Monthly Archives: August 2020

Secrets to tuatara’s long life revealed – The Bay’s News First – SunLive

Posted: August 6, 2020 at 7:09 pm

The origins of the long-living tuatara have been revealed.

Sequencing of the tuatara genome has shown the reptile, which is only found in New Zealand, shows they have been on their own branch of the evolutionary tree for some 250 million years.

That has excited the team of University of Otago scientists, led by geneticist and lead author, Professor Neil Gemmell, who says urther discoveries lie ahead for tuatara, which can live for 100 years.

The longevity of the tuatara has long been of interest to researchers.

Neil says an examination of some of the genes that protect the body from the ravages of age found tuatara have more of these genes than any other vertebrate species thus far examined.

Could this be one of the keys to their long lifespan?

Tuatara also dont appear to get many diseases, so looking into what genetic factors might protect them is another point of focus for our study, as too we have also explored genetic aspects that underpin the vision, smell and temperature regulation of tuatara.

With the genome now sequenced, the international science community now had a blueprint to examine the many unique features of tuatara biology, which would aid understanding of the evolution of the amniotes, a group that includes birds, reptiles and mammals, Neil says.

It is not far-fetched to suggest that through our new understanding of the tuatara genome, there may be novel insights that emerge that will benefit our understanding of our own biology and health.

The team's finding have been published in the prestigious international scientific journal Nature.

Neil says the sequencing of the tuatara genome was 67 per cent bigger than the human genome, and revealed a genomic architecture unlike anything previously reported.

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Are very long-lived trees immortal and what can they teach humans? – ABC News

Posted: at 7:09 pm

While humans are all too familiar with the ravages of getting older, many trees seem to handle ageing a lot better.

Certain trees can live for thousands of years and appear to be immortal.

But not everyone is convinced these old timers can escape death due to old age.

Regardless, could humans with their relatively puny lifespans have something to learn from these ancient trees? Some scientists think so.

Establishing how old the oldest living tree is depends a bit on which plants are in the running for the title.

You could argue that Australia's Wollemi pine, which has been cloning itself for more than 60 million years, deserves the title. But that's kind of cheating because this involves multiple stems growing from the one rootstock.

This is why the oldest tree in the world is generally regarded as a single-stemmed bristlecone pine called Pinus longaeva.

This species can live to around 5,000 years and does well where most other plants cannot even grow in rocky, dry, high-altitude areas in the United States.

What's amazing is that scientists have not so far been able to show that getting older directly affects the health of such millennial trees, plant biologist Sergi Munne-Bosch from the University of Barcelona says.

It's because of this, some have suggested these trees are essentially immortal.

But in a recent article, Professor Munne-Bosch argues that it's likely even ancient trees could die from old age assuming something else doesn't kill them first.

He emphasises that there's a difference between ageing, which is about how long an organism has lived, and age-related deterioration, which is referred to as senescence.

"Just because we can't track senescence in long-lived trees doesn't mean they are immortal."

Professor Munne-Bosch points to recent research on centuries-old Ginkgo biloba trees that found no evidence of senescence.

The study was the first to look for evidence of age-related changes in cells of the cambium, a layer just beneath the bark that contains cells that can produce new tissue throughout the plant's life.

It confirmed the long-lived trees, which in this case were up to 667 years old, were just as healthy as younger ones says Professor Munne-Bosch.

"They grow very well, they produce seeds, they produce flowers, so they are healthy."

He points out that even though a 667-year-old tree seems old when compared to a human, it is relatively young for a ginkgo.

"This species can live for more than two millennia."

Professor Munne-Bosch argues that the ginkgo researchers' data shows that older trees had thinner vascular tissue and that this hints at possible age-related deterioration that would be more obvious in even older trees.

Yet despite this deterioration, he says these trees are more likely to die from insects, disease, fire, drought or loggers, than old age.

"For a species that can live for millennia, aging is not really a problem in evolutionary terms because they are much more likely to die of something else."

The problem is there are so few of these long-lived trees that it's hard to get the data to know for certain whether they can die of old age.

"We cannot prove it either way," Professor Munne-Bosch says, adding that age-related deterioration is likely to happen in these trees at such a different pace compared to in humans.

"For a Ginkgo biloba, six centuries is not as physiologically relevant as it is to us."

Brenda Casper, a professor of biology at the University of Pennsylvania says it's not clear that the changes found in the older Ginkgo biloba trees were necessarily detrimental to the tree.

But she agrees the low number of millennial trees makes it hard to study their longevity.

"It's difficult to find statistical evidence for senescence."

Even if there were enough trees, she says some of the age-related deterioration may be hard to detect, or we may not know what to look for.

"It's not just internal physiology per se but it's the interaction of the tree with its environment."

For example, she says it would be hard to measure whether age had made a tree more susceptible to disease, or less structurally sound so it's more likely to fall over in a windstorm.

Even if the jury is out on whether millennial trees are immortal, some experts say their longevity could be inspirational for medical research.

Professor Munne-Bosch says such trees can draw on a bag of tricks to help them "postpone death".

First is having a simple body plan with modular-like branches and roots. This means they can compartmentalise any damaged or dead roots or branches and work around them.

"They can lose part of leaves or roots and continue to be healthy..

And he says although 95 per cent of the trunk of a tree might be dead, the living cambium just beneath the bark is "one of the secrets of longevity" in trees.

Millennial trees have used the combination of these features to their best advantage and Professor Munne-Bosch says these tricks are providing a model for scientists researching the negative effects of ageing.

"Imagine if we could regenerate our lungs or circulatory system every year, we would be much healthier than we are."

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Professor of biomedical engineering at the University of New South Wales, Melissa Knothe Tate is one researcher who is inspired by millennial trees.

"They have units and if one unit breaks you can replace it with another unit."

Only a small percentage of an individual long-lived tree may be alive, but she argues it's all about survival of the cells that are able to regenerate the tree.

"Those that survive best, survive longest."

"Millennial trees are the best survivors because they've seen a lot."

While a tree and a human might seem worlds apart, Professor Knothe Tate sees the similarities, pointing to the role of stem cells in maintaining bones in humans.

She says cells add new layers to bone, like tree rings, to increase girth and when bone is injured, stem cells quickly help repair it.

"We're constantly renewing our bones and trees do something similar."

Professor Knothe Tate says she is using stem cells and new biomaterials that emulate tree cambium, to create replacement tissue in the lab, and has several patents for the work.

"I think about plants a lot when I'm up in the mountains and amongst the trees."

Professor Knothe Tate, who draws on her training in philosophy, biology and mechanical engineering for her work, sees other similarities that can inspire research.

For example, she likens the human brain to the network of roots and branches that helps a tree remain resilient if one part is damaged, another part can sometimes take up the slack.

"As parts of the brain are injured or die, it's remarkable what functionality we can retain,

"If we knew which of the brain's networks were essential for certain functions, we may be able to grow them."

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Professor Knothe Tate also set up a science education project for girls that explores the parallels between the biomechanics of trees and bones. It was inspired by her observation of how huge trees sway like a blade of grass in the wind.

She has high hopes for the potential of regenerative medicine research that draws on knowledge from other disciplines like plant biology to extend human life.

"We can then start to think about making ourselves immortal."

Plant biologist Professor Munne-Bosch is also enthusiastic.

"The future of medicine is very similar to what has evolved in millennial trees."

But while regenerating tissues will help humans live much longer, he doubts we will ever be immortal.

"It won't be forever, because we are more likely to die of something else, whether it be an accident or a pandemic."

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Arizona biologist part of international team to sequence genome of rare reptilian living fossil – Newswise

Posted: at 7:09 pm

Newswise A lizard-like creature whose ancestors once roamed the Earth with dinosaurs and today is known to live for longer than 100 years may hold clues to a host of questions about the past and the future.

In a study published Aug. 5 in Nature, an interdisciplinary, international team of researchers, in partnership with Mori tribe Ngtiwai, sequenced, assembled and analyzed the complete genome of the Sphenodon punctatus, or the tuatara, a rare reptile whose ancestors once roamed the earth with dinosaurs. It hasnt changed much in the 150 million to 250 million years since then.

We found that the tuatara genome has accumulated far fewer DNA substitutions over time than other reptiles, and the molecular clock for tuataras ticked at a much slower speed than squamates, although faster than turtles and crocodiles, which are the real molecular slowpokes, said co-author Marc Tollis, an assistant professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems at Northern Arizona University. This means in terms of the rate of molecular evolution, tuataras are kind of the Toyota Corollanothing special but very reliable and persistently ticking away over hundreds of millions of years.

Tuatara have been out on their own for a staggering amount of time, with prior estimates ranging from 150250 million years, and with no close relatives the position of tuatara on tree of life has long been contentious. Some argue tuatara are more closely related to birds, crocodiles and turtles, while others say they stem from a common ancestor shared with lizards and snakes. This new research places tuatara firmly in the branch shared with lizards and snakes, but they appear to have split off and been on their own for about 250 million yearsa massive length of time considering primates originated about 65 million years ago, and hominids, from which humans descend, originated approximately six million years ago.

Proving the phylogenetic position of tuatara in a robust way is exciting, but we see the biggest discovery in this research as uncovering the genetic code and beginning to explore aspects of the biology that makes this species so unique, while also developing new information that will help us better conserve this taonga or special treasure, said lead author Neil Gemmell, a professor at the University of Otago.

One area of particular interest is to understand how tuataras, which can live to be more than 100 years old, achieve such longevity. Examining some of the genes implicated in protecting the body from the ravages of age found that tuatara have more of these genes than any other vertebrate species thus far examined, including humans. This could offer clues into how to increase humans resistance to the ailments that kill humans.

But the genome, and the tuatara itself, has so many other unique features all on its own. For one, scientists have found tuatara fossils dating back 150 million years, and they look exactly the same as the animals today. The fossil story dates the tuatara lineage to the Triassic Period, when dinosaurs were just starting to roam the Earth.

The tuatara genome is really a time machine that allows us to understand what the genetic conditions were for animals that were vying for world supremacy hundreds of millions of years ago, he said. A genome sequence from an animal this ancient and divergent could give us a better idea about what the ancestral amniote genome might have looked like.

While modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, they are less suitable for this type of research because avian genomes have lost a significant amount of DNA since diverging from their dinosaur ancestors.

But the tuataras, which used to be spread throughout the world, have other unusual features. Particularly relevant to this research is the size of its genome; the genome of this little lizard has 5 billion bases of DNA, making it 67 percent larger than a human genome. Additionally, tuataras have temperature-based sex determination, which means the ratio of males to females in a clutch of eggs depends on the temperatures at which they are incubated. They also have a pronounced third eyea light sensory organ that sticks through the top of their skulls. Mammals skulls have completely covered the third eye, though they still contain the pineal gland underneath, which helps maintain circadian rhythms.

The tuatara also is unique in that it is sacred to the Mori people. This research, for all the scientific knowledge that came from it, was groundbreaking for its collaboration with the Indigenous New Zealanders. The purpose was to ensure the research aligned with and respected the importance of the tuatara in their culture, which has never been done before in genomic research.

Tuatara are a taonga, and its pleasing to see the results of this study have now been published, Ngtiwai Trust Board resource management unit manager Alyx Pivac said. Our hope is that this is yet another piece of information that will help us understand tuatara and aid in the conservation of this special species. We want to extend a big mihi to all of those who have been involved in this important piece of work.

With the genome now sequenced, the international science community has a blueprint through which to examine the many unique features of tuatara biology, which will aid humanunderstanding of the evolution of the amniotes, a group that includes birds, reptiles and mammals.

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Got the power: Energy investor and former Enron exec pay $7M for Palm Beach house – The Real Deal

Posted: August 5, 2020 at 2:31 am

Schuyler Tilney and 222 Ridgeview Drive (Linkedin, Sothebys)

An investor in energy services and his wife, a former Enron executive, bought a house in Palm Beach.

Schuyler and Elizabeth Tilney paid $6.5 million for the nearly 4,000-square-foot home at 222 Ridgeview Drive, according to records. It was an off-market sale.

The four-bedroom, five-and-a-half bath house was built in 2007. The home has a master suite on the first floor, gourmet kitchen, full home generator and water filtration system, with beach and bike trail access, according to a previous listing.

The sellers, Edwin and Danielle Conway, paid $3.78 million for the house in 2017, records show.

In July, the Tilneys sold a 19,600-square-foot lot in Palm Beach for $6.25 million to spec home builder Todd MIchael Glaser and his partners.

Schuyler Tilney is chairman of oilfield services banking for Houston-based Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., which provides strategic and financial advice to investors, management teams, boards of directors, governments and other professionals in the global energy industry, according to the companys website.

Tilney made headlines in the early 2000s as a managing director at Merrill Lynch. He was the lead investment banker in dealings with Enron Corp., a Houston-based energy, commodities and services company that ceased operations after scandals involving corporate corruption and accounting fraud.

Tilney memorably invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify during a 2002 Senate committee meeting on Merrill Lynch and Enron.

Elizabeth Tilney was a senior Enron executive. She worked at Enron until January 2002 on the companys crisis management strategy and is credited with introducing the companys crooked E logo. She worked in account management for ad agency Ogilvy during the 1980s.

High-end Palm Beach houses continue to sell despite the global pandemic. In July alone, the ritzy town saw rock star Jon Bon Jovi close on an oceanfront mansion for $43 million.

In addition, cable TV mogul Jeffrey Marcus paid $16 million for a waterfront home, and an ocean-to-lake mansion traded for $51.4 million.

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TikTok and the Law: A Primer (In Case You Need to Explain Things to Your Teenager) – Lawfare

Posted: at 2:31 am

Editor's note: A response from a reader prompted the author to amend this post to note an alternative pathway that might support IEEPA sanctions without need to issue a fresh national emergency declaration. The new paragraph appears below in bold, italicized font.

TikTok is in serious trouble, and teenagers across the land are demanding answers about the legal frameworks at issue. Well, maybe they are not exactly focused on the legal issues. But in case you are, heres an explainer.

1. What is TikTok, and why is it in the news?

Never used TikTok? It is an acquired taste, but it is addictively entertaining once you acclimate to it. In brief, its a video-hosting app for user-generated content. Its a bit like a social-media-inflected Youtube in that sense.

But the videos on TikTok are almost entirely super-short (15 second) amateur clips, with lots of content made by and for teens (at least thats how it is in the US market; Im less sure if the same is true in other major TikTok markets). Like any other social-media app featuring user-generated content, most of the clips are less-than-compelling, but theres plenty of brilliant stuff too (Im particularly attached to the clips where a teen pretends to be a dad spouting clichs at his family during a road trip, every word of which Ive actually spouted at my family during a road trip).

So whats the problem? TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company that is subject to Chinas laws and other forms of coercion. This has given rise to two lines of concern.

First, there is a concern about the user data TikTok collects and the prospect that Beijing can access that data. Like plenty of other social-media apps, TikToks terms of service authorize it to collect a remarkable amount of data from its users. Because TikTok is subject to Chinese law, the theory goes, the company can readily be compelled by the government to cooperate in providing access to that data (on a targeted or even a bulk basis).

TikTok argues that this is not the case because data from U.S. users remains exclusively in TikToks servers located in America. Im in no position to weigh in on whether that description is strictly true, still less whether data localization in this case would actually preclude remote access by TikTok personnel outside the United States. But Im merely trying to convey the nature of this concern, not resolve its merits. Separately, there also is a line of concern about whether TikTok employs content-moderation policies and practices that serve the preferences of the Communist Party of China. Again, Im not trying to adjudicate the merits of that critique.

Against this backdrop, there have been rumors afoot for some time that the Trump administration might take some action to knock TikTok out of the U.S. market. Now those rumors have evolved into specific warnings of looming action. This Sunday morning, for example, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin expressly stated that TikTok cannot stay in the current format because it risks sending back information on 100 million Americansthe president can either force a sale or the president can block the app.

If your teenager is showing a sudden interest in the separation of powers or other legal matters, this is probably why.

2. Can the executive branch force ByteDance to sell TikTok?

Yes. The relevant legal framework here involves the executive branchs interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, better known by its acronym CFIUS. Heres a recent Congressional Research Service report if you want to dive deep on the committee. If you just want to explain the situation to your teenager, though, here are the key points:

It is true that the president has no inherent, unilateral authority to create legally-binding rules relating to foreign investment in the United States. The Constitution confers authority over foreign commerce on Congress, not the executive branch. But Congress can and has delegated that authority to the president in various ways. And in 1988, Congress did exactly that in the so-called Exon-Florio Amendment to the Defense Production Act. CFIUS had been around for more than a decade at this point, but this amendment gave it real teeth. The amendment conferred on the President the authority to prohibit mergers, acquisitions, or takeovers that threaten national security (and, by extension, the CFIUS review process would now have leverage to impose conditions on such transactions to ameliorate national security concerns). The statutory framework for CFIUS review has expanded in various ways since then, but thats the key thing to understand: Congress has indeed delegated to the President authority to ban such transactions if the executive branch makes the requisite findings.

None of which would be relevant here, of course, unless at some point there is (or was) a corporate transaction subject to CFIUS review.

Well, there was one a little while ago. TikTok (then called music.ly) was bought by ByteDance in 2018 for nearly $1 billion. Of course, music.ly like ByteDance was a Chinese company. So you might think that CFIUS would have no say over that acquisition. But youd be wrong. For purposes of CFIUS review, a covered U.S. business is any entity that engages in interstate commerce in the United Stateseven if that entity is a foreign corporation. (See 31 CFR 800.252(a) (a US businessmeans any entity, irrespective of the nationality of the persons that control it, engaged in interstate commerce in the United States)). Music.ly may have been a foreign corporation at the time of its acquisition, then, but it had a robust U.S. presence and certainly qualified under this rule.

ByteDance didnt seek approval from CFIUS at the time of the acquisition, no doubt because few if any involved in the deal perceived it as having national security implications. But as TikToks popularity in the United States exploded, and as the two lines of concern described above began spiking over the past year, the picture began to look quite different. And becauseCFIUS authority extends to retroactive review of prior transactions, it was no surprise when CFIUS opened such a review of the ByteDance-music.ly deal in November 2019.

So what happens if CFIUS concludes that ByteDance should not have been allowed to acquire the business now known as TikTok? That situation has arisen many times over the past few years, and the answer normally is that the acquiring entity must divest itself of the acquired entityor else cease operations in the United States. The same may well be on the verge of happening here, plainly.

3. Can ByteDance litigate such a determination?

Only to a limited extent, and they are not likely to win in the end.

In general, CFIUS orders (like other actions under the Defense Production Act) are not subject to judicial review, at least according to the statute. But the D.C. Circuit has construed that statutory prohibition not to apply to constitutional claims that might be made. As Raffaela Wakeman explained for Lawfare in 2014, the D.C. Circuits Ralls decision approved a procedural due process challenge brought by a Chinese company when CFIUS issued a retroactive divestment order involving the companys acquisition of four American companies. (See Ralls Corp. v. Comm. On Foreign Inv. in US, 758 F.3d 296 (D.C. Cir. 2014)). The decision rejected the argument that CFIUS determinations are entirely immune from judicial review when there is a constitutional challenge at stake, and also rejected the argument that CFIUS determinations should be treated as political questions outside the purview of the courts. Further, the court held that the Fifth Amendment requires that the subject of such orders must be given the chance to confront at least the unclassified evidentiary basis for the CFIUS determination and to present their own evidence.

Has ByteDance had such an opportunity over the past 8 months, as the currently-pending CFIUS review has progressed? Im not in a position to know, but I strongly suspect that they have. The review has gone on for quite some time, and that may well reflect an ongoing process of evidentiary disclosures and submissions. In short: ByteDance may well be in the midst of receiving all the process that is due to it. Of course, ByteDance could still sue, objecting that it deserved more process than it got and that the ultimate CFIUS determination was arbitrary despite the process that was given. Im doubtful, however, that they will prevail on either dimension. Sooner or later, in other words, the litigation would run its course and the divestiture order would probably still stand.

4. But theres also much talk about a simple ban on TikTok. Is that just wishful thinking by parents, or is that a thing the President can do?

Yes, its a real thing, thanks to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). But its complicated.

IEEPA is another example of Congress delegating to the executive branch an aspect of its constitutional control over foreign commerce. Think of it as a general pre-delegation of authority to impose embargoes as well as more-targeted sanctions against foreign entitiesbacked by criminal law sanctionsfor a broadly-defined array of circumstances in which the president determines that U.S. national interests are at stake. (For a deep-ish dive into IEEPA, check out Episode 133 of the National Security Law Podcast). When the president wants to use this authority, he first must issue a public proclamation of a national emergency on a particular situation or subject, under the National Emergencies Act. This opens the door to using IEEPA itself. Under IEEPA, the president (or the executive branch entity acting on the presidents behalf through a further delegation) can investigate, regulate or simply prohibitthat is, banan array of activities involving a sanctioned entity (including payments, notably) and can freeze the assets of that entity (thereby prohibiting all dealings with the foreign entitys interests in those assets). Sometimes this authority is exercised by the president only to the extent of creating a specific sanctions regime, with the actual sanctioning of particular entities to be done at a later date (if it is done at all). At other times, the creation of the sanctions regime is accompanied by at least an initial set of designations of specific entities.

So, can the president sanction ByteDance, and thereby have the effect of banning TikTok within the United States?

The answer is yes, though it might be necessary for the president to make a new national emergency declaration that fits with this unusual scenario. The closest fit among the current national emergencies (and their corresponding IEEPA sanctions frameworks) is probably the one for malicious cyber-enabled activities, which President Obama proclaimed in 2015s Executive Order 13694 (and which he updated in 2016 in Executive Order 13757). But the fit is not strong. That framework plainly was motivated by a desire to respond to malicious foreign hacking (especially from China, to be sure), and despite some loose language it is difficult to read it in a way that would encompass a situation in which the underlying concern is that a foreign company (1) has customer data that it might provide to a foreign government or (2) might employ content-moderation policies hostile to U.S. interests.

[As noted above, the following paragraph was added in response to reader feedback on the original post.]

An alternative possibility is that the administration might assert that this situation falls within the scope of Executive Order 13873 (Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain), from May 2019. EO 13873, which was inspired by concerns about Huawei and ZTE, opens with the requisite emergency declaration, stating that

the unrestricted acquisition or use in the United States of information and communications technology or services designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries augments the ability of foreign adversaries to create and exploit vulnerabilities in information and communications technology or services, with potentially catastrophic effects, and thereby constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. (emphasis added)

Invoking IEEPA, EO 13873 then proceeds to prohibit transactions involving such technologies where the transaction was initiated, is pending, or will be completed after the date of this order [May 2019, though only if the Secretary of Commerce (in consultation with other officials) makes a finding that the technology or service in question is associated with an entity subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary and that the situation entails an undue risk of (a) sabotage of information and communication services in the US, (b) catastrophic effects on US critical infrastructure or the digital economy, or (c) otherwise poses an unacceptable risk to US national security. That third conditiona broad catchallcould plausibly be pushed, perhaps, to encompass the TikTok scenario. But note that the EO by its own terms applies only to transactions initiated on or after May 2019. This is too late to encompass ByteDances acquisition of music.ly, plainly. That said, one path the Trump administration might now choose would be to supplement EO 13837, building off its existing declaration of a national emergency in order to establish a distinct, additional IEEPA sanctions regime. This would spare the White House from the minor trouble of the first step identified in the next paragraph below.]

Accordingly, if the President wants to ban TikTok directly, he probably will need to announce a fresh national emergency, with a tailored focus on foreign government access to data flows that have U.S. person information, foreign government influence on content moderation policies, or both. This he certainly could do, and it could be that this is in the drafting process as you read this. But there are complications, not least of which is the question whether a sanctions system premised on foreign government access to U.S. person data based on U.S. persons using a foreign companys services would complicate the formulation of a strong U.S. government response to the European Court of Justicesrecent Schrems II decision.

5. Fine, so he can ban it. But its on millions of phones in the US already. What would actually happen?

The next question is how such a sanction would play out in the unusual case of a social-media app that already resides on the phones of millions of Americans.

As an initial matter, its clear that TikTok would no longer be made available by US companies like Apple and Google through their app stores. But that leaves all the millions of existing users; what about them, given that the vast majority are unlikely to delete the app off their phones?

It wont matter, for several reasons. First, if the president sanctions the company in the manner outlined above, TikTok could no longer maintain its servers or any other operations or property inside the United States; it will have to operate entirely from foreign locations beyond the reach of IEEPA leverage, which is to say: from China. Of course, it could continue to feed content to U.S. users from there. But what content would that be? TikTok depends on user-generated content, and the U.S. customer base depends largely (though not entirely) on the popularity of users who might no longer feel free to post to TikTok. That certainly will be true for high-profile US-based TikTok creators and celebrities with massive TikTok followings. And when Charli DAmelio and others drop out in favor of whatever might turn out to be the next big platform, theyll take their audience with them.

Ok, thats all for now. If I can talk my kids into showing me how, maybe Ill post a TikTok summary of all this tomorrow. Unless its illegal by then.

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TikTok and the Law: A Primer (In Case You Need to Explain Things to Your Teenager) - Lawfare

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You Can’t Buy SpaceX Stock Right Now, but Here’s How You …

Posted: at 2:31 am

SpaceX made history over the weekend when it launched two U.S. astronauts into space, the first crewed space launch from U.S. soil in nearly a decade. It was a remarkable accomplishment, and one that should usher in a new era of space cooperation between private companies and NASA.

It also was largely a nonevent for investors, as SpaceX is a private company and founder Elon Musk has expressed an interest in keeping it that way. SpaceX has big dreams, including colonizing Mars, and those sorts of ambitions, and research expenses, don't usually sync well with Wall Street's quarter-to-quarter tracking.

But even if SpaceX isn't publicly traded, there are some options for investors who want to buy into the new space race. Here's a look at some of the options available to those who are interested.

There aren't a lot of large public companies focused solely on space; I'll get into why that is, and what it might suggest for investors later on. But there are a few options. Virgin Galactic (NYSE:SPCE), Richard Branson's space tourism venture, went public last year and has been the primary publicly traded beneficiary of SpaceX's recent success.

Image source: Getty Images.

Virgin Galactic has yet to launch a human into space, and the company is very much in its development phase. Virgin Galactic generated just $238,000 in revenue in the first quarter, but it can boast a reservation list of more than 1,000 people who have signed up to eventually pay $250,000 to briefly go into space.

The company hopes to begin service this year and believes that with repetition it can bring down the cost of its launches and become profitable. It had better, because even if the entire reservation list is converted into full-paying customers, the money raised wouldn't go much further than covering the $200 million Virgin Galactic burned through in 2019.

Another option is Maxar Technologies (NYSE:MAXR), which is focused on satellites, digital imagery, and analytics tools. The company is a rollup of a number of small satellite providers perhaps best known as the source of many of the satellite images used by Alphabet's Google Maps product, but it gets most of its revenue from government and commercial customers.

Finally, Aerojet Rocketdyne (NYSE:AJRD) is focused on providing the rocket engines needed to get astronauts and satellites into orbit and beyond.

All of the space pure plays tend to be smaller, niche companies. There is a reason for that. Space by its nature is risky, and expensive. SpaceX has experienced a number of high-profile mishaps on its way to getting an astronaut into orbit. Testing and failure are parts of the development process, and that can be hard for smaller companies to manage and finance.

A significant portion of the revenue related to space is soaked up by larger, more diversified defense contractors. Most defense titans have space units, with Boeing (NYSE:BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) in a joint venture called United Launch Alliance (ULA) focused on lift and Northrop Grumman (NYSE:NOC) making rockets via its Orbital ATK acquisition. Those companies, as well as others, includingRaytheon Technologies (NYSE:RTX) andL3Harris Technologies(NYSE:LHX), also make satellites and sensors that are launched into orbit.

Image source: Lockheed Martin.

Although SpaceX is best known for its crewed efforts, the company so far has made its most significant impact in the launch business. Because it is private, we don't know the exact numbers, but SpaceX has succeeded in bringing down launch costs for government and commercial operators and has put pressure on incumbents including ULA and Northrop.

The real money in space comes from the manufacture of satellites, probes, and other objects designed to fly through space, and specifically the high-tech sensors and electronics on those objects, and not the rockets that get them there. That's a tough business to break into, especially since many of the launches are shrouded intelligence efforts that require employees with clearances, and at least for now are left largely to defense companies with strong ties to the Pentagon.

SpaceX appears to have no interest in going public, but management has in the past discussed eventually spinning off its planned Starlink internet service provider as a publicly traded entity. Starlink in the coming years plans to launch 12,000 small, low-orbiting satellites that can beam internet service to areas that are hard to reach by terrestrial offerings.

They aren't the first to try the plan: Viasat (NASDAQ:VSAT) and EchoStar's (NASDAQ:SATS) Hughes Network Systems currently offer satellite internet with various levels of success. Starlink is one of a number of next-generation companies that want to use an armada of small, inexpensive satellites instead of a couple of larger, more complex ones to provide service.

SpaceX in the past has predicted Starlink could generate upward of $30 billion in annual sales by 2025, though that appears to just be based on assuming all 12,000 satellites are utilized at maximum capacity. It could be a challenge to get to those sales numbers. The business will have to compete against incumbent satellite vendors, similar efforts funded by Amazon.comand others, traditional Earth-based providers, and new technologies including 5G wireless networking technologythat could solve the same problems without the costs and complexity of going into space.

In the meantime, the Starlink launches are providing a steady stream of business for SpaceX and helping advance the company's goal of establishing a space-based communications network that could be used in future efforts to get to the moon and beyond. But as a stand-alone business, Starlink still has a lot to prove.

As mentioned above, space is hard. It is also exciting, and over time, as these technologies develop, could be lucrative. Bankers at Morgan Stanleyin 2017 predicted the space industry could grow to as much as $1.75 trillion in annual revenue by 2040.

Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner likes to say, "make your portfolio reflect your best vision for our future," and it's easy to fit a world with space tourism, improved communications, and even moon colonies into that vision. Unfortunately, the complex engineering challenges needed to be tackled every day to launch people, and objects, into space inevitably lead to high costs and some business failures.

As an investor, it's OK to devote a small percentage of your portfolio to some of these pure-play space companies and hope for the best. But, as always, diversification is key. Given the risks associated with these businesses, it's dangerous to make space a key part of your retirement portfolio.

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SpaceX Launch Schedule

Posted: at 2:31 am

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SpaceX Launch Schedule

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Prototype of SpaceXs future Starship rocket flies short hop to 500 feet – The Verge

Posted: at 2:31 am

Just two days after returning its first astronauts back to Earth, SpaceX successfully flew a prototype of its next-generation, deep-space rocket in south Texas, sending the vehicle up to 500 feet and then landing it back down on Earth. Its the largest test version of the massive spaceship to see some air.

The prototype is that of SpaceXs Starship, a spacecraft the company wants to build to transport people to deep-space worlds like the Moon and Mars. The final version of the spaceship would stand at nearly 400 feet high and 30 feet wide, and be capable of sending more than 100 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit, according to SpaceX. Starship is designed to fly to space mounted on top of a giant rocket booster, known as Super Heavy, and both vehicles will be powered by SpaceXs new powerful rocket engine, called Raptor.

The prototype that flew today is still a far cry from Starships final form. Only one Raptor engine, mounted on the base of the vehicle, carried it into the air, whereas the final version of Starship is designed to host six main Raptor engines. Starship will also sport a nosecone at its top, while this prototype had a weighted block on its head to simulate mass.

However, todays success marks a big turning point for SpaceX, which had not been having good luck with its Starship testing over the past year. Prior to this test, four of SpaceXs previous Starship prototypes either exploded, burst, or imploded before they could actually fly. This is the first larger-scale prototype to not only take flight but to survive early testing.

Todays flight, often referred to as hop, is meant to test out controlled takeoff and landing of the vehicle. Starship is designed to do propulsive landings on other worlds, using its onboard engines to gently lower itself down to the surface of the Moon or perhaps Mars one day. Its a technique similar to how SpaceX lands its Falcon 9 rockets after flight. This short hop showed that vehicle similar in size and shape to Starship could launch and then land back down again, at least from a low altitude.

SpaceX has actually flown a Starship prototype on a short hop before, though it was very different than the one that flew today. A little less than a year ago, the company sent a much smaller version of Starhip, nicknamed Starhopper, up to 500 feet before landing it back down again. That vehicle had a significantly different shape, with CEO Elon Musk likening it to a water tower. Todays Starship prototype resembles more of a grain silo.

Its possible that this prototype could fly again after today. However, SpaceX has already created a sixth prototype, and the company has been quickly developing new vehicles for testing every few months. Eventually, SpaceX will attempt to perform flights that go much higher than 500 feet, and the company will add more hardware to its prototypes, including more Raptor engines.

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SpaceX: Nasa crew describe rumbles and jolts of return to Earth – BBC News

Posted: at 2:31 am

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Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have described the rumbles, heat and jolts of returning from space in the Crew Dragon spacecraft on Sunday.

Behnken vividly described the clouds rushing by the window and jolts that were like being "hit in the back of the chair with a baseball bat".

But Hurley and Behnken said the spacecraft performed just as expected.

They splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, ending the first commercial crewed mission to the space station.

"As we descended through the atmosphere, I personally was surprised at just how quickly events all transpired. It seemed like just a couple of minutes later, after the [de-orbit] burns were complete, we could look out the windows and see the clouds rushing by," he said at a news conference broadcast from Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"Once we descended a little bit into the atmosphere, Dragon really came alive. It started to fire thrusters and keep us pointed in the appropriate direction. The atmosphere starts to make noise - you can hear that rumble outside the vehicle. And as the vehicle tries to control, you feel a little bit of that shimmy in your body.

"We could feel those small rolls and pitches and yaws - all those little motions were things we picked up on inside the vehicle."

As the spacecraft - named Endeavour by its crew - descended through the atmosphere, the rumbles increased in magnitude and the thrusters began to fire continuously. "I did record some audio but it doesn't sound like a machine, it sounds like an animal," said Behnken.

During the return from the International Space Station (ISS), the crew module has to separate from a section called the trunk, which has solar panels and heat-removal radiators.

"All the separation events, from the trunk separation through the parachute firings, were very much like getting hit in the back of the chair with a baseball bat," said Bob Behnken. "Pretty light for the trunk separation but with the parachutes it was a pretty significant jolt."

Behnken also described feeling some "warming" inside the capsule. He praised the engineers who worked on the Crew Dragon spacecraft: "I can't say enough about how well the SpaceX team trained us," he said.

Upon splashdown on Sunday, a flotilla of private boats approached the bobbing Dragon, which came down in the sea off Pensacola, Florida.

They were asked to leave amid concern over hazardous chemicals venting from the capsule's propulsion system.

"We certainly appreciate the folks wanting to participate in the event, but there are some safety aspects that - as the administrator [Nasa chief Jim Bridenstine] said - we'll have to take a look at, because it can't happen like it did before."

Hurley said they were not aware of the boats while they were sitting in the capsule because of the scorch marks over the windows. "You see it was daylight outside but very little else," he said.

But reflecting on the historic nature of the mission, Hurley said it "was one of the true honours of my entire life, but certainly my professional career".

Nasa is handing over the transport of astronauts to and from the ISS to private companies, namely SpaceX and Boeing. Since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, the United States has had no vehicle with which to launch astronauts from its soil.

In the intervening years, it has paid Russia tens of millions of dollars per seat to launch US crew members on the Soyuz vehicle.

During the last ever shuttle mission - STS-135 - in 2011, the crew left a US flag on the space station with the intention that the next crew to launch on a US vehicle return it to Earth. Nine years later, Hurley and Behnken have brought back the symbolic item, which also flew on the first shuttle mission in 1981.

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Swarm works with Exolaunch to fly 24 SpaceBees on SpaceX Falcon 9 – SpaceNews

Posted: at 2:31 am

SAN FRANCISCO Swarm Technologies is working with Exolaunch of Germany to send 24 SpaceBee satellites into orbit on the SpaceX Falcon 9 small satellite rideshare mission scheduled to launch in December.

Swarm won FCC approval to offer global internet-of-things service with a constellation of 150 Spacebee satellites, which are one-quarter the size of a single cubesat.

Exolaunch, a rideshare launch and satellite deployment company based in Berlin, will handle launch, integration and deployment of SpaceBee satellites in sun-synchronous orbit, according to an Aug. 3 news release.

Earlier this year, Exolaunch announced an agreement with SpaceX to send multiple small satellites into orbit on the December rideshare flight.

For the December launch, Exolaunch plans to integrate microsatellites and cubesats on a Falcon 9 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter port and to send the satellites into orbit with EXOpod, the firms proprietary deployment system.

After integrating SpaceBEEs into EXOpod at Swarms headquarters in Mountain View, California, Exolaunch will mate the satellites with the launch vehicle at SpaceX facilities in Cape Canaveral, Florida, according to the news release.

Our team, experienced in handling large constellations of satellites,is ready to utilize its launch expertise and deployers to arrange the rides to space for Swarm aboard SpaceXs Falcon 9, Jeanne Medvedeva, Exolaunch commercial director, said in a statement.

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