Monthly Archives: September 2021

It's a desperate situation.Glacier Blanket

A giant glacier on Mount Titlis in Switzerland has shrunk drastically in recent decades, thanks to global warming.

Officials from a local skiing resort are now trying to slow the melting by throwing giant fleece blankets over the glacier, covering a cumulative area just over a million square feet, or around 14 soccer fields, according to Reuters.

The goal is to insulate the vulnerable glaciers ice and snow deposits by reflecting much of the Suns energy back into the atmosphere using the white material.

Its a desperate situation and yet another instance of global warming rearing its ugly head that poses an existential threat to local industries. According to the Swiss government, 90 percent of Mount Titlis remaining 1,500 glaciers will disappear by 2100 if greenhouses gas emissions arent cut, Reuters reported.

According to local officials, the size of the fleece blankets had to be steadily increased over the last couple of years to have enough of an effect. Workers had to meticulously sew blankets together and cover the glacier over five to six weeks this summer to slow its melting.

The effects of global warming are being felt across the world right now, with monster storms drenching much of North America and devastating wildfires lighting up the Pacific Northwest.

So it doesnt come as a surprise that ski enthusiasts will soon have to travel further to find slopes with the right conditions if,that is, theres any left at all.

READ MORE: Wrap up cool: Blankets help stave off glacier melt on Swiss ski pistes [Reuters]

More on global warming: Scientists Warn Gulf Stream May Collapse, Freezing North America

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Switzerland Covers Glacier With Giant Blankets to Keep It From Melting - Futurism

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The doctor at an Arkansas jail is being investigated for treating inmates who had COVID-19 with ivermectin and lying to them about it.

In case you dont recognize the name, ivermectin is the anti-parasite drug that can be used to treat human conditions including head lice,scabies, and trichuriasis, but is more commonly known as a horse de-wormer.

Lately, its become the new hydroxychloroquine a favorite of the far-right anti-vaxxer crowd (and Joe Rogan) who tout the drug as a COVID-19 cure without any indication that it actually helps. So when jail physician Rob Karas allegedly gave ivermectin to inmates over tried-and-true treatments, as CBS News reports, he was essentially turning them into unwitting subjects for a horrifying, unauthorized medical experiment that violated federal guidelines as well as any sort of guiding principle for medical ethics.

They said they were vitamins, steroids and antibiotics, Washington County jail inmate Edrick Floreal-Wooten told CBS. We were running fevers, throwing up, diarrhea and so we figured that they were here to help us.

Floreal-Wooten added that he and other inmates repeatedly asked what the jails nurses were giving them and that they were merely told that the pills would help them get better. They only learned what was really happening once the news broke.

We never knew that they were running experiments on us, giving us ivermectin, Florea-Wooten told CBS. We never knew that.

Ivermectin only seems to have an effect on the coronavirus at concentrations so dangerously high that no human should be subjected to them, to the point that the FDA has warned against the drugs use to treat COVID.

From a medical standpoint, experimentation on human subjects without their knowledge and explicit consent is utterly unjustifiable, but unfortunately not unheard of in American history.

In the mid-20th century, doctors in Tuskegee, Alabama ran a 40-year-long experiment on Black men with syphilis. In the horrific experiment, the subjects were not only denied proper care, but they were lied to about their condition and the nature of the study. Much like with the Arkansas inmates, the doctors from the Tuskegee experiment insisted to their subjects that they were administering proper care.

In extremely high doses or when taking a formulation of the drug meant for livestock, ivermectin can cause nausea, vomiting, seizures, and comas, and it can be lethal as hospitals fielding a surge of overdoses have learned.

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Inmates Treated With Ivermectin Without Their Knowledge - Futurism

Porsche's decades of racing history are headlined by a record 19 overall wins at Le Mans, but most Porsche racing cars are spec racers. 4400 of those prolific 911 GT3 Cup cars have been built since the first Carrera Cup category kicked off 31 years ago. The near future of that category is the new 911 GT3 Cup, but the world is electrifying fast and Porsche knows its beloved flat sixes will not be around forever. Enter the Mission R concept.

The all-electric Mission R delivers what Porsche describes as "the same lap time performance" as a current GT3 Cup, but it finds that speed in a very different way. In its all-out qualifying trim, two sets of electric motors deliver 429 horsepower to the front wheels and 644 horsepower to the rear wheels for a combined 1073 horsepower. Porsche says the car will achieve a top speed of 186 MPH and reach 60 MPH in under 2.5 seconds. That output falls to 671 hp in race trim, but the smaller output greatly increases available track time.

An 80 kh battery allows the car to race for 30 to 45 minutes at a time, long enough for a current Carrera Cup race but not quite long enough for a serious endurance racing future. A new 900-volt fast charge system allows the car to reach 80% of that capacity in just 15 minutes, a number that will be the key to unlocking the car's ability to run both long track days and full race weekends in competition.

While the Mission R resembles a GT car, it was designed from the ground up as a racing car and should instead be considered a GT-like prototype. That means it is constructed around a carbon cage that makes up the entire visible roof section. It also means that the entire car, inside and out, has been designed for track-level performance and safety first, a direct benefit of a car that was built by an engineering team and a design team working together from day 1.

It also means that Porsche could make the Mission R look however they wanted. The resulting car is both shorter and wider than the modern 718 Cayman, but its shape borrows mostly from the Taycan and Porsche's vast backlog of legendary purpose-built racing cars. While the front pairs Porsche's now-distinctive quad-headlight setup with a massive splitter aided by active aerodynamics, the rear of the car exposes the backs of the tires as a wide variety of Porsche racing cars have done since the 917.

A relatively massive driver's cabin holds an unusual interior for a racing car. Like the 918 RSR concept before it, the Mission R's idealized cockpit has left room for very intentional design in a place that most racing cars have effectively standardized. Unlike the timeless natural-tone leathers in that concept, the Concept R's cabin follows the rest of the car in skewing toward futurism. Dashboard functions are handled by a screen in the steering wheel, leaving the screen on the driver's side of the dashboard to show images from the various cameras acting as side-view and rear-view mirrors throughout the car's exterior. In-cabin cameras are installed by default and designed by Porsche to allow broadcasters and fans to choose from a variety of angles during a race. Porsche claims this entire monocoque structure can be used as a sim racing rig, too.

The Mission R we see today is more than a stationary model, but less than a ready-to-sell customer racing car. While it can lap a track now, development will continue over the next few years. The company says that the final form of the Mission R might be ready by 2025 or 2026. That may be as little more than a limited-run option for loyal customrs like the 935 revival, but any fully-realized Mission R will be worth celebrating as the greatest customer-ready electric track car in the world.

While you may have seen a half-dozen "Unseen" concepts from Porsche over the past year, those cars were unseen at auto shows for a reason. Porsche shows very few concepts and, with the exception of tribute cars like the 917 Living Legend, eventually makes most of the concepts they do show. All of the road-going 918, Taycan, Panamera Sport Turismo, and Taycan Cross Turismo were debuted as concept cars first in what turned out to be near-production form. The Mission R even shares a naming system with the Taycan's working title, Mission E. While it could go the way of the 918 RSR and never be heard from again, a public presentation indicates that Porsche will follow through on its promise and build the Mission R we see today into the future of its customer racing division.

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The Porsche Mission R Is 1073 Horsepower of Racing Futurism - RoadandTrack.com

The companies got busted by satellite imagery. Caught in the Act

A massive oil spill was discovered off the coast of Louisiana on Thursday.

The spill was identified using satellite imagery from space tech companies Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies, according to The New York Times. The images captured showed plumes of oil covering roughly 10 miles of the Gulf of Mexico.

US Coast Guard officials said that the spill likely originated from an old pipeline owned by Talos Energy, a Texas-based oil and gas company. Experts suspect that the pipeline was damaged due to Hurricane Ida.

The oil spills origin was initially identified by John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at research center The Citizen Lab. He had been using satellite imagery to investigate Hurricane Idas destruction.

The fact that it was possible to find this spill is owed to the fact that NOAA made aerial imagery publicly available, Scott-Railton told the NYT. Had NOAA not made that public, it would have been a lot harder to uncover what is clearly an unfolding environmental problem.

There is currently an operation to clean up the oil spill, with US Coast Guard boats on their way to the site. However, the pipeline is still leaking.

The US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement released a media update on Friday saying workers from 133 production platforms and six drilling rigs have been evacuated. The bureau intends to inspect the facilities and said that those with no damage will be brought back online immediately.

This is yet another example of how one result of manmade climate change (i.e. Hurricane Ida) can cause even more destruction on our environment (i.e. massive oil spills). It also highlights the massive vulnerabilities our energy infrastructure can have in light of disaster especially when that infrastructure depends on an environmentally harmful resource like oil.

READ MORE: Satellite Images Find Substantial Oil Spill in Gulf After Ida [NYT]

More on oil disasters: Oil Company That Caught Ocean on Fire Has Staggeringly Long History of Deaths, Accidents

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Oil Company Forgets to Mention Large Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico - Futurism

"The climate weve been living in, is not going to be the climate we are living in right now."Uncharted Territory

As wildfires continue to ravage the western US and large swaths of the country attempts to rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Idas deadly rampage, a United Nations (UN) scientist had this to say: We dont know whats coming next but itll be bad.

Kim Cobb, the UN scientist who helped pen the dire report on climate change, said that the impact of man made climate change is already being felt in ways unimagined, according to Yahoo Finance. She believes that the latest dramatic weather disasters only further prove that.

We are moving into uncharted territory with climate change, Cobb said to Yahoo. The climate weve been living in, is not going to be the climate we are living in right now, nor over the next decades.

Throughout the past summer, the US alone has seen multiple catastrophic weather patterns. In August, Hurricane Ida slammed into the country, rendering much of Louisiana without power before traveling up the coast and causing torrential downpours throughout the eastern seaboard. In fact, New York City saw a record 3.15 inches of rain fall in a single hour, according to Yahoo.

These rains were record breaking by a long shot. It reminds me of the kind of shattering heat waves that we saw in the Pacific Northwest, earlier this summer, said Cobb to Yahoo. Its just jaw dropping.

This all comes on the heels of the UNs climate report, which offered a bleak depiction of the future due to man made climate change.

The worst is yet to come, affecting our childrens and grandchildrens lives much more than our own, the report said.

Perhaps the most damning thing of it all is the fact that the world will likely continue doing the very thing that led to all this in the first place. Despite decades of warnings from scientists, corporations and world governments continued and will continue to ravage the planet in the name of profitability.

Which just goes to show: If change were to come, it would need to be equally as radical and drastic.

READ MORE: We are moving into uncharted territory with climate change: scientist [Yahoo Finance]

More on climate change: Todays Killer Hurricane Is Linked to Climate Change, Scientists Say

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UN Scientist Warns That Climate Destruction Is Entering "Uncharted Territory" - Futurism

"This is probably the largest setback in a history filled with setbacks for Apples car project."Empty Seats

Apples secretive self-driving carproject has been served its next big blow, putting an already troubled project on even thinner ice.

The projects lead Doug Field is leaving to join Ford as its chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, Bloomberg reports.

Field has a packed rsum. The automotive veteran was also crucial in helping Tesla launch its blockbuster sedan, the Model 3.

In other words, Ford just made a killer hire.

Doug is one of the worlds most respected engineering and product design leaders and has been a driving force behind breakthrough products across auto, tech and mobility, including at Apple, Tesla and Segway, Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a statement.

Field will oversee the development of the US carmakers Blue Oval Intelligence software suite that delivers software to its smart vehicles.

Im thrilled to be joining Ford as it embraces a transition to a new, complex and fascinating period in the auto industry, Field said in the statement. It will be a privilege to help Ford deliver a new generation of experiences built on the shift to electrification, software and digital experiences, and autonomy.

While its a great day for Ford, it isnt one for Apple. The tech giants efforts to build a car already were served a major blow in June when several key managers left the team which was being led by Field at the time.

This is probably the largest setback in a history filled with setbacks for Apples car project, Apple reporter Mark Gurman tweeted in response to the news. As I wrote in January, there is no Apple Car launching anytime soon, not 2024, not 2025.

In fact, it might already be too late for the project as a whole. Further out now, if ever, Gurman added.

READ MORE: Ford Hires Apple Car Chief in Coup for Recovering Carmaker [Bloomberg]

More on Apples car project: It Sounds Like the Apple Car Is in Serious Trouble

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The Lead of Apple's Secretive Car Project Just Left to Join Ford - Futurism

On September 6, 2021, the Interfax-Ukraine press center hosted a presentation of the anthology of Ukrainian modern futurism "Zvyzdobolid". The authors of the book and the founders of the reputation management agency "WikiBusiness" Bohdan Dubylovskyi and Roman Melnyk presented a reprinted book with the best of their own texts and the works of Ukrainian futurists of the XX-XXI centuries.

The moderator of the meeting was the winner of the show "Comic for a Million", stand-up comedian and humorist Oleksandr Sas.

The participants of the press conference discussed the phenomenon of devaluation of the realities of the digitized world, the need for personal progress and stop of vulgar degradation, approaches to the organic education of the new generation and others.

The authors have announced the release of a new book and they dont reject the possibility of publishing young futurists in the next collection. There are also plans to publish Zvyzdobolid in other languages, including Chinese and Japanese.

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Ukrainian Wikipedians have published a book dedicated to Mask and Bandera - Interfax Ukraine

2018s Black Panther swept the box offices worldwide, earning more than $1.3 billion, simultaneously proving that a primarily Black cast could attract blockbuster-scale momentum. Beyond crushing box office sales, the movie received a generally favorable critical response for its appreciation of the richness and depth of the Black experience from a trans-continental perspective while also making solid references to social justice issues Black people have endured from the onset of the slave trade to today. The movie also brought tons of incredible beauty to the silver screen and paved a broader path for Afrofuturism in the Mainstream.

Nnedi Okorafors Who Fears Death, currently in the pre-development stage at HBO, is hoping to do something similar from a world-building perspective. Who Fears Death will be an adaptation of the same-name novel, written by Okorafor, which, published in 2010, earned the Nigerian-born writer a Carl Brendon Kindred Award for an outstanding work of fiction dealing with race and ethnicity.

The novels narrative is set in a post-apocalyptic future version of Sudan, where the light-skinned Nuru oppress the dark-skinned Okeke. The novels protagonist, Onyesonwu (which translates as who fears death from the Igbo language), is an Ewu, a child of an Okeke woman raped by a Nuru man. Upon reaching maturity, Onyesonwu goes on a quest to find and defeat her father, the sorcerer, using her own magical powers.

While Okorafors novel draws inspiration, at least in part, from news articles that discuss sexual violence to women of color, HBO is primarily looking to cash in on the fantasy aspect of the novel. In truth, although the massively successful Game of Thrones has its fair share of war crimes and gruesome depictions in its books as well as in its HBO adaptation, it was the fantastical and magical elements combined with George R.R. Martins revolutionary writing that drew the audience to the show in the first place.

Okorafors novel and subsequently the television adaptations plot sound incredibly interesting in their own right. However, what makes the adaptation so noteworthy is the addition of George R.R. Martin to the board of executive producers for the show since the adaptation was announced. Okorafor herself is the shows co-producer, while Luke Cage writer Aida Mashaka Croal serves as the adaptations showrunner, writer, and executive producer. Furthermore, Deadlines report suggests that Tessa Thompson, known for her work in the MCU and on the Westworld television series, is also coming on board as an executive producer for the show.

Who Fears Death is still in its early development stages, though it already cast some impressive talent behind the camera. But yet again, HBO was previously on the cutting edge of the fantasy genre when it took a gamble on Game of Thrones, so we can only hope that theyre working off of a similar instinct as it relates to Who Fears Death. If the adaptation turns out to be successful and the involvement of high-profile individuals remains steady, it could surpass Black Panther financially and make positive strides towards broadening the length of Afrofuturism in the mainstream.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Afrofuturism was coined by Mark Dery in 1993 in his essay Black to the Future: Interviews with Samuel Delany, Greg Tate, and Tricia Rose. The term represents a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora, predominantly African-Americans, through technoculture and speculative fiction, most notably science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and magic realism. Many described it as an intersection between imagination, technology, the future, and liberation.

However, in 2019, Okorafor published an essay titled Defining Africanfuturism, in which she strongly rejects the term Afrofuturism as a label for her work and works like hers. The essay defined Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism as a sub-category of science fiction thats directly rooted in African culture, history, mythology, and point of view without privileging the West. As such, it often centers on people of African descent while remaining rooted in the African continent, only extending to the Black diaspora. Africanfutursm narratives are, because of their African point of view, often akin to science fiction with mystical elements rather than fantasy. Africanjujuism, on the other hand, is more akin and arguably a parallel term for fantasy.

Looking at it through the prism of Africanfuturism, its quite clear that Okorafors Who Fears Death depicts liberation through the shedding of fears and old practices within different societies and ethnic groups while simultaneously addressing severe social issues through a fantasy setting. One such example is, in fact, Black Panthers depiction of Wakanda a prosperous country whose mastery of technology wasnt gained at the cost of its peoples ethnic identity and culture. It also depicts what Africa couldve been without colonization and the perpetuation of false narratives, which falls under the Afrofuturism sub-genre.

Nnedi Okorafors Who Fears Death is another significant step towards spreading Afrofuturism in the mainstream, and subsequently, Africanfuturism and Africanjujuism.

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What Nnedi Okorafor's 'Who Fears Death' Coming to HBO Could Mean for the Acceptance of Afro-Futurism in the Mainstream Black Girl Nerds The pink...