Daily Archives: June 6, 2020

With COVID-19 forcing the closure of multiplebusinesses, many Australians are now out of a job and a shroud of uncertainty has been cast over the world ofemployment.

To find out what's next for us, the Hit Network's Tim & Jess invited Futurist (yes, Futurist) AndersSrman-Nilsson on the show, who tells us what to expect post virus.

For those of you who hoped everything would go back to the way it was before, unfortunately, it looks like our current qualifications might not be enough to get us a job post COVID-19.

Anders explains why we may be looking at our secondrenaissance, why we may need to look at getting a second degree under our belts and why Artificial Intelligence may not be as bad as we might have thought.

Tune into the full chat below...

Download the Hit Network app oniOSandAndroidfor the latest news updates and Hit Network podcasts.

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A Futurist Explains What Emerging Jobs Will Be Necessary Post-Virus - Hit 107

Thousands of protests have taken to the streets,largely in the United States but also across the world, to protest police brutality and systemic racism in law enforcement.

While many protesters have adhered to social distancing measures and the majority are wearing masks, health officials have raised concerns about whether the demonstrations could trigger a second wave of coronavirus cases, especially in larger cities like New York.

But not everybody agrees that protesters are at high risk of spreading the deadly virus.

For those expecting an explosion of cases from protests, I doubt that, wrote Howard Forman, professor of radiology at the Yale School of Medicine, in a recent tweet. Outdoor events are seemingly low risk.

Further complicating matters, the pandemic has started to fade in some areas. New York, for instance, reported its first day with no confirmed coronavirus-related death this week. Its a promising sign that the city of over eight million people is on the long road to recovery but its still far too early to tell what the near future will hold.

Basically, science simply doesnt have conclusive answers yet. So far, researchers can only offer educated guesses about the risks of protesting during a pandemic.

Theres a growing consensus that being outdoors is safer than spending time in indoor spaces like shops or malls. Simulations have shown that air conditioning and circulating systems are very effective at moving viral particles around inside indoor environments.

But the story is quite different in the outdoors.

The outdoor air dilutes the virus and reduces the infectious dose that might be out there, and if there are breezes blowing, that further dilutes the virus in the air, William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University, told The New York Times.

There was literally a lot of running around, which means [the protesters are] exhaling more profoundly, but also passing each other very quickly, he added.

Theres also the risk of asymptomatic carriers, who could be protesting without showing any symptoms.

And, needless to say, social distancing cant be enforced when you have a police officer kneeling on your neck.

The highest risk activity is being arrested and taken away, Forman added in his tweet.

There are a countless number of questions that remain about the risks involved in gathering in large groups during a global pandemic. But one thing is clear: demonizing protesters for making their voices heard about systemic violence that has endangered Black lives for centuries is the wrong way to go.

To public health experts, that kind of messaging is a big problem.

Staying at home, social distancing, and public masking are effective at minimizing the spread of COVID-19, reads an open letter penned and signed by infectious-disease experts at the University of Washington, as reported by The Atlantic. To the extent possible, we support the application of these public health best practices during demonstrations that call attention to the pervasive lethal force of white supremacy.

However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission, the letter reads. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States.

Read the rest here:
Experts: Protests Unlikely to Cause Huge Wave of COVID Cases - Futurism

Ambitious Goals

Despite a massive explosion that obliterated the fourth prototype of its Starship spacecraft, SpaceX is still planning on an orbital test launch of the vehicle before the end of the year.

Starship a different project than SpaceXs Crew Dragon, which successfully launched with two astronauts on board over the weekend is meant to eventually ferry up to 100 passengers as far as the Moon, and even Mars.

I expect first test flights, lets say, to a height of 150 meters, in the coming weeks, Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceXs VP of Build and Flight Reliability, told German magazine Der Spiegel in a Tuesday interview. Were going to be doing that a couple of times.

If everything works, we want to go into Earth orbit at the end of the year, Koenigsmann added. It might take a little longer.

The news comes after Starships fourth prototype, SN4, exploded last Friday at the companys testing site in Boca Chica, Texas.

Unfortunately what we thought was going to be a minor test of a quick disconnect ended up being a big problem, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told the press.

Its a setback, but SN4 endured far more trials than its predecessors. Its also the first Starship prototype to endure a cryogenic pressure test, which caused older prototypes to crumple like tin cans.

A scaled-down Starship prototype, called Starhopper, has also already completed a test flight to 150 meters last summer.

READ MORE: SpaceXs orbital Starship launch debut could still happen this year [Teslarati]

More on Starship: BREAKING: SPACEXS STARSHIP PROTOTYPE BLOWS UP IN HUGE FIREBALL

Read the rest here:
After Explosion, SpaceX Still Hoping to Launch Starship This Year - Futurism

Gaining Traction

At long last, NASAs InSight Mars lander managed to wedge its thermal probe underground without it getting stuck.

It sounds trivial, but the lander has been struggling to burrow the instrument, dubbed the mole, for more than a full year now, CNET reports. Now, finally, InSight may be able to complete its research on Mars internal temperature.

After early attempts to bury the mole, NASA was worried that a large rock was blocking its path. Instead, it turned out that the terrain was too loose for the mole, which digs like a jackhammer, to get traction and push downward.

The end result was that the mole kept getting itself stuck a problem that NASA even once deployed percussive maintenance to remedy.

But the mole is finally underground, after a helpful shove from InSights robotic arm, NASA tweeted from its in-character InSight account.

The next test for InSight will be whether its mole can continue to dig downward on its own, as originally planned, now that its underground.

In order to measure Mars internal temperature and provide NASA with new information on how the planet formed, the probe needs to dig 16 feet beneath the surface far too deep for the rest of InSights tools to give it a boost.

READ MORE: NASA InSight lander finally pushes its burrowing mole into Mars [CNET]

More on InSight: NASA Fixes Mars Lander By Telling it To Hit Itself With a Shovel

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NASA InSight Lander Finally Manages to Bury Its Probe Into Mars - Futurism

Tilt-A-Whirl

According to new data, the entire early universe was spinning like a planet or galaxy.

The new theory is based on the observation that more galaxies are spinning counterclockwise than clockwise, New Scientist reports, whereas previous models expected a balance between the two directions.

There is no error or contamination that could exhibit itself through such unique, complex and consistent patterns, Kansas State astronomer Lior Shamir said in a press release. We have two different sky surveys showing the exact same patterns, even when the galaxies are completely different.

Using data from three powerful observatories including the Hubble Space Telescope,according to New Scientist, Shamir and collaborators found evidence that a rotating universe influenced the spin of galaxies.

And according to data presented at this months meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Shamiralso found evidence that the universe had an axis of rotation: more galaxies spun counterclockwise when looking up from the Earths poles and the opposite was true when looking from the equator.

That doesnt mean that the universe itself is spinning around a single point like a giant spiral galaxy. Rather, theres evidence that it rotated across multiple complex and shifting axes at once.

If the universe has an axis, it is not a simple single axis like a merry-go-round, Shamir said in the release. It is a complex alignment of multiple axes that also have a certain drift.

READ MORE: The entire universe may once have been spinning all over the place [New Scientist]

More on astrophysics: Scientists: Magnetic Fields May Have Crushed Our Entire Galaxy

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Evidence Suggests That the Entire Early Universe Was Rotating - Futurism

Mass Extinction

Over 500 land-based vertebrates animals with spines are on the brink of extinction.

New research suggests that rates of animal extinction, explicitly caused by human activity, is accelerating to unsustainable levels. And by focusing on mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles, Earther reports that the scientists behind the study hope people will take note of the dire problem.

The problem of mass extinction goes far beyond the 515 vertebrates identified as being one the brink of extinction in the study, which was published Monday in the journal PNAS. Last year, a U.N. report found thata million species were at risk of going extinct in the coming years. And each one lost could create a domino effect that then drives even more species to extinction.

We are no longer looking at the loss of obscure species that most people arent interested in, Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, whos unaffiliated with the new study, told Earther. We are looking at biological annihilation.

The researchers behind the study warned that each time an animal goes extinct, it also threatens humanitys continued survival.

The current extinction crisis is one of the more urgent global environmental problems and the only one [that is] truly irreversible, study author Gerardo Ceballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexicos Institute of Ecology told Earther. Once a species is gone, there is no way to bring it back. Our paper indicates that is vastly speeding up.

READ MORE: More Than 500 Vertebrate Species Are on the Brink of Biological Annihilation [Earther]

More on extinction: United Nations: One Million Species Are Poised To Go Extinct

More:
Study: More Than 500 Vertebrates Poised To Go Extinct - Futurism

Except for occasional abrasive comments and other potshots, the relationship between NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos has remained relatively respectful even in the face of international tension between the two countries.

But if a news conference on Saturday is any indication, SpaceX CEO Elon Muskisnt playing nice.

First, some backstory. Back in 2014, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin, quipped that the US might as well deliver its astronauts to the ISS by using a trampoline a reference to how the US had to rely on Russian spacecraft to launch astronauts into space since 2011.

But as of Saturday, NASA has a new and cheaper option: SpaceX. And Musk couldnt help but take a jab.

The trampoline is working, Musk said during the conference, hours after his companys Crew Dragon spacecraft successfully carried two NASA astronauts into orbit.

Its an inside joke, Musk added.

Roscosmos underplayed SpaceXs historic achievement.

We dont really understand the hysteria sparked by the successful launch of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, spokesman Vladimir Ustimenko. What should have happened a long time ago happened.

Rogozin has previously accused SpaceX of unfairly undercutting the competition.

Instead of honest competition on the market for space launches, they are lobbying for sanctions against us and use price dumping with impunity, Rogozin wrote in an April tweet.

Rogozin also said that his space agency is is working to lower prices by more than 30 percent on launch services to increase our share on the international markets, which he framed as an answer to dumping by American companies financed by the US budget.

To Musk, the reason why SpaceX could undercut the competition so significantly was simple.

SpaceX rockets are 80% reusable, theirs are 0%, he wrote in an April tweet. This is the actual problem.

READ MORE: Trampoline Is Working: Musk Taunts Russia [The Moscow Times]

More on the launch: SpaceX Makes History: Launches NASA Astronauts Into Orbit

Original post:
Elon Musk Just Absolutely Roasted the Russian Space Program - Futurism

One of the many exciting things happening for Philanthropy Womens community is Allison Fines bid for New Yorks 17th Congressional District. Allison is a contributor here at Philanthropy Women and she brings immense potential for real progressive leadership to our government in the U.S., leadership we need now more than ever.

But dont take it from me. Head on over to The New Yorker where Eric Lach interviews Allison in-depth and provides a fascinating portrait of how her leadership has been both fierce and nimble in the age of COVID.

From The New Yorker:

Last November, Allison Fine resigned from the board of the prominent pro-choice group Naral to enter the Democratic primary in New Yorks Seventeenth Congressional District. Fine, a self-described futurist and activist, has written three books about online organizing, including Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age. She came into her campaign already thinking about the tensions between new and old ways of connecting with people, and of building support. Then covid-19 arrived. For those campaigning in the Seventeenth, which was hit by the virus as hard as anywhere else in the country, this meant that the very mechanics of the election were thrown into question. In-person campaigning was suspended. Local news attention turned elsewhere. Potential voters were out of work, stuck at home, and, in some cases, dying. Fine called her friend Seth Godin, a digital-marketing pioneer, who lives a few towns over. I said, All right, this will not be traditional in any sense of the word. What do I do? Fine told me. And he laughed and said, You know exactly what to do.

Fine announced that her campaign would go fully digital and embrace relational organizing, a buzzy term among political operatives for decentralizing campaigns and empowering volunteers. The whole idea is to focus on identifying individual supporters, she said, and then providing them with tools to share informationabout issues, or about me, or about the electionwith their network. In mid-March, Fine let her field team go, paused her fund-raising (I just couldnt, at that moment in time, as a human being, ask people for money), and adjusted her plans for paid media, devoting more resources to online ads. She made the centerpiece of her campaign a daily newsletter, which goes out to a list of five thousand subscribers. Its an intentionally stripped-down product: a chatty subject line followed by a short list of informational and diverting links, which Fine puts together every morning, after shes had her breakfast and read through a hard copy of theTimes. We spend the rest of the day in conversation online on different platforms, whether its Facebook Live, Instagram, Twitterwherever it is, she said. Weve gone all-in with building and strengthening a social network to connect with voters.

Read the whole piece at The New Yorker.

Read Allisons pieces here at Philanthropy Women

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Kiersten Marek, LICSW, is the founder of Philanthropy Women. She practices clinical social work in Cranston, Rhode Island, and writes about how women donors and their allies are advancing social change.View all posts by Kiersten Marek

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Allison Fine Featured in The New Yorker - Philanthropy Women