Monthly Archives: August 2017

NASA’s Rocket to Nowhere Finally Has a Destination – WIRED

Posted: August 18, 2017 at 5:33 am

On a Thursday afternoon in June, a 17-foot-tall rocket motorlooking like something a dedicated amateur might fire offstood fire-side-up on the salty desert of Promontory, Utah. Over the loudspeakers, an announcer counted down. And with the command to fire, quad cones of flame flew from the four inverted nozzles and grew toward the sky. As the smoke rose, it cast a four-leaf clover of shadow across the ground.

This was a test of the launch abort motor, a gadget built to carry NASA astronauts away from a rocket gone wrong. Made in Utah by a company called Orbital ATK, it's part of the Space Launch System : the agency's next generation space vehicle, meant to ferry humans and cargo into deep space . NASA has tasked Orbital ATK and other contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Aerojet Rocketdynewith building SLS and its crew capsule for the kinds of missions NASA hasnt undertaken since the Apollo days. But for much of the program's six years, NASA didn't know exactly where SLS would go. The agency spent billions of dollars on what critics called a rocket to nowhere.

In June, hundreds of spectatorsrocket scientists, astronauts, locals who line the highway for every scheduled testcame to watch the fireworks of the launch abort motor test. Charley Bown, a program manager, had warned it would be very short, very powerful, and very loud. Despite his prep talk, the crowd jumped at "fire." During tests like this one, Bown actually turns from the rocketry and watches the watchers, taking pictures of their faces. Some people just smile, he says. Some have a look of amazement.

Bown has been to a lot of these shows in his decades here. And Orbital ATK has done other test fires, lighting up the boosters that will launch the SLS. But this one was different. Because back in late March, Bill Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator for NASAs Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate gave a flashy presentation detailing the agency's Deep Space Gateway and Transport Planwith proposed missions through the 2030s. Finally, the builders and testers could envision not just that their creations would go but that they would go to lunar orbit .

The tapestry of SLS's fate was always tangled. In 2010, before the shuttle was even in its grave , Congress told NASA to build the rocket using reappropriated shuttle parts. First, they thought the system might take astronauts to an asteroidyou know, practice for Mars. But maybe SLS could send a robot to tug an asteroid from its natural orbit and into the moon's orbit ? Also practice for Mars, of course.

With the 2016 transition of presidential power, NASA abandoned what little agenda it had. Which isn't unusual. The agencys mandates are always subject to the US's four-year flip-flop, despite the fact that decades-long mission plans require, believe it or not, decades. Since Trump took office, officials have debated whether to scrap missions to asteroids, whether to favor the moon over Mars, and whether to put humans aboard the very, very first mission, called EM-1 (it was a bad idea, and they won't).

Through all this, the contractors kept constructing and testing, keeping their focus simply on finishing . Until Gerstenmeier's March presentation. Finally, here was a roadmap. The first mission, according to this plan, will go to the moon's orbit in 2018.

Four years later, the rocket will launch a mission to Europa, that mystery moon on which moviemakers imagine oceanic aliens. Then, crews will shuttle to lunar orbit to build a deep-space habitat and staging area for longer-distance travel. Trips there will continue through 2029, building up the outer-space infrastructure. Four lucky people will spend a year hanging out in the ether around the moon, to see how they and the hab fare. And eventually, other astronauts will undock part of the space town and swivel it on a path toward Mars.

With those goalposts in place, NASA's contractors finally have somewhere to aim. Orbital ATK is currently proving that its hardware meets NASA's previously-established specs for safety and performance. And contractor Lockheed Martin continues to test the human capsule for NASA's deep-space forays: Orion.

As of late July, the Lockheed crew was in the throes of testing a full-size mockup of Orion . Off a road called Titan Loop in Colorado, Lockheed engineers test how the capsule fares in all kinds of weather, blasting it with sound waves to see how it handles vibration, shocking it to see if its components come out OK, putting pressure on it to see if its structure survives. It tests all the systems in various kinds of badness, says Christopher Aiken, an integration and test engineer.

The mockup isnt just a shell: Its electronics and controls are silicon copies of final product. When we fly this, it doesnt know its sitting on the ground, says Paul Sannes, manager of the test lab. The idea is that this model will feel and behave like the real thing under those same conditions, a voodoo doll of space travel. Last week, four Lockheed interns did an AMA on reddit. Getting to see a full mock-up of the capsule every day is pretty awesome, wrote Bailey Sikorski. Plus I get to touch it, which is even cooler.

Six hundred miles northwest, back at Orbital ATK, the biggest task is bureaucratic: a design certification review of the company's solid rocket boosters, which will power 80 percent of SLS's first few minutes of flight. Cast inside space-shuttle casings, the propellant's final form has the consistency of a pencil eraser. Technicians mix the solution in 600-gallon KitchenAids209 of them per boosterand pour that liquid into the five segments that make up each booster. Then they'll cure, trim, and X-ray them to make sure they're defect-free.

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When SLS goes up, it will eat through 1,385,000 pounds of that artisanal propellant in two minutes. And although the first flight wont happen till 2019, Orbital ATK has all the booster segments finished. The design certification will stretch through the end of this year. We provide to NASA all of the certification paperwork, all the drawings, all the test data, says Bown. And then? Assuming all's well? Ship, assemble, and fly, he says.

All that prep work means more now that SLS has real, concrete plans for launching astronauts to the moon's orbit. When the space shuttle Challenger broke apart in 1986, Bown worked at this Utah site. Engineers there, then as now, built NASAs rocket boosters. And it was a booster that failed, that cold Florida morning, 73 seconds after launch, when it was just higher than a commercial airliner. Seven astronauts died.

Bown kept working here, through decades and acquisitions and mergers and a whole lot of propellant work. I got to go from feeling horrible to feeling good about it again, he says.

Today, for major tests like that of the launch abort motor, NASA always sends at least one astronaut to observe. That presence means a lot: The astronauts get to meet the people theyve trusted to make the 177-foot-tall erasers that will fire them to space. And those engineers get to meet the people that propel their work.

The two types stand side by side at the testsboth jumping involuntarily, both perhaps in the frame of one of Bowns photos.

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12 Companies That Are Making the World a Better Place – Singularity Hub

Posted: at 5:32 am

The Singularity University Global Summit in San Francisco this week brought brilliant minds together from all over the world to share a passion for using science and technology to solve the worlds most pressing challenges.

Solving these challenges means ensuring basic needs are met for all people. It means improving quality of life and mitigating future risks both to people and the planet.

To recognize organizations doing outstanding work in these fields, SU holds the Global Grand Challenge Awards. Three participating organizations are selected in each of 12 different tracks and featured at the summits EXPO. The ones found to have the most potential to positively impact one billion people are selected as the track winners.

Heres a list of the companies recognized this year, along with some details about the great work theyre doing.

LuminAID makes portable lanterns that can provide 24 hours of light on 10 hours of solar charging. The lanterns came from a project to assist post-earthquake relief efforts in Haiti, when the products creators considered the dangerous conditions at night in the tent cities and realized light was a critical need. The lights have been used in more than 100 countries and after disasters, including Hurricane Sandy, Typhoon Haiyan, and the earthquakes in Nepal.

BreezoMeter uses big data and machine learning to deliver accurate air quality information in real time. Users can see pollution details as localized as a single city block, and data is impacted by real-time traffic. Forecasting is also available, with air pollution information available up to four days ahead of time, or several years in the past.

Aspire Food Group believes insects are the protein of the future, and that technology has the power to bring the tradition of eating insects that exists in many countries and cultures to the rest of the world. The company uses technologies like robotics and automated data collection to farm insects that have the protein quality of meat and the environmental footprint of plants.

Rafiki Power acts as a rural utility company, building decentralized energy solutions in regions that lack basic services like running water and electricity. The companys renewable hybrid systems are packed and standardized in recycled 20-foot shipping containers, and theyre currently powering over 700 household and business clients in rural Tanzania.

MakeSense is an international community that brings together people in 128 cities across the world to help social entrepreneurs solve challenges in areas like education, health, food, and environment. Social entrepreneurs post their projects and submit challenges to the community, then participants organize workshops to mobilize and generate innovative solutions to help the projects grow.

Unima developed a fast and low-cost diagnostic and disease surveillance tool for infectious diseases. The tool allows health professionals to diagnose diseases at the point of care, in less than 15 minutes, without the use of any lab equipment. A drop of the patients blood is put on a diagnostic paper, where the antibody generates a visual reaction when in contact with the biomarkers in the sample. The result is evaluated by taking a photo with an app in a smartphone, which uses image processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Egalite helps people with disabilities enter the labor market, and helps companies develop best practices for inclusion of the disabled. Egalites founders are passionate about the potential of people with disabilities and the return companies get when they invest in that potential.

Iris.AI is an artificial intelligence system that reads scientific paper abstracts and extracts key concepts for users, presenting concepts visually and allowing users to navigate a topic across disciplines. Since its launch, Iris.AI has read 30 million research paper abstracts and more than 2,000 TED talks. The AI uses a neural net and deep learning technology to continuously improve its output.

Hala Systems, Inc. is a social enterprise focused on developing technology-driven solutions to the worlds toughest humanitarian challenges. Hala is currently focused on civilian protection, accountability, and the prevention of violent extremism before, during, and after conflict. Ultimately, Hala aims to transform the nature of civilian defense during warfare, as well as to reduce casualties and trauma during post-conflict recovery, natural disasters, and other major crises.

Billion Bricks designs and provides shelter and infrastructure solutions for the homeless. The companys housing solutions are scalable, sustainable, and able to create opportunities for communities to emerge from poverty. Their approach empowers communities to replicate the solutions on their own, reducing dependency on support and creating ownership and pride.

Tellus Labs uses satellite data to tackle challenges like food security, water scarcity, and sustainable urban and industrial systems, and drive meaningful change. The company built a planetary-scale model of all 170 million acres of US corn and soy crops to more accurately forecast yields and help stabilize the market fluctuations that accompany the USDAs monthly forecasts.

Loowatt designed a toilet that uses a patented sealing technology to contain human waste within biodegradable film. The toilet is designed for linking to anaerobic digestion technology to provide a source of biogas for cooking, electricity, and other applications, creating the opportunity to offset capital costs with energy production.

Image Credit: LuminAID via YouTube

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Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation v2.4 update adds Vulkan support – PC Gamer

Posted: at 5:32 am

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is receiving a pretty big update that, among other things, will introduce support for Vulkan, a low-level cross-platform API. In doing so, Vulkan continues to grow its street cred among developers.

This comes just a few months after Cloud Imperium Games developer Ali Brown decided to drop DirectX support in Star Citizen in favor of Vulkan, which is maintained by the Khronos Group, the same industry group in charge of the older OpenGL API. In that case, Brown made the decision because Vulkan enables single-API support for older versions of Windows (and Linux) without sacrificing performance and features.

The same motivation is likely behind Oxide Games and Stardock deciding to bring Vulkan support to Escalation. That and a desire to lead the charge by bringing new technology to its playersAshes of the Singularity was one of the first DX12 games.

According to Guru3D, this is not a one-and-done affair. The latest v2.4 update is just the first step, with further optimizations and better compatibility planned with future updates.

To enable Vulkan, you need to right-click on Escalation in your Steam library, select properties, and then select the 2.4 opt-in under the betas tab.

Here are the full highlights for the 2.4 update:

There are a total of nine maps included in the free co-op map pack DLC. This is all due out on August 24.

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Risk Takers Are Back in the Space Raceand That’s a Good Thing – Singularity Hub

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In a fight between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who would win? Peter Diamandis asked Blue Origins Erika Wagner to kick off a conversation with a panel of space entrepreneurs at Singularity Universitys Global Summit this week in San Francisco.

So, Peter, let me tell you about what were doing at Blue Origin, Wagner answered rather diplomatically, eliciting chuckles from the audience. Were really looking towards a future of millions of people living and working in space. The thing I think is really fantasticis that the universe is infinitely large, and so, we dont need any fisticuffs.

Were all going to go out there and create this future together.

Diamandis is no stranger to the private space race. Hes long been a passionate investor in and driver of the new space industry. The first private suborbital flight in 2004incented by his $10 million Ansari XPRIZE competitionhinted at how much could be built outside of government space agencies. But really, only the last few years have begun to deliver on the promise.

Elon Musks SpaceX is the best-known new space firm. But 15 years ago, SpaceX didnt exist. Seven years ago, theyd never launched a vehicle. Five years ago, theyd yet to resupply the International Space Station. And two years ago, there was no such thing as a reusable rocket.

Now, the company is routinely delivering satellites to orbit, resupplying the ISS, and recovering the first stages of their rockets. But they arent alone. In fact, Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin recovered a suborbital New Shepard rocket before SpaceX successfully landed their orbital Falcon 9. And Blue Origin aims to go beyond suborbital flight with the upcoming New Glenn rocket.

So, no zero-g fisticuffs yet, but plenty of competition. Which is a good thing. Making space a more affordable place to visit will open other opportunities when we get there.

Planetary Resources, a company Diamandis cofounded, has plans to expand the global economy into space by prospecting and mining asteroids. And another space mining startup and Google Lunar XPRIZE finalist, Moon Express, aims to mine the moon for the same reasons.

Chris Lewicki, CEO of Planetary Resources, and Bob Richards, cofounder and CEO of Moon Express, joined Diamandis and Wagner on stage to talk over the trends making this possible.

The panel said exponential technologiessuch as 3D printing, computing, and roboticsare a big reason feats that were once the sole domain of a few governments are becoming possible for startups with a team of 50 or 100 talented workers.

We always talk about space being a place where spin-offs happen, where we would go spend a lot of money on Apollo and, in exchange, we get Teflon and cordless drills, Wagner said. And it turns out, now were back in a part of the cycle where space is where spin-ins are happening.

Perhaps this is most obvious in the size of satellites. Not too long ago, most satellites had to be the size of a house to include whatever instruments they carried. These days, in some cases, similar capabilities can be shipped to space in a box 10 centimeters to the side.

Very similar to what happened in the computation world from the mainframe era of computers, things that were government-centric and filled a room were transformed into personals PCsThats whats happening in space, according to Richards.

Perhaps less obvious but no less important is the actual computation working under the hood.

SpaceXs reusable rockets arent manually steered into a soft landing by remote pilots back at mission control. No human is capable of that task. Instead, computers take in a flood of information from onboard sensors and make rapid and continuous adjustments to land.

Theyre basically self-driving rockets. The same technologies making autonomous cars possible are involved here too. And there might even be feedback between the twomuch of the work done in space, after all, will continue to be done by robot. And in space, where communications can be sketchy and delayed, the more autonomous the better.

I look at every autonomous car startup out there and think about where they will be in 5 to 10 years, Lewicki said. [I think about] all the sensors and all the technology that they will have commoditized that will make asteroid mining quite easy.

Additive manufacturing has likewise found a niche in aerospace. 3D printers speed up the design-and-test process and also yield finished parts you cant make any other way.

[Blue Origins] New Shepard rocket has literally hundreds of 3D printed parts, Wagner said. It started off as the brackets and the guides and little pieces, and now, theyre increasingly moving into the hot end of the engine and really are part and parcel to how our rockets work.

All this, according to the panel, is reducing the time and cost of space projects.

Our first quotes from an unnamed large aerospace company for our propulsion system in 2010 was $24 million in 24 months. Were now printing our engines for $2,000 in two weeks, Richards said.

The economics matter. Although significant seed money is being put up by billionaires like Musk and Bezos, they wont be able to foot the whole bill forever. Such investments need to show practical value too if the area is going to take off.

This, perhaps, is the most interesting bit of it all.

According to Richards, you dont get giggled at anymore when proposing a space startup. Beyond individuals, strategic corporate partnerships and even sovereign wealth funds are emerging sources of funding. And venture capital firms are interested too.

The opportunity is enormous, according to Diamandis.

Everything we hold of value on Earth: metals, minerals, energy, real estate, are in near infinite quantities in space, he said. And so Ive said this many times, I believe the first trillionaires will be made in space and the resources that were talking about are multitrillion dollar assets.

While space startups arent giggled at anymore, however, neither are they fully mainstream. SpaceX is leading the way, but there hasnt been what the panel called a Netscape moment yet, referring to the first big web browser that opened the internet for business. The new space industry isnt yet irresistible in the same way.

SpaceX is making its reusable rockets look routine, and has lost a few along the way too. Virgin Galactic, the company Richard Branson founded with the ship developed for the original XPRIZE, lost a pilot in a tragic crash over the Mojave Desert a few years ago. There are still many risks and challenges, big visions and ambitions and unforeseen delays.

But if risk is necessary to move forward, the commercial environment is a better place to experiment, take risks, and try new things, according to Lewicki. Theres a reason, he said, that NASAs next Mars rover will use processors built in 1993. They work. Theyll get the job done. The rover will roll across Mars. But it is nowhere near as capable as it could be.

Its a failure-is-not-an-option mentality, Lewicki said. And when failures not an option, success gets really expensive, and you worry about risk everywhere.

For a startup, on the other hand, the risk-averse approach is not an option. They have to draw up a grand vision of something thats isnt yet here and push the envelope to make it happen. Whatever the outcome, they all agreed, this is a special moment.

Thousands of years from now whatever we evolve into, whatever we become, were going to look back at these next couple of decades as the moment in time that the human race moved off the planet irreversibly, Diamandis said. Its on our watch. Its right here, right now that were becoming a multiplanetary species, which is an extraordinary thought.

Image Credit: Blue Origin

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Singularity University Announces New And Updated Programs To Prepare Leaders For Disruptive Times, Identify … – Markets Insider

Posted: at 5:32 am

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Aug. 17, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Singularity University(SU), a global community with a mission to educate, inspire, and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity's grand challenges, has announced new and evolved programs for individuals, startups, and large organizations. The announcement was made to 1,600 participants attending this week's SU's second annual Global Summit in San Francisco.

As advanced or exponential technologies (such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, digital biology, and robotics) continue to develop at faster rates, it is becoming more challenging for organizations of all sizes to see far enough into the future to plan for how technologies and trends will disrupt as well as create opportunities for businesses and world markets. SU is dedicated to helping people learn to break free of the assumptions they have today, delivering the tools, partner and community networks, and exponential mindset they need to be successful and solve the global challenges we face.

"The world is changing faster than our linear-thinking brains can keep up," said Carin Watson, EVP, Learning & Innovation at Singularity University. "Exponential technologies and new business models enabled by digitization and democratization are impacting every industry in unprecedented ways. SU aims to help leaders better understand, anticipate, and respond to the future. The pace and approach that got us here aren't sufficient to get us there. Our wide range of programs, diverse faculty network, and global community of change agents help individuals and organizations learn to embrace an exponential mindset, develop new skills and tools, and pursue unexpected collaborations that result in both bottom line and social impact."

Enterprises and Large Organizations Require Leaders Who Know How to Succeed in a World of Disruption Caused by Exponential Technologies

The enterprise programs announced this week as new or evolved underscore SU's commitment to deepening the support to help drive organizational transformation. They include:

Impact-Driven Startups Need Long-Term Support to See Them Through

Recognizing that it takes time to solve big problems, SU is announcing SU Ventures, to provide end-to-end support for visionary, future-shaping entrepreneurs and startupsfrom concept to prototype to funding to market entry to scale, and beyond. Unlike traditional short-term incubators and accelerators, it's the first and only program dedicated to startups that apply emerging technologies to address the largest challenges facing humanity today. SU Ventures helps startups:

SU's flagship Global Solutions Program (GSP) now also feeds into SU Ventures in a more intrinsic way as many GSP participants ideate solutions leveraging exponential technologies and bold thinking to solve humankind's global challenges: energy, environment, food, water, shelter, security, prosperity, space, governance, and disaster resilience. Out of the GSP ideas come the seeds for moonshot initiativesthose impacting global challenges and making a difference in the lives of 1 billion people around the world within 10 years. Selected teams are invited to participate in the SU Ventures Incubator to evolve their ideas into startups and innovative solutions. The 2017 GSP cohort focused on solving the challenges facing our climate and environment. To learn more about innovative projects developed during GSP 2017, please see Singularity University Completes 2017 Global Solutions Program.

New Immersive Open Enrollment Programs for Everyone

Singularity University has also expanded its portfolio of short programs for individuals, whether they are seeking their first introduction to the world of exponentials, to deepen their expertise in a given technology or global challenge, or to stay abreast of the innovations, players, and issues shaping the future.

ABOUT SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY Singularity University (SU) is a global learning and innovation community using exponential technologies to tackle the world's biggest challenges and build an abundant future for all. SU's collaborative platform empowers individuals and organizations across the globe to learn, connect, and innovate breakthrough solutions using accelerating technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and digital biology. A certified benefit corporation headquartered at NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley, SU was founded in 2008 by renowned innovators Ray Kurzweil and Peter H. Diamandis with program funding from leading organizations including Google, Deloitte, and UNICEF. To learn more, visit SU.org, join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @SingularityU, and download the SingularityU Hub mobile app.

MEDIA CONTACTS:Jessica Kersey, rel="nofollow">jessica.kersey@su.org 650-868-9295

Adrian Eyre, rel="nofollow">Adrian.Eyre@ogilvy.com 415-677-2708

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What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week – New York Times

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Photo DAngelo Lovell Williamss Structural Dishonesty, on view at Higher Pictures. Credit Higher Pictures DANGELO LOVELL WILLIAMS

Through Sept. 2. Higher Pictures, 980 Madison Avenue, Manhattan; 212-249-6100, higherpictures.com.

The 10 reverberant color photographs in DAngelo Lovell Williamss show at Higher Pictures form one of the years best gallery debuts. Seemingly uncomplicated and improvisational, the works set off startling strings of associations and meaning, tearing through references to race, gender, eroticism, art, fashion, culture and history like crashing dominoes. Yet silence reigns: All is encompassed and centered by the presence of the artist, who is usually shown leveling a steady, slightly quizzical gaze at the camera, and the certainty with which he wields his black, male body as shape-shifting subject and material.

This happens with special power in Structural Dishonesty, a title that resonates with the phrase institutional racism. We see Mr. Williams seated, bare chested, against a wall of raw plywood, in a state of extreme inhale. His chest is pulled up so that his waist is tiny, seemingly corseted; his flaring rib cage suggests a padded bosom, especially because he delicately touches his throat, as if fingering jewels. It is the exaggerated silhouette of a 19th-century woman of wealth, straight from the novels of Edith Wharton or Henry James, as well as a discreetly ambiguous, possibly homoerotic come-on, given his unbuckled belt and unzipped pants. But also here are intimations of horror: slaves cabins, 19th-century photographs of slaves backs scarred by flogging, the open pants of lynching victims.

In Face Down, Ass Up, the artist bends over in a corner, in front of a wall covered with flowered fabric. We see only his backside, his white briefs and the vulvalike shape of pink edged in yellow at the center: It is menses and a sign of torture, yet oddly painterly and artificial, like the image of a stigmata lifted from some over-the-top painting of a saint. Fleurish shows him naked against a dark turquoise wall, seated on a folded quilt atop a thick cabinet with his feet barely touching the floor. His genitals are obscured by a phallic vase whose long-stemmed blossoms frame his face: a childlike yet imperial dandy an analogy aided by the titles hints of flourish and flneur.

The Lovers shows the heads of two black men kissing through the veils of reversed black do-rags. The taboo of black male love is evoked, while the frustrated white couple of Ren Magrittes identically titled Surrealist landmark white-shrouded and heterosexual is inverted. These disarmingly casual yet solemnly astute images are performances that aim for the hearts of many matters.

ROBERTA SMITH

Through Sept. 3. New Museum, 235 Bowery, Manhattan; 212-219-1222, newmuseum.org.

It may be hard for tolerant, art-loving souls to resist the urge to groan when reading pretentious titles for artworks. Consider Elaine Cameron-Weirs viscera has questions about itself it pushed the corner of the room down from behind so that it could not move and delivered the following message: it are now in an erogenous zone. In altered-state subcutanean tantric the skingrip palpable, it, for a sculpture from 2017. Luckily, I saw the works in Ms. Cameron-Weirs New Museum exhibition before encountering the titles.

These pieces are rather good, harnessing a variety of materials and employing them toward evocative, sensual and slightly menacing ends. The viscera has questions about itself sculpture, suspended midair and held taut, looks like a suit of chain metal or flayed skin. Snake 8 (2017) has copper scales that cascade from the ceiling, while another sculpture with a torturously long title consists of a trough lined with a lattice of small transformers and amber-colored labdanum resin, which serves as the base for some incense and perfume (although the scent is mild here).

The show feels vaguely medieval in its visual and alchemical references (a silver human skull in one sculpture evokes a Renaissance memento mori or vanitas symbol), but fittingly contemporary too. Its title, viscera has questions about itself, signals our posthuman moment, in which artists imagine a world where objects and organisms are imagined to have as much agency as large-brained bipeds. Like Alberto Giacometti and Kiki Smith, Ms. Cameron-Weir pushes the limits of figurative sculpture, suggesting the human body in flux a kind of deconstructed spiritual-biological machine. And the titles, despite their preciousness, develop this even further.

MARTHA SCHWENDENER

A version of this review appears in print on August 18, 2017, on Page C17 of the New York edition with the headline: Galleries.

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Small plane crashes in Ascension Parish field; Baton Rouge … – The Advocate

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BURNSIDE Two men survived an emergency landing Thursday morning in southern Ascension Parish after their single-engine plane lost power shortly after takeoff, sheriff's deputies said.

Pilot Brad Arton,of Prairieville,was able to fly the Beechcraft Bonanza into a hay field north of La. 22 about 9:40 a.m. after lifting off from nearby Louisiana Regional Airport. The general aviation airport is in Ascension Parish off Loosemore Road northwest of La. 22.

Ascension Parish Sheriff's Chief Deputy Bobby Webre said the landing was a good one, if not for a ditch in the field that caused the plane to nose forward after touching down.

Deputies said the landing left 314 feet of tire marks across the field, which is between the Pelican Point subdivision to the north, the Ascension Trace subdivision to the south and between the La. 22/La. 44 intersection and the Word of Life Church.

The crash site also happened to be just down the road from the Fifth Ward fire station. Deputies and firefighters responded to the crash, Webre said.

Webre said the pilot, later identified as Arton, who turns 43 Friday, and co-pilot Michael Graham, 58, of Baton Rouge, suffered no injuries. The crash also sparked no fires nor leaks of fuel or other hazardous materials, Webre said.

The National Transportation Safety Board was waiting Thursday afternoon for an aircraft damage assessment to determine what role to take, said Keith Holloway, agency spokesman.

What caused the plane to lose power was not known Thursday.

Webre said the plane had damage to its propeller and engine cowling.

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Ascension partners with tech accelerator | Healthcare IT News – Healthcare IT News

Posted: at 5:29 am

Ascension, the largest non-profit health system in the U.S., became the latest hospital to partner with an innovation accelerator when it announced a new partnership with Plug and Play Tech Center.

Ascension COO Jim Beckmann said the future of healthcare lies in offering greater value and in empowering consumers, and the new deal with Plug and Play gives Ascension another tool in its box to achieve that goal.

[Also:Patricia Maryland to step into CEO post at Ascension]

This collaboration gives Ascension new opportunities to support our efforts to lead the transformation of healthcare, said Jim Beckmann, chief operating officer of Ascension Holdings, part of the health systems solutions division. Plug and Play Tech Center offers us a defined, targeted method of spotting innovation in healthcare and wellness early on to solve problems and meet evolving consumer needs where, when and how they prefer.

Plug and Play Tech Centers Health and Wellness Technology Accelerator connects organizations, corporations and investors with start-ups in the healthcare and wellness industry around subjects including wellness, longevity and digital health.

Each year, the accelerator provides two 12-week intensive programs for some 40 health-related companies, culled from thousands of applicants, Plug and Play explained. These young companies then are connected with sponsoring organizations like Ascension for coaching, mentoring and testing ideas.

[Also:Ascension IT exec: 'Treat IoT security with respect it deserves']

Chris Young, Ascensions vice president of innovation, said the participating startups may be early-stage with two or three people or more advanced companies.

Young said Ascension is looking for innovative solutions and ideas to help the national health system deliver compassionate, personalized care, and that this collaboration offers a new way to connect with the best new ideas as they emerge.

We know healthcare is a very difficult industry to break into as a start-up, Young said. We want to break down those barriers to bring exciting ideas and approaches to those we are privileged to serve.

Twitter:@SiwickiHealthIT Email the writer: bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com

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Ascension Parish Council backs soccer deal for new fields after extended discussion – The Advocate

Posted: at 5:29 am

GONZALESTrust is a two-way street and, in the end, the Ascension Parish Council agreed to trust that the Gonzales Soccer Club will live up to the word of its leaders and fulfill its end of what could be a 10-year deal to use the parish's new multi-million soccer fields at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center.

With minor revisions that open the club's books to parish audits and protect the parish against financial fraud by the club, the council unanimously approved the contract, to the applause of hundreds of young soccer players in uniform and their parents who packed the council chambers in Gonzales for a second time in two nights.

The $4.2 million soccer complex was finished last month.

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The council also gave an early, important nod for a needed zoning modification that would allow Baton Rouge General to add a 10-bed neighborhood hospital with a 14-bed emergency room to a three-story office complex the hospital quietly got approved last year along congested La. 73 in the Prairieville/Dutchtown area.

Though the council still needs to adopt an ordinance to make the change final, the 9-1 vote Thursday accepts the parish Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendation earlier this week and sends the plan on a path to likely approval.

The parish's deal with Gonzales Soccer Club didn't get approved Thursday without an extended discussion by some council members about the contract's failure to state affirmatively that the parish could get out of the deal.

The contract is broken into a five-year term and a second five-year term that renews automatically unless the club chooses to get out. The deal doesn't give the parish the same option. The deal also grants the club a lot of control over access to the fields, especially during the 10-month playing season.

Councilman Travis Turner, the recreation committee chairman who backed the deal Wednesday and ended up backing it again on Thursday, did express some misgivings at the council meeting.

Turner said he is not aware of any other contract with the parish that it could not terminate.

"GSC is asking us to trust them, but it seems as if GSC doesn't trust the parish to do the right thing," Turner said.

He added that if the parish thinks it is a bad deal in five years, it can't get out of the contract.

Matt Pryor, club vice president, said the club needs that long time period to justify the investment it has and will continue to put into the new fields, including a new lightning detector, and it's worrisome to the club that in five years, another group could try to make a better deal for the fields.

Pryor said the club wants to retain control of access and field maintenance to ensure the fields remain at a premier level but he committed to making the field available to other groups.

Pryor said Cajun Industries invested more than $600,000 of in-kind dirt work with the idea the fields would be used by the club, which is leaving several Gonzales city fields for Lamar-Dixon. The parish also gets 80 percent of the field advertising, a $5-per-player fee and all concessions. The advertising alone is expected to generate $250,000 per year for the parish recreation budget.

"But to come in five years," Pryor said, "after investing close to $1 million dollars and say, 'Sorry, guys, you don't have a place to play.' That's a tough risk you're asking us to take."

He said he did not think the parish wanted to end the deal but told Turner that as lawyers both men are attorneys they know that things that aren't supposed to happen do happen.

Turner responded to Pryor's argument that ending the deal in five years would take the field from the kids by saying it was "disingenuous" to try to use children as a hammer to get the deal through.

Despite that tough exchange and concerns raised by a few other members, the council became more amenable to the deal after Parish Attorney O'Neal Parenton Jr. told them they could get out of the contract, by law, if there were a breach, such as not keeping up the fields as promised.

Other council members and Parish President Kenny Matassa, a former Gonzales City councilman who worked with the club for years, expressed their confidence in the intentions of the club and Pryor to live up to their commitments to the council and children in the club.

Follow David J. Mitchell on Twitter, @NewsieDave.

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Sorry Elon Musk, the machines will not win – Irish Times

Posted: at 5:29 am

Elon Musk: Claims of a pending AI apocalypse come almost exclusively from the ranks of individuals such as Musk, Hawking, and Bostrom who possess no formal training in the field, says Ryan Calo of the University of Washington.

Last Saturday tech billionaire and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk tweeted a warning that there is vastly more risk associated with artificial intelligence than with North Korea along with an image bearing the words In the end the machines will win. Musk and others in the public eye including theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and philosopher Nick Bostrum have been vocal about AI risks many times in the past, but cyber and robotics law expert Ryan Calo, faculty co-director at the University of Washingtons Tech Policy Lab, begs to differ.

In an essay on AI policy, he points out that nothing in the current literature suggests that AI could model the intelligence of a lower mammal in full, let alone human intelligence . . . This explains why claims of a pending AI apocalypse come almost exclusively from the ranks of individuals such as Musk, Hawking and Bostrom who possess no formal training in the field. Ouch.

Finally, Calo says that even if AI was to reach the level of superintelligence (smarter than humans), there is nothing to suggest that it would then focus on world domination.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3015350

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Sorry Elon Musk, the machines will not win - Irish Times

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