Monthly Archives: January 2020

First Recipients of U of A Chancellor’s Humanities and Arts Grant Named – University of Arkansas Newswire

Posted: January 18, 2020 at 10:01 am

University Relations

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. University of Arkansas projects designed to combat "fake news," bolster Holocaust studies, address Spanish language education, and create a student-led record label are among nine inaugural initiatives selected to receive more than $500,000 in seed funding from the Chancellor's Fund for Humanities and Performing Arts.

Chancellor Joe Steinmetzannounced the formation of the new $1 million seed fund in the fallas a wayto encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and spark creative activity in faculty-led initiatives in the humanities and performing arts.

"Providing seed funding to this incredible first batch of humanities and performing arts grant recipients will increase collaboration and innovation, help tackle pressing issues in creative ways, and enhance our research and discovery mission while providing support to our students, surrounding community, and beyond," Steinmetz said. "These projects are our guiding priorities in action."

The total combined award amounts to $532,245, with $500,000 being funded from the Chancellor's grant, and an additional $32,245 being funded by theJ. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. An additional $500,000 from the fund will be distributed in fiscal year 2021.

A total of 39 projects were submitted for consideration 20 in humanities and 19 in performing arts.

Projects were evaluated by two committees made up of leading faculty in the humanities and performing arts. Fulbright College associate dean Calvin White Jr. led the Humanities Committee and associate dean Jeannie Hulen led the Performing Arts Committee.

White and Hulen said the proposals in this first year were very competitive, and that many of the proposals that were not funded this year could be expanded to re-apply in the future.

"I want to thank Calvin and Jeannie for leading us through this process and making sure each committee represented multiple departments and perspectives from across the university," said Todd Shields, dean of Fulbright College. "We were especially pleased by the collaborative approach and big thinking represented in the proposals. Deciding on these nine initiatives was a tough call as there were so many amazing projects, but we are confident this first group of grantees will fulfill our goal of enhancing our university's discovery, innovation, creativity and scholarly work."

Proposals were evaluated on:

The nine projects that were awarded grants beginning spring 2020 include:

Arkansas Participation in a 500 Million Person Community:Building Capacity for Innovation in Spanish Teaching StatewideLuis Restrepo, principal investigator; Brenda Magnetti, Rebecca Foote, Raquel Castro Salas and Betina Arellano (Fulbright College)

Through pioneering research and public programming, this project aims to putthe U of A at the lead in addressingprofound growth of Spanish-speaking populations in ourcommunity, state and nation.

In Arkansas alone, there are now more than 60,000 Hispanic students in public schools and more than 9,000 at higher education institutions. This project has the potentialtomake Arkansas amodel in Spanish language teaching through a research programthat will harness widely dispersed datain hopes of shapingpolicyandsymposiawith public school teachers, university faculty and community leaders.

By building a more multilingual citizenry and workforce through improved language training, colleges and universitiescanbind communitiestogether and better prepare native English speakers for vigorous participation in a globalized economy and energetic engagement in an increasingly diverse world culture.

Holocaust Education Studies CollaborativeJay Greene, principal investigator; Jennifer Hoyer, Matthew Lee and Molly Beck (College of Education and Health Professions and Fulbright College)

Currently, only 10 states include the Holocaust in their education curricula, but scholars have hypothesized that students exposed to it have a stronger commitment to civil liberties and are more likely to speak out in defense of them.

This project will draw on the work of an interdisciplinary group at the U of A and the University of Illinois at Chicago to evaluate and improve Holocaust education in American schools. They will conduct research into Holocaust education in the classroom and in museums to fully discern how Holocaust education benefits students' civic values, tolerance, empathy and sense of justice, and regularly present their findings through papers, conferences and policy briefs.

Armed with this research, they will also collaborate with local schools to increase access to quality Holocaust education. This initiative will establish the U of A as a nationally recognized center for Holocaust education.

ICORN-Fayetteville:Welcoming At-Risk International Writers and Artists to NWAPadma Viswanathan, principal investigator (Fulbright College)

The plan to have Fayetteville designated as an International City of Refuge would bring global recognition to both the U of A and to the city of Fayetteville, which would become one of only 70 such cities around the globe and only two in the United States.

This ambitious project powerfully speaks to the intrinsic value of the humanities to work in the service of human life and to attend to larger issues of health and academic freedom.

The outcomes will be multiple: ICORN status would illuminate the work of a nationally ranked M.F.A. program in creative writing and translation (and, in the future, offer collaborations with the School of Art and Department of Music), enable scholarly work to be produced with global circulation, and create diverse teaching and learning opportunities while also opening up a myriad of possibilities for interagency partnerships, community collaborations and future grants.

NWA Film Cycle: Seeding a Filmmaking Community in Northwest ArkansasRussell Sharman, principal investigator; and John Walch (Fulbright College)

This interdisciplinary collaboration between the Departments of Communication and Theatre proposes to create three short-form narrative films on the theme of "difficult conversations." Each film could stand alone, but also could operate in the context of a series.

These films would engage with difficult and timely conversations such as those involving sexual violence. The potential scope of this project not only involves students in media production processes, but also produces valuable and culturally relevant media content that could reach far beyond the classroom into the community, region and across the nation.

This collaboration is well conceptualized, feasible, timely, cost-efficient and at the forefront of the humanities field, and is likely to achieve future funding successes with the potential to significantly increase the profileof the U of A.

Reasoning in the Digital Age: Challenges and Implications of an Epistemic CrisisEric Funkhouser, principal investigator; Barry Ward, David Barrett, Xintao Wu, William McComas and Scott Eidelman (Fulbright College, College of Engineering and College of Education and Health Professions)

This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary projectseeks to describe and combat obstacles to critical reasoning in an age in which consumers of information are bombarded with information overload, subjected to manipulation, isolated in "silos" and potentially bewildered by accusations of "fake news."

This project will emphasize the identification of rational, ethical and political norms for processing information under these crisis conditions and the development of realistic and practical strategies for implementing them. Immediate results will include a conference and a volume of conference proceedings; papers and at least one book from the investigators; and the development of new courses in vital areas including critical reasoning and data ethics.

Black Prometheus Bound in the 21st CenturyDaniel Levine, principal investigator, and Michael Riha (Fulbright College)

This interdisciplinary project will feature a reinterpretation of classic literature through a diverse lens and manifest in a performance to be viewed by students across the state and potentially to be showcased nationally.

The theatrical adaptation of the ancient tragedy by Aeschylus,Prometheus Bound, will be developed, rehearsed and presented by a troupe of diverse professional actors and Department of Theatre students as the keystone of a two-day festival of classical literature adaptations. The festival will be presented by the Department of Theatre, the Classical Studies Program and the Department of English.

As part of the event, high school students from across the state will visit the U of A to attend the fully staged adaptation, participate in hands-on workshops, engage in discussions about literature and theatre performance and present their own 10-minute adaptations within the theme of the festival. Participating teachers will also be offered professional development credit.

The Experimental Performance Research EnsembleAdam Hogan, principal investigator;Jacob Hertzog, Chris MacRae and Stefani Byrd (Fulbright College)

The Experimental Performance Research Ensemble is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Department of Music and the experimental media arts faculty in the School of Art intended to bring together practitioners from a wide array of backgrounds to foster pioneering research and development of experimental forms of performance with particular interest in the intersections between science, technology and perception.

Guided by a core team of researchers, the ensemble will develop a series of new creative works exploring digitally mediated performance methodologies, culminating in three public performances over the course of the two-year project. Each of the performances will be the result of a collection of improvisational research sessions, instrument development/exploration and compositional residencies featuring the core investigative team and guests.

RefleXions: Latin-America Propagating Sound, Expressing,Reversing Dynamics, Carefully Considering, RepresentingLia Uribe, Erika Almenara, Rogelio Garcia-Contreras, Ronda Mains, Catalina Ortega, Eric Troiano and Leigh Wood (Fulbright College and Sam M. Walton College of Business)

This project aims to support the RefleXions music series, a festival of Latinx music that will promote greater understanding and embracing of Latin art and popular music and culture by using music as a bridge and a tool to connect and represent.

The RefleXions music series is a carefully considered program that is the U of A's next step to expanding its performing field to be more inclusive. This project's main goal is to embrace diverse repertoires and music from Latin-America and promote them by providing opportunities at the university and in our community to learn, grow, disseminate, change and teach.

This project will bring Latin-American music to the forefront of activities, while fostering collaborations between different departments, acting as a bridge to our local communities and promoting access and dialogue with our region's LatinX community.

The 21st Century Music Industry: Imagining a New Role for Higher EducationRonda Mains, Jacob Hertzog, Bree McMahon, Mark Lanoue and Frank Liu (Fulbright College, College of Engineering and the Office of Economic Development)

This entrepreneurial, collaborative project will create a new internal unit, Razorback Music, that functions as a student-led 21st century record label, production and entertainment company, and digital music industry platform to bridge the gap between higher education and the music and entertainment industry.

Services will include recording projects, artist management, booking, music placement, merchandising, media campaigns and networking. These projects and services will be united digitally via a new virtual music industry portal that will be a revenue-generating technology and a music industry research unit. Through this enterprise, students will participate in every aspect of the music business.

Participating artists will include U of A students, faculty and alumni, as well as talented Arkansas artists from every genre. The label will also include experienced advisors in the music industry who will utilize their contacts and expertise to create industry connections for the label and attract outside investors.

About the University of Arkansas:The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among fewer than 3% of colleges and universities in America that have the highest level of research activity.U.S. News & World Reportranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.

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Towns can choose the effect solar farms will have on property taxes – The Altamont Enterprise

Posted: at 10:01 am

DUANESBURG New York State has put into place tax exemptions to encourage development of renewable energy, which played out last week in Duanesburg, a rural Schenectady County town, that granted payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, for two solar farms.

New Yorks Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act requires 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2040 and economy-wide, net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Eden Renewables plans to install Oak Hill Solar 1 and Oak Hill Solar 2 on about 65 acres on Duanesburg Road. Last Thursday night, at its regular January meeting, in a unanimous vote, the Duanesburg Town Board approved PILOTs for both projects.

The solar projects were approved in September, and the PILOT applications for tax breaks had first been introduced to the public just two weeks before they were approved, at the last town board meeting, on Dec. 26.

The town had received the documents requesting a tax break for Eden Renewables about four weeks prior to the Dec. 26 meeting, Supervisor Roger Tidball told The Enterprise after the Jan. 9 meeting. The PILOTs were listed on the agenda for the Dec. 26 meeting, he said, and he had held an impromptu public hearing that night, which was held over to Jan. 9.

Copies of the PILOT applications, attached to the Jan. 9 agenda, said that the owner will make annual payments to the taxing jurisdiction for 15 consecutive fiscal tax years, in lieu of real-property taxes. On each of the two solar farms, the first payment will be $8,125; the annual payments will increase by 2 percent every year.

Eden has a separate PILOT agreement with the Duanesburg Central School District for the same amounts on each of its two projects. Schenectady County has opted not to enter into a PILOT agreement on the Eden projects.

[Related:Duanesburg adopts solar moratorium after already approving big projects]

If Eden Renewables were to pay the real-property taxes, once the solar farms are established, the tax money for Oak Hill 1 and Oak Hill 2 would total more than that, said Duanesburg Assessor Michael McGuire.

However, Duanesburg has not opted out of the tax exemption, under the states Real Property Tax Law, for alternative energy systems such as solar.

From the time that a developer contacts a municipality to say it wants to build a solar farm, a municipality has 60 days to tell that developer that it plans to require a PILOT agreement, McGuire said; the developer can then decide whether to accept that and begin to negotiate, or bring the project elsewhere.

If no PILOT is put into place, a solar farm in Duanesburg would be exempt from property taxes for the first 15 years. The developer must apply to the town for the exemption.

Duanesburg has one existing solar farm, built by Onyx Solar. Onyx was started in 2014 by the investment firm Blackstone Group, whose chief executive officer is Steve Schwarzman, former chairman of Donald Trumps Strategic and Policy Forum. With a net worth of $17.7 billion, Schwarzman is ranked number 29 on Forbes 400, a list of Americas wealthiest.

The Onyx solar farm in Duanesburg does not have a PILOT, McGuire said, and is exempt, for 15 years, from all real-property taxes except for special-district taxes, generally for fire and ambulance. Once the 15 years is up, it would become liable for full taxes.

A developer could try at that point to negotiate a PILOT, McGuire said.

This is all relatively new, and nobody has hit that 15 years, the Duanesburg assessor added.

The town of Guilderland in neighboring Albany County passed a local law in 2017 opting out of the solar exemption, so a solar developer in Guilderland would need to pay property taxes, if it did not have a PILOT agreement.

McGuire does not yet have any numbers for what the assessed value of the Oak Hill solar farm will be; Eden hasnt even broken ground yet, and McGuire hasnt yet received the subdivision paperwork from the county. The tentative assessment roll is released in May based on whatever is there as of March 1, he said. The solar farms at Oak Hill will probably not have a full assessed value, based upon a completed project, until 2021, he said.

McGuire noted that Duanesburgs equalization rate is just 32.8 percent.

An equalization rate is the percentage of full-market value used as the assessment rate. It is set by the state. The rate is meant to equalize taxes among municipalities so that, for example, with county taxes, if someone owns a house worth $100,000 in the city of Albany, that person will pay the same amount of Albany County taxes as a person who owns a $100,000 house in Guilderland.

Guilderlands rate was lowered in 2017 by the state from 88 percent to 75.58, leading residents on the edges of town, in other school districts, to see their property taxes rise precipitously. Last year, the town undertook a town-wide revaluation, bringing its assessed value up to 100 percent, to resolve the problem.

If you looked at a property in Duanesburg with a full-market value of $1,000,000, McGuire said, its assessed value would be $328,000 and taxes due on it would be roughly $28,700. Of that, $19,500 would be due to the school district; $7,750 would go to the town and county combined; and $1,250 would be due to special districts such as fire and ambulance.

On the parent parcel 143 acres owned by Murray taxes last year were $4,400, McGuire said.

Even with a PILOT, Eden Renewables will still need to pay the special-districts tax for fire and ambulance, as well as the property taxes on the land only but not on the solar farm, McGuire said.

The PILOT applications could have been requested prior to the meeting under the Freedom of Information Law by residents who wished to see them, said a woman who answered the phone in the town clerks office late Thursday afternoon. Residents would not be able to stop by the town hall and look through a particular projects file just by asking, the woman said; they would need to fill out a FOIL request.

Under New Yorks Freedom of Information Law, an agency has five days to respond to a request; the agency can take up to 20 business days to produce the documents.

Duanesburg resident Lynne Bruning told The Enterprise that many local towns, including Schoharie, put all of the documentation about proposed projects on their website. Bruning and her mother, who live next to the property where Eden Renewables plans to build a solar farm, have filed an Article 78 proceeding, challenging the towns approval of the project (see related story).

Who has time to come to town hall, then come back again and pay the money for copies? Bruning said to The Enterprise after the meeting about the FOIL-request system. She pointed to a sign the town halls front window, listing the offices hours. You can only come between 8 a.m. and 12 noon, or 1 and 4 p.m., she noted.

Its important that our towns comply with current technology, Bruning said.

Tidball told The Enterprise that people who make FOIL requests might be able to get the material on the spot and might not need to make a second trip if its ready and available.

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Carbon-Emissions Fee on Gasoline Might Tank Regional Economy, Conservative Think Tanks Say | NewBostonPost – NewBostonPost

Posted: at 10:01 am

By Tom Joyce | January 18, 2020, 0:38 EST

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2020/01/18/carbon-emissions-fee-on-gasoline-might-tank-regional-economy-conservative-think-tanks-say/

Members of several New England think tanks gathered Friday for a summit focused on one common goal: their opposition to the Transportation Climate Initiative.

The proposed 12-state pact of New England and Mid-Atlantic states would impose fees on fuel providers based on their carbon emissions. This money would then go to expanding public transportation. For drivers, it would increase the price of gasoline by up to 17 cents per gallon.

The event, hosted by the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, featured representatives from fiscally conservative organizations from all six New England states. The group met at the Hampshire House in Boston in the morning and afternoon, holding a press conference midday.

Chris Carlozzi, of the National Federation of Independent Business Massachusetts, said that the increased tax on gas and diesel would have an adverse impact on Massachusetts businesses.

This will increase costs for small businesses and consumers, Carlozzi said. When youre a small business owner oftentimes operating on razor-thin margins whether youre providing goods or a service it increases costs at the end of the day and prices for consumers. If youre transporting goods, that increases prices. That will leave businesses in Massachusetts at a serious disadvantage and that impacts jobs at the end of the day.

Representatives at the event from the northern New England states Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine said the proposal would especially affect those who live in the rural parts of their states and typically drive longer distances.

Posik called the Transportation Climate Initiative a regressive tax. Other members of the summit agreed and explained further when asked by New Boston Post.

Gasoline is an inelastic good, Stenhouse explained. If you raise the price, people still have to drive to work, sometimes long distances. It comes directly out of their budget and for low-income citizens, thats a higher percentage of their income. Because of that, theyll be forced to cut something else out of their budget because they cant buy less.

Rob Roper of the Ethan Allen Institute in Vermont agreed, noting that with the high cost of real estate in many high-population areas, middle class and working-class Americans may have longer commutes.

Additionally, he noted that the Vermont AFL-CIO, which represents organized labor, opposes the proposed carbon-emissions feem, as VT Digger confirms.

Theyre not ideologically opposed to taxes that would fund greenhouse gas emission. Theyre on board with a Green New Deal for Vermont, Roper said, distinguishing one anti-climate-change proposal from the gasoline fee, but even they see it as a very unfair regressive tax that hurts workers.

When asked if MassFiscal would support an alternative to the Transportation Climate Initiative with similar goals, spokesman Paul Craney said his organization would not.

Rather, Craney stated that Massachusetts ranks 48th among the 50 states in spending efficiency on roads, as the Reason Foundation confirms. He said cutting administrative costs and maximizing efficiency there would provide the state with additional funding for public transit without increasing taxes.

Other attendees at the event Friday, January 17 included Greg Moore of Americans for Prosperity New Hampshire; Jacob Posik of the Maine Heritage Policy Center; Mike Stenhouse of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity; and Elisabeth Kines and Louise DiCocco of the Yankee Institute in Connecticut.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, and Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, are the only two governors in New England who are in favor of the carbon-emissions fee on gasoline. Bakers aides say the governor has the authority to implement a carbon-emissions fee in Massachusetts without further approval by the state Legislature, thanks to a law enacted in 2007.

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, a Republican, in December came against the proposal in clear terms, shortly after the cost estimate of up to 17 cents a gallon was released. Among those expressing opposition recently have been Vermont Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, and Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, a Democrat.

In Maine, Democratic Governor Janet Mills has sounded unenthusiastic about the proposal.

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Tennessee governor says he will sign anti-gay adoption bill – NBC News

Posted: at 10:01 am

NASHVILLE, Tenn. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced Tuesday that hell sign into law a measure that would assure continued taxpayer funding of faith-based foster care and adoption agencies even if they exclude LGBT families and others based on religious beliefs.

The GOP-controlled Senate gave the bill final passage on the first day of the 2020 legislative session after it was initially approved by the House last April. The bill was sent to the Republican governor amid warnings by critics of possible negative consequences for Tennessees reputation.

Lees communication director, Chris Walker, confirmed in a statement Tuesday evening that the governor would sign the bill. Earlier, before the Senate vote, Lee declined to weigh in after saying he had not read the two-page bill.

We are off to a fine start this session, state Sen. Steve Dickerson joked while debating against the bill earlier as the lone Republican opposed.

A handful of states to date have enacted similar legislation i ncluding Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, South Dakota, North Dakota, Virginia, Mississippi and Michigan. But Michigan agreed in settling a lawsuit to no longer turn away LGBT couples or individuals because of religious objections.

Nationally, supporters argue such measures are needed to protect against potential lawsuits hostile to the groups religious beliefs. However, critics counter that the proposals attack LGBT rights and limit the number of qualified families seeking t o adopt or foster needy children.

This bill is solely about freedom, said Sen. Paul Rose, the Republican sponsor of the bill.

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Rose conceded he thought the bill wasnt necessary, pointing out that President Donald Trumps administration is currently proposing a rule that would impose the same protections. Yet he said he advanced the bill this year because there was no guarantee Trump would be reelected later this year.

Trumps proposal would rescind an Obama-era rule that prevented foster care agencies from receiving federal funds if they discriminated against families based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Ultimately, 20 Republicans approved the bill while five other Republican members simply voted present even after some questioned the bills benefits.

Dickerson was the only Republican to join the Senates five Democrats in opposition. He said the bill would allow certain groups to limit the families where children could be sent, adding I expect that waiting list to increase somewhat.

He added, This will have a direct fiscal impact on the state, not to mention the humanitarian impact and emotional impact on those children who ... will now be in a foster setting for a longer time.

In 2011, Illinois declined to renew its state contract with Catholic Charities adoption services due to its policy of refusing child placement to same-sex couples. Catholic Charities has also stopped handling adoptions in Washington D.C., Massachusetts and San Francisco over concerns they would be required to act against their religious beliefs.

If the proposal becomes law as the governor has signaled, current adoption practices in Tennessee arent expected to change. Some faith-based agencies already do not allow gay couples to adopt. But this measure would provide legal protections to agencies that do.

For example, denied applicants couldnt sue an agency for damages if the religious belief or moral conviction was cited as a reason.

The legislation sparked opposition from civil rights and foster advocates.

The foster care system is at a critical juncture where it is required by new federal law to reduce the number of children placed in harmful group homes and to expand family home options for children who cannot safely return to their family of origin, said Currey Cook, counsel and director of Lambda Legal. Children who need more homes, not fewer, should not suffer as part of efforts to chip away at equality for LGBTQ families.

Over in the House, lawmakers had less on tap on opening day though an unrelated political development unfolded.

Republican Rep. David Byrd confirmed he doesnt plan to seek reelection this year. Byrd had been accused of sexual misconduct by three women when he was their high school basketball coach and a teacher decades ago, before being elected. He was reelected in 2018 despite the accusations.

Byrd said he told GOP colleagues in an August closed door gathering that he wouldnt run again, as The Tennessean had reported.

I told my caucus I wouldnt go run, and I hate to go back on my word, even though Im getting a lot of pressure put on me in my district to run, Byrd told The Associated Press.

Byrd had apologized to one of the women in a phone call she recorded in early 2018, but didnt detail his action and denied anything happened with other students.

He said he might change his mind and seek reelection if protests continue over the allegations. Another Republican has filed for his seat.

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Elon Musk is still thinking big with SpaceX’s Starship Mars-colonizing rocket. Really big. – Space.com

Posted: at 10:00 am

Surprise, surprise: Elon Musk is thinking big.

SpaceX's billionaire founder and CEO outlined some ambitious goals for the company's Starship Mars-colonization system during a flurry of Twitter posts on Thursday (Jan. 16).

The Starship architecture consists of a big spaceship called Starship, which Musk has said will be capable of carrying up to 100 people, and a giant rocket named Super Heavy. Both of these vehicles will be reusable; indeed, rapid and frequent reuse is key to Musk's overall vision, which involves cutting the cost of spaceflight enough to make Mars colonization and other bold exploration feats economically feasible.

Related: SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy Rocket in Pictures

And "frequent reuse" is a bit of an understatement, it would seem. In one of Thursday's tweets, for example, Musk wrote that the eventual goal is to launch each Starship vehicle three times per day on average. Each Starship will be able to carry about 100 tons of payload to orbit, so, at that flight rate, every vehicle would loft about 100,000 tons annually, he explained.

And there won't be just one Starship far from it, if everything goes according to Musk's plan.

"Building 100 Starships/year gets to 1000 in 10 years or 100 megatons/year or maybe around 100k people per Earth-Mars orbital sync," Musk wrote in another Thursday tweet.

"Orbital sync" refers to an alignment of the two planets that's favorable for interplanetary travel, which comes along just once every 26 months. So, Musk envisions huge fleets of Starships departing during these windows.

"Loading the Mars fleet into Earth orbit, then 1000 ships depart over ~30 days every 26 months. Battlestar Galactica " he wrote in another tweet. (And Musk wants each Starship to keep flying for a while. In yet another tweet, he said SpaceX is aiming for an operational life of 20 to 30 years for each vehicle.)

Musk wants all of this activity to lead to the establishment of a sustainable settlement on the Red Planet. This goal making humanity a multiplanet species is close to the entrepreneur's heart. He has repeatedly stressed that it's why he founded SpaceX back in 2002, and why he has been amassing wealth for the past few decades.

Back in mid-2017, Musk said that the Starship architecture (which was then called the Interplanetary Transport System) could potentially allow a million-person city to rise on Mars within 50 to 100 years. He's still working toward such an ambitious timeline an even more ambitious one, in fact. On Thursday, one of Musk's Twitter followersasked, "So a million people [on Mars] by 2050?" The billionaire responded simply: "Yes."

Super Heavy won't make the trip to Mars, by the way; the huge rocket is needed just to get the Starship vehicle off Earth. The passenger spacecraft will be able to launch itself off the moon and Mars, both of which are much smaller than our planet and are therefore much easier to escape.

SpaceX is currently building its first Starship orbital vehicle, called the SN1, at the company's South Texas facilities. Also on Thursday, Musk tweeted a photo of technicians working on the SN1's nose cone and liquid-oxygen header tank.

Starship could get up and running soon. SpaceX representatives have said the first operational missions of the vehicle, which will likely loft communications satellites, could come as early as 2021. And there's already one crewed mission on Starship's manifest a round-the-moon voyage booked by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, which is targeted for 2023.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Local student selected as semifinalist in competition to name Mars 2020 rover – KRDO

Posted: at 10:00 am

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MONUMENT, Colo. -- A local high school student has been selected as a semifinalist in NASA's "Name the Rover" competition, which aims to find an official name for the Mars 2020 rover.

Kaitlyn Ketchell, a 10th grader at Palmer Ridge High School in Monument, is one of 155 students across the U.S. chosen as semifinalists in the essay contest.

Ketchell has proposed the name "Tenacity."

"Tenacity would be a fitting name for the rover, as Mars is a very barren planet, and yet we are determined to try and colonize it," Ketchell wrote in her essay submission. "Along with Curiosity, the two rovers could represent some of the best aspects of humanity, inspiring future generations to explore for explorations sake."

Her submission was selected as Colorado's winner in the high school category, according to a press release from Battelle, one of the organizations chosen to conduct the contest.

The currently unnamed rover will search for signs of past microbial life on Mars, characterize the planet's climate and geology, collect samples for future return to Earth, and pave the way for human exploration of the planet, according to the release. The Mars 2020 rover is targeted for aJuly 2020launch and is expected to touch down on Mars inFebruary 2021.

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Heres what all the movies set in 2020 predicted this year would be like – Digital Trends

Posted: at 10:00 am

Life in the 2020s might be new to you and me, but its far from fresh territory for movies and TV. Once cast as a far-off future (or, at least, moderately far future) setting for speculative sci-fi movies, real-world calendars have finally caught up.

What did screenwriters think the world would be facing in the year 2020? Whats the science to accompany the fiction? Lets take a look:

In the movie: Directed by Scarface director Brian DePalma, Mission to Mars depicts an ill-fated mission to Mars, set in the year 2020. Needless to say, it doesnt go according to plan. Not for the astronauts in the story or, probably, for DePalma. At least commercially, his movies have largely failed to launch since this abortive voyage.

In real life: NASA will indeed launch another mission to Mars in 2020, although it wont have any people on board. Instead, the mission will seek signs of habitable past conditions on Mars, including microbial life. As far as the possibility of a crewed mission to Mars is concerned, our faith rests with Elon Musk who has been talking about just such a mission for years.

In the movie: By 2020, human boxers have been replaced by robots. Washed-up former boxer Hugh Jackman has been replaced as part of this automation wave. He teams up with his estranged son to build and train a kickass new fighting robot that can finally be the champion he never was. Imagine Rocky if it was made by the team at Boston Dynamics.

In real life: A growing number of people are concerned about the impact automation is going to have on the job market. Thats particularly true of physical jobs. There have been some impressive advances in robots that can emulate the movements of their human controllers, too.Unfortunately, the most concerted attempt to make fighting robots a real thing the company MegaBots collapsed in 2019. Its prototype battling bot, which cost $2.5 million to build, was auctioned off on eBay. Theres no evidence to suggest that it was bought by Hugh Jackman.

In the movie: The majority of Europe has been overtaken by an alien invasion force. A global military alliance called the United Defense Force (UDF) is created to fight the alien threat. It uses newly developed mech suits to give soldiers augmented fighting capabilities.

In real life: No alien forces arriving by comet, although Brexit has proven a bit disruptive in Europe. The mech suits were a good shout, though.Sarcos Robotics is one of several companies working to make augmented exosuits a reality.In 2020, it will ship the first alpha units of its Guardian XO powered exosuit to initial customers, including the U.S. military. These suits will enable wearers to carry out impressive feats of strength, such as lifting and manipulating 200-pound objects without breaking a sweat.

In the show: The Matt Smith-era Doctor and companions Amy Pond and Rory Wiliams land in Wales. A drilling operation is taking place, which winds up disturbing a civilization of reptile creatures called Silurians who live under the surface. As the former rulers of Earth, they decide they want their planet back. Hijinks ensue.

In real life: Theres plenty of digging into the Earths surface for a variety of reasons. No lizard master race as of yet. Still, theyve got the best part of twelve months to decide to show themselves if they want to prove this storyline accurate.

In the movie: What is it with writers assuming that 2020 would be the year in which the U.K. suffers the wrath of dormant creatures awakened during mining expeditions? In Reign of Fire, Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, and Gerard Butler cash checks as survivors of a dragon-related apocalypse. (Confusingly, the movie previews give the date as 2084, but the movie itself describes it as being 2020.) Dragons, it turns out, helped kill the dinosaurs. This is told to us through newspaper clippings.

In real life: Dragons arent wreaking havoc on humanity. Newspapers arent doing too well, either. Seeing as Reign of Fire is set in a post-apocalyptic world, theres not much to extrapolate here in terms of accurately predicting the future. It did, admittedly, nail how crucial Bale, McConaughey, and (to a slightly lesser extent) Butler would be to humanity, though.

In the movie: In the 2020 imagined in this 1965 Roger Corman cheapie (freely adapted from the Soviet science fiction movie Planeta Bur), Earth has colonized the Moon. Astronauts travel to Venus, discovering a prehistoric world full of dinosaurs, monstrous plants, and assorted dodgy special effects.

In real life: Half a century after humans landed on the Moon, we have yet to colonize Earths lunar satellite. We do, however, have another mission (or several) planned to land on it. And plans to use the Moon as a possible DNA data bank to keep a record of all civilization.The last NASA mission dedicated to Venus was the Magellan probe, launched in 1990. Over four years, it mapped 98% of the planets surface. Alas, no dinosaurs!

In the movie: Okay, I admit it: Akira isnt actually set in 2020. Its set in 2019, but Im including it here because of the reference to the lead-up to the 2020 Olympics. Impressively, the movie accurately predicted that Tokyo would be the site of that years Olympic Games. The stadium constructed for the event figures into the plot as a key location for Akiras climax.

In real life: Well, it got the Olympics bit impressively right. Fortunately, World War III hasnt broken out although not always for lack of trying. The futuristic aesthetic of modern Tokyo with its cyberpunk trappings and disaffected teens is pretty much spot-on.Disappointing lack of oversized stuffed toys and marauding motorcycle gangs, though.

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Amos Is Enough Reason to Finally Watch The Expanse – The Ringer

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I want you to imagine your personal favorite TV character delivering the line I havent felt fear since I was 5 years old. Don Draper saying it, Logan Roy saying it, John Luther saying it, Jim Hopper saying it. (Were probably talking about a dude here, given the lines wanton dudeliness, but sure, imagine, like, Villanelle or even Fleabag saying it.)

So: I havent felt fear since I was 5 years old. Howd that go for you? Not well, yes? Did your personal favorite TV character perhaps sound a wee bit unconvincing? Brotastic? Ridiculous? Embarrassed? Embarrassing? Who among us, even in these glorious streaming-era boom times, can invest those words with the precise deadpan-badass tone that will hint at tragedy without lapsing into disastrous unintentional comedy?

One among us. This guy.

Amos Burton is a character on The Expanse. Wait. Get back here. Yes, those of you who do not watch The Expanse (yet) likely know it as that hardcore science-fiction show, often reductively described as Game of Thrones in space, that at least three of your friends are furious with you for not watching. Its great, and youre missing out, and youre sick of being told youre missing out, and thats understandable. Please do not hold this against Amos.

Industry-wise, The Expanse is also known as the ultra-rare canceled series that irritating diehard fans actually saved. It premiered in late 2015 on Syfy, got decent ratings and oft-rapturous reviews, but found itself unjustly scrapped in 2018 after three seasons for convoluted business reasons. (Syfy made money only if you watched the show live, basically.) Enter Jeff Bezos, savior of the 23rd-century working (space)man, who soon personally announced that Amazon Prime had swooped in to rescue the show. He has his reasons.

Season 4 premiered, in full, on Amazon in mid-December. It rules. Youre still missing out. Partly this is due to its staggering scope, its rad space-torpedo special effects, its rich-text sociopolitical intrigue. But more importantly, its down to the very human (usually) and very relatable frailty (occasionally) of its characters. As with, sure, Game of Thrones, a fantastical extended universe is only as fantastic as the expertly drawn people (or whatever) moving through it. Heres a Season 2 scene when Amos basically punches a guy from Syfy straight to Amazon Prime.

Based on a nine-book series (described as a really kickass space opera by George R. R. Martin himself) by two writers working under the pen name James S.A. Corey, The Expanse is a dense, sprawling, wildly ambitious feat of galaxy-building so sprawling I am loathe to explain it in much detail, because Ill probably just fuck it up. So: In the 23rd century, conflict is inevitable between Earth (ravaged by climate change but still dominant), Mars (colonized by humans and increasingly militaristic), and Belters, those working-class and oft-downtrodden denizens of the asteroid belt connecting Mars and Earth to the outer planets. Also, a mysterious alien entity known as the protomolecule is a constant threat to either wipe out humanity or open an extra-mysterious Ring Door to new galaxies full of uninhabited worlds, or both.

So: A ragtag crew of charismatic do-gooders spanning Earth, Mars, and the Belt flies around on a spaceship called the Rocinante, getting into rad-space-torpedo-type adventures. Season 4 mostly involves one of those new galaxies, and an Earth vs. Belters proxy war with heavy settler-refugee overtones. The plot is fine; the plot is impressively complex. But at this point the whole point is to hang around with your old friends, be they Rocinante captain and reluctant-hero type Jim Holden (Steven Strait), or Belter ex-freedom-fighter Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper), or hotshot Martian pilot and quasi Texan Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar), or ferocious Earth politician Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), or idealistic Martian ex-soldier Bobbie Draper (Frankie Adams, and no, her character is not a Mad Men crossover attempt).

The Expanse, in short, has no shortage of Favorite Character materialsee also Cara Gee and David Strathairn (!!) as Belter leaders with splendidly intense accentsthough this season, while excellent overall, is tough on many longtime favorites, whether its Holden (too mopey) or Avasarala (forced to swear constantly to amuse the internet) or Draper (isolated in a subplot that is literally Mars kinda sucks now). Amos, by contrast, gets a way better deal this season, and makes the most of it. I love him very much, especially when hes scaring the bejesus out of everyone.

As played by Wes Chatham, an affable Georgia native and Hunger Games veteran whose young sons have amazing hair, Amos is an expert spaceship mechanic and laconic tough guy whose biceps are larger than many other characters heads. He is from Earth. Specifically, Baltimore. (There is something so exotic and soothing about the way anyone on this interstellar-warfare show says Baltimore.) He has, due to a mercifully vaguely described traumatic childhood, an inflexible moral code combined with a near-complete lack of empathy. (Hence the not feeling fear since he was 5 years old.) Hes working on it, and softening somewhat; he represents The Expanses most troubling and engrossing multiseason character arc, a hard-punching murder robot slowly learning to feel. He is ferociously loyal but hilariously awkward, homicidal but terrifyingly pragmatic about it.

Thats where the deadpan part of the badassness comes in. His love interest in Season 4, a fellow Earth-born soldier type named Chandra Wei (Jess Salgueiro), is technically on the opposing side of this seasons specific conflict, and threatens to shoot Amos if it ever comes to it, a threat he takes, as he takes most things, in disturbing stride.

That is the face everyone makes when talking to Amos. From the start he has capably filled both the Tough Guy role and, somehow, the Comic Relief role, his constant threats of violence so dispassionate they dont quite register as threats. Im not gonna lie to you: Either way this plays out, youre dead. In case I have to kill you, I just wanted to say thanks. That sort of thing. Youre not that guy, he counsels a mild-mannered botanist he befriends in Season 2, convincing him not to shoot the extremely evil guy hes about to shoot. The botanist shakily lowers his gun and walks off, his innocence intact. The extremely evil guy is relieved. And then, from Amos, the sorta-punch-line: I am that guy.

Which is hilarious, in a sci-fi-badass sort of way. Another great thing about The Expanse is that something legitimately exciting is always happening. Rather than your typical takes-six-episodes-to-get-going enterprise, the show leaps from tense standoff to tense standoff, and theres Amos always in the thick of it, gun trained on somebody and somebody elses gun trained on him, delivering the ridiculously hard-boiled dialogue such a situation demands. You got a clean shot, back of the headtake it if you need it. Imagine your personal favorite TV character saying that, even. Its not that Chatham ever winks, or quips, or mugs for the camera to rebuke you for taking this at all seriously. What makes him comic is that theres no real relief.

As myriad YouTube tributes have proved, you can frame Amos as an exclusively ultra-dark character, with grim hints of a child-sex-trafficking past neither the show nor the books have delved into long enough or deep enough to feel exploitative. (If Season 5 follows the books, well follow him back to Baltimore, where he will grapple with what Chatham has described as his characters mother-figure-plus-lover situation that he had. It can get a little weird.) There is something entirely inappropriate about Amos, as both a living human and a narrative device. One of his funniest early moments, in which he describes Naomi to Holden (who is Naomis boyfriend) as like a sister to me, concludes as follows:

Theres that look again. As The Expanse has deepened and widened, Amos has gotten his philosophical moments, his little speeches, from Everyone leaves unfinished businessthats what dying is to The way I see it, theres only three kinds of people in this world: bad ones, ones you follow, and ones you need to protect. That Chatham can dole out these nuggets of wisdom while holding a machine gun is extra impressive. But he was born to Kick Ass and Be Problematic. If this were the sort of show that inspired lots of hand-wringing think pieces, the dramatic conclusion of the Amos-Wei romance would inspire a whole bunch of them: Its ugly and squirmy and also, as always, furiously logical and moral, according to his uncomfortably vivid and distinct brand of morality. Here is our last look at Amos in Season 4.

Yikes. Perfect. What a monster. What a gent. Then he punches a guy (presumably, but come on) to death. It makes sense if you watch the show. Its the perfect Amos moment, really, if you watch the show. Hes going to keep on supplying those moments, in his inimitable awe-inspiring and mortifying way, until you finally agree to watch the show.

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The Bezos, Musk and Branson billionaire space race is happening right now – Yahoo Finance Australia

Posted: at 10:00 am

With a presidential election, the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo and yes, Ludwig van Beethovens 250th birthday celebration, 2020 promises to be a humdinger of a year.

But also happening in 2020if all systems are gowill be the beginning of regular U.S. space tourism flights, either by Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic (ticker: SPCE) or Jeff Bezos Blue Origin or both. Also possibly coming this year are tourist trips to the International Space Station (ISS) on a craft built by Elon Musks SpaceX. (Boeing has a spaceship too, but that company might be otherwise occupied.)

So apologies to Donald, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Ludwig van, but commercial space travel could end up being the biggest damn thing to happen this year. In fact, I think its the beginning of a real game-changer for humanity.

If youve been following the space biz, you know that the go year has been pushed back a number of times, but Ann Kim, aerospace banker and managing director of Silicon Valley Bank, is feeling it. These companies are close. They wanted to get humans into space in 2019, but were not as successful in delivering promises as originally thought. 2020 is a good year to see that inflection point.

It has been a long time coming. In fact these three companies are more or less of the same vintage. Bezos founded Blue Origin (named after Earth, the blue planet, as the place of origin), in 2000. SpaceX, which has colonizing Mars as its ultimate mission, was founded in 2002. And Branson started Virgin Galactic two years after that.

While you may snort at all this silly space stuff, its worth noting that three of the most successful entrepreneurs of our lifetimes have been working on space travel for a collective 54 years now. Remember, once upon a time folks laughed at online bookstores, electric cars and branded air travel too.

Yes, there is a bit of a space race going on, although this time its not Russia v. the U.S., its Branson v. Bezos, who are battlingin the suborbital space (pun intended), with Musk as a competitor longer term on more ambitious projects.

Some play down the competitive aspects of the business though. Its not a race at all, future Virgin Galactic passenger Namira Salim told Yahoo Finances The Final Round, we all say that in the industry. I think its safe to say there is room for all three. (Space is a big place, right?)

Its important to remember that intermittent space tourism has been around for a while. Between 2001 and 2009, seven space tourists traveled to the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Dennis Tito was the first, remember him? Also top Microsoft exec Charles Simonyi made the trip. And British singer Sarah Brightman signed up but later canceled. The trips were arranged by a U.S. company, Space Adventures, and cost, gulp, $20 million a pop. But the Russians terminated the program and despite talk of restarting it, havent. In any event the Soyuz trips were always one-offs, where Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin aim to be scheduled operations and the first steps to more extensive programs.

American multimillionaire Dennis Tito, 60, gestures shortly after his landing on the steppes, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Arkalyk, Kazakstan, Sunday, May 6, 2001. Others are unidentified. The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying the world's first paying space tourist landed successfully on Sunday, ending Tito's multimillion dollar cosmos adventure. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

Virgin Galactic has been a moonshot of a stock over the past month, up over 60%. Some of that might have to do with CEO George Whitesides telling CNBC recently that demand for tickets keeps ticking up by a good chunk every month.The company says it has sold tickets to more than 600 customers at around $250,000 per person. It froze ticket sales after a crash in 2014 killed one of its pilots. Virgin Galactic now says it may reopen sales later this yearand raise prices.

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Yes, there is risk. This is not as safe as airline travel, says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and rocket expert at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysic. Suborbital flight, [what Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are doing now] can be made very safe. It will just take a lot more flights and experience to make it so. Whether orbital flight will ever be that safe is more of an open question. Sir Richard says not to worry. Hell be going up as Virgin Galactics first test-space-tourist astronaut.

Branson took his company public by merging with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), or blank-check company, founded by Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive (who has since somewhat famously soured on his former employer.) Palihapitiya still owns 49% of Virgin Galactic.

Blue Originits motto is, Gradatim Ferociter, Latin for "Step by Step, Ferociously.hasnt pre-sold any tickets, but it too has indicated that the time is near to send passengers into space. The company just moved into a swank new 232,000-square-foot headquarters in Kent, Washingtonnear the Sea-Tac Airportto house many of its 2,500 employees. Geek Wire reports, Hundreds more are based elsewhere in the Kent area, south of Seattle, as well as at Blue Origins suborbital launch site in West Texas, the Florida rocket factory where Blue Origins New Glenn orbital-class rocket will be assembled, and at the site of its future BE-4 rocket engine factory in Alabama.

Bezos, who loved space as a child, is incredibly passionate about space and Blue Origin, so much so that I pulled these two quotes from this 2018 interview to give you an idea. (The whole piece makes for good reading, btw.)

I get increasing conviction with every passing year, that Blue Origin, the space company, is the most important work that Im doing. And so there is a whole plan for Blue Origin.

And:

The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it. Blue Origin is expensive enough to be able to use that fortune. I am liquidating about $1 billion a year of Amazon stock to fund Blue Origin. And I plan to continue to do that for a long time.

Serious!

Imagine if Blue Origin ends up being a bigger deal than Amazon? Could be.

Jeff Bezos speaks in front of a model of Blue Origin's Blue Moon lunar lander, Thursday, May 9, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

SpaceX is a different beast, not surprisingly playing at an Elon Musk, super-ambitious, Tesla-like level. With its Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX was the first private company to go into orbit. Dragon has gone to the ISS 18 times. A Falcon has orbited around the sun. And working with NASA, SpaceX is reportedly set to launch its first crewed Crew Dragon next month. Tourism to the ISS is on the agenda.

Who will launch the first U.S. space flight for tourists?

I think that Virgin Galactic is the closest, says Kim. A lot of people are putting in their deposits. It seems to be the leader of the pack. Blue Origin is close behind. SpaceX has more longer term potential. I think all three can be very successful.

Where is this all going? Space tourism needs to be more than billionaires taking selfies in space, says Tess Hatch, who once worked at SpaceX and is now a vice president at Bessemer Venture Partners, which has invested in the space business. There needs to be business reasons to be in space. Hatch says space tourism and the space economy need to catalyze business models, and cites business opportunities such as zero gravity research and pharmaceutical testing.

As for Bezos, Branson and Musk, Hatch says, ...these people made their billions in totally different industries and are now turning to space. They will make billions if not trillions in space.

I must admit, I have mixed feelings about space being dominated by the likes of Bezos, Branson and Musk. On the one hand I cant help but admire what theyve done as entrepreneurs. I dont think theyre evil. And they are filling a breach voided by governments abdication of having a consistent, strategic space program. So sure, go for it guys!

On the other hand, I worry about the inevitable lack of consensus that accompanies each of these three efforts. How much thinking about pure science, medicine or even art will be brought to bear in space endeavors controlled by billionaires. I guess I dont blame them or fault them, none of that thinking is necessarily their purview or responsibility.

In a way its just another example of our economy and society being co-opted by the technocrat class. Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Teslathose companies are all name-checked in this article. Fifty years ago, yes there were private defense contractors involved in the process, but NASA and DOD were the drivers. The amount of technological innovation and products that came from NASA is stunning and too long to list here. Now the script has been flipped. Will these tech moguls be so free with their IP? Who knows. Maybe they will be even more collaborative about fostering and sharing research and scientific breakthroughs.

One things for sure, it looks like we are going to find out. Maybe starting this year. (Roll over Beethoven.)

This article was featured in a Saturday edition of the Morning Brief on December 14, 2019. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET.Subscribe

Commentary by Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter:@serwer.

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Being copycats might be key to being human – The Conversation US

Posted: at 10:00 am

Chimpanzees, human beings closest animal relatives, share up to 98% of our genes. Their human-like hands and facial expressions can send uncanny shivers of self-recognition down the backs of zoo patrons.

Yet people and chimpanzees lead very different lives. Fewer than 300,000 wild chimpanzees live in a few forested corners of Africa today, while humans have colonized every corner of the globe, from the Arctic tundra to the Kalahari Desert. At more than 7 billion, humans population dwarfs that of nearly all other mammals despite our physical weaknesses.

What could account for our species incredible evolutionary successes?

One obvious answer is our big brains. It could be that our raw intelligence gave us an unprecedented ability to think outside the box, innovating solutions to gnarly problems as people migrated across the globe. Think of The Martian, where Matt Damon, trapped alone in a research station on Mars, heroically sciences his way out of certain death.

But a growing number of cognitive scientists and anthropologists are rejecting that explanation. These researchers think that, rather than making our living as innovators, human beings survive and thrive precisely because we dont think for ourselves. Instead, people cope with challenging climates and ecological contexts by carefully copying others especially those we respect. Instead of Homo sapiens, or man the knower, were really Homo imitans: man the imitator.

In a famous study, psychologists Victoria Horner and Andrew Whiten showed two groups of test subjects children and chimpanzees a mechanical box with a treat inside. In one condition, the box was opaque, while in the other it was transparent. The experimenters demonstrated how to open the box to retrieve a treat, but they also included the irrelevant step of tapping on the box with a stick.

Oddly, human children carefully copied all the steps to open the box, even when they could see that the stick had no practical effect. That is, they copied irrationally: Instead of doing only what was necessary to get their reward, children slavishly imitated every action theyd witnessed.

Of course, that study only included three- and four-year-olds. But additional research has showed that older children and adults are even more likely to mindlessly copy others actions, and young infants are less likely to over-imitate that is, to precisely copy even impractical actions.

By contrast, chimpanzees in Horner and Whitens study only over-imitated in the opaque condition. In the transparent condition where they saw that the stick was mechanically useless they ignored that step entirely, merely opening the box with their hands. Other research has since supported these findings.

When it comes to copying, chimpanzees are more rational than human children or adults.

Where does the seemingly irrational human preference for over-imitation come from? In his book The Secret of Our Success, anthropologist Joseph Henrich points out that people around the world rely on technologies that are often so complex that no one can learn them rationally. Instead, people must learn them step by step, trusting in the wisdom of more experienced elders and peers.

For example, the best way to master making a bow is by observing successful hunters doing it, with the assumption that everything they do is important. As an inexperienced learner, you cant yet judge which steps are actually relevant. So when your bands best hunter waxes his bowstring with two fingers or touches his ear before drawing the string, you copy him.

The human propensity for over-imitation thus makes possible what anthropologists call cumulative culture: the long-term development of skills and technologies over generations. No single person might understand all the practical reasons behind each step to making a bow or carving a canoe, much less transforming rare earth minerals into iPhones. But as long as people copy with high fidelity, the technology gets transmitted.

Ritual and religion are also domains in which people carry out actions that arent connected in a tangible way with practical outcomes. For example, a Catholic priest blesses wafers and wine for Communion by uttering a series of repetitive words and doing odd motions with his hands. One could be forgiven for wondering what on Earth these ritualistic acts have to do with eating bread, just as a chimpanzee cant see any connection between tapping a stick and opening a box.

But rituals have a hidden effect: They bond people to one another and demonstrate cultural affiliation. For an enlightening negative example, consider a student who refuses to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Her action clearly telegraphs her rejection of authorities right to tell her how to behave. And as anthropologist Roy Rappaport pointed out, ritual participation is binary: Either you say the pledge or you dont. This clarity makes it easily apparent who is or isnt committed to the group.

In a broader sense, then, over-imitation helps enable much of what comprises distinctively human culture, which turns out to be much more complicated than mechanical cause and effect.

At heart, human beings are not brave, self-reliant innovators, but careful if savvy conformists. We perform and imitate apparently impractical actions because doing so is the key to learning complex cultural skills, and because rituals create and sustain the cultural identities and solidarity we depend on for survival. Indeed, copying others is a powerful way to establish social rapport. For example, mimicking anothers body language can induce them to like and trust you more.

So the next time you hear someone arguing passionately that everyone should embrace nonconformity and avoid imitating others, you might chuckle a bit. Were not chimpanzees, after all.

[ Youre smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversations authors and editors. You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter. ]

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