Category Archives: Singularity

The supermassive black holes They are generally found at a fixed location at the center of galaxies. However, it happens that some of these cosmic monsters tramp in the universe.

Observing and determining the size of supermassive black holes is not impossible, but it is still very difficult. A team of researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has relied on a new set of simulations to determine the number of massive gravitational singularities roaming the universe. The study findings may have important implications for understanding the formation and development of supermassive black holes.

The mass of the TNSM (Supermassive Black Hole) is somewhat proportional to the mass of the surrounding galactic bulge. This suggests a link between the developments of the singularity and the galaxy.

Read also: This funny supermassive black hole is spinning at 177,000 km/h

TNSM is a different phenomenon from a simple black hole. The two objects operate according to different logic, and therefore are not born the same way. A stellar-mass black hole forms from the collapse of the core of a massive star. However, the mechanism does not explain the existence of supermassive gravitational singularities that are 55 times the mass of the Sun.

TNSM will be the result of accretion of stars, gas and dust, and mergers with other black holes. This set of processes can be amplified at the level of galactic nuclei, especially in the event of a collision between galaxies. However, the time scale in the universe is very different from our time scale. A galaxy collision can take a long time. This provides a potential window for integration disorder. The process can be delayed or even prevented altogether. Wandering supermassive black holes can arise in this way.

Read also: What if Planet Nine was a small black hole?

The Romulus Cosmic Simulator at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has been called to calculate the number of galactic collisions that may have occurred in the universe. By doing so, the astronomers wanted to know how many TNSMs roaming the universe. Galaxies similar in mass to the Milky Way host an average of 12 supermassive black holes, which are typically found on the periphery of the galactic halo and far from the center. , note the research authors. Note that an article detailing the new study was published in the Journal of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society last March.

In the early universe, about two billion years after the Big Bang, Romulus showed that the wandering TNSM was more numerous and brighter than the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies. This means that massive wandering singularities will produce most of the light we can observe around TNSMs from galactic cores.

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There are supermassive black holes roaming the universe - Persia Digest

CRISPR gene editing has had a big decade. The technology, which earned two of its discovers a Nobel Prize in 2020, can target and edit genes more easily than its predecessors. Still, as tantalizing (and controversial) as the technologys been over the years, its mostly been developed in the lab.

Thats changing now as a growing number of clinical trials are beginning to test gene therapies in humans.

Early CRISPR trials have focused on hereditary blindness and diseases of the blood, including cancer, sickle cell anemia, and beta thalassemia.

Although cutting-edge, the therapies can be costly and intense. In one trial for sickle cell anemia, doctors remove cells from the body, edit them in a dish, and then infuse them back into the patient. In another trial, practitioners inject the gene editing system directly into target tissues in the eye.

Such approaches wont work as readily for other diseases. So researchers and doctors are looking for a general delivery method, like any other medication. Now, a clinical trial from University College London (UCL) has taken a step in that direction.

Participants in the trial suffer from a condition called hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis, in which a mutated gene produces a malformed protein (transthyretin) that builds up in and damages the heart and nerves. The disease is eventually fatal.

Patients received a single infusion of a CRISPR-based therapy into their bloodstream. Blood carried the therapy to the liver, where it switched off the mutated gene and curtailed production of the errant protein. Though the Phase 1 trial was small, the approach had strong results relative to existing options. And it hints at the possibility other genetic diseases may be treated in a similar fashion in the future.

The University of California, Berkeleys Jennifer Doudna, who shared the Nobel Prize for CRISPR, cofounded Intellia, the company that, alongside fellow biotech company Regeneron, developed the treatment (NTLA-2001) used in the UCL trial.

This is a major milestone for patients, Doudna said. While these are early data, they show us that we can overcome one of the biggest challenges with applying CRISPR clinically so far, which is being able to deliver it systemically and get it to the right place.

The therapy is made up of three parts. A tiny bubble of fat, called a lipid nanoparticle, carries a payload of CRISPR machinery: a strand of guide RNA and a sequence of mRNA coding for the Cas9 protein.

Billions of these CRISPR-carrying nanoparticles are infused into the bloodstream, making their way to the liver, the source of the dysfunctional protein. The mRNA instructs the cells to produce the Cas9 protein (CRISPRs genetic scissors) which then links up with the guide RNA, seeks out the target gene, and snips it.

The cell repairs the DNA at the site of the break, but imperfectly, switching the gene off and shutting down production of the problematic protein.

Interim trial results, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine last weekend, were very encouraging. The trials six patients, who received either a low or high dose, reported no serious side effects. Meanwhile, production of the target protein declined by up to 96 percent (and an average of 87 percent) in those given the high dose.

The disease, which affects some 50,000 people worldwide, was untreatable until recently.

Existing drugs, approved by the FDA in 2018, silence the mRNA that produces the malformed thyretin protein, instead of altering its gene. They reduce protein production some 80 percent and keep people alive longer, but dont work for everyone and require ongoing treatment.

The CRISPR approach, if successful, would be a one-time treatment. That is, by targeting the genes themselves, the protein is permanently silenced.

Patrick Doherty, a trial participant, told NPR he jumped at the opportunity.

Doherty, an avid trekker and hiker, was diagnosed with transthyretin amyloidosiswhich had killed his fatherafter noticing symptoms, like tingling fingers and toes and breathlessness on walks.

Its [a] terrible prognosis, he said. This is a condition that deteriorates very rapidly. Its just dreadful.

Doherty started feeling better a few weeks after the treatment and said improvements have continued.

A one-hit wonder, he called it. A two-hour process, and thats it for the rest of your life.

Although the results are promising, theres reason to temper expectations.

The trial, as noted was small, and focused on safety. Future work will further test safety and efficacy in larger groups, whichas is apparent from recent experience with covidcan reveal rare side effects or prove disappointing despite early success.

Researchers will likely also look out for off-target snips in the liver or other cells. A benefit of this approach, however, is the cells break down the mRNA after theyve made the Cas9 protein. In other words, the gene-editing system doesnt persist long.

It also remains to be seen whether the approach would work as well in other diseases. The liver was a prime target for the trial because it greedily soaks up foreign substances. Other organs and tissues may not be as amenable to a general infusion of the therapy.

Finally, the treatment may come with a hefty price tag, perhaps running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars according to Bloomergs Sam Fazeli.

Not one person in my field is doing a victory lap, even around their laboratory bench,Fyodor Urnov, a University of California, Berkeley gene editing expert, told US Today. Were all slightly blue because were all holding our breath.

If the trial does prove successful, however, researchers will want to know if they can reach any organ or target tissue with a general infusion. And can genes also be edited in vivo? Instead of merely knocking out a faulty gene, can we safely correct it?

In the future, when the kinks have been worked out and the science more thoroughly proven, Urnov said, gene editing could help millions of people around the world with genetic conditions. And this trial, it seems, is a notable step in that direction.

Image Credit: NIH

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Breakthrough CRISPR Gene Therapy Could Be a 'One and Done' Injection - Singularity Hub

Monday Philips Ekpe

I accepted this role for three major reasons. First, the author is well known to me as someone who is focused, passionate and thorough. Second, even though this book is largely set in the Nigeria of 2006, its thematic immediacy or relevance is clearly not in doubt. And, third, having spent over three decades working in the media and also now teaching same, I humbly say that I am very much at home with the contents.

Prefaced with quotations from the eternal words of Jesus Christ and one of the enduring expressions of the 17th Century English thinker, Thomas Hobbes, The Singularity Clause makes no pretence about the rationale for its presentations, arguments and submissions. In one breath, the reader sees divine guidance and dictates in the affairs of mortals. At the same time, he or she like Hobbes is bound to make enquiries that relate to the real reasons for governments, their indispensability or otherwise to our corporate survival, the appropriate modes of interactions and transactions between governments and the populace, the true source of authority, and the very essence of political power.

Sincerely, the first time I saw the title of this book, my mind went to syntax, the branch of linguistics which bothers itself with how words are brought together to construct excellent phrases, clauses and sentences. Remember what your primary school teacher taught you about singular nouns, how they must go with fitting verbs for a clause or sentence to make sense? Luckily, two dictionary definitions of singularity came to my rescue. One: unusual or distinctive manner or behaviour (peculiarity). Two: a point or region of infinite mass density at which space and time are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and which is held to be the final state of matter falling into a black hole. The latter depiction of the word, singularity, especially, is indeed ominous.

If you are eager to further break down the singularity riddle, you may go straight to Chapter 4 of Book One, The Quest for Power. And just in case you need a whetting of your appetite, listen to this statement by, you guessed right, Nicolo Machiavelli in his classic, The Prince, as captured in this section. According to him, The prince ought to read history and study the actions of eminent men, see how they acted in warfare, examine the causes of their victories and defeats in order to imitate the former and avoid the latter. A noble counsel, you may say, but then how many Nigerian leaders at all levels of government today are sober enough to engage themselves with such non-mundane matters? What we see oftentimes are men and women in official positions who act as if the future does not exist; as if they hold special keys that determine fate; as if the privileges of the moment will never end; as if they can decide what the people would do with their bungled legacies tomorrow. In short, as if they have received assurances from the Almighty that they will escape from the consequences of deliberate abuse of public trust.

Thankfully, however, the writers intention is not to frighten his readers or paint a picture of despair and irredeemable collective destruction. Rather, he provides in lucid language, informed accounts of some events that threatened the very foundations of the then nascent Nigerian democracy, notably the failed efforts of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to prolong his stay in office.

The core strengths of this treatise include adequate illustrations from the various parts of the country, spotlight on equally nationally spread personalities, painstakingly researched facts, appropriately acknowledged referencing, and well blended and applied quotes. Above all, this book is written in liquid prose instead of the rigid style that subject matters of this nature are often presented in. All these attributes make The Singularity Clause a compelling read. A fast reader can actually be through with the 105-page publication in one or two hours. In a world that is increasingly a victim of self-inflicted rush, the brevity and compact expressiveness demonstrated here are, in my opinion, among its key selling points.

The ten chapters here, each with a catchy title, are concise and frank. The Human Society that opens the book draws its validity from the creation story as recorded in the Holy Bible. Nigerias perennial monster called corruption appears here alongside a domineering figure in the Book of Genesis named Nimrod. The Need for Good Governance looks at what critics label as the fallacy upon which our constitution stands, that is, We the people Dr. Enyioko is of the view that irresponsible or incompetent administrations inevitably breed chaos. Most parts of the country are now theatres of fear or violence or both.

But while the present government should not bear the whole blame for this season of anomie, excuses are also not acceptable at this point. Calls for separation are growing louder and the author seems to directly address the ethic agitators in our midst. As he puts it, For the pro-balkanization groups, there are no agreed lines on how to split Nigeria. Some would prefer a rip along religious lines, while others along ethnic or economically homogenous lines. This hope would be kept alive from generation to generation without realization for the pro-dismemberment groups, and simultaneously forge a close band of unity in the majority of citizens, who have come to see a great strength in the dictum, unity in diversity. Lovers of One Nigeria may now shout, Amen! Those words written many years ago have become even more critical now.

Democratic Institutions starts with 10 rhetorical questions and proceeds to matters relating to constitutional amendment. The Essence of Party Politics presents a historical run from pre-independence Nigeria to contemporary times. Readers can also obtain useful information about the functions of political parties. Ideology in Perspective begins with five profound rhetorical questions and moves on to shed light on Dr. Enyiokos conviction that any politics rooted in ideologies naturally proceeds with the productive involvement of the citizenry. He is certain that when the people participate fully on the basis of their political philosophies, in his words, The epoch of charlatans, political nitwits and vampires involvement in politics strictly for what they would get out of the system, would be gone forever. This sounds like a very tall dream to me. The poser is, when will that day come? At the moment, from what the eyes of most Nigerians can see, it will take a miracle to achieve a reversal of the current downward spiral of the moral fabric of our longsuffering polity.

The chapter titled, Funding provides an insight into legitimate and surer ways political parties can fund their programmes and also thrive. Electoral Umpire x-rays the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which was led by Prof. Maurice Iwu at the time. The Electorate visualises the power possessed by the voting public beyond balloting. The writer thinks that even after elections, people can force the government to address their grievances through protests, for instance. The role of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria PLC (Transcorp) in Obasanjos plot for a third term in power also appears here. Against decorum, good judgement and the codes of the private sector, some of its leading actors listed in this section pulled their clouts and resources together in support of the inglorious agenda. Similarly, there is a roll call of the National Assembly members belonging to the 2007 Movement who withstood that conspiracy.

The last chapter, aptly captioned Profiling Result Oriented Politicians, is garnished with quotes from Robert Greenes The 48 Laws of Power. It is the authors hall of national models that parades former governors, senators, other politicians, technocrats and business titans. I wonder if Dr. Enyioko is still proud of all of them 15 years after.

My little quarrel with this book borders on the structure. Two quick examples will suffice. One, I do not see the need to further break this modest volume into three books. If the author had allowed the work to flow as a long essay, the purpose would still have been accomplished. This particular exercise is, therefore, at best, redundant. Two, after earning a place on the front cover, The Transcorp Phenomenon is brutally buried in Chapter Five of Book Two and denied a well-deserved prominence. That is unfair.

I must quickly add that none of these perceived flaws robs The Singularity Clause of its importance and pertinence. At a time when centrifugal forces are on the loose in our beloved country, nationalist efforts like this one should be appreciated and promoted.

The author is precise about his mission as declared in the Introduction: The Singularity Clause is a compass to help politicians navigate through the murky waters of Nigerian politics. It is a self-help manual that will arm its readers with the requisite theoretical knowledge and practical experience needed to compete robustly. I believe he has kept faith with that goal.

Dr Ekpe read this review of the book, The Singularity Clause: Obasanjos 3rd Term, the Transcorp Phenomenon & Deep Political Discourse, written by Dr. Elvis C. Enyioko, at Merit House, Maitama, Abuja, on June 24, 2021

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A COMPASS FOR THE MURKY WATERS OF POLITICS - THISDAY Newspapers

This was sent tothe Board of Education and the superintendent of schools, East Lyme Public Schools.

I'm a retired educator. I was a teacher, NYC,Hartford, Director of Pupil Services, Assistant Superintendent, West Hartford Public Schools, Interim Superintendent ,Hartford ,Waterbury and Bloomfield.

I was out of town in April when you approved your "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategic Plan." I just recently received a copy and am quite dismayed.

You cite your core values as countering racism, advancing diversity, promoting equity and fostering inclusion. You plan to use DEI teams to achieve these goals.

As I read the document my eye was drawn to one of the glossary terms, Multiculturalism. "Multiculturalism within individuals is the degree to which they know, identify with and internalize more than one culture." That should be your end game.That is E Pluribus Unum. That is unity and the singularity of humanity that is Martin Luther King Jr.'s way.

The methodologies proposed therein will not lead to multiculturalism. Rather, they will lead to races being separate but equal. They dictate that we must have a member of each cohort represented because only that person can identify and represent that group. That's not multiculturalism; and who is that single person who is like all those in that diverse cohort?

The Constitutional protections that you must endow on all children are Equal Opportunity and Equal Treatment. Are these a problem in East Lyme? Do you believe you'regoing to find that we are exclusive and that we treat children inappropriately because of race, creed or color?

You have a second major goal to "develop students' capacity as independent thinkers."

Given the direction you're going in, part of the instruction will include demonizing the white race and the democratic process, under the heading of "white supremacy." How do you expect to get to unity through blame, based on questionable data? Are you willing to trade Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Redemption" for "Reparations"? When you deal with equity in the classroom, what will you do when the argument is made that as long as there are children who are not on goal that you cannot offer AP courses because it's giving more to the privileged few?

The arguments made by this group have their underpinnings starting in the '70s by the Black Panther Movement, the Critical Race Theorists movement by the Nationalist movement and, more recently, BLM. All of these groups have based their positions on anger and resentment and called for the separation of the races. At the last board meeting I shared with you direct quotes showing this animus.

I plead with you, don't go forward with this process. You are in loco parentis from 9 to 3, at such time all of our children become your children. The decisions you make in this area are not just as Board members, they are as parents. Please pause, be absolutely sure you understand not only the rock going into the water but the ripples that will hit the shores of this community and country. You need to be sure that you believe that this is what you would teach your child in your home and that you would expect your church to teach. As an educator and a parent, I can't believe that you wouldchoose separate but equal, rather than we are all God's children. That we are not all personally responsible for our actions. That we can hide behind a global term called race as the factor that defines us.

I beg you, please rethink your position on this matter, pause, be sure you know everything you need to know before moving forward on this course.

Matthew Borrelli resides in Niantic.

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Pause and beware of 'separate but equal' - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

Maybe I should start again? I've fudged it.

I got off to a great start though. I switched Earth to an entirely plant-based diet and felt very happy with myself, but then I sort of let a nuclear war wipe half the population out. I went a bit Thanos. And then, whoops, I thought I'd see what happened if I let a vicious group of people unleash a virus on what was left of the world, and well, total extinction apparently.

Shame! Alien contact was just around the corner. The prun horse-people, more advanced than the humans, were already on their way. But when they arrived there were no humans there to meet. How embarrassing! Mind you it's probably for the best. We'd probably have tried to put saddles on them.

Don't panic, I'm not really in charge of Earth. Can you imagine? Vegan burgers and nuclear war. No, no, I'm not in charge of Earth.

I'm actually in charge of the galaxy!

I'm some kind of benevolent god-thing in a game called The Fermi Paradox. It's my job to interfere, which I love, in the development of various civilisations around the galaxy. There are loads of them, not just humans. I've had strange worm-people; dinosaur-people; horse-people; even a kind of overgrown evil butterfly-people. They were a bad sort though so I, um, cashed them in.

And by "cashed" I mean "made extinct", but hear me out! It was a pretty bad situation. I was either going to lose 90 percent of the population and not get anything for it, or I could lose them all and get something for it. And the "something" I wanted was Synthesis.

Synthesis is gold in the game. It is the game's currency, the game's resource, and therefore the game's limiter. What you can choose for a civilisation to do at a major development point in their history depends on how much Synthesis you have. Take switching to a plant-based diet for example: it's a big move! It's a big, positive move, and these are usually the ones that require a lot of Synthesis to push through. And you don't come by a lot of Synthesis easily.

Synthesis is generated each kind of turn. An amount of time elapses (it never really says how long) between these turns, and then things that look like dandelion heads appear on your map of the galaxy (or solar system). They are Synthesis points, and when you click on one, it banks it, telling you a bit of story relevant to the star system you're near in the process. Banking Synthesis this way earns you one point per turn, so when you consider some of the biggest choices, like world peace, can cost upwards of 50 Synthesis, you begin to appreciate how pricey these decisions can be.

You can earn Synthesis in bulk, though. You can earn it for making horrid decisions like letting an entire civilisation die. I got 40 Synthesis for wiping out those butterfly people, and for letting the humans die - real earners! And those points I used elsewhere. Sacrificing a civilisation for another one's gain, then, is a genuine tactic in the game. Think about it like the dinosaurs being wiped out. That was the galaxy-god banking a bit of Synthesis for the humans! What? We can always build Jurassic Park down the line!

Those big-spends are the game's big moments, presented as multiple-choice dilemmas when development milestones occur. Of the three choices, usually one costs a lot of Synthesis (the best option), one costs nothing (the OK option), and one earns you a lump of Synthesis (the horrid option). These decisions also have icons next to them which represent the effect they will have on a handful of important gauges. These are technological development, population, resource scarcity, potential war casualties, and utopia/dystopia.

These gauges are always moving as time elapses, but you can bump them one way or another either during the big development moments, or turn-to-turn by picking Synthesis points with their relevant icons on (and in either positive or negative form). Pick a negative population Synthesis and maybe your civilisation develops and distributes contraception, for example.

To recap a bit: each turn you'll choose between banking a Synthesis point, or picking a Synthesis with an icon on to affect a gauge in some way (and not bank the point). Then, at various milestones (fill the technological development gauge and you will enter a new era) you'll make big decisions.

It's a fascinating idea, in no small part because many of the dilemmas you face are pertinent to the situation our own civilisation is in right now: challenges like inequality, climate change, conflict, and more. Solving them in one fell swoop is incredibly empowering. But there are further-reaching ideas, too, things like space exploration and beyond. I don't know what happens when civilisations collide, because I haven't got that far yet, but that's definitely where the game is headed. The goal is to get four separate civilisations to the Singularity Age. I haven't managed it with one.

What I hope this Early Access process brings, besides needed polish and some presentation flair (it's a bit functional, a bit still - there's not much animation - and a bit sluggish to respond) is more imagination. It's not necessarily lacking at the moment but it's limited, both in the amount of situations there are to challenge civilisations with, and the humanness of them. By that I mean the situations predominantly seem to be ones a human civilisation has faced or will face. Are they really applicable to all developed species in a galaxy? I know it's tricky to think outside of that box, given we are human, but I would love The Fermi Paradox to try.

Appropriately, though, there's time. And I am excited by the recent announcement that Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 writers Brian Mitsoda and Cara Ellison will join the project. They are certainly imaginative, and presumably they will help the game do exactly that: think differently. If they can, The Fermi Paradox could be great.

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Oops I let the humans die: being god of the galaxy in The Fermi Paradox is tricky - Eurogamer.net

PASTELS AND PEDOPHILES Inside the Mind of QAnonBy Mia Bloom and Sophie Moskalenko

A cult. A singularity. An amorphous blob. These are just a few ways researchers have described QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory that has morphed into a movement so robust that two acolytes now hold seats in Congress and dozens if not hundreds more participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection. While frustrating for people in the business of using words to convey precise meaning, the fact that QAnon defies easy definition is exactly what makes it so powerful.

A recent poll found that 15 percent of Americans believe there is a cabal of liberal elites who worship Satan and traffic children for sex and blood. This is QAnons core tenet, but the movement contains multitudes. Adherents believe Donald J. Trump is battling the cabal, which, depending on whom you ask, may or may not comprise members of a reptilian alien race disguised as humans. Many followers also embrace conspiracy theories about Covid-19, Black Lives Matter, vaccines and the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. Skepticism and bigotry unite these disparate theories; authority, expertise and otherness are always suspect.

In Pastels and Pedophiles, Mia Bloom and Sophie Moskalenko, both experts on extremist radicalism, offer their own description of this bizarre new feature of American life. We consider QAnon to be like a sticky ball, rolling down a hill, they write. It picks up other conspiracies and their supporters along the way growing ever larger over time. Believers can cherry-pick ideas to suit their needs.

Bloom and Moskalenko seek to understand why people believe QAnons outlandish notions in defiance of all knowledge and reason. Pastels and Pedophiles is at its strongest when it drills down on this front, showing that QAnon offers people a false sense of agency and community in an uncertain world. Believers collectively analyze crumbs of cryptic information. The outcome of this deciphering is preordained, but thats not the point: When they reach conclusions, followers feel smart, superior and united. Particularly for people who are lonely or disenchanted with their lives, the emotional benefit of believing in QAnon is arguably more important than the dogma itself. The same goes for people introduced to QAnon through the hashtag #SavetheChildren, which the movement co-opted in 2020. New supporters were told that spreading a message about the threat of pedophilia made them righteous crusaders.

Where Pastels and Pedophiles stumbles is on matters of race and gender. The authors dance around the intersections of QAnon and white supremacy, never tackling them in earnest. They note that most QAnon believers arrested for storming the Capitol came from battleground states, but they dont discuss how racial identity may have informed the participants psychological distress over changing culture and eroding social norms. (The Jan. 6 insurrectionists were overwhelmingly white.) Meanwhile, the authors paint a terrifying picture of how suburban white women have pulled QAnon from the internets shadowy corners into pastel-hued Instagram squares but their description of what motivates QAmoms is underdeveloped. They suggest some combination of innate altruism and motherly instincts, along with a desire to make social activism easy: Women who did not feel comfortable with political topics like Black Lives Matter could engage with strangers online without triggering uncomfortable exchanges. Who would object to saving the children? But for many women, the children in question arent literal they are a symbol, a disembodied idea of innocence and goodness. The book leaves dangling threads about white womens self-interest masquerading as selflessness; the weaponization of their comfort; and what QAmoms notion of innocence and goodness might really mean.

Pastels and Pedophiles is a primer on one of the knottiest subjects of our time, and it will surely be helpful to uninitiated readers. But the sticky ball whose roll is shaking America has complex engineering. Only with a complete blueprint can we hope to combat it.

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Confronting the Threat of QAnon - The New York Times

The Standard Model of the birth of the Universe is usually referred to as the Big Bang. Essentially, everything in existence expanded out of an infinitesimally small point, called a Singularity, with unfathomable energy. From that beginning the Universe, as we know it, exploded into being following the natural laws of Nature. When and how did scientists come up with that idea?

Based on their imaginations and physical environments, people in myriad cultures and religions and philosophies throughout history invented various creative explanations for how the Universe began. Is the current science based explanation any different and if so how?

That the Universe began from a singularity is a relatively new deduction. Since the time when scientists began to speculate on what the environment beyond Earth really was, they postulated the Universe was in a Steady State or Static State, existing from infinity past to infinity future and not changing in any dramatic way. It was Edwin Hubble in 1929 who was first to notice an odd aspect to distant galaxies. The light from those distant galaxies (there are billions of galaxies each composed of billions of stars which Hubble is also credited with unveiling) was shifted toward the red end of the spectrum. This solid science indicates the light source is moving away from us, and the greater the shift, the faster the object is receding and the farther away it is.

Since that initial realization, astrophysicists and astronomers have fine-tuned the measurements of this phenomena until there is no doubt that nearly all galaxies are moving away from each other in ever increasing velocity as if in the aftermath of an explosion. If we run the clock backwards in time, the closer the galaxies are to each other until reaching the time when everything was compressed into a point of infinite energy. (What about solid stuff like atoms? They are bits of compressed energy as Einstein showed and nuclear weapons prove.)

The evidence for the Standard Model is substantial, but it is not perfect. In order for the Universe to begin that way, the equations indicate there had to have been a period of time very early on, which astrophysics call Inflation, when the Universe was expanding faster than the speed of light. Yet this violates the current understanding of the laws of Nature. And the current mathematical equations fail to describe what conditions were like at time zero.

Before Einsteins revolutionary E=MC2, scientists thought that space contained some sort of tangible substance they called ether. Part of their reasoning was that waves like water or sound waves require something to move through. Water waves require water and sound waves require a substance like air. But if there was nothing in space (a vacuum), then they believed light could not traverse it because light also acts like a wave. Without getting too technical, Einsteins breakthrough eliminated the need for a substance in space because light can also act like particles and can pass through a vacuum.

It is important to note that scientists generally accept the Standard Model because, even though it has issues, the evidence for it is substantial. But is there any other possibility? The following is one other, but in order for it to work we have to rejuvenate the ether that was rejected after Einsteins work. But this ether is not a substance as we think of a substance but rather merely an underlying condition of probabilities, which we can call a field for simplicity sake. In this view, the entire Universe did not start from a massive expansion from an infinitely small point, but from a tiny fluctuation in this field of probabilities, something like a seed planted in a field of soil. So from and within this field, then, this tiny fluctuation grew exponentially gaining energy and eventually expanding outward into the Universe, as it exists today. This underlying field is theoretical, but it could explain such oddities as to why the expansion of the Universe is not slowing down but speeding up and why most of the energy and matter in the Universe is unaccounted for by the Standard Model. It could explain virtual particles, strange bits of energy that pop in and out of existence. Where do they come from and where do they go when they are not here? It could explain dark energy and dark matter, which are mysterious substances that are suspected only by their effects on ordinary matter.

So the Big Bang or the Little Pop? Several new scientific initiatives are underway to glean more information from the Cosmos. Scientists will let the evidence speak for itself and like scientific inquiry in most other instances, will likely reveal more questions than it answers.

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Did the universe begin with a big bang or a little pop? - Herald Review

There are tens of billions of galaxies in the universe, each with tens of billions of stars. Many stars have planets, and a healthy fraction of those are rocky and can sustain liquid water on their surfaces (like Earth). Even frozen moons circling frigid gas giants generate and retain enough energy to heat huge subsurface oceans.

Meanwhile, the ingredients for life as we know it are everywhere. Four of the six most abundant elements in the universecarbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogenalso happen to be crucial players in biochemistry. Weve even spotted complex organic molecules on asteroids, comets, and in interstellar clouds of gas.

In short, the more we learn about the universe, the more likely it seems that life in its simplest forms ought to be somewhat common. And if simple life is common and even a small fraction of life-sustaining planets develops a technological civilization, there ought to be many such civilizations in the galaxy. Sowhere is everybody?

Though attributed to famed physicist, Enrico Fermi, who reportedly posed the question at lunch in 1950, other researchers dug out the implications in published works after he died.

The thinking goes like this: If there are other technological, spacefaring civilizations in the universe, they will eventually develop interstellar travel and settle nearby stars. Those societies will settle new stars, and in the fullness of cosmological time, theyll hop from system to system until theyve settled the whole galaxy.

The Milky Way is around 13.6 billion years old, but we dont see evidence of any other technological civilizations in our neighborhood. So what gives?

Theres been no shortage of speculative answers to that question. But some of the earliest arguments took umbrage at the claim theres been enough time. That is, it would take a very, very long while to build interstellar spacecraft and travel the vast, empty spaces between stars.

The galaxy isnt old enough to have been fully settled yetor is it?

According to a recent addition to the Fermi debate, space and speed are no barrier to galactic empireeven without fancy tech like warp drives.

A 2019 paper, authored by Penn State and University of Rochester astronomers Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback,Adam Frank,Jason Wright, andCaleb Scharf, laid out an intricate model of galactic settlement, including the motion of stars, the fraction of habitable systems, the speed and range of ships, and other factors.

Now, in a new research note, the team present a visualization of just what that process might look like in action.

The simulation shows a significant fraction of a galaxy can be settled in a relatively short period of time, even with ships traveling no faster than the Voyager spacecraft. Further, the center of the galaxy could be a cosmic cantina thatd make even George Lucas blush.

The researchers found a key to speed was the motion of the stars themselves. Whereas older simulations relied on static configurations of stars, the galaxy is anything but stationary. Stars are in constant motion relative to the galactic center and each other.

In the simulation, ships (white cubes) in settled star systems (magenta spheres) wait for new systems (white points) to pass within their limited range (around 10 light-years) before launching a mission. Not all systems have habitable planets, and some that are habitable turn out to be unsettleable upon arrival (an outcome the researchers dub the Aurora effect after Kim Stanley Robinsons novel Aurora). And finally, settlement ships launch no more frequently than every 100,000 years.

These are all quite conservative assumptionsespecially the frequency of launchesand they dont rely on some future (possibly fantastical) propulsion technology.

This means were not talking about a rapidly or aggressively expanding species, and theres no warp drive or anything, Wright told Gizmodo.

Theres just ships that do things we could actually manage to do with something like technology we can design today, perhaps fast ships using solar sails powered by giant lasers, or just very long-lived ships that can make journeys of 100,000 years running on ordinary rockets and gravitational slingshots from giant planets.

And yet, despite all this, the timescale covered by the simulation is just a billion years, under 10 percent the age of the galaxy. Not only does leveraging star motion accelerate the process, so too does the density of starsnote the explosive exponential growth in the center of the galaxy (a place they suggest is ripe for SETIs attention).

How does the team account for the fact weve not found evidence of other technological civilizations yet?

In their 2019 paper, they explored a wide range of possible scenarios, given the model. The recently released simulation is only one. If the parameters are tweakedfor example, the fraction of settleable worlds is especially lowthe outcomes may look different, including scenarios where the galaxy is empty. Likewise, they note that in fully settled galaxies, the finite lifetime of civilizations may result in densely populated neighborhoods surrounded by population voids.

This range of possibilities is notable. A good model helps frame the debate, but many unknowns remain. Which is, of course, why the Fermi paradox is fun. Absent hard evidence, its fertile ground for speculation. Our knowledge of the galaxy is far from complete.

Still, like the stars, science isnt stationary. Unknowns in Fermis day are now on firmer footing. We know many star systems have planets resembling Earth and have evidence that liquid water may not be so rare.

NASAs Perseverance rover is preparing to drill into Martian soil in search of life. The James Webb Space Telescope will study exoplanet atmospheres for biosignatures. And NASA plans to send probes to promising outer-solar-system moons.

Finding even a few microbes in another part of our own solar system would be ground-shaking. If life has occurred more than once around the same starwhat are the odds its never arisen anywhere else?

More complicated are questions of how often simple life gives rise to technological civilizations, whether such cultures would be motivated and capable of settling other stars, and if they persist long enough to spread across an entire galaxy.

Still, every year, as we reach further into our solar system and look deeper into the universe, the answer to Fermis famous question gets a little bit clearer.

Image Credit: Jason T. Wright,Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback,Adam Frank, andCaleb Scharf / The American Astronomical Society

Excerpt from:

Fermi Paradox: Here's What an Alien Civilization Settling the Galaxy Looks Like - Singularity Hub

I dont like to think about the past too much, Wolfgang Puck confesses early in the Disney+ documentary Wolfgang, a red flag that were not going to encounter much in the way of intense self-scrutiny in the scant 78 minutes that follow. A fairly vapid and shallow affair, even by the low standards of the celebrity bio-doc subgenre, Wolfgang provides copious archival montages of the first celebrity chef (Julia Child apparently didnt count), but precious little understanding of what actually makes him tick.

Pucks early years are skimmed, aside from an extended anecdote about losing his first kitchen job, told in great detail and illustrated with re-enactment footage, so we fully understand this as The Story That Defines Him. The real juice here is Chef Wolfgangs rise to fame, and much of that material is fascinating: how the open kitchen design of his Spago restaurant elevated the chef from a blue-collar job to a celebrity, how his staff read Hollywood trade papers to best assess who got the premium tables, how instrumental he was to the development of fusion cooking.

Some much-needed tension is provided by Patrick Terrail, the owner of Ma Maison (Pucks first kitchen of note), as he and his chef maintain conflicting accounts of how much credit Puck deserved for that restaurants success. But most of the picture hums along with the singularity of purpose of an infomercial, and even its coverage of Pucks flaws he spread himself too thin, he was an absentee father and husband have the ring of a job applicants description of their biggest flaw: that they just work too hard, and care too much.

Wolfgang is directed by David Gelb, who all but defined the celebrity chef documentary with Jiro Dreams of Sushi. He hits many of the same notes; the food photography is delectable, and Puck is full of bite-size wisdom like We have to have focus in life and If you believe in something, you have to follow your dreams. But Wolfgang ultimately plays like exactly what it is: Jiro Disney-fied, and thus drained of its nuance, complexity and interrogation.

WolfgangNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. Watch on Disney+.

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Wolfgang Review: Light as a Souffl, and About as Substantial - The New York Times

ST. LOUIS -- As we watched Simone Biles, it felt like we were part of a pilgrimage.

We'd traveled to Missouri for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials, a huge crowd of strangers now bonded by this collective coming-together. We were yearning to witness greatness, but we also felt protective of her, invested in her. All of us knew, without needing to verbalize it, this was likely our last chance to see her competing in the flesh.

So when Simone Biles, during her balance beam routine, wobbled twice, then hopped to the floor in disgust, thousands of people inside The Dome at America's Center let loose an audible gasp.

It was an instinctive, but unified sound -- part surprise, part concern. As Biles climbed back on the beam to finish her routine, I realized it was also a noise I hadn't heard in more than a year. All 24,000 of us were joined together in collective emotion, and we were reacting to something happening right in front of us, something we could bear witness to without the technological magic of fiber optic cables or high-definition cameras.

In that moment, we got to feel anxious together instead of alone.

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We could tell, even from several hundred feet away, that Biles was trying not to cry as her routine ended. After she nailed her dismount and forced herself to smile as she saluted to the judges, she marched toward her backpack in steely silence, her competitors and coaches wisely giving her the space she needed without a word being spoken. Biles' uncharacteristic wobble on the beam meant very little in the grand scheme of the competition. She'd easily win the women's all-around, earning a spot on the U.S. Olympic team for the second time, and she remains an overwhelming favorite to capture multiple gold medals in Tokyo next month. But it was clear, at least for one night, that holding oneself to standards once inconceivable in the world of gymnastics can be, at times, onerous.

I peeked to my left and tried to study the face of my 11-year-old daughter, Molly, who had inspired our personal version of this pilgrimage. By the time their kids reach a certain age, most parents, myself included, believe they can correctly interpret their kid's emotions with little more than a glance. But that parental art has understandably become more challenging in COVID times, with faces frequently obscured by masks. This time, Molly's eyes gave little away.

"I think Simone is just frustrated," I said, trying to offer reassurance.

"Yeah, I just feel bad for her," she replied. She said little else.

Molly and I had flown down from Maryland, just the two of us, finally going on the adventure we'd vowed to take more than a year ago, before the world unraveled, the trials and the Olympics were postponed, before school took place on a computer screen in her bedroom and before her own gymnastics team, and the friendships that came with it, were paused indefinitely. Seeing Simone was supposed to be a 10th birthday present, a conscious effort by me to instill an admittedly cheesy, yet entirely sincere family philosophy that experiences are invaluable, and that they will live on long after material things -- like the iPhone she wanted -- end up buried in a landfill.

A year later, it felt even more important to make the trip -- in large part because Biles, her favorite gymnast, is likely to retire from competitive gymnastics after Tokyo. But it was more than that.

I had promised to take her to see Biles on the day she turned 10, in December of 2019.

Now she was 11, and speeding toward 12. That past year had been a blur. Nothing would feel truly normal again until that promise was fulfilled.

IT IS ADMITTEDLY difficult to find the right words that describe what it is like to watch Simone Biles perform a tumbling pass in person. Television shots and YouTube clips are the necessary, insufficient vessels the sport of gymnastics has to share her talent to the world, but what becomes clear after seeing her in person is how impossible it is, digitally, to convey scale.

Remove the box you are used to seeing her soar through, and suddenly the air around her -- and her ability to travel through it, often inverted -- seems limitless. To watch her on television is to marvel at the limits of athletic excellence. If you could see her, instead, do a double layout with a half twist across your living room, watch her feet as they nearly brush your ceiling, you might question Newton's law of universal gravitation.

She is the first athlete I can remember for whom there is no push to add a qualifier to her status as the Greatest Of All Time. There is no army of sports bros demanding that we throw the word "female" in front of the declaration that she's reached the pinnacle of the sport, no contingent of stupid arguing that, because women do not compete in the rings, the high bar, the pommel horse or the parallel bars, it diminishes her accomplishments.

There is no one counting medals or grand slam titles. If she's Michael Jordan, there is no LeBron. If she's Tiger Woods, there is no Jack Nicklaus. She has reached the rarified air where criticism -- even the performative, contrarian kind -- likely couldn't gain traction. I had to smile when Biles strutted into the first night of the trials wearing slides embossed with the sequin outline of a goat. (She's also worn several leotards recently with the symbol.) It didn't feel arrogant as much as it felt earned, like a statement of fact. She hasn't lost an all-around competition since 2013.

Biles is so good, she has (in the opinion of many observers smarter than me) broken the modern scoring standard used in gymnastics, which in theory offers gymnasts a limitless possibility in the degree of difficulty category. This topic has been well covered within gymnastics' small universe, but has been barely discussed outside of it, perhaps because of how illogical it seems when explained to a layperson.

(As a gymnastics dad, I will attempt to gym-splain it to you.)

Essentially, the International Gymnastics Federation choose to place a cap on the difficulty rating for some of Biles' most innovative maneuvers so as to discourage other, lesser athletes from attempting them and potentially injuring themselves. Biles was, understandably, annoyed and called their reasoning "bulls---" and has continued to perform the moves in competition, despite getting what feels like partial credit.

If you're a student of sports history, the federation's decision seems eerily similar to the NCAA's 1967 rule banning the dunk in basketball, citing safety as its motivation. The rule was widely believed to have been put in place to keep UCLA's 7-foot-2 freshman, Lew Alcindor, from dominating. The basketball establishment didn't want Alcindor to dominate the way Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell had.

Alcindor dominated anyway. Biles has done the same.

The old guard in gymnastics is adamant that Biles' race has nothing to do with it, and that might be true. For the most part, she's been celebrated by the sport for taking it places few could have imagined.

For the most part.

When she won her first world championship in 2013, becoming the first Black woman in the sport's history to do so, an Italian gymnast who finished fourth on the balance beam joked with a teammate "Maybe next time we'll paint our skin black so then we can win too." She then volunteered that anecdote to a reporter, presumably thinking it would find a sympathetic audience. The Italian federation apologized, then tried to explain their frustrations that Biles victory had nothing to do with race, it was actually about artistry. What was gymnastics becoming, they wondered, by placing such an emphasis on strength and power?

Having watched Biles compete, in person, last weekend, I feel emboldened to contradict: That anyone ever suggested she lacks "artistry" is laughable. What they mean but lack the courage to say, is Biles, more than any gymnast, has dragged the sport away from those who want it to remain part athletic endeavor, part beauty contest. Because what is art, really, without innovation or the fear of failure? There are times, certainly, when you fear she will crash to the floor, an Amanar or Yurchenko double pike gone wonky that puts her in peril. But she never does.

Her athleticism is so remarkable, her balance and body control so mesmerizing, it serves as a testament to its own singularity. There is no one on earth like her. She is, in the simplest terms, boundless liquid grace.

COUNTLESS MORNINGS DURING the pandemic, Molly would wake up at dawn, well before anyone else in the house, and find a quiet space, away from the rest of the world, where she could watch Biles' routines on YouTube. It didn't matter how old or obscure the competition was, she would find it and study it, and day-dream about what it would feel like to one day soar like that. As soon as COVID was over, she said, she wanted to return to competitive gymnastics. She didn't even care if she never medaled again, a telling declaration considering she competes at a level where girls often "medal" when there is a four-way tie for 7th place. It was the camaraderie, and the competition, she missed.

The pandemic has been hard on a lot of kids for a lot of different reasons. Nothing our family went through could begin to approach the horrors that some families experienced: the loss of jobs, the loss of loved ones. Perspective, we told our kids, was important. You may not see it, but you are some of the lucky ones.

We are just beginning to understand, though, how much the isolation -- and the upending of social circles -- affected kids during the pandemic. It was easy to feel helpless as a parent, trying to trust the science but also find the balance between safety and what your eyes and gut were telling you. Group texts and Zoom hangouts were fine, but they were survival tools, not a replacement for anything real. The hardest moment of the pandemic, for me, came one night in in December of 2020, when I snuck a peek at Molly's handwritten letter to Santa.

She didn't care if Santa brought gifts this year. But could he, somehow, help her find a best friend?

The last year, she wrote, has been so lonely.

HOW DO YOU feel comfortable in a massive crowd again after spending more than a year avoiding them? You put your faith in the science. That's what we told ourselves, anyway.

She asked if she could hold my hand while we wove our way through the dense crowd toward our seats. I was grateful she had not yet reached the age where she would be embarrassed by such things. "I just don't want to lose you," she said.

Signs everywhere inside The Dome at America's Center informed attendees that masks were required, but there was no enforcement or even judgement, once you came through the door. Thousands took them off. It didn't feel like defiance, just comfort. I hadn't been to a sporting event since the Chiefs played the 49ers in the Super Bowl in Miami, but I'd been vaccinated since early April. I believe in the science, but I also wanted Molly to feel okay about our adventure, so I mostly kept mine on. She wouldn't even lift her mask to eat a pack of Skittles I'd snuck in for her, choosing to tuck them discretely under her mask, then into her mouth, while she watched the gymnasts, her eyes alight with wonder.

Whenever Biles was active, Molly's gaze, and everyone else's in the arena, was locked on her. At those times, there is an energy that seems to surround her. A presence. She understands how many eyes are fixed on her at all times, but she never seems hurried or self-conscious. I recognize it, and its rarity, having spent more than 20 years writing about sports. There is a quiet hum of intensity flowing through her, the kind that once fueled Kobe and Michael, but Biles has added her own twist.

Joy.

It's not ever-present. It would be a myth to pretend it was. Biles was mad at herself on the final night of trials, admitting as much to the media after it was over, acknowledging that she felt pressure to perform. "I feel like anything other than my best will tick me off," Biles said. "We had a huge crowd and I wanted to give them my best performance. It's what they deserve after COVID and the year we've had. Unfortunately, it wasn't the case."

But the disappointment of the balance beam seemed to fade as soon as she began her final floor exercise. Molly had asked me, prior to each event, if she could borrow my phone to record Biles' performances. She wanted to share it with people back home and keep it forever. I volunteered to do the recording instead, insisting she appreciate the performance -- in the moment -- instead of worrying how it looked through a pixilated screen. I found myself sneaking looks at her after each of Biles' tumbling passes. When it was over, the largest crowd in the history of the gymnastics trials gave her a standing ovation. Biles grinned and tried to soak it in. It had been a long year for her too. Though I am admittedly biased, I'm confident my daughter clapped and screamed harder than anyone there.

Joy, it was nice to be reminded, is infectious.

IT RAINED ALL weekend in Saint Louis, the kind of sporadic, midwestern summer storm that pummels you like a boxer, letting up for a few minutes, only to come crashing down again with renewed intensity just when you think it's tiring. Between gymnastics sessions, we drove around in our rental car, exploring an unfamiliar city, listening to an Olivia Rodrigo album about heartache, my daughter singing along in a gentle, slightly off-key falsetto. It's disarming sometimes to recognize pieces of yourself when you look at your kids. She is ruminative like me, and easily wounded, but also earnest in ways I cherish.

Molly had one request before we left town. She'd seen a picture Biles had posted on Instagram early in the week of herself, her back to the camera, looking up at the Gateway Arch, the city's most famous landmark. Could we find where Simone had taken the picture and try to recreate it?

There was, mercifully, a break in the rain when we arrived near the arch. Sunlight was bouncing off the buildings. We knew it wouldn't last, so a weird sense of urgency crept over us. Where was she sitting when she took it? Which direction was she facing? There was an American flag in the foreground. Was she behind the arch, down by the Mississippi River or in front of it facing East?

Eventually, we realized Biles had shot it from across the street, sitting on the steps of The Old Courthouse. On our way up the stairs, I noticed a plaque engraved into the granite, and so I stopped to read it. It was here, at this courthouse, that Dred and Harriet Scott filed suit, suing for their freedom in 1846. The Supreme Court eventually ruled on their case in 1857, declaring by a 7-2 vote that African Americans were not citizens of the United States.

Had Biles seen the plaque as she climbed the stairs? It would have been hard to miss. What must it have felt like for her, I wondered, to stand here as a beloved Olympian, and contemplate the complexity of the last 164 years? Whatever the answers might be, it wasn't my place to ask or my story to tell. One of the easiest things to admire about Biles, when you're raising a daughter, is that she's unafraid to speak her mind. But she will do so only when she decides it's time.

What I do know is, Molly and I were not the only ones who saw Biles' picture on Instagram and wanted to recreate it. At the top of the stairs, a small crowd of girls had gathered, girls from different races and different backgrounds, and now they were patiently waiting their turn. Like my daughter, they wanted to sit where Biles had recently sat, and imagine what it must feel like to be that fearless, to be capable of so many extraordinary things.

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In awe of Simone Biles' greatness, with my daughter and 25,000 others - ESPN