Monthly Archives: February 2022

The seed revolution is coming – SWI swissinfo.ch – swissinfo.ch

Posted: February 1, 2022 at 2:23 am

Seed companies are promising sweeter strawberries, drought-resistant cabbage and healthier tomatoes in less time and at lower cost thanks to genome editing technology. Theres a catch though: In some cases, rules are so lax that we may never know our food was genome edited.

Jessica covers the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to big global companies and their impact in Switzerland and abroad. Shes always looking for a Swiss connection with her native San Francisco and will happily discuss why her hometown has produced some of the greatest innovations but cant seem to solve its housing crisis.

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On the northern coast of the Netherlands, around 30 companies are working in fields and greenhouses to develop the next greatest thing in vegetables. The region calls itself Seed Valley. It is the heartland of European vegetable breeding the way Silicon Valley is the center of IT and software innovation. During a Syngenta media field trip last autumn, the rows of vegetables reminded me of a Disneyland park before all the guests arrive pristine, bright and trimmed to perfection almost make-believe.

All the vegetables here are bred using conventional methods, which Syngenta explains, are very scientific and can take years, sometimes decades, to bear fruit (literally). There is no talk of genome editing or CRISPR in these fields because it isnt allowed in Europe. But several thousand kilometres in either direction to the US and China seed companies like Syngenta are starting to show off their latest CRISPR creations.

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Thats the fragmented regulatory world we live in right now, but it is quickly changing. More governments are opening their doors to genome editing with tools like CRISPR. Covid vaccine nationalism left its mark countries are gripped by the F.O.B.L.B the Fear Of Being Left Behind as other countries pourmoney into genome edited seed research. Everyone wants an invention they can call their own.

Governments arent just allowing genome editing in food, they arent regulating it at all in some cases. This means no strict safety checks, no labelling, and no transparency that our food was genome edited. Some seed companies argue genome editing is simply speeding up something that could happen in nature so why should it be treated any differently. Critics argue otherwise.

What do you think? Ive created a debateExternal link to engage with readers on the topic. Curious to hear your thoughts. jessica.davis@swissinfo.ch.

Nestl will pay African cocoa farmers to keep children in schools. Some 10,000 farmers in Ivory Coast stand to gain extra cash if they follow a set of guidelines set down by Nestl including refraining from child labour by enrolling all children in school and increasing the productivity of their cocoa farms with best practice techniques. The company plans to expand the programme to 160,000 cocoa farmersby 2030 and introduce a new range of products under the scheme. This may the greatest hope yet of a child labour-free chocolate bar from a big multinational.

Switzerland is keeping its options open to compensate for losses from the minimum corporate tax deal. After relying for so long on low tax rates as its calling card with big companies, the country is trying to figure out what else it can do to stay attractive in the face of the global minimum tax rate. Should the country loosen immigration restrictions? Should it have less regulation? Or more regulation on dirty industries? Should the government fund company researchExternal link and promising start-ups? All options are on the table. One idea being floated is to lower the tax burden on wealthy executives to keep them, and their companies, in the country. This idea is unlikely to go over well with the public when the cries to raise taxes from billionaires, even from a few billionaires themselvesExternal link, are getting louder.

Big food has a big problem with nutrition. According to an investigation by Swiss public television, RTS, the food industry lobby is pushing back on regulation aimed at curbing skyrocketing obesity ratesExternal link in some countries. RTS uncovered an email exchange from Swiss food giant Nestl calling on the Swiss governments support to reject a new law on nutrition labelling in Mexico. The company told RTS it supported the purpose of the law but believed it had no scientific basis and would restrict consumer choice.

Mergers and acquisitions boomed last year. Rock bottom interest rates and excess cash sloshing around Swiss companies saw a three-fold increaseExternal link in the value of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), rising to CHF170 billion ($186 billion) last year. The pharmaceutical and life science sectors saw M&A deal activity surge from CHF6 billion in 2020 to CHF56 billion last year, comprising four of the ten largest corporate deals. More biotech deals are expected this year with many wondering how Novartis is planning to spend the CHF19 billion from the sale of the Roche stake.In an interview in Finanz & Wirtschaft, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan indicated that there may be smaller acquisitionsExternal link on the way.

Switzerland stumbles in the latest corruption ranking. Transparency International ranked Switzerland 7th, down four spots from last year, in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index. A series of scandals last year didnt help. The Swiss public sector is especially vulnerable to nepotism, says the NGO. Its a small country, we know each other, we went to school together often this implies conflicts of interest. But there are bigger problems not captured by the Index, says the NGOs director, Martin Hilti. Specifically, money laundering and the entire enabling industry including lawyers, notaries and real estate agents.

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Reply to Gaudry et al.: Cross-validation is necessary for the identification of pseudogenes – pnas.org

Posted: at 2:23 am

Our article (1) describing a widespread loss of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) in cetaceans, sirenians (the manatee), and one pinniped (the Antarctic fur seal, Arctocephalus gazella) as a convergent mechanism to minimize heat loss has raised questions from experts in the field of mammalian energy metabolism (2).

Briefly, Gaudry etal. (2) argue, after examining raw high-throughput sequencing data from National Center for Biotechnology Information Sequence Read Archive, that 1) while UCP1 inactivation is likely associated with a higher reliance on insulation in fully aquatic mammals (cetaceans and sirenians), this is likely not the case for pinnipeds; 2) our findings reflect a misassembly of the A. gazella genome (generated by ref. 3); and 3) when UCP1 is lost in pinnipeds, this event is possibly associated with a greater body size (case in point, the northern and southern elephant seals).

Apparent UCP1 loss is observed in A. gazella in a genome assembly derived from PacBio sequencing data (v1.2 and subsequent versions) (3), while an assembly derived from Illumina sequencing (v1.1) (4) indicates that the gene is intact (Fig. 1). We are very grateful to Gaudry etal. (2) for pointing out this error. This reminds us that it is not only important to assess the quality of published genomes prior to data analysis but also necessary to cross-validate using data from multiple sources before conclusions are made.

Differences in exon 1 and exon 6 sequences of UCP1 in Antarctic fur seal PacBio and Illumina genome assemblies. Gray blocks indicate regions unique to the Antarctic fur seal PacBio assembly. For comparison, the sequences of northern fur seal, walrus, and California sea lion are shown.

Gaudry etal. (2) describe pseudogenization of UCP1 in the northern and southern elephant seals and speculate that this is linked with the large body size of the two species. While this extrapolation is fascinating, we argue that this conclusion is not necessarily valid. Firstly, the frameshift in exon 1 is located in the ostensibly 5 untranslated region; another start codon appears about 10 amino acids later (Fig. 2A). Considering that we did not detect a signal of relaxed selection in these species (Fig. 2B), we cannot fully confirm, without transcriptomic data, that this gene has been pseudogenized. Secondly, even if this gene has been lost in elephant seals, a link between loss of UCP1 and body size, in our opinion, is not straightforward. UCP1 loss could reflect an adaptive thermoregulatory mechanism coincidentally associated with a larger body size. However, we agree with Gaudry etal., in general, that the thermoregulatory strategy is likely to be different between fully aquatic and semiaquatic marine mammals.

(A) Alignment of exon 1 and exon 3 of the UCP1 of southern elephant seal and northern elephant seal. The gray blocks and the red arrows show the position of the start codon, and the yellow blocks indicate amino acids missing in the elephant seals. (B) Summary of relaxed selection test of northern and southern elephant seal UCP1. A red star indicates the foreground branch.

The project was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 41422604 and 41306169), One Belt and One Road Science and Technology Cooperation Special Program of the International Partnership Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant 183446KYSB20200016), the Key Deployment Project of Center for Ocean Mega-Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant COMS2020Q15), and the Research Funds for Interdisciplinary Subject, Northwestern Polytechnical University (Grant 19SH030408).

Author contributions: K.W. and S.L. designed research; Y.Y., P.Z., H.K., G.F., K.W., and S.L. performed research; Y.Y., I.S., K.W., and S.L. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; Y.Y. and Y.Z. analyzed data; and Y.Y., I.S., A.R.H., D.W., K.W., and S.L. wrote the paper.

The authors declare no competing interest.

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Illumina, Invitae Founding Members of ASHG’s Genetics and Genomics Impact Partnerships Program – Bio-IT World

Posted: at 2:23 am

By Bio-IT World Staff

January 31, 2022 | The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) today announced the launch of the ASHG Genetics and Genomics Impact Partnerships program. Illumina, a leader in next-generation genomic sequencing technologies, and Invitae, a leading medical genetics company, have joined as founding partners.

The opportunity to apply human genetics and genomics research to build a more equitable world is urgent and ASHG is grateful for Illuminas and Invitaes support to help drive progress forward. said ASHG President Charles Rotimi, PhD in a press release. The commitment were sharing will help the researchers of today and tomorrow to make new discoveries that serve populations worldwide, apply genetics knowledge in more just and equitable ways, and inspire and support others to join the field. We thank these organizations for their tireless dedication to equity as we work toward a better future together.

As the worlds largest professional organization for human genetics and genomics, ASHG believes itself to be uniquely positioned to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in human genetics and genomics research on a global scale. The Society is working strategically and programmatically to expand participation and strengthen careers of researchers from diverse backgrounds, sustain emphasis on increasing diversity and inclusion in research cohorts, and develop a knowledge network and professional education for researchers.

Knowing that collective effort is required to ensure all people benefit from genetics and genomics research, ASHG Impact Partners include organizations likewise dedicated to advancing DEI in human genetics and genomics. Through their financial contributions, Impact Partners support the ASHG Fund for Equity in Genetics and Genomics Research, which helps the Society to design innovative programs with demonstrable impacts on DEI; enhance capacity to expand DEI efforts in future years; and sustain DEI programs and initiatives.

Joining as founding Impact Partners, Illumina and Invitae recognize the critical importance of advancing DEI in the field of human genetics and genomics.

At Illumina, we recognize that our efforts to improve human health can be magnified if all people and places have access to genomic technology, said Illuminas Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion Lisa Toppin, EdD in the same statement. We know that there are still significant gaps in access to genomic technology, personalized medicine, and even representative data to understand genomes in the context of global diversity. Through this exciting new partnership with ASHG, we will continue to close those gaps to increase access, improve the equity of representation, and expand the transformative benefits of genomics for all.

We are proud to support this initiative which aligns with our mission to bring comprehensive genetic information into mainstream medicine to improve healthcare for billions of people, added Invitaes Chief Medical Officer Robert Nussbaum, MD. The era of Genome Management is now here, and equity in genomics is paramount in order to transform the way medicine is practiced.

As part of this historic partnership, ASHG and Impact Partners will meet periodically to share knowledge and experiences and learn about effective DEI strategies that institutions and individual researchers can implement to advance more inclusive and equitable workforces and research study populations.

We remain focused on fostering enduring change in the human genetics and genomic field and our newest partnership with Illumina and Invitae will further that effort, Rotimi said. Recruiting, retaining and engaging a robustly diverse and inclusive human genetics community is essential to identifying and addressing the profound questions in human genetics and advancing health equity, and everyone has a role to play in this critical mission.

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Utilizing museomics to trace the complex history and species boundaries in an avian-study system of conservation concern | Heredity – Nature.com

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Utilizing museomics to trace the complex history and species boundaries in an avian-study system of conservation concern | Heredity - Nature.com

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Download Tor Browser for Windows – Free – 11.0.3

Posted: at 2:22 am

With the internet being the massive resource that it is, people are becoming more and more reliant on it. Not only do we search for recipes and directions on the web, but we use it for banking, storing photos and videos of ourselves and our loved ones, accessing healthcare information, and doing other activities that may involve sending and receiving private information. It seems like more and more frequently, there are stories of personal data being leaked from financial institutions, social media services, and the cloud. Tor looks to ease our worries with a web browser that aims to help people use the internet without fear of being tracked or spied on. According to Tor, their mission is to "advance human rights and freedoms by creating and deploying free and open source anonymity and privacy technologies, supporting their unrestricted availability and use, and furthering their scientific and popular understanding". If that doesn't say security, we don't know what does!

So, what exactly is Tor, and how does it work? Every day when we use the internet, especially if we're using devices that don't have software that protects us from spyware, hacking, and other malicious activity, we are essentially at risk. This doesn't just include times that we go to our bank's website and transfer money, or enter our social security number to take care of our taxes. With every website that we visit, someone somewhere could track where we go, what we search, what we save and download, and more. To works by shielding us from all of that. Tor is an internet browser run by volunteer-operated servers. Tor's icon is an onion because like an onion, Tor's has layers that encrypt your internet connection. When you connect, your activity is sent through three different voluntarily operated servers around the world. So, three layers of protection secure your activity in transit from you to your destination on the internet. None of the locations of any of the servers are known.

Once you've downloaded Tor, you're prompted to choose the language you'd like to view the browser in. From there, you're taken to the main page where you can start searching. For those new to the browser, it does offer a step by step tutorial on how to navigate around. To ensure your privacy, Tor erases cookies and your browsing history after you're finished using the internet. Each time you use Tor, you can also change the route and servers that your connection goes through before you access the website that you've searched for with the Circuit Display. At this point, you can click "See My Path", and a separate tab will pop up. In this tab, you can see the countries that house the servers that your connection is currently passing through. Next, you're able to see your security level and make adjustments in the advanced settings. Everyone starts off with a standard connection, which means that every function that the Tor browser has available is turned on. Safer is the next level, and removes JavaScript and HTML5 media, which Tor says have been involved in dangerous activity in the past. The final level of security is the safest which works by disabling scripts, media, and certain images. You can toggle on and off functions like blocking deceptive content, giving you alerts for strange software and more. In the general tab you can select Tor as your default browser and make changes to the browser's appearance as well.

Finally, Tor warns you that because of all the services that it offers, your browser may run a little slower depending on the level of security you've selected and which features are enabled. Onion services include creating your own webpages and stores.

Tor is currently available for download on Mac and PCs running Windows.

This depends on the user. If you just use the internet for casual browsing, social media and maybe to do some shopping from time to time, this may not be the browser for you. The Chrome browser would be an excellent option, as its faster than other popular browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer (which is surprisingly still widely used), it has a simple and clean layout, and has a large extension gallery that grows exponentially as time passes.

Tor is a browser for a specific type of user. It has a lot of functions in place to help people keep their information private, and walks us through all of our options - and there are many. It does a good job of repeatedly reassuring the user that they dont have to worry about who is seeing their web activity.

For the everyday user, we dont recommend Tor. As we said earlier, Tor is for a specific type of user. The browser is supposed to help keep things a secret with all of the security features that it has, but we dont think most of the general population is going to make use of them. The location of the voluntary servers are unknown, but this also means that we have no idea who is running the servers and what they see. Tor is also known to be the home of many black market websites, so even if youre not using Tor for that purpose, that fact alone is understandably enough to scare a lot of users away. Sure, this browser jumps through hoops to lock in your connection, but its not foolproof. As unfortunate as it may be, if someone wants to hack into your computer through Tor, they still might be able to do it. Your connection is encrypted as it moves from server to server, but the moment it leaves the third server and makes its way to your internet destination, there is no layer of encryption covering it. Unless youre an undercover journalist, you live in a country that has heavy restrictions in place by the government on internet use, or youre looking for trouble, we would pass on downloading Tor.

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Tor Project heads to Russian court to appeal against censorship – The Daily Swig

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Volunteers urged to build bridges while Tor contests blockade

The Tor Project is going to court in Russia to appeal a recent decision to block its main website, torproject.org.

Court-mandated restrictions on its website have been accompanied by wider attempts to censor access to the Tor network across Russia.

Default bridges available in Tor Browser arent working in some places in Russia and this along with the blocking of the torproject.net website has resulted in a sharp decline in anonymized traffic in the country.

Russia previously had 300,000 daily Tor users, representing around 15% of all users on the anonymity network. But this has declined sharply to fewer than 200,000 daily users since late November 2021.

On December 6, 2021, the Tor Project was notified that the domain torproject.org would be blocked in Russia based on a formal decision of the Russian Saratov District Court of 2017, in accordance with Article 15.1 of the Law on Information in Russia.

The court decision was based on generalized claims that the Tor Projects anonymizing browser facilitated access to extremist materials.

Tor contested these claims arguing that its privacy-protecting browser is an important tool for journalists, activists, human rights defenders, and marginalized people to protect themselves online.

Catch up with the latest Tor-related security news

The Tor Project has teamed up with RosKomSvoboda, a Russian digital rights organization, to file an appeal in Saratov District Court that challenges the block on torproject.org.

The ban was made without allowing the Tor Project to contest the case in addition to violating the constitutional right to freely provide, receive and disseminate information and protect privacy of Russians, the appellants argue.

The first hearing in the case is due to take place on February 7.

Isabela Bagueros, executive director of the Tor Project, commented: With the help of attorneys from RosKomSvoboda, Darbinyan Sarkis, and Abashina Ekaterina, we are appealing the court decision and we hope to revert this situation and help create a precedent in Russia for digital rights.

The Russian government recently installed new censorship mechanisms on different internet providers.

This new censorship system is called TSPU, and it was used to throttle Twitters traffic in 2021. This is an ongoing process and it isnt deployed in the entire country, according to the Tor Project.

RELATED Tor Project unveils plans to route device traffic through Tor anonymity network with new VPN-like service

Tor Browser is bundled with different circumvention methods:

Bagueros told The Daily Swig: In ISPs that have TSPU devices installed, Tor users will need to use a bridge to bypass the Tor network block.

At the moment, this device is blocking some known bridges that they have discovered, but Snowflake, meek-azure, and bridges from the Tor Telegram bot will work for them to connect to Tor.

While the case is under consideration, the Tor Project and its allies are taking practical steps to facilitate access to its anonymization network through the Tor Browser.

In order to help counter censorship against the Tor network, more than 1,000 new Tor bridges have been added to the network by volunteer bridge operators since December 2021, as explained in a recent blog post by the Tor Project.

In addition, users in Russia unable to access the main torproject.net website can still access the same set of resources by accessing a mirror website, tor.eff.org, set up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Blocking the main website impedes people from downloading the Tor Browser, Bagueros explained. However, we believe that the bigger contribution to the reduced Tor usage in Russia is due to blocking the Tor network itself.

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‘No Emoji for Ennui’ questions the cost of utopia in new Light Work exhibit – The Daily Orange

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Lana Z Caplan remembers 2018 very well, in every frustrating and confusing detail.

Everything was just a barrage of negativity all the time so everyone has this constant necessity to kind of self-regulate and find a balance amongst the enormous kind of chaos of our life, Caplan said.

This state of constant self-regulation and searching for balance led to the creation of Caplans 2019 film Autopoiesis, one of five films that will be a part of Light Works Urban Video Project No Emoji for Ennui. The exhibition delves into themes like the ones Caplan explores: frustration at a world oversaturated with technology and the apathy that comes from attempting to show emotion from behind a screen.

Along with Caplans work, films from Matt Whitman, Ross Meckfessel and Alison Nguyen will make up No Emoji for Ennui. From Jan. 27 until March 26, the films will be projected onto the Everson, starting with Caplans work. On Feb. 24, a screening of all the films will take place in the Shaffer Art Buildings Shemin Auditorium.

In 2009, Light Work assumed programming responsibility for the Urban Video Project, which collaborates with the Everson Museum of Art to bring films and artists to Syracuse. UVP works are projected onto the north facade of the Everson designed by I.M. Pei since it has a 16:9 aspect ratio, the same as HD video.

The goal of the UVP is to support underrepresented artists that work in fields like experimental film, video art and other electronic mediums, said Anneka Herre, the director of UVP and an instructor in the department of film and media arts at Syracuse University. Herre said she hopes the different mediums within No Emoji for Ennui can help project a widely held concern in an unexpected way.

(The exhibit is) at that kind of cutting edge where people, when they encounter it, arent going to know quite what to do with it, Herre said. That will always be important, that pushing of the envelope, formally or in terms of the content. (It) will always be an aspect of experimental film.

In Autopoiesis, Caplan questions the cost of a utopia, a concept that she said can never be achieved, by synthesizing a variety of content, including screen recordings of a hypnotism video, video games and clips of athletes. Much of the film came from screen recordings Caplan made, including of skiers in the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. Caplan an assistant professor at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo uses the film to comb through a number of themes, including utopia, hashtag activism and nationalism.

Whitman is also be one of the artists to have work featured in No Emoji for Ennui, with two of their Super 8 films, HOW MUCH LONGER (ON BALLOONS) and CANT ANSWER YOU ANYMORE (ON FACES) being a part of the exhibition.

Whitman said they became inspired to create these works after the 2010s left him emotionally exhausted due to dealing with the loss of many close friends and family members. They became fascinated with how humans had replaced complex and nuanced emotions like grief or anger with emojis that could not possibly relate to the complexity of those emotions.

The perverseness of that like, Im just gonna click and Okay, now Im like Im sad. Im grieving with you click and just how weird that felt. But normalized, too, Whitman said.

Whitmans work aligns with the title of No Emoji for Ennui as he takes a critical look at the use of emojis and function in our society through their work.

Behind each of those emojis is like a human, you know, a human face, a human emotion and a complexity that isnt addressed in the symbol itself, Whitman said. But in considering how we can find languages and syntax that maybe is even more equitable than text-based writing in some instances.

Published on January 31, 2022 at 11:25 pm

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Tales of the Future: Grimes Takes Us Into Her Technocratic Utopia – Highsnobiety

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Earlier this week, Grimes dropped her new single "Shinigami Eyes" - a club stomper which serves as a prelude to her upcoming space opera album 'Book 1.' In this FRONTPAGE interview, she spins us her vision of the future.

The first time I saw Grimes was, incidentally, the last time she was able to wear high heels.

It was the summer of 2014, and the artist otherwise known as Claire Boucher was cresting the wave of alternative music stardom that began in earnest with the release of her 2012 album Visions. Like pretty much everyone I knew at the time, I adored this record, but I held a special obsession for its lead single Genesis. I would have paid to see her live show for that song alone, so you can imagine my chagrin when she ended her otherwise perfect set at Governors Ball without playing it. I stared at the vacant stage in disbelief attempting to console myself when she suddenly darts back to the microphone and sheepishly blurts Oh my God you guys, Im so sorry. I completely forgot to play Genesis, at which point I burst into tears as she tore into the encore of my dreams.

I regale her with this story and she affirms that she remembers that moment deeply: It was a life-changing event, that moment. I was wearing platform shoes, and on the way running back out I tripped on a light and twisted my ankle so badly that I have never been able to wear high heels again.

Learning that my moment of transcendent joy ruined her future in stilettos is devastating, but she seems to have (quite literally) taken it in stride: Tall shoes are overrated. Its been a process of accepting my height. Whatever everything happens for a reason.

In the few short years since that fateful performance, Grimes has gone from an indie darling little known outside Pitchforks readership to a pop culture juggernaut; a household name who cant even post a TikTok without launching a thousand think pieces. She released two more albums 2015s Art Angels and 2020s Miss Anthropocene to international acclaim and has dropped untold musical goodies in scores of DJ sets and mixes. She entered the NFT game with a multimedia project titled War Nymph Collection Vol 1 and served as a judge on the virtual avatar competition show Alter Ego. She brought a sword to the Met Gala, and she continues to hold the world in thrall with her unparalleled social media presence. And perhaps most important of all, she became a mother, giving birth to X A-12 in 2020.

Which is all to say, its unsurprising to hear that the inspirations behind the next Grimes opus are as varied, ambitious, and cosmically huge as everything else she has going on. Basically, I'm writing this space opera that's a metaphor of my life and also an exploration of an extreme 10,000 years in the future, a sort of optimistic technocratic utopianism, she rattles out effortlessly.

The space opera in question is her upcoming sixth studio album titled Book 1, which will feature the recently released song Player of Games. But weve come together to chat specifically about Shinigami Eyes, an absolute banger which officially dropped this week. Its title is derived from the anime Death Note, wherein the titular eyes grant you the power to see someones lifespan upon looking at them, but its merely a jumping off point in the universe of Grimes album. Without going [too] into the story, she begins, There's a computer that is essentially running a simulation of Earth in something closer to our era, and there's a superintelligence that decides to send a virus into this simulation, for fun. Shinigami's kind of like this AI, because in Death Note, the Shinigami are outside, looking in at the Earth and the people, and being like, We're just going to go into the human world and troll around a bit.

[Its] a metaphor for superintelligence, essentially, she continues. There is no difference between an AI and a god, like what gods or demons are in mythology - its kind of the same thing. One of the really interesting things that is occurring in reality is that the mythology we once imagined can potentially come to fruition by our own hands.

Though Shinigami Eyes is no longer going to be featured on Book 1 (appearing instead on a forthcoming EP titled Fairies Cum First as a prelude to the album), it exemplifies one of the more unique elements of Bouchers current era: working with other people. Somewhat infamously, her early projects were created on Garageband in manic bursts of activity alone in her bedroom. For an artist whose work thus far has been entirely self-produced and released, it was a massive cognitive explosion to open her compositional process up this go-round. Traditionally, I've always just made my own music, she explains. I never worked with anybody else. I was being an egomaniac thinking that I should produce everything. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking.

That's your 20s, she continues. You just need to be a control freak. I was so insane back then, but I wanted to create something that no one could take away from me. I didn't want to have to rely on anybody to have Grimes exist. That's ultimately a good thing.

Boucher readily admits that relinquishing control became something of a godsend during the recording process. She signed to Columbia Records in 2021, and she had the full force of their support during production. It was inevitably thanks to them that we even have Shinigami Eyes. I probably would not have picked this as my single, she laughs. But it's like I tried to remove Oblivion and Genesis from Visions. I'm incapable of understanding what people enjoy. I am at odds with human beings in terms of taste, so I have no capacity to choose a single whatsoever.

I am respectfully inclined to agree that her calculus in measuring a singles appeal may not be the most keen, but on a conceptual level, Boucher has rarely reached such heights of complexity in the messages attached to this era of music. Nor has she ever felt so assured of her purpose. [In terms of] my goal as an artist I used to be confused about what I was trying to do, she says. I was like, Well, I always want to try to do things that someone else hasn't done. But I feel now that my goal is to open the window as much as possible to push things into being conceptualized in the public eye that aren't currently there.

I would like to create science fiction that is more accessible, she continues forcefully. There's a lot of information that needs more accessible funneling into society so that more people can engage with some of the things that are happening in technology. There simply isn't enough utopianism in our culture right now. And I think we have a moral imperative as human beings to start imagining better futures. [Particularly those] with superintelligences, because its going to happen whether we like it or not.

Considering her last album Miss Anthropocene was told from the perspective of a goddess of climate change gleefully heralding our mass extinction, the thematic tone of Book 1 is a complete about-face. Yet its surely no coincidence that her focus gazes on a more livable future a little over a year after becoming a mother. Little X, as she refers to her son, has led to a totemic shift in priorities: It changes everything. Like, a massive, undeniable, absolutely 200 percent change. Holy shit. [Its been] a complete and utter life realignment in every conceivable way the cynicism or darkness I used to have is just gone.

X has also been getting involved in the studio: He comes and hangs out when I make music, she laughs. He has preferences, its kind of crazy. It's like you'll be working on something, and if he likes it, he might try to dance. He's got slightly different taste in music than me, which is literally insane. He really likes funk music, and I'm like, Dude, I do not listen to funk music! He's an interesting guy

(So if not funk music, what has Grimes been listening to lately? The answer may surprise you: I'm so into elevator music. I swear to God. If you just put on elevator music in any scenario, you feel fucking great. Corporate America destroyed elevator music's reputation, and now it's time to reclaim it.)

Theres a clear through line in the wonder of creation in the current worlds of both Grimes and Claire Boucher she discusses her son and the birth of superintelligence as sharing the qualities of coming into the world with a set of personalities that we cant anticipate.

But I imagine I am not alone in finding the dawn of the age of AI beings as hard to conceive in anything but apocalyptic terms. It was what made me so disarmed and extremely comforted by her analysis:

We're at the very beginning of what consciousness can be, of what a thinking machine or a thinking organism can be. We are currently sort of like the only one. We are on a precipice where there might be other beings that can think, that don't think in exactly the same biologically structured way that we do. We're starting to choose our own evolution; that is literally intelligent design. I think that's the most beautiful thing I can possibly imagine.

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Tianwen-1 Mars Orbiter Seen Journeying the Red Planet on the Latest Footage Ahead of Chinese Lunar New Year [VIDEO] – Tech Times

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Ahead of Chinese New Year, China released a new video that shows Tianwen-1 Mars Orbiter flying around the Martian lands.

The country's National Space Administration unveiled this selfie clip as part of the celebration for the Year of the Tiger.

(Photo : WANG ZHAO/AFP via Getty Images)Ahead of Chinese New Year, China released a new video that shows Tianwen-1 Mars Orbiter flying around the Martian lands.

According to a report by Ars Technica,the visual highlights of the video involved the space probe's fuel tanks, solar panels, and main engine. The fact that it was roaming on a foreign planet was not a new task for this machine.

China first sent it to space in July 2020. In February 2021, it successfully entered Mars orbit. The space program recognized the said spacecraft in a special feat. It was the first vehicle that reached the planet's orbit for the first time.

The accomplishment of China put it on the prestigious list of countries that managed to touch down on the red planet using a space robot. To add, Tianwen-1 was not an ordinary invention, to begin with. It came with a rover-lander bundle thattouched the Martian soil last May 2021.

In the next five years, China will integrate space science, technology, and applications while pursuing the new development philosophy, building a new development model, and meeting the requirements for high-quality development," the white paper of the Chinese space program reads.

Related Article: China's Tianwen-1 Mars Rover Snaps First Photo of the Eerie Red Planet Amid Challenging Entry

The Verge reported in another story that China was known for being "fairly opaque" about its space missions. The country only publicized minor information about its flights in space.

The recent selfie video that showed Tianwen-1's activity was not the first clip to be released for the public. Last month, the team captured images of the Martian terrain through the vehicle.

Furthermore, the Mars Orbiter also snapped photos of itself in the same region through a camera attached to another vehicle. The said vehicle was protected by a shell-like feature.

In another report by Tech Times, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft landed on Utopia Planitiaof the Red planet. Upon unloading the Zhurong rover, it faced the dreaded "seven minutes of terror" which the NASA Perseverance managed to survive.

However, it turned out that the Chinese vehicle did not only endure the seven minutes of its battle. Instead, it was recorded to be nine minutes in duration.

The said term was used by NASA to describe a specific point in time wherein a space robot could have difficulties in receiving the radio signals.

Interestingly, several pictures involve other Martian robots. Aside from China, NASA has been taking pictures of the Red Planet using the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers.

The international space agency discovered the ever-changing landscape in Earth's neighboring planet. When NASA sent its Insight lander to survey the "iron" region, it also deployed two satellites. One of them was used to take a selfie of the huge Martian background.

Read Also:Hubble Space Telescope Discovers Three Unusual Galaxies Inspired by 'Star Trek'

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Written by Joseph Henry

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John Kerry wants to get rid of coal. There is a better way to save the planet/Opinion – Deseret News

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Utah is at the forefront of innovation in developing clean energy generation, and its happening at a breakneck pace. From our clean energy utopia in central Utah to educating Utahs future energy workforce, our state is leading the way to a cleaner and more renewable energy future.

For all these advancements, Utah is still largely reliant on coal. More than 70% of our electricity comes from coal-fired power plants located in rural Utah, and it will be at similar numbers for years to come. While coal-generated power fuels our modern life and helps make Utah an attractive place to live and do business, it does come with costs to our climate, air quality and environment.

Completely abandoning the use of fossil fuels is not an option if we want to maintain our modern life, so its imperative we tackle the issue of their pollutants as soon as possible.

So is there a way to use fossil fuels without emitting irresponsible amounts of CO2 into the air? The answer isnt a yes or no its carbon capture. Carbon capture works by doing exactly what it sounds like it captures the CO2 emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels, like coal, where it can then be safely stored thousands of feet underground or used in other capacities.

And the great thing about this technology is it can be retrofitted to existing facilities. Post-combustion carbon capture has the ability to capture over 90% of the CO2 emitted from power plants and industrial facilities, which would otherwise go straight into the air.

As with all energy generation and technologies, carbon capture does have its challenges. The technology isnt new, but it is expensive. According to the Department of Energy, todays carbon capture technologies are so energy-intensive they may decrease the efficiency of a coal power plant by up to 30%, resulting in an 80% price increase in electricity. Additionally, advanced carbon capture technologies, which can help reduce cost, have never been demonstrated at scales large enough for power plants, so there are still some unknowns about the feasibility of such projects.

But these challenges arent insurmountable and can be overcome by businesses researching and investing in better and more affordable ways to capture carbon. Just like solar panels reaching levels of affordability with improvements in technology and manufacturing, carbon capture is expected to be more efficient and less costly as technologies improve. Its also important to remember that we as a state are not interested in exclusively adopting carbon capture to solve our emissions-related problems. Other opportunities are also within reach that we should continue developing including wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, biomass, nuclear and hydrogen.

Utah is not interested in just one of these technologies, were interested in all of them. Were an all-of-the-above energy state, and it takes a combination of these technologies to meet our future energy needs.

We must have a balanced, diverse approach to clean energy and that includes the use of fossil fuels, coupled with carbon capture. Carbon capture could be the breath of fresh air Utah is looking for as we transition our portfolios to include more clean and renewable energies. That diversity will bring security to our grid, and with Utahs commitment to innovation unencumbered by government regulations, we are well-positioned to build a clean and reliable energy future.

Thom Carter is energy adviser to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and executive director of the Utah Office of Energy.

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