Scientists have used a specially engineered flour to make a bread that keeps you fuller for longer and lowers blood glucose levels, potentially offering a healthier alternative that lowers the risk of obesity and diabetes.

The new flour is based on pulses, which include chickpeas, lentils, and beans. Already known to be useful for helping us maintain a healthy weight and reduce the risk of heart disease, the benefits largely rely on the plant material retaining its integrity. In the production of ordinary wheat flour, the advantages of this fiber structure are believed to thanks to the milling process.

"At a time that we are all being encouraged to increase our fiber intake, this study highlights the importance of the physical form of fiber, as intact cell walls, in slowing starch digestion, improving blood glucose levels and simulating satiety hormones help us feel full," says biochemist Peter Ellis, from King's College London in the UK.

After producing their flour and baking their bread, the researchers tested it on 20 healthy individuals, who were served up samples of white bread with 0 percent, 30 percent, and 60 percent of chickpea flour in them. Jam with no added sugar was added for flavor.

The chickpea-enhanced bread tended to make the volunteers feel fuller according to their own self-reporting. Blood analysis suggested this was the result of an increased release of hormones that promoted satiety.

Then there was the blood glucose reduction: the 30 percent chickpea flour reduced blood glucose levels by up to 40 percent, with a drop of almost as much observed from the 60 percent chickpea flour compared to regular flour. That's down to the starch taking longer to break down in the body, the researchers say.

"We were impressed with the results we've seen in healthy individuals, and now would like to see how our cellular chickpea flour bread can help in the management of body weight or diabetes in larger scale dietary intervention trials with people who suffer with these conditions," says gut physiologist Balazs Bajka, from King's College London.

In their published study, the researchers note getting people to change their eating habits to prevent and tackle potential problems such as obesity and diabetes can be difficult – which is the reason that advancements like this are so promising.

Staple foods like bread could be engineered to be better for us, which would require no real effort on our part. Generally eating foods that require less processing has consistently been shown to be the way to go for a longer, healthier life.

This is the first study of its type, demonstrating how the use of whole-cell pulse flour in bread can have these beneficial effects. There's lots more to come though: the same approach could potentially be used on other food types as well.

"We have long known that the structure of food can have a big impact on its nutritional value," says bioscientist Cathrina Edwards, from the Quadram Institute in the UK. "This study is a promising example of how new ingredient structures can be used successfully to improve the metabolic and fullness effects of everyday food products."

"We hope that our findings will attract interest from food producers looking to improve the health credentials of their products."

The research has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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Kailu Yang, in the lab of Axel Brunger, colleagues at Stanford University, and collaborators at University of California Berkely, Harvard Medical School, and University of Finland have generated a molecule based on the twisted part of the spike protein (called HR2), which sticks itself onto the virus and prevents the spike protein from twisting.

Their research shows that it prevents cells from infection even with new SARS-COV-2 variants. Yang's work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in October and will be presented on Tuesday, February 21 at the 67th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting in San Diego, California.

Other treatments for COVID-19 have worked by sticking to the outside of the spike protein to block it from infecting cells, but they've had drawbacks. For example, bebtelovimab was an antibody treatment that targeted the spike protein, however, it didn't work well against new COVID-19 variants because that part of the spike protein has mutated over time.

Yang and Brunger are hopeful that their molecule, which they call the longHR2_42 inhibitor, is lead compound to develop a new type of antiviral therapeutic to prevent infections even with new variants.

The reason the longHR2_42 inhibitor may work against an evolving virus is that it is based on part of the spike protein that hasn't changed even as other parts have.

"In the virus, there's two parts of the spike protein that come together forming this bundle. So we simply took a short piece of one part of this bundle, and by synthesizing that small piece chemically, it can insert itself into the spike protein and prevent the virus from infecting cells," Brunger explained. Past research from before this COVID-19 pandemic aimed to create a similar molecule that would work to block infection of the SARS coronavirus, but those past attempts weren't as effective as the longHR2_42 inhibitor.

Brunger believes their molecule is more effective than past attempts due to Yang's work determining a detailed structure of the twisted together parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, called the postfusion so-called HR1HR2 complex, so they knew longer molecules would help block the spike protein from twisting into the HR1HR2 complex in the first place.

"We made the molecule a little longer than previously published work based on the structure, and indeed, we confirmed in our fusion and infection assays that this longer piece inhibits much better," Brunger said.

The team is currently testing the longHR2_42 inhibitor in mice infected with SARS-CoV-2 (a collaboration with Giuseppe Ballisteri and co-workers, University of Finland). They are hopeful that they will be able to deliver it to people via an inhaler so that it gets to the airway, which is exactly where you want to treat an early infection to prevent infection from becoming severe. "The moment people start developing sniffles will be the time to take it," Brunger explained.

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 TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwanese-Turkish TV show host Ugur Rifat Karlova, better known as Wu Feng (吳鳳), has spoken about the Taiwanese response to the devastating 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake, the reaction to Taiwanese aid in Turkey, and how people in Taiwan can help out now.

During the interview with Taiwan News, Karlova said that to reciprocate for previous help by Turkish teams during a massive local earthquake, Taiwan was one of the first to send a search and rescue team. He said that people in Turkey were touched by the generous aid donations by Taiwanese.

Karlova explained that he decided to take part in a religious pilgrimage in Taiwan at this time to generate positive energy for his country in its time of need. He said that although his hometown is far from the epicenter of the quake, he still has many friends and acquaintances who were affected.

What has been the response in Taiwan to the earthquake in Turkey?

First of all, when Taiwanese people received information about the earthquake in Turkey, they really wanted to help. Because Taiwanese really know about earthquakes.

In 1999, there was a very big earthquake in Taiwan. In Chinese, they call it the "921 earthquake." At that time a Turkish rescue team came to Taiwan to help save people.

So, after this earthquake, Taiwanese people said, "It's our turn, now we're going to help your country." And they kept asking me questions such as "how can we help, what can we do?"

Even the government started to make plans to help Turkey. After the first day, Taiwan had already sent 130 rescue team members to Turkey.

Taiwan was one of the first and fastest rescue teams to arrive in the earthquake zone. It shows that Taiwanese people really care a lot about Turkey's earthquake.

What has been the reaction in Turkey to the Taiwan rescue and relief efforts?

Wow, every day I heard many things about the Taiwanese team because Turkish media, for the first time, reported so much news about Taiwan.

The first thing is, the rescue team has already saved two lives from the collapsed debris.

And also, they got a lot of attention from other media organizations. So, Taiwanese people got much attention from Turkish media and also the Turkish people.

I sent much news from Taiwan to Turkey and Turkish people would ask me the same question: "Taiwan and Turkey are two different places, and we have an 8,000 km distance (separating us), how and why do Taiwanese people help us that much?"

It's not a country next to Turkey, it's not on the border, so Taiwanese efforts, love, and care really surprised Turkish people. The Taiwanese government already sent US$2.2 million. Then, Taiwanese people raised, almost US$30 million, it's like half of the American government's budget (allocated to Turkey).

The American government gave Turkey US$60 million, but this money came from the government. But Taiwanese people sent to Turkey US$30 million.

Also, our Turkish office started to make a campaign to donate clothes, donate some materials that are needed in the earthquake zone.

Taiwanese people donated 200 tons of clothes and the Turkish representative office said, "Thank you very much, we don't have enough storage."

Our representative, said, "I never thought we would get that many donations!" Everybody was shocked, including me. I know Taiwanese were going to help Turkey, but it was beyond all limits.

The storage area was full of items and materials. Thank you very much Taiwanese people.

What inspired you to go on the Baishatun Mazu pilgrimage?

I really like Taiwan's events, like temple events. I love the local culture of Taiwan. I had been planning to make it, but after the earthquake occurred, I said to myself, "This is for Turkey!"

In Taiwan, as you know, people like to seek peace and safety, they like peace and harmony. I decided this time that I am going to tell Mazu "Turkey needs peace and Turkey needs harmony."

I joined the event with thousands of people and that atmosphere was also very touching because every Taiwanese person said the same thing, "Wu Feng, go Turkey. We are praying for Turkey!"

I could feel that even in that place, Taiwanese people were praying for Turkey, that was a very meaningful thing from Taiwan.

Do you have any family or friends who have been affected by the quake?

Yes, I have many friends who have been affected. I live very far away from this place because the earthquake occurred in Kahramanmaras Province. It's in the southeast part of Turkey, almost 1,000 km away from my city, I'm very close to Istanbul.

I don't have any family there, but I have many friends. Among my friends, some of them have lost their family members.

For example, a wife of one my friends said her sister's boyfriend passed away because of the earthquake, and they were planning to marry. In Danshui, there is a guy from Kahramanmaras City who sells Turkish ice cream, he lost eight or 10 family members.

This earthquake was a very massive earthquake. There was one magnitude 7.8 earthquake and nine hours later, there was another earthquake that was magnitude 7.6.

The size of the earthquake, the area, is two or three times bigger than Taiwan. Think about it, an earthquake happens in Taipei, but kills people in Nantou, Taichung, Kaohsiung, and even further. It was a really massive earthquake and one of the biggest in Turkish history.

What are the greatest needs, and what can people in Taiwan do to help out now?

Actually, Taiwanese people helped a lot. They sent many materials, and they donated a lot of money. We need tents, we need blankets, and we need clothes for winter, because Turkey is now going through winter and it's very cold.

In the evening, it's like minus 3 to 4 degrees Celsius and sometimes it's snowing, so we need things for winter. This is very important.

We need prefabricated houses, that is the kind of thing we are looking for. Taiwanese people can still donate money to local NGOs.

For example, they can donate to Ahbap, which is a very famous team working for Turkey. They can donate to AKUT which is also a search and rescue team.

They can donate to other NGOs, or they can donate via the UN Crisis Relief webpage for the Turkey-Syria Earthquake. This is time to help Turkey and I want to share this message to Taiwanese people and all people because Turkey is looking for more help and support from around the world.

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A man in the US who was diagnosed with prostate cancer is said to have developed an "uncontrollable Irish accent".

Despite the patient having no Irish background, researchers have said the accent was consistent with foreign accent syndrome (FAS), the British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported.

The man in his 50s was receiving androgen deprivation therapy and abiraterone acetate/prednisone.

This is an approved treatment for patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, according to the National Library of Medicine.

The report states that the man had no "neurological examination abnormalities" after undergoing imaging.

The images, however, did reveal the progression of his prostate cancer.

Researchers found that despite chemotherapy, the patient's cancer progressed, leading to a multifocal brain tumour and a "likely paraneoplastic ascending paralysis".

This means the man was most likely at the late stage of his cancer, leading to his death.

The development of the man's condition was "consistent with an underlying paraneoplastic neurological disorder (PND)" researchers said.

PND is a group of uncommon disorders developed in some people who have cancer, according to the BMJ.

What is foreign accent syndrome?

FAS is a rare speech disorder which causes sufferers to start speaking in different accents.

In a report, the BMJ describes this as an "unusual" result of structural neurological damage.

It may also represent a functional neurological disorder, which often affects the "function" of the body, according to the NHS.

The report analysed 49 patients who self-reported that they had FAS.

They were from the UK, North America and Australia.

Researchers found that after studying the disorder and its participants, these were some of the common triggers:

•     Migraine/severe headache

•     Stroke

•     Surgery or injury to mouth or face

•     Seizure

In 2016, a woman in Texas who underwent surgery on her jaw ended up with a British accent after she was diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder.

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Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl, was sighted Thursday night as zoo staffers tried to lure him with bait and recordings of eagle owl calls, the Central Park Zoo said in a statement.

"Though he showed some interest in the calls, the attempt was unsuccessful. As we noted previously, efforts at recovering the bird have proven more difficult since he has been very successful at hunting and consuming the abundant prey in the park," the statement reads.

"We are going to continue monitoring Flaco and his activities and to be prepared to resume recovery efforts if he shows any sign of difficulty or distress. We will issue additional updates if there is a change in the eagle owl's status or our plan changes."

Flaco has been on the lam since he escaped Feb. 2 when his exhibit was vandalized, sparking a manhunt that involved park rangers and even police officers. Several attempts have been made to capture the fugitive bird of prey.

Birdwatchers across the Big Apple have since tried to snag photos of the escaped owl, many of which have been shared online as Flaco became a local celebrity.

"As an avid birdwatcher, I wonder if it's not a great idea to introduce a huge, nonnative bird of prey to Central Park, an important stopover for many of our own native birds," birdwatcher Alison S. told the West Side Rag, a hyperlocal news website catering to the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

"He will eat whatever he can, which could possibly include threatened species of our own, not to mention outcompeting or harassing the great horned owls, red-tailed hawks, and barred owls that visit us here."

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Carter will spend his “remaining time” in his Georgia home receiving hospice care, according to a statement from the Carter Center on Saturday.

“After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,” a statement from the organization reads. “He has the full support of his family and his medical team. The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.”

Carter turned 98 in October. He served as the 39th President of the United States.

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER TO SPEND ‘REMAINING TIME’ AT HOME RECEIVING HOSPICE CARE

Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., D-N.J., said that Carter is a “model of kindness.”

“Please have a prayer and a warm thought for Pres Carter. Jimmy Carter is the model of kindness, generosity, and decency that is the finest part of America. He is a great man and in our family’s thoughts now,” he said.

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said on Twitter that he is “Sending my best to the Carter family and to Jimmy Carter, a kind, decent, generous-hearted man.”

MARIANNE WILLIAMSON TEASES ‘IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT,’ EXPLORES WHITE HOUSE RUN TO DEFEND ‘TENETS OF LIBERTY’

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., said on Twitter that he’s “Wishing the Carter Family peace and gratitude for the family’s decades of service.”

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By Ankita Garg: Apple has fired hundreds of contract workers. This might come as a surprise to many, considering the company’s CEO Tim Cook recently asserted that layoffs are something that will be a “last resort kind of thing.” But, he also said that “you can never say never” when the CEO was asked about whether Apple also has plans to layoff, just like Amazon, Microsoft, and others.

It has now come to light that Apple has sacked hundreds of contractor workers who are basically hired by third-party agencies but work with Apple employees on projects, people who are familiar with the matter told the New York Times. The company has quietly sacked workers in order to cut costs, as per the cited source.

The impacted workers have contracts of up to 15 months with Apple, but the company isn’t waiting for their contracts to expire and is removing them outright. One of the contractors reportedly said that Apple previously assured the workers that their jobs were safe, a promise that the company broke.

The tech giant recently boasted that it is “managing costs very tightly and is curtailing hiring in certain areas, while continuing to hire in others.”

But, the latest move reveals a different story altogether. As we have been witnessing industry-wide layoffs since last year, Apple was the only company that was appreciated for managing resources appropriately and avoiding mass layoffs.

The cited source is saying that Apple doesn’t consider contractors as their employees and so job cuts for such workers are not regarded as layoff in the company. It is being said that firing contractors is an easier choice for Apple considering it won’t have to pay severance or “face potential litigation from employees alleging wrongful termination,” a report from NYT said.

As of now, there are no details of how many contract workers Apple might have in total, but several reports claim that the number is in the thousands. The cited source reported that the tech company has about dozens of staffing firms that help Apple with “project management, launch events and even creating Apple Maps.”

Besides, big tech companies like Google recently announced the layoff of 12,000 employees, of which more than 400 people got laid off in India last night. Just a few weeks after Elon Musk bought Twitter, he sacked most of the employees across globe to save costs and to rebuild teams. Microsoft also sacked 10,000 people and Meta remove 11,000 employees.

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t was an engineering problem that had bugged Zhibin Yu for years — but now he had the perfect chance to fix it. Stuck at home during the first UK lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic, the thermal engineer suddenly had all the time he needed to refine the efficiency of heat pumps: electrical devices that, as their name implies, move heat from the outdoors into people’s homes.

The pumps are much more efficient than gas heaters, but standard models that absorb heat from the air are prone to icing up, which greatly reduces their effectiveness.

Yu, who works at the University of Glasgow, UK, pondered the problem for weeks. He read paper after paper. And then he had an idea. Most heat pumps waste some of the heat that they generate — and if he could capture that waste heat and divert it, he realized, that could solve the defrosting issue and boost the pumps’ overall performance. “I suddenly found a solution to recover the heat,” he recalls. “That was really an amazing moment.”

Yu’s idea is one of several recent innovations that aim to make 200-year-old heat pump technology even more efficient than it already is, potentially opening the door for much greater adoption of heat pumps worldwide. To date, only about 10% of space heating requirements around the world are met by heat pumps, according to the International Energy Agency, or IEA. But due to the current energy crisis and growing pressure to reduce fossil fuel consumption in order to combat climate change, these devices are arguably more crucial than ever.

Since his 2020 lockdown brainstorming, Yu and his colleagues have built a working prototype of a heat pump that stores leftover heat in a small water tank. In a paper published in the summer of 2022, they describe how their design helps the heat pump to use less energy. Plus, by separately rerouting some of this residual warmth to part of the heat pump exposed to cold air, the device can defrost itself when required, without having to pause heat supply to the house.

The idea relies on the very principle by which heat pumps operate: If you can seize heat, you can use it. What makes heat pumps special is the fact that instead of just generating heat, they also capture heat from the environment and move it into your house — eventually transferring that heat to radiators or forced-air heating systems, for instance. This is possible thanks to the refrigerant that flows around inside a heat pump.

When the refrigerant encounters heat — even a tiny amount in the air on a cold day — it absorbs that modicum of warmth.

A compressor then forces the refrigerant to a higher pressure, which raises its temperature to the point where it can heat your house. It works because an increase of pressure pushes the refrigerant molecules closer together, increasing their motion. The refrigerant later expands again, cooling as it does so, and the cycle repeats. The entire cycle can run in reverse, too, allowing heat pumps to provide cooling when it’s hot in summer.

The magic of a heat pump is that it can move multiple kilowatt-hours of heat for each kWh of electricity it uses. Heat pump efficiencies are generally measured in terms of their coefficient of performance, or COP. A COP of 3, for example, means 1 kWh of juice yields 3 kWh of warmth — that’s effectively 300% efficiency. The COP you get from your device can vary depending on the weather and other factors.

It’s a powerful concept, but also an old one. The British mathematician, physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin proposed using heat pump systems for space heating way back in 1852. The first heat pump was designed and built a few years later and used industrially to heat brine in order to extract salt from the fluid. In the 1950s, members of the British Parliament discussed heat pumps when coal stocks were running low. And in the years following the 1973-74 oil crisis, heat pumps were touted as an alternative to fossil fuels for heating. “Hope rests with the future heat pump,” one commentator wrote in the 1977 Annual Review of Energy.

Now the world faces yet another reckoning over energy supplies. When Russia, one of the world’s biggest sources of natural gas, invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the price of gas soared — which in turn shoved heat pumps into the spotlight because with few exceptions they run on electricity, not gas. The same month, environmentalist Bill McKibben wrote a widely shared blog post titled “Heat pumps for peace and freedom” in which, referring to the Russian president, he argued that the U.S. could “peacefully punch Putin in the kidneys” by rolling out heat pumps on a massive scale while lowering Americans’ dependence on fossil fuels. Heat pumps can draw power from domestic solar panels, for instance, or a power grid supplied predominantly by renewables.

Running the devices on green electricity can help to fight climate change, too, notes Karen Palmer, an economist and senior fellow at Resources for the Future, an independent research organization in Washington, D.C., who coauthored an analysis of policies to enhance energy efficiency in the 2018 Annual Review of Resource Economics. “Moving towards greater use of electricity for energy needs in buildings is going to have to happen, absent a technology breakthrough in something else,” she says.

The IEA estimates that, globally, heat pumps have the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 500 million metric tons in 2030, equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions produced by all the cars in Europe today.

Despite their long history and potential virtues, heat pumps have struggled to become commonplace in some countries. One reason is cost: The devices are substantially more expensive than gas heating units and, because natural gas has remained relatively cheap for decades, homeowners have had little incentive to switch.

There has also long been a perception that heat pumps won’t work as well in cold climates, especially in poorly insulated houses that require a lot of heat. In the U.K., for example, where houses tend to be rather drafty, some homeowners have long considered gas boilers a safer bet because they can supply hotter water (around 140 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit), to radiators, which makes it easier to heat up a room. By contrast, heat pumps tend to be most efficient when heating water to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The cold-climate problem is arguably less of an issue than some think, however, given that there are multiple modern air source devices on the market that work well even when outside temperatures drop as low as minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Norway, for example, is considered one of the world leaders in heat pump deployment. Palmer has a heat pump in her U.S. home, along with a furnace as backup. “If it gets really cold, we can rely on the furnace,” she says.

Innovations in heat pump design are leading to units that are even more efficient, better suited to houses with low levels of insulation and — potentially — cheaper, too. For example, Yu says his and his colleagues’ novel air source heat pump design could improve the COP by between 3 and 10%, while costing less than existing heat pump designs with comparable functionality. They are now looking to commercialize the technology.

Yu’s work is innovative, says Rick Greenough, an energy systems engineer now retired from De Montfort University in the U.K.. “I must admit this is a method I hadn’t actually thought of,” he says.

And there are plenty more ideas afoot. Greenough, for instance, has experimented with storing heat in the ground during warmer months, where it can be exploited by a heat pump when the weather turns cool. His design uses a circulating fluid to transfer excess heat from solar hot-water panels into shallow boreholes in the soil. That raises the temperature of the soil by around 22 degrees Fahrenheit, to a maximum of roughly 66 degrees Fahrenheit, he says. Then, in the winter, a heat pump can draw out some of this stored heat to run more efficiently when the air gets colder. This technology is already on the market, offered by some installers in the U.K., notes Greenough.

But most current heat pumps still only generate relatively low output temperatures, so owners of drafty homes may need to take on the added cost of insulation when installing a heat pump. Fortunately, a solution may be emerging: high-temperature heat pumps.

“We said, ‘Hey, why not make a heat pump that can actually one-on-one replace a gas boiler without having to really, really thoroughly insulate your house?’” says Wouter Wolfswinkel, program manager for business development at Swedish energy firm Vattenfall, which manufactures heat pumps. Vattenfall and its Dutch subsidiary Feenstra have teamed up to develop a high-temperature heat pump, expected to debut in 2023.

In their design, they use CO2 as a refrigerant. But because the heat-pump system’s hot, high-pressure operating conditions prevent the gas from condensing or otherwise cooling down very easily, they had to find a way of reducing the refrigerant’s temperature in order for it to be able to absorb enough heat from the air once again when it returns to the start of the heat pump loop. To this end, they added a “buffer” to the system: a water tank where a layer of cooler water rests beneath hotter water above. The heat pump uses the lower layer of cooler water from the tank to adjust the temperature of the refrigerant as required. But it can also send the hotter water at the top of the tank out to radiators, at temperatures up to 185 degrees Fahrenheit.

The device is slightly less efficient than a conventional, lower temperature heat pump, Wolfswinkel acknowledges, offering a COP of around 265% versus 300%, depending on conditions. But that’s still better than a gas boiler (no more than 95% efficient), and as long as electricity prices aren’t significantly higher than gas prices, the high temperature heat pump could still be cheaper to run. Moreover, the higher temperature means that homeowners needn’t upgrade their insulation or upsize radiators right away, Wolfswinkel notes. This could help people make the transition to electrified heating more quickly.

A key test was whether Dutch homeowners would go for it. As part of a pilot trial, Vattenfall and Feenstra installed the heat pump in 20 households of different sizes in the town of Heemskerk, not far from Amsterdam. After a few years of testing, in June 2022 they gave homeowners the option of taking back their old gas boiler, which they had kept in their homes, or of using the high temperature heat pump on a permanent basis. “All of them switched to the heat pump,” says Wolfswinkel.

In some situations, home-by-home installations of heat pumps might be less efficient than building one large system to serve a whole neighborhood. For about a decade, Star Renewable Energy, based in Glasgow, has been building district systems that draw warmth from a nearby river or sea inlet, including a district heating system connected to a Norwegian fjord. A Scandinavian fjord might not be the first thing that comes to mind if you say the word “heat” — but the water deep in the fjord actually holds a fairly steady temperature of 46 degrees Fahrenheit, which heat pumps can exploit.

Via a very long pipe, the district heating system draws in this water and uses it to heat the refrigerant, in this case ammonia. A subsequent, serious increase of pressure for the refrigerant — to 50 atmospheres — raises its temperature to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. The hot refrigerant then passes its heat to water in the district heating loop, raising the temperature of that water to 195 degrees Fahrenheit. The sprawling system provides 85% of the hot water needed to heat buildings in the city of Drammen.

“That type of thing is very exciting,” says Greenough.

Not every home will be suitable for a heat pump. And not every budget can accommodate one, either. Yu himself says that the cost of replacing the gas boiler in his own home remains prohibitive. But it’s something he dreams of doing in the future. With ever-improving efficiencies, and rising sales in multiple countries, heat pumps are only getting harder for their detractors to dismiss. “Eventually,” says Yu, “I think everyone will switch to heat pumps.”

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NEW DELHI – It is the first-of-its-kind marathon in India. Yet, when runners cover the 21.9km stretch across the frozen Pangong Lake at an altitude of nearly 4,350m in Ladakh, they will be participating in what has been billed as “the last run”.

The Pangong Frozen Lake Marathon, which takes place on Feb 20, aims to highlight the growing vulnerability of the ecologically fragile mountainous region in north India.

A key concern is climate change, which has hastened the melting pace of Himalayan and Karakoram glaciers, rendering the future of locals who depend on its waters at great risk.

“It is this alarming message that we are trying to get across – that this could be the last run,” said Mr Chamba Tsetan, founder of the Adventure Sports Foundation of Ladakh, which is organising the marathon in collaboration with the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (LAHDC) in Leh district and other local authorities.

Seventy-five runners, including those from India, France, the United States and Britain, will take part in this race that the organisers hope will also secure them an entry into the Guinness World Records for the highest frozen lake marathon.

There are running races in other icy locales, such as the North Pole Marathon, held at sea level, and the Antarctic Ice Marathon, at 700m. Norway organises a frozen lake marathon too – the Icebug Frozen Lake Marathon in Tisleifjorden, located at an altitude of 819m.

The 134km-long Pangong Lake spreads across the disputed Indo-China border. It freezes completely usually by the end of January, when temperatures can drop to as low as minus 40 deg C.

Runners will have the stunning mountainous landscape to inspire them, but they will have to endure frigid temperatures of around minus 10 deg C even while running in bright sunshine.

“Listen to your body,” said Mr Chamba, a professional ice-hockey player, adding that runners must also stay hydrated and warm while running. Hot water points will be available at every 5km of the route. “Keeping the same pace would also help.”

Participants arrived last week in Leh, the region’s biggest city, to acclimatise to the high altitude and cold conditions. They have been advised to wear shoes with cleats to avoid slipping on ice. Medical facilities will be available, with the Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police roped in for assistance as well.

Organisers have tried to limit the marathon’s ecological footprint by using composting toilets and banning single-use plastic. Runners will also lodge at home stays in villages to ensure monetary benefits from the event percolate down to the locals.

Mr Tashi Gyalson, chairman of the LAHDC in Leh district, said a key idea behind the marathon is to promote sustainable tourism in rural areas, especially at homestays during off-season winter months.

“We want to ensure tourism in Ladakh is equitably distributed and not just concentrated in particular areas or limited to certain months,” he told ST.

While around 400 applications came in, this figure was pared down to 75 runners to factor in the capacity of home stays in four chosen villages, besides mitigating environmental impact.

The run is being organised at a time of growing concerns about glaciers in the Pangong region.

A December 2021 research study found that the surface of 87 Pangong glaciers had receded by around 6.7 per cent from 1990 to 2019, with experts flagging serious consequences, including the risk of glacial lake outburst floods. One such incident in August 2014 hit Ladkah’s Gya village, destroying houses, fields and bridges.

In the long run, glacial melt beyond a certain threshold will also impact stream flows, reducing the water in them and crippling local livelihoods, said Dr Irfan Rashid, one of the authors of the study. “Glaciers are the backbone of the local economy,” he told ST.

Spread across India and China, the 134km-long Pangong Lake is situated at an altitude of nearly 4,350 metres above sea level. It usually freezes completely by the end of January. PHOTO: @KSTANZINLADAKH/TWITTER

Dr Rashid, a senior assistant professor in geoinformatics at University of Kashmir, said limiting human activity in the “pristine natural environment” is critical to slow down deglaciation because smoke and black carbon deposits on glaciers can enhance melt.

This necessitates robust scientific studies to determine the carrying capacity of the region so that tourism and other human activity is regulated to put the least pressure on the ecosystem.

“The glaciers in Pangong are relatively smaller and their peak point – the threshold beyond which meltwater from them begins decreasing – could come as early as 2040,” he added.

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The US plan to become the world’s cleantech superpower

The coastline is at risk from rising seas, and we’re making more of it

Television images showed tax officials leaving in cars after spending nearly 60 hours at the BBC office in New Delhi. They made no statement about the searches that started on Tuesday morning.

“The Income Tax Authorities have left our offices in Delhi and Mumbai. We will continue to cooperate with the authorities and hope matters are resolved as soon as possible,” BBC News tweeted.

“We are supporting staff —some of whom have faced lengthy questioning or been required to stay overnight— and their welfare is our priority. Our output is back to normal and we remain committed to serving our audiences in India and beyond,” it said.

“The BBC is a trusted, independent media organization and we stand by our colleagues and journalists who will continue to report without fear or favor,” it said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s critics questioned the timing of the searches, which came weeks after the BBC aired a documentary critical of Modi in the U.K.

Kanchan Gupta, an adviser to India’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry, said there was no connection between the two.

“Whether you are a media organization or you are a manufacturer, the purpose of tax laws apply equally to everybody. And if you are found in violation of those tax laws, the appropriate action is taken as the due process of law,” Gupta said in an interview with Mirror Now television news channel.

The Indian tax department hasn’t so far issued any statement on what prompted the searches of the BBC offices since officials arrived there Tuesday morning.

The Press Trust of India news agency cited unnamed officials as saying on Thursday that investigators collected financial data from select BBC staffers and made copies of electronic and paper data from the news organization.

The survey is being carried out to investigate issues related to international taxation and transfer pricing of BBC subsidiary companies, the agency said.

India’s News Broadcasters and Digital Association criticized the income tax “surveys” at the BBC offices.

While the association “maintains that no institution is above the law, it condemns any attempt to muzzle and intimidate the media and interfere with the free functioning of journalists and media organizations,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The main opposition Congress party leader, Mallikarjun Kharge described the government action as an assault on freedom of the press under Modi’s government.

Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog, denounced the Indian government’s action as “attempts to clamp down on independent media.”

“These raids have all the appearance of a reprisal against the BBC for releasing a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi three weeks ago. They have come at a time when independent media are being hounded more and more, and when pluralism is shrinking in India due to increased media concentration,” the group said in a statement on Thursday.

The documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” was broadcast in the U.K. last month, examining the prime minister’s role in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western state of Gujarat, where he was chief minister at the time. More than 1,000 people were killed in the violence.

Modi has denied allegations that authorities under his watch allowed and even encouraged the bloodshed, and the Supreme Court said it found no evidence to prosecute him. Last year, the court dismissed a petition filed by a Muslim victim questioning Modi’s exoneration.

The second portion of the two-part documentary examined “the track record of Narendra Modi’s government following his re-election in 2019,” according to the BBC website.

The program drew an immediate backlash from India’s government, which invoked emergency powers under its information technology laws to block it from being shown in the country. Local authorities scrambled to stop screenings organized at Indian universities, and social media platforms including Twitter and YouTube complied with government requests to remove links to the documentary.

The BBC said at the time that the documentary was “rigorously researched” and involved a wide range of voices and opinions.

We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series — it declined to respond,” its statement said.

India’s Foreign Ministry called the documentary a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative” that lacked objectivity.

Press freedom in India has been on a steady decline in recent years. The country fell eight places, to 150 out of 180 countries, in the 2022 Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. Media watchdog groups accuse the Modi government of silencing criticism on social media under a sweeping internet law that puts digital platforms including Twitter and Facebook under direct government oversight.

Some media outlets critical of the government have been subjected to tax searches.

Authorities searched the offices of the left-leaning website NewsClick and independent media portal Newslaundry on the same day in 2021. Tax officials also accused the Dainik Bhaskar newspaper of tax evasion in 2021 after it published reports of mass funeral pyres and floating corpses that challenged the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2017, the government’s investigation bureau said it was probing cases of loan defaults when it raided the offices of New Delhi Television, known for its liberal slant.

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Sleep is a perennial problem in our gadget-obsessed industrial civilization, so much so that an entire industry has been built around trying to help us get more of it. From apps that track sleep to pharmaceutical drugs to sleep aids like white noise machines, the global sleeping aids market is expected to reach $118 billion by 2030.

Though sleep seems like a ubiquitous problem, it hasn't always been this way.

"Sleep is kind of a new topic in medicine, even 20 years ago, we didn't know the role that sleep played in getting rid of amyloid plaques, which would lead to Alzheimer's disease or cognitive impairment," Dr. Pedram Navab, a neurologist, sleep medicine specialist and author of "Sleep Reimagined: The Fast Track to a Revitalized Life," told Salon. "Now we know so much more about sleep and people have these trackers and these electronic devices."

Navab said he will have patients come in and make claims like they "didn't get enough REM sleep." He sees people who suffer from sleep disorders.

"And I'm like, 'You know what? You need to get rid of that stuff," Navab said. "You just need to go to sleep, you don't need to figure out how much you have, if you're able to go to sleep naturally you will get what you need, you don't need to track it down."

Humans weren't always problematizing our sleep. In fact, sleep looked very different before the industrial revolution, which is when electrification began — and, in turn, electric lighting. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suggests adults over the age of 18 need 7 or more hours per night. Yet before the invention of light, people frequently slept in two segments.

"During the industrial revolution, when the sun went down, there was no electricity so people had to sleep," Navab said. "And then they kind of woke up for the second time, [known as] the second sleep and they journaled or whatnot."

This is referred to as biphasic sleep. Prior to biphasic sleep, some historians believe that hunter-gatherer societies slept in one smaller stretch throughout the night — closer to how we do now. Indeed, when researchers studied the sleep patterns of three preindustrial societies in Africa and Bolivia they found that these ancient humans got only 6.4 hours of sleep within a 24 hour day in grass-made beds.

Historian Roger Ekirch looked back at prayer manuals from the late 15th century, which offered specific prayers for the time in between sleeps. A doctor's manual from the 16th century advised couples to conceive "after the first sleep." "Families rose to urinate, smoke tobacco, and even visit close neighbors," Ekirch wrote in his book, "At Day's Close: Night in Times Past." "Many others made love, prayed, and most important historically, reflected on their dreams, a significant source of solace and self-awareness." 

"What I have argued and feel confident doing so given the considerable evidence that I have uncovered over the last 20 plus years is that biphasic sleep was the predominant form of human slumber in the Western world, prior to the mid 19th century," Ekirch told Salon in an interview.  "It began to fade gradually over the course of the 19th century while the industrial revolution was still, of course, fully underway."

Navab said typically the first sleep began two hours after dusk. People woke up for an hour or two — after four to six hours of sleep — and then went back to sleep until dawn.

But by the 1920s, the idea of two sleep sessions, and enjoying what happened in between, began to fade.

"It was not an overnight transition," Ekirch said. "It took place over the course of the 19th century, and there were still remote rural areas in the early 20th century in which the inhabitants exhibited biphasic sleep."

Ekirch said the transition happened as a result of technological and cultural changes of the industrial revolution. Cities were lit up at night — first by gas lanterns, and then with electric bulbs. Electrification also meant that factories could operate 24 hours a day, which led to the prominence of night shifts in the industrial workplace. Within decades, the human relationship with sleep changed due to all of this.

"People, especially in urban areas and primarily middle class, began adopting many of the values associated with industrialization, ambition, profit-seeking, efficiency, punctuality," Ekirch said "And a widespread reform movement arose in the United States and in Great Britain, known as the Early Rising Movement, beginning roughly in the 1830s."

From a medical standpoint, Navab said there isn't an issue with segmented sleep.

"I don't think that's an issue as long as you're able to go back to sleep and get sufficient hours of sleep," Navab said. "As long as they're waking up when the sun is coming back up, I think that's really the most important thing, and they're going to bed when it's night, those are really the most important things."

In fact, Ekirch has argued that this is the more natural way to sleep.

"My argument has been, and this has been backed up by some prominent sleep scientists, that one reason why some people do suffer from what has been termed middle of the night insomnia is that many of these cases, these individuals are experiencing a powerful remnant or echo of this long, dominant pattern of biphasic sleep," Ekirch said. "I've been told over and over again that it eases the anxiety of individuals who suffer from insomnia."

Another way that sleep has changed over the last 150 years is that more people sleep alone.

"Families used to have to sleep together, there was one big bed with like four or five people in the bed and so they all had to kind of learn to sleep together and try to suppress whatever issues they had during that period," Navab said. "But I think that has actually created more insomnia."

While it might sound counterintuitive, Navab said, people sleeping in more solitary environments gives them more room to ruminate.

"If you've got any issues going on, that's going to affect your inability to sleep," Navab said. "And then also, you're kind of alone in the bed so you can do whatever you want without disturbing anyone." In this case, it can be easier to stay up all night looking at one's phone when there isn't someone else in bed to tell them to stop it because they're disturbing their sleep.

Overall, the focus on sleep in our modern society — Navab believes — is causing more anxiety.

"Everything was much more natural [back then]," Navab said. "The performance anxiety wasn't there as it is now with all these new electronic gadgets."

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As Google awaits a U.S. Supreme Court decision that could dramatically upend portions of its business model, a group of prominent online content creators and a nonprofit for authors have rushed to its defense.

In January, a number of prominent internet influencers and the nonprofit Authors Alliance filed an amicus brief defending the tech giant in Gonzalez v. Google. The case, which is slated for oral arguments on Tuesday, could weaken — or even upend — the company’s treasured liability protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. And those same protections, the creators wrote, are vital to them too.

Left unmentioned in the brief was that the parties behind it had direct financial ties to Google. The group that funded the brief, a nonprofit advocate for startups called Engine, is funded in part by Google. And at least one of the content creators who signed on to the amicus brief has said that employees from YouTube, a Google subsidiary, invited them to sign onto the brief. In addition, the firm representing the creators and Authors Alliance — Keker, Van Nest & Peters — represents Google in other litigation.

Google spokespeople did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Authors Alliance referred comment to one of its lawyers, Ben Berkowitz, who maintained that neither the group nor the creators were paid to sign onto the brief. Berkowitz also said that neither Alphabet, nor Google, nor its subsidiaries authored the brief or contributed funding.

“Our firm’s representation of Google in unrelated litigation is public knowledge, and not a conflict,” he stated. “We represented Authors Alliance and a diverse group of individual content creators to express their views to the Supreme Court about the important role Section 230 plays in protecting and promoting diverse and independent content.”

But for Big Tech critics, the intertwining of interests behind the amicus brief is another illustration of how those companies have used their resources to tilt the scales of power. Beyond the millions Google spends on lobbying each quarter and the trade associations that make its case to policymakers on the Hill, the company has pointed its operatives to another target: the Supreme Court.

“These YouTube creators are just a new angle on an old Google tactic: flooding the zone with supporters — who are often funded by Google — to boost its corporate agenda in Washington,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project. “Whether it’s policy groups, academics, foundations, or YouTube creators, they’re all part of the same Google influence machinery.”

The Tech Transparency Project highlighted the creator initiative in a report, first shared with POLITICO, on Google’s influence operation ahead of the Supreme Court case. TTP has disclosed funding from several groups including the Omidyar Network, which was created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Under Section 230, tech platforms like YouTube are immune from being sued for content posted by their users. Gonzalez v. Google questions whether Section 230 immunity should extend to user-created content that platforms recommend or promote — including via algorithms, which channel the majority of content viewed on YouTube and across the internet. The creators’ brief argues that platforms will be less likely to recommend broad swathes of content if doing so increases the risk of a lawsuit, and that the livelihoods of online creators will suffer as a result.

“Major platforms might be less likely to host and promote independent creators’ content,” the brief contends. “New and emerging creators may be unlikely to reach new audiences. And speech generally could be chilled online, hindering Congress’ policy goals of fostering a free and open Internet.”

Among those creators who signed on to the brief were the family video blogger Jeremy Johnston; Mikhail Varshavski, a handsome internet doctor known as Doctor Mike who boasts a YouTube channel with 10.5 million subscribers; and Milad Mirg, an online creator whose posts have “offered behind-the-scenes looks at his fast-food job at Subway.”

The brief also included Jordan Maron, a video game streamer who goes by CaptainSparklez and who operates a YouTube channel with 11.4 million subscribers. In a video posted to his channel before the brief was filed, Maron revealed that he had been brought into “a group call with YouTube employees, other creators, creator-adjacent business people to inform us of what this is and ask if we wanted to be part of something called an amicus brief.” Google Store has previously sponsored Maron, and Google has sponsored videos posted by other creators who signed onto the brief.

The revelation of who paid for the brief came via a footnote, which states that “Engine’s Digital Entrepreneur Project made a monetary contribution intended to fund the preparation and submission of this brief.” No other person or entity made such a contribution, the footnote explains.

Kate Tummarello, Engine’s executive director, denied that Google had any direct or indirect involvement in funding the brief. She also pushed back on the notion that the call described by Maron was convened by Google subsidiary YouTube to solicit creator signatures.

“My understanding is that YouTube does informational updates on policy topics that impact creators,” Tummarello said. “As part of those conversations, Section 230 was discussed at a high level.” Tummarello said she was also on that call, and that it was she who talked to the YouTube creators to gauge their interest in the amicus brief through Engine’s Digital Entrepreneur Project. She said none of the signers received any compensation, and that Engine “isn’t reliant on or beholden to any funder.”

“Engine has been an advocate on Section 230 for years because we advocate on behalf of startups who rely on [its] framework to host and moderate user-generated content (which we explained in a separate brief we signed),” Tummarello said.

Groups that receive Google funding are not barred from supporting the company before the judiciary. In fact, a number of groups supported by Google have also filed briefs in the case. However, the rules hold that an amicus brief must disclose the people or entity — beyond those on the brief, their members, or their counsel — who contributed money for putting together the brief or its submission.

Besides the creators, nearly seven dozen amicus briefs have been filed on Gonzalez v. Google. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) have weighed in, as has the Department of Justice and a slew of internet experts and tech lobbying groups.

The Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments on Tuesday. The case centers around Google and YouTube’s alleged role in the deadly 2015 rampage through Paris by ISIS terrorists. The family of Nohemi Gonzalez, an American student killed in the attack, sued Google over ISIS recruitment videos that allegedly spread across YouTube and were not immediately removed from the site.

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                    Four hours ago, Platformer’s Zoe Schiffer tweeted a scoop: Twitter would begin charging for SMS two-factor authentication.Now, it’s official: You have to pay for the privilege of using Twitter’s worst form of authentication. In fact, if you don’t start paying for Twitter Blue ($8 a month on Android; $11 a month on iOS) or switch your account to use a far more reliable authenticator app or physical security key, Twitter will simply turn off your 2FA after March 20th.I know which one I would choose.

                    Good riddance to SMS is my feeling, given how common SIM swap hacks are these days. Heck, Twitter’s own Jack Dorsey was successfully targeted by the technique four years ago. You don’t want someone to get access to your accounts by proving they are you simply because they’ve stolen your phone number.

                    That’s how Twitter is trying to justify this change, too, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a simpler reason: it costs money to send SMS messages, and Twitter does not have a lot of money right now. The company had been phasing out SMS even before Elon Musk took over.

Quote

 

Source : https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/17/23605073/twitter-blue-charge-sms-2fa

 

By Sneha Saha: Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced cutting thousands of jobs last month. Pichai, back then, clearly mentioned that layoffs would first happen in the United States followed by other markets. Now, as per several LinkedIn posts by Google employees, it is confirmed that the tech giant is conducting layoffs in India now. Here are a few things you would want to know about Google layoffs in India.

--Several Google employees suggested (on LinkedIn) that the company sent an email to impacted employees last night. As per reports, over 400 employees in India have been given the pink slip.

--Currently, there’s no clarity on the severance package that the impacted Google India employees will get. In the US, Google announced to pay employees during the full notification period (minimum 60 days), offer a severance package starting at 16 weeks' salary plus two weeks for every additional year at Google, accelerate at least 16 weeks of GSU vesting, pay 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time, and 6 months of healthcare, job placement services, and immigration support. It is believed that, in India as well, the company will offer a similar severance package and benefits. Notably, neither Google nor any of the employees have revealed details of severance for Indian employees.

--At the time of announcing the layoffs initially, Pichai clarified that those employees who scored lowest in the performance evaluation process were impacted. However, employees believed it is the other way round and said that layoffs were random. The Google CEO later clarified again that layoffs were not random.

--Pichai took full responsibility for the layoffs and blamed the macroeconomic conditions. He also said that the company overhired during the pandemic. "Over the past two years, we’ve seen periods of dramatic growth. To match and fuel that growth, we hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today," Pichai wrote in the email he sent to Googlers last month.

--Meanwhile, several Google India employees have taken to LinkedIn to reveal that they are disappointed in the way the layoffs have happened. Many mentioned that the company sent the layoff email to impacted employees last night. In fact, some reports suggest that the Google CEO has taken full responsibility for the layoffs in the same email.

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‘No really, you can trust me.’ Image credit: Benoit Daoust/Shutterstock.com

So, within this framework, what could be better than being a psychopath? It’s effective, to misuse a popular modern phrase, to “fake it till you make it”. You garner trust from others only insofar as that trust is useful to you and then betray trust when you no longer need those people.

Viewed in this way, it’s surprising there aren’t more psychopaths. They occupy a disproportionate number of powerful positions. They don’t tend to feel the burden of remorse when they misuse others. They even appear to have more relationships — suggesting that they face no barriers to successful reproduction, the defining criterion of evolutionary success.

Why not more psychopaths?

There are a few convincing theories about why these disorders aren’t more common. Clearly, if everyone were a psychopath, we’d be betrayed constantly and probably completely lose our ability to trust others.

What’s more, psychopathy is almost undoubtedly only partly genetic and has a lot to do with what’s called “human phenotypic plasticity” — the innate ability for our genes to express differently under different circumstances.

Some people think, for example, that the callous and unemotional traits associated with psychopathy are consequences of a difficult upbringing. Insofar as very young children do not receive care or love, they are likely to turn off emotionally — a kind of evolutionary fail-safe to prevent catastrophic trauma.

That said, people from different countries don’t associate the same traits with psychopathy. For example, a cross-cultural study showed that Iranian participants did not, in contrast to Americans, rate deceitfulness and superficiality as indicative of psychopathy. But the general idea is that while some people have a genetic predisposition to such traits, the tendencies develop mainly in tragic family circumstances.

People with a morbid fascination with psychopathy should be aware that the object of their interest often is a sad product of the failures of society to support people.

The cultural context of psychopathy may be a point of hope, however. Psychopathy, at least in part, is a set of characteristics that allows people to thrive — again, evolutionarily speaking — even when faced with terrible hardship. But we can, as a society, try to redefine what desirable qualities are.

Rather than focusing on being good or trustworthy only because of how it can help you get ahead, promoting these qualities for their own sake may help people with antisocial tendencies to treat others well without ulterior motives.

That’s probably a lesson we can all learn — but in a world where pathological fakers are the ones who tend to be celebrated and successful, redefining success in terms of ethics may be a way forward.

The amazing thing about evolution is that we can ultimately help shape it.

Jonathan R Goodman, Researcher, Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Deep beneath an unassuming corner of Tennessee, you can find America’s “Lost Sea”: the largest non-subglacial underground lake in the US, and likely the second largest in the world. Found in Craighead Caverns, this colossal body of underground water is so large that no one’s actually sure how big it is. 

It's located amidst the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee between Sweetwater and Madisonville. Along with holding a vast amount of water, the cavern is known for the array of crystals, stalagmites, and stalactites that decorate its limestone walls.

The cave system has a long history and is considered a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.

Long before humans were here, there’s evidence that the cave was once stalked by fearsome (albeit very lost) giant Pleistocene jaguars. Centuries later, it was used by the Cherokee as a shelter, as shown by the many Native American artifacts – including pottery, arrowheads, weapons, and jewelry – discovered here. 

Craighead Caverns is home to some impressive geology too. Image credit: Jay Williams/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

In more recent centuries, early European colonists stored potatoes here and the cave was later mined by Confederate soldiers for saltpeter to make gunpowder. Moonshiners are also said to have hidden their illegal hooch supplies in the cave during the Prohibition Era. 

However, the “lost lake” was discovered in 1905 when a kid stumbled across the water while playing in the cave. 

"The lake was discovered by Ben Sands," Tour guide Savannah Dalton told CBS News in 2019. "A 13-year-old boy who had actually crawled through a tunnel that was the size of a bicycle tire for 40 feet before he dropped down into the lake itself and actually waded out into about knee-deep water. It was a lot smaller when he came through. But we've blasted it out since."

As for the size of this thing, no one is quite sure. The visible portion of the lake is 243 meters (800 feet) long by 67 meters (220 feet) wide, but beneath the surface, it leads into other huge halls filled with water – many of which are yet to be explored.

Over 13 acres (5.2 hectares) of water have been mapped so far, although explorers have still not found the end of the lake. One diver swam through the lake’s pitch-black waters armed with a sonar device and was forced to turn around since they could detect nothing but water all around them.

So, while the Lost Sea is said to be the second largest non-subglacial underground lake – beaten only by the Dragon's Breath Cave in Namibia – who's to know whether this mysterious cavern could be the true record holder? 

An earlier version of this article was published in August 2022.

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Each year, humans add a little more land to their coastlines, slowly but surely encroaching on the sea and filling up smaller coastal bodies of water with new developments. This encroachment typically comes as we add luxury waterfronts and extend ports farther out to sea. In all, since 2000, coastlines around the world—specifically in urban areas—grew a whopping 2,530 square kilometers, according to a new paper.

A press release about the research notes that this is around 40 Manhattans, while the paper itself points out that this is roughly the size of Luxemburg. Neither source said this, but it’s also more than 4,000 Dollywoods.

The paper—which claims to be the “first global assessment of coastal land reclamation"—looked at how human development built land in, or filled parts of, coastal zones. This includes wetlands, which play various important roles like slowing erosion (but humans can just keep building out anyway, right?), protecting areas further inland from flooding and sea level rise, and acting as habitats for myriad species.

Eye in the sky

The team of researchers looked at satellite imagery taken between 2000 and 2020 from 135 large coastal cities—i.e., 1 million people or more—around the globe. Of this number, 106 sites saw an increase in coastline landmass.

This process was most common in the Global South, particularly among growing economies. Cities from three countries—China, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates—led the pack in terms of these developments. Shanghai, for instance, added around 350 square kilometers, compared to Los Angeles—the only United States city that made noticeable increases—which grew at 0.29 square kilometers over the 20-year period.

The most common type of development was port extensions, which were seen in 70 cities. This is followed by residential and/or commercial developments, which showed up in 30 cities. In the press release, physical geographer at the University of Southampton and lead author of the paper Dhritiraj Sengupta said that much of these changes were driven by an increased need for space in urban areas. However, cities also pursued some of these developments—like the islands in Dubai arranged to look like a palm tree from above—for prestige.

Not just sitting on the dock of the bay

These developments come with some associated costs, however. The paper notes that around 70 percent of the expansions happened in low-lying regions that could be susceptible to sea level rise. Some places compensate by building sea walls or other structures designed to protect against sea level rise and flooding. For instance, around 14 percent of shores in the US are estimated to be protected by such structures. But these builds can also impact nearby natural ecosystems, such as by blocking species migration. Further, as Ars reported previously, sea walls could end up pushing water from flooding to other parts of the coast.

The paper also notes that, in some cases, coastal growth comes with an increase in pollution entering the sea. In the case of the Indonesian city Jakarta, this can include trash and various contaminants being swept into the coastal waters. This, in turn, can harm nearby ecosystems, resulting in industries like tourism and fishing taking a hit.

The paper only looks at specific, though highly populated, parts of the world’s coastline—a small fraction of Earth’s estimated total of some 620,000 kilometers of coastline. Around 2.4 billion people live within 100 kilometers of that area. But, by some counts, only 15 percent of the world’s coasts exist in their natural states. So, it’s difficult to say that the less populated shores aren’t also seeing some unexpected changes.

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New mechanism proposed for why some psychedelics act as antidepressants

Or at least that’s the information planetary leader Elon Musk has retweeted, originally published by Twitter account @Rainmaker1973, a verified account with more than one million followers. It reportedly didn’t make Twitter employees cry this time.

This affirmation comes from a thought experiment, claiming that if just 1% of the solar energy that was retrieved from the Sahara via conventional solar panels, it could power the entire world.

The math goes like this: according to some estimates, the world energy consumption is 17.3 Terawatts of continuous power for an entire year. Then, if you cover an area of 208 square miles, it can provide 17.4 Terawatts of power. It takes into account solar panels currently available for roofs, with moderate efficiency.

The Sahara has more than the room for that, since it’s about 5.7 million square miles, and receives sunlight more than twelve hours per day, making the desert a prime location for solar energy harvesting. Even though this would be unarguably costly at about five trillion dollars, this is less than Obama’s bailouts in 2009. 

Let’s take a look at what Musk proposes, then.

• A civilization 100 times larger than ours would need 17.3 TW x 100. That is, 1,730 TW.
• According to the original tweet, just 1% of the Sahara would power the Earth. That means, 100% of the Sahara would be able to power the energy of a civilization 100 times larger than ours. The Earth, as Musk surely knows, is much larger than the Sahara.
• Elon Musk is right in saying that the whole Earth could power a civilization over 100 times larger than ours but leaves us wondering exactly how large, considering the whole Earth.

Even though he didn’t bother to delve into the issue further, he makes a valid point worth exploring. Can the current energy crisis the world is facing be solved by solar energy? As it turns out, there are a couple of issues with this concept.

First of all, solar panels have a certain longevity. Typical panels, much like the ones used in the thought experiment, last only 25 to 30 years. Bear in mind this is an average, and climatic conditions can affect them sooner. It’s anyone’s guess how much money would go into maintenance alone, not even to mention the replacement costs every two decades or so.

Besides that, you can’t transport energy from the Sahara to, say, Siberia, without any losses. A typical maximum transmission distance is about 300 miles. To achieve this, the typical voltages for energy transmission go between 155,000 to 765,000 volts. That’s a huge amount of volts! You need to build electric substations for this, which, as you can imagine, are costly.

All this means that while solar energy is a promising source, more technological innovations are necessary to achieve something like what Musk envisions. While there are ideas to solve the issues presented before, we’re still not there.

Luckily for us humans, if we’re subjugated and need to slave away our energy to our 100-times-larger-civilization alien overlords, the Sahara would suffice. The problem comes with civilizations over 100 times larger. Perhaps if it’s just a bit over 100, Musk can contribute with his assets to fill the gap.

The amount of solar energy received by Earth could power a civilization over 100 times larger than ours!

Martial arts have a sort of magical aspect. It can seem like those who have mastered them have ventured beyond the realm of physical possibilities and obtained a superpower. In this case, I'm going to examine the “1-inch punch,” which Bruce Lee made famous at a 1964 karate tournament, delivering a powerful blow with his fist starting just an inch away from his opponent. (You can see some examples here and here.)

This punch seems like it should be impossible. I mean, if a mere mortal were to punch someone, they would pull their fist back a good distance before striking. Punching over such a short distance is like jumping really high without bending down first. Let's figure out what's going on.

Forces and Momentum

I'll be honest: This is an excuse to talk about some of my favorite physics concepts, force and momentum. If two objects interact in some way, such as by pushing on each other, then we can model this interaction as a force. (You must have at least two objects to have an interaction.) When object A pushes on object B, B pushes back on A with a force of the same strength.

Here's what that would look like as a physics diagram:

Courtesy of Rhett Allain

It's important to remember that force is a property of the interaction, not a property of the object.

The force on an object changes its momentum, a measure that is the product of an object’s mass and its velocity. (Stationary objects have a momentum of zero.) If more than one force acts on an object from more than one interaction, then the total—or net—force changes the object’s momentum.

Before we get to the punching, there's one more important thing to consider in our mini physics course, and it has to do with the nature of “objects.” In short, stuff is made of other stuff. If you want, you can model a tennis ball as a single object—but it's not really a single object. In fact, a tennis ball is made of many parts, and each of these parts are made of molecules, and each of those molecules are made of atoms. If you have a single force acting on a tennis ball, it is actually creating a vast number of interactions between an uncountable number of atoms.

No one wants to deal with that many interactions. Instead, in physics we treat the ball as one thing—and that's mostly fine. However, to make sure that other people understand what we are doing when we model an interaction, we have to define our “system.” Perhaps, to make it easy, we decide the system is just the ball itself. If so, we deal only with the ball's momentum and any forces due to external interactions, and we can ignore all those atom-atom interactions. We could even forget about the interaction between the ball’s fuzzy surface and its interior rubber part.

It's also possible to have a system that consists of more than one object. Imagine a tennis ball attached by a string to a soccer ball. If I want to use a system consisting of both balls, then I would only look at forces due to external interactions. I wouldn't include the force the string exerts on either ball.

For the momentum of this system, I would use its total mass, which is the sum of the mass of the balls, and the velocity of the center of the system’s mass. Since the soccer ball has a larger mass, this center of mass would be closer to it along the string and farther from the tennis ball.

Courtesy of Rhett Allain

Guess what? Humans are also made of stuff, and a person also has a center of mass. But the physics of humans can get messy, since they can change shape. Different parts, like arms and legs, can be positioned differently. However, a good rough estimation is that the center of mass for a standing person is somewhere between their belly button and their spine. For a person in a sitting position, their bent legs will move their center of mass a little closer to their chest.

The System of Bruce Lee Plus the Target

From a physics perspective, any punch can be complicated. So let's make it as simple as possible by considering the 1-inch punch for a system consisting of one puncher and one punchee. Let’s call them Bruce and Joe, respectively, since there's a famous video of Bruce Lee punching martial artist Joe Lewis at an exhibition.

With this system we can ignore any forces due to internal interactions. Yes, that means that we don't actually have to look at the force from the 1-inch punch. It's an interaction between two objects in the same system (Bruce and Joe).

What forces do we have left? Really, there are just two external interactions. There's the downward-pulling gravitational force from their interaction with the Earth, and there's the interaction between the floor and the system. This floor force can push up and also sideways, because of friction.

What about the system’s center of mass? We need to know something about the positions of Bruce and Joe. Usually, both people start standing up, and the puncher positions their fist 1 inch from the target. After the punch, the punchee falls back into a chair that’s been handily positioned behind them.

I'm going to draw a stick-figure version of this action both before and after the punch, along with the approximate center of mass represented by a red dot.

Courtesy of Rhett Allain

Let's look at the motion of this center of mass for the system of Bruce plus Joe. First, you can see that the center of mass moves to the right. It's still in between Bruce and Joe, but since Joe moved to the right, so did the center of mass.

Next, you should notice that the height of the center of mass moved down. Why? Well, Joe fell into a chair. That means that Joe’s center moved down, which decreased the overall height of the system (Bruce plus Joe).

Finally, the center of mass has a velocity moving to the right. Just after the punch, Joe's still sliding in the chair, so his location is also moving.

How can we explain this motion of the center of mass just from the external forces? Of course, the gravitational force pulling down on the system can account for the downward motion of the center of mass. And there’s the upward pushing force from the floor—but really, that just prevents the system from falling down below the level of the floor. Then what force makes the center of mass move to the right and increase in speed?

The answer is friction. When Bruce does his 1-inch punch, there's a frictional force between the floor and his feet pushing to the right. This frictional force pushes the center of mass to the right.

What if Bruce did his famous punch while standing on ice? There wouldn't be an external force from friction. Yes, Joe would still move to the right from the punch—but Bruce would recoil and move to the left such that the center of mass would be horizontally stationary. (It would still move downwards, because Joe fell.)

The System of Just Joe Lewis

You might think it's silly to look at the system of both humans, but it shows us that the frictional force is quite important in the overall result. But what if we look at the system of only Joe Lewis? From the motion of Joe's center of mass, we can get some idea about the forces acting on him. Yes, one of these external forces pushing on Joe is Bruce Lee's 1-inch punch.

Let's get some real data on Joe's recoil. I'm using a clip from this compilation of punches, and I'm just guessing that the part in black-and-white film is the punch with Joe Lewis. If not, that's cool—it really doesn't matter which person plays the target, since they don't have an active role. Now, I'm going to use Tracker Video Analysis) to mark Joe’s location in each frame. From this I get the following for the horizontal position as a function of time:

Courtesy of Rhett Allain

After the punch, his horizontal position changes at a fairly constant rate, so that the slope of this line can give his horizontal velocity. From the analysis, this puts his velocity at 1.19 meters per second. With a mass of 70 kilograms (which is just a guess), that means he has a change in momentum of 83.3 kilogram-meters per second. (Kg*m/s is the unit for momentum.)

This number is very useful. Since this change in momentum is related to the force that was exerted on him from Bruce’s punch, we can write this as the following expression:

Courtesy of Rhett Allain

But we don't actually know the contact time. That's fine. Let's just make a rough estimation from the video, which shows that Bruce's fist is in contact with the target for about three frames. This particular clip is running at 25 frames per second, so three frames would be 0.12 seconds. This gives an average impact force of 694 newtons, or 156 pounds. That's the amount of force it would take to lift a fully grown human (but only for a very, very short time). I don't think this force value is extraordinarily large—but I'm also not saying that I could do it.

Before we move on to the Bruce Lee system, there's one more important thing about this punch. It's sort of a trick to put the chair behind the punchee. This makes the impact seem more dramatic than it actually is. Let me draw the horizontal forces on Joe during the punch’s impact, and you can see how this trick works. (I left off the two vertical forces from gravity pulling down and the floor pushing up.)

Courtesy of Rhett Allain

In the horizontal direction, there are just two forces: the force from the punch (FB) pushing to the right and a weaker frictional force (Ff) pushing to the left. Since the net force pushes to the right, Joe will increase in momentum to the right. But notice that the frictional force is applied to his feet and the punch is somewhere around his chest. Since these two forces are applied at different locations on the body, they will cause a rotation about his center of mass. That means he will tip over and fall. Good thing that chair is there waiting for him.

Of course, standing up straight with your feet close together isn't such a great idea. This knock-over wouldn't be as easy to accomplish if Joe had his feet apart. With one foot back, the upward-pushing force from the floor would counteract the rotation of the other two forces.

The System of Just Bruce Lee

This is what you have been waiting for—and why I put him last. I've already estimated that Bruce Lee exerts a punch force of around 694 newtons. Like I said, it's not the force that's impressive, it's the short punching distance. He’s only punching 1 inch, which is 2.54 centimeters.

Let's compare this to a punch from a more normal distance. Suppose Joe wants to return the favor to Bruce. It seems safe to assume that Joe's punch could also deliver a force of 694 newtons, or somewhere around that value. However, this punch accelerates his fist over a distance 0.5 meters instead of 2.54 centimeters. (I estimated that distance by pretending to punch someone and noting how far my fist had to move.)

Let's calculate the force-to-distance ratio for these two punches. The ratio for Joe would be 1,388 newtons per meter, but Bruce's would be 27,300. That's almost 20 times greater. He must be a superhuman.

Oh, just one second. There's something else going on. If you take a look at Bruce's 1-inch punch very carefully, you will see something useful. Bruce doesn't just move his fist forward 1 inch. Before the punch, he actually moves his whole body forward. (He doesn't pick up his feet, but he definitely moves his body.) If you were to track the location of his center of mass, you would get the following plot of his horizontal position as a function of time:

Courtesy of Rhett Allain

Notice that most of this center of mass motion is before the punch. Looking at the slope of the best fit line, it seems like he is moving about 0.36 meters per second in preparation for the punch.

Does this even matter? Let’s do another calculation. Let's say Bruce is moving with this speed towards a stationary Joe and they collide, but there's no punch. After the collision, Joe recoils with some velocity and Bruce just stops. If the only interaction is due to the collision, and Bruce and Joe have the same mass, then with Bruce stopping, Joe would recoil with a speed of 0.36 m/s. (You can see this same thing happen when two pool balls collide and one stops while the other travels away at the same speed.) This gives Joe a lower fallback speed, but it's not tiny either.

With Bruce moving his whole body, it’s almost like he has a second “fist” that’s punching the target. This second fist has momentum, even though it’s not moving very fast, because it has the mass of his whole body. Also, by moving his whole body, Bruce can essentially increase the total time of the punch without actually touching the punchee. It makes the 1-inch punch a whole body interaction using his legs, instead of just his fist.

So what can we now say about the physics of the 1-inch punch? First, if you have the target standing with their feet close together, that person is going to probably fall back, even if a mere mortal like myself delivered the punch. Second, this isn't really a “1-inch punch” since Bruce is actually moving his whole body over a larger distance.

I think we can all agree that physics gets the credit here, not magic. And so does training and skill: Bruce Lee could deliver a punch with quite a significant wallop. In the end, it doesn't matter if this punch is superhuman or not—I don't want to be on the receiving end of it.

The Secret to Bruce Lee’s Superhuman One-Inch Punch

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One of the many iconic moments in Terminator 2: Judgment Day was seeing the T-1000 briefly morph into a liquid to pass through the metal bars separating him from his target: a teenage John Connor. A team of engineers mimicked that famous scene with a soft robot in the shape of a Lego minifig. The robot "melts" into liquid form in response to a magnetic field, oozing between the bars of its cage before re-solidifying on the other side. The team described its work in a recent paper published in the journal Matter.

 

As we've previously reported, we traditionally think of robots as being manufactured out of hard, rigid materials, but the subfield of soft robotics takes a different approach. It seeks to build robotic devices out of more flexible materials that mimic the properties of those found in living animals. There are huge advantages to be gained by making the entire body of a robot out of soft materials, such as being flexible enough to squeeze through tight spaces to hunt for survivors after a disaster. Soft robots also hold strong potential as prosthetics or biomedical devices. Even rigid robots rely on some soft components, such as foot pads that serve as shock absorbers or flexible springs to store and release energy.

 

For instance, Harvard researchers built an octopus-inspired soft robot in 2016 that was constructed entirely out of flexible materials. Soft robots are more difficult to control precisely because they are so flexible. So, for the "octobot," they replaced the rigid electronic circuits with micro-fluidic circuits. Such circuits regulate the flow of water (hydraulics) or air (pneumatics), rather than electricity, through the circuit's microchannels, enabling the robot to bend and move. In 2021, engineers at the University of Maryland built a three-fingered soft robotic hand that is sufficiently agile to be able to manipulate the buttons and directional pad on a Nintendo controller—even managing to beat the first level of Super Mario Bros. as proof of concept.

 

This latest robot belongs to a class known as magnetically actuated miniature machines, typically made of soft polymers (like elastomers or hydrogels) embedded with ferromagnetic particles that have programmed magnetization profiles. These kinds of robots can swim, climb, roll, walk, and jump, as well as change their shape simply by altering the corresponding magnetic field. That makes them ideal for several biomedical applications, such as targeted drug delivery and therapy for healing ulcers. But according to the authors of the new paper in Matter, such elastomer-based composites are difficult to steer through very narrow and confined spaces where the openings are smaller than the dimensions of the material because they are essentially solids and thus have limited deformability.

 

Eager to find a solution, they looked to the humble sea cucumber for inspiration. Sea cucumbers are fascinating creatures with soft cylindrical bodies and mouths surrounded by retractable tentacles. Some species can even vomit toxins as a means of self-defense. But it's the sea cucumber's remarkable ability to loosen and tighten at will the collagen that forms the walls of their body that intrigued these engineers. This lets the sea cucumber essentially "liquefy" its body to squeeze through tiny cracks and crevices, hooking all those collagen fibres back together afterward to once again form a solid body.

 

The new mini-robot is made of magneto-active phase transitional matter (MPTM), capable of switching back and forth between solid and liquid states. When the MPTM is heated with an alternating magnetic field, it melts into a liquid, while ambient cooling lets it resolidify when the magnetic field is removed. MPTMs are composed of ferromagnetic neodymium-iron-boron microparticles embedded in pure gallium. The resulting material has a melting point of 30.6° C (about 87° F), so it remains solid at room temperature. In its solid form, the MPTM has excellent mechanical strength, good for bearing high loads, and versatile mobility. In its liquid phase, the microparticles can rotate and reorient their magnetic polarity to lengthen, divide, and merge as needed.

Demonstration of MPTM smart-soldering robot for circuit repair. Credit: Q. Wang et al., 2023

“The magnetic particles here have two roles,” said co-author Carmel Majidi, a mechanical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University. “One is that they make the material responsive to an alternating magnetic field, so you can, through induction, heat up the material and cause the phase change. But the magnetic particles also give the robots mobility and the ability to move in response to the magnetic field.”

 

Mini-robot shifts from solid to liquid to escape its cage—just like the T-1000