mikhail Lebedev, who works on brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) and has recently won a $100,000 prize for his work in brain augmentation.

Lebedev thinks we will see both realistic visual prostheses and technologies for the rehabilitation of patients withspinal cord injury and stroke within the next 10 years. Further advances like the ability to type directly from your brain to a screen using implanted electrodes will take more time perhaps 20 years. And Lebedev thinks itll take much longer before were decoding brain activity or free-floating thoughts.

When it comes to augmenting brain function, almost anything is potentially possible. Sensors can be added to the brain, interacting with sensory functions. Lebedev cites adding a sensor of electromagnetic fields or visual sensors around the heads perimeter for panoramic vision as examples.

Current research into micro-stimulation of the brain seems to show that its possible to suppress some processing steps not really to enhance function, Lebedev points out. However, he also points out that suppression can itself be helpful, like when the brain is producing biased responses rather than useful solutions.

There are several basic areas of brain augmentation work currently happening: non-invasive tactics such as electroencephalogram (EEG) systems, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR); invasive approaches such as BCIs, implants, and BMIs; pharmacological approaches such as nootropics and molecular drug treatments; and genetic approaches such as optogenetics and implanted neurons. There is sometimes even significant overlap between some of these areas, and as technologies advance, we may see these categories bleeding together even more.

While access to technology is always a concern, Lebedev points out that continued discovery will always help the problem. Further development tends to make technologies cheaper and more accessible to everyone. (We can see an example of this happening as blockchain and access to cell phones is fostering opportunities in developing countries where infrastructure for landlines was never created.)

And while there are risks that will come with more advanced brain augmentation technologies as there are with any breakthrough tech Lebedev has a positive outlook on what the future may hold, Im optimistic, so I see mostly upsides. We really want to improve; we want to become less primitive people.

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Dreamstate SoCal Lineup Revealed [Updated Daily] – EDM Sauce

Posted: at 11:21 pm

It is no secret that Insomniac has been busy keeping the trance family happy with their wildly successful Dreamstate brand. Since its launch in 2015, Dreamstate has grown immensely in popularity and size, branching out of the festival crowds and into clubs in cities around the world.

This week, the flagship festival, Dreamstate Southern California will begin announcing their artist lineup for the fall event. Being revealed on social media, the all-trance rave is sure to include the biggest names in trance, psytrance, melodic and progressive.

After a cryptic online video was published, many fans believed to have seen the blurred out image of cloak-wearing duo, GAIA. On July 4, fans of the duo comprised of Armin van Buuren and Benno de Goeij had their doubts erased as Dreamstate affirmed that GAIA will be performing at the NOS Events Center come autumn.

On Wednesday, July 5, a slew of trance artists were exposed, ranging from classic trance to progressive and psytrance DJs. Andrew Rayel, Paul Oakenfold, Sunny Lax, a classics set by Judge Jules, Key 4050 Presented by John O'Callaghan and Bryan Kearney and Hyrda presented by The Thrillseekers are a few of the highlights of the mid-week announcement.

Keep checking back for the latest announcements out of Dreamstate, your trance destination.

Dreamstate SoCal will take place November 24-25 at the National Orange Show Events Center in San Bernardino, California. Tickets (including payment options) will go on sale next Tuesday, July 11th.

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Indra to Replatform Its Leading TMS Solutions for Hotels Onto SAP S … – Hospitality Technology

Posted: at 11:20 pm

| July 05, 2017

Indra said it replatformed its Travel Management Suite (TMS) onto SAPs cloud platform S/4HANA. It allows operating as a real-time enterprise with a single view of each guest. TMS will provide global, multi-property enterprises a single source of truth and visibility. SAP S/4HANA is an in-memory, fast relational database management system and it provides a platform that enables accelerated innovation and predictive experiences for hospitality. SAP S/4HANA is an intelligent ERP suite designed specifically for in-memory computing. It is the digital core that connects a hotel enterprise with customers, business networks, the Internet of things, big data, and more. Through this migration, Indra is capable of enabling the worlds largest and most complex hotel enterprises to take control and run a live business with Indras TMS solutions on SAP S/4HANA. With SAP S/4Hana, Indra will offer hotel enterprises the ability to:

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The Guardian view on Test Match Special: 60 years of tacit pleasure – The Guardian

Posted: at 11:20 pm

Sound of the summer: Test Match Specials Michael Vaughan and Jonathan Agnew. Photograph: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

It is 19 years since BBC television ceased broadcasting live Test cricket and 12 since Channel 4 drew stumps on its own free-to-air coverage. Since then, Sky has had the monopoly of rights to what was once the national summer game. This will change a bit in 2020, when the BBC will start showing highlights, and some live T20 games, with Sky retaining the bulk of the rights.

Yet for many, free-to-air cricket coverage is now synonymous with radios Test Match Special. On Thursday, as Test cricket resumes for the first time in this English summer, TMS marks its 60th year of ball-by-ball radio commentaries. This deserves salute from the paper of John Arlott, even while recognising that TMS is a Marmite taste that some adore and others dislike.

Many are devoted to TMSs gentle rhythms in spite of the male public school tone that still lingers. Others want it to converse better with todays Britain. The tension between tradition and innovation will always shape responses to TMS and cricket itself.

In a Wisden survey of TMSs role in the game, Matthew Engel this year highlighted an important truth. While televised sports relentless underlying dogma, especially in Skys treatment, is always that this is thrilling and it really matters, he wrote, radios values are subtler. On radio, there is a tacit pact with the listener, who will be registering the cricket as an agreeable extra in their own daily routine. Exactly so. Just as there is more to life than politics, so there is also more to life than cricket. But its good to welcome TMS back for the summer.

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What is NIT? Neurotechnology Innovations Translator

Posted: at 11:19 pm

NIT started with a clean slate, asking a simple question: How can neurotech companies pioneer these innovations in todays medtech world? The result? Neurotech development, completely reimagined.

NIT is a cutting-edge translational center--a private, for-profit company, formed in collaboration with over a dozen Partners, with a mission to develop and commercialize pioneering neurotechnology solutions to improve patient well-being.Built with the vision of developing a select number of high-quality, commercially-oriented companies, NIT brings together the vision, leadership, expertise,network, resources, personnel and capital to create the pre-eminent development ecosystem in the compelling frontier of neuroscience. NIT's translational approach substantially reduces risk and required capital for companies and their investors by accelerating the development cycle, avoiding pitfalls, and propelling companies through development to commercial success.NIT will create or attract multiple companies sourced from a global pipeline of innovation.Whether an idea on a napkin, or a more mature neurotech company that is further along in the development pathway, NIT will invest in, and engage with, a select number of attractive neurotechnology companies that will benefit from NITs resources and model to accelerate their success.

NIT is not an incubator; not a venture capital firm; not a contract manufacturing house; not a clinical trialing organization...per se.Instead, NIT brings the best of what each of these other entities has tried to deliver, comprehensively, under one translational center, borrowing their best attributes, but transforming them into an entity that provides a cocoon for your companys success in todays challenging landscape.The result: far more than just capital or seasoned advice--a comprehensive solution, providing the expertise, resources, and capital to propel your company from concept-to-clinic, and subsequently to commercial success.

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CF timber program holds inaugural completion ceremony … – Cedar Key Beacon

Posted: at 11:18 pm

Six pioneering students were recognized at the College of Central Floridas first-ever Timber Harvesting Equipment Program Completion Ceremony last Friday in Chiefland.

The new non-credit program is aimed at preparing students for jobs in the field of logging and timber, an expanding industry in North Central Florida.

Students went through five weeks of classroom instruction and three weeks of hands-on field experience. Upon completion, they received Master Logger Certification, OSHA 10-hour Certification and CPR Certification.

The six students receiving certificates of completion at the Haven Hospice Community Center included: Guy Bowers; Garrett Bowker; Thomas Conrad; Hunter Matus; Charles McCullar; and Joshua Randolph. CF Levy Campus provost Dr. Rayanne Giddis delivered opening and closing remarks, while Levy Campus manager Holly McGlashan and program instructor and consultant Bryan Olmert also spoke and issued certificates.

This has been an incredible experience, McGlashan said. Im so incredibly proud of these six gentlemen. Some of them have overcome some extra barriers and have powered through.

The course includes an introduction to the forest industry and instruction on basic forest management, timber harvesting operations, wildlife management, and safety and equipment operations.

This program is the first of its kind in Florida,Giddis said. It was a difficult path, but these six graduates have done an exceptional job.

Giddis thanked individuals and companies who helped support the program, including Ken and Lynetta Griner and Eric Handley of Usher Land and Timber, the Florida Forest Service, the Florida Forest Association, and Gary Beauchamp, who developed the curriculum for the program.

She noted the material support from places such as Deer Equipment, Ring Power, Tidewater Equipment, Tri-County Oil, Lyme Timber and Prep, The Conservation Fund, Suwannee Timber and Ward Timber as well as support from the CF Forest Advisory Committee and Career Source.

Of Olmert, she said, hes our most valuable player. He was sent from heaven to be our instructor for this program. He was more than an instructor, I think he was a guide and a leader for these students.

Olmert thanked Giddis and McGlashan and his students.

All of these names made my job very easy because the logistics of putting something like this together getting fuel, getting equipment, getting everything to flow was made possible by all those people Rayanne mentioned, he said. The curriculum was so well laid out that it was not an issue for me.

I really have six great guys. They all gave me an awful lot of themselves. Theyve got some learning ahead of them, but theyve got the basics.

I couldnt be prouder of all of them. I think they all have a bright future.

Some of the programs graduates have family that are linked to the timber industry, while others entered out of curiousity for the industry and a potential career.

My teacher in high school told me it might be a good program for me because Im more hands on, Matus said. Coming out of it, I think I have a better perspective on the industry.

I was already going to the school and (Levy CF adult education coordinator) Ms. (Leah) Gamble had told me and my wife about the program and I decided Id see what its about, take it for a spin, and it turned out to be pretty good, Randolph said. I learned a lot.

Bowers was also a student at CF when he learned about the program.

My family has been in the logging business for a long time, he said. So I figured if I go in I better get all the requirements I need.

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