CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A rocket ship built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company thundered away from Earth with two Americans on Saturday, ushering in a new era in commercial space travel and putting the United States back in the business of launching astronauts into orbit from home soil for the first time in nearly a decade.
NASA’s Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken rode skyward aboard a white-and-black, bullet-shaped Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, lifting off at 3:22 p.m. from the same launch pad used to send Apollo crews to the moon a half-century ago. Minutes later, they slipped safely into orbit.
“Let's light this candle,” Hurley said just before ignition, borrowing the historic words used by Alan Shepard on America's first human spaceflight, in 1961.
The two men are scheduled to arrive Sunday at the International Space Station, 250 miles above Earth, for a stay of up to four months, after which they will come home with a Right Stuff-style splashdown at sea, something the world hasn't witnessed since the 1970s.
The mission unfolded amid the gloom of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 100,000 Americans, and racial unrest across the U.S. over the case of George Floyd, the handcuffed black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis police.
NASA officials and others expressed hope the flight would lift American spirits and show the world what the U.S. can do.
“We are back in the game. It’s very satisfying,” said Doug Marshburn, of Deltona, Florida, who shouted, “USA! USA!" as he watched the 260-foot rocket climb skyward.
SpaceX becomes the first private company to launch people into orbit, a feat achieved previously by only three governments: the U.S., Russia and China.
“This is something that should really get people right in the heart of anyone who has any spirit of exploration,” Musk, the visionary also behind the Tesla electric car company, said after liftoff, pounding his chest with his fist.
The flight also ended a nine-year launch drought for NASA. Ever since it retired the space shuttle in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take U.S. astronauts to and from the space station.
Over the past few years, NASA outsourced the job of designing and building its next generation of spaceships to SpaceX and Boeing, awarding them $7 billion in contracts in a public-private partnership aimed at driving down costs and spurring innovation. Boeing’s spaceship, the Starliner capsule, is not expected to fly astronauts until early 2021.
NASA plans to rely in part on commercial partners as it pursues it next goals: sending astronauts back to the moon within a few years, and on to Mars in the 2030s.
At a post-liftoff rally held at NASA's massive 525-foot-high Vehicle Assembly Building, President Donald Trump commended Musk and proclaimed: “Today we once again proudly launch American astronauts on American rockets, the best in the world, from right here on American soil.”
He vowed the U.S. will be the first to land on Mars, promising a “future of American dominance in space.”
Vice President Mike Pence, who also witnessed the launch, said that as the nation deals with the coronavirus and racial strife, "I believe with all my heart that millions of Americans today will find the same inspiration and unity of purpose that we found in those days in the 1960s” during Apollo.
The first attempt to launch the rocket, on Wednesday, was called off with less than 17 minutes to go in the countdown because of lightning. On Saturday, stormy weather threatened another postponement for most of the day, but the skies began to clear just in the time.
Sunday, May 31, 2020
free books on Amazon
Besides Prime Reading, Amazon also offers free kindle books available for purchase (can you purchase something that's free?).
Here's one way to do it.
From the left of the search bar (on Amazon's web page), select "Books" from the drop-down box.
Click on the search icon (the magnifying glass).
Select the category you're interested in (in the horizontal band titled "Shop by Category"). (You could also select the category under Books in the left column. There's more categories that way.)
Select Kindle Edition under Refine by ... Format in the left column.
Then choose Sort by: Price: Low to High in the drop-down box at the top right.
Scroll down and look.
Some books are free with a Kindle Unlimited membership. But others are free unconditionally.
***
How about finding Prime Reading on the website?
Select Books. Click on the search icon.
Select Prime Reading under Kindle & Audible in the left column.
It'll present a number of recommended books.
For more, click on Browse the catalog link. Then you can choose further from a number of categories in the left column, though there's not as many choices as with the Kindle Edition books. (But after clicking on category, you're presented with a number of sub-categories.)
Here's one way to do it.
From the left of the search bar (on Amazon's web page), select "Books" from the drop-down box.
Click on the search icon (the magnifying glass).
Select the category you're interested in (in the horizontal band titled "Shop by Category"). (You could also select the category under Books in the left column. There's more categories that way.)
Select Kindle Edition under Refine by ... Format in the left column.
Then choose Sort by: Price: Low to High in the drop-down box at the top right.
Scroll down and look.
Some books are free with a Kindle Unlimited membership. But others are free unconditionally.
***
How about finding Prime Reading on the website?
Select Books. Click on the search icon.
Select Prime Reading under Kindle & Audible in the left column.
It'll present a number of recommended books.
For more, click on Browse the catalog link. Then you can choose further from a number of categories in the left column, though there's not as many choices as with the Kindle Edition books. (But after clicking on category, you're presented with a number of sub-categories.)
Thursday, May 28, 2020
CVS delivers
Nuro, the autonomous robotics startup that has raised more than $1 billion from Softbank Vision Fund, Greylock and other investors, said Thursday it will test prescription delivery in Houston through a partnership with CVS Pharmacy. The pilot, which will use a fleet of the startup's autonomous Toyota Prius vehicles and transition to using its custom-built R2 delivery bots, is slated to begin in June.
The partnership marks Nuro's expansion beyond groceries and into healthcare. Last month, the startup dipped its autonomous toe in the healthcare field through a program to delivery food and medical supplies at temporary field hospitals in California set up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pilot program centers on one CVS Pharmacy in Bellaire, Texas and will serve customers across three zip codes. Customers who place prescription orders via CVS' website or pharmacy app will be given the option to choose an autonomous delivery option. These pharmacy customers will also be able add other non-prescription items to their order.
Once the autonomous vehicle arrives, customers will need to confirm their identification to unlock their delivery. Deliveries will be free of charge for CVS Pharmacy customers.
The partnership marks Nuro's expansion beyond groceries and into healthcare. Last month, the startup dipped its autonomous toe in the healthcare field through a program to delivery food and medical supplies at temporary field hospitals in California set up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pilot program centers on one CVS Pharmacy in Bellaire, Texas and will serve customers across three zip codes. Customers who place prescription orders via CVS' website or pharmacy app will be given the option to choose an autonomous delivery option. These pharmacy customers will also be able add other non-prescription items to their order.
Once the autonomous vehicle arrives, customers will need to confirm their identification to unlock their delivery. Deliveries will be free of charge for CVS Pharmacy customers.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
Planet of the Humans
A new documentary produced by Michael Moore, Planet of the Humans, was pulled from YouTube overnight – a decision writer-director Jeff Gibbs called a “blatant act of censorship.”
The film was released on YouTube on April 21, and has seen 8.3 million views since its launch.
Climate scientists and environmentalists urged for the removal of the film, calling it “dangerous, misleading and destructive”.
In a letter written by Gasland filmmaker Josh Fox and signed by scientists and activists, the way the film “trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points” is criticised.
Following the removal of the film, Gibbs said in a statement yesterday (May 25): “It is a misuse of copyright law to shutdown a film that has opened a serious conversation about how parts of the environmental movement have gotten into bed with Wall Street and so-called ‘green capitalists’.
“There is absolutely no copyright violation in my film. This is just another attempt by the film’s opponents to subvert the right to free speech.”
Planet of the Humans suggests electric cars and solar energy are unreliable, relying on fossil fuels. The film also criticises Al Gore for helping corporations to test “ineffective technologies over real solutions”.
Gibbs added: “Opponents of Planet of the Humans, who do not like its critique of the failures of the environmental movement, have worked for weeks to have the film taken down and to block us from appearing on TV and on livestream.
“Their efforts to subvert free speech have failed, with nearly eight and a half million people already viewing the film on YouTube. These Trumpian tactics are shameful, and their aim to stifle free speech and prevent people from grappling with the uncomfortable truths exposed in this film is deeply disturbing.”
The producers subsequently announced that Planet of the Humans will now stream for free on Vimeo.
***
The controversial film Planet of the Humans, produced by Michael Moore, was taken down from YouTube on Monday because of a copyright infringement claim. The complaint was filed by photographer Toby Smith, who was alarmed that his work was used in a film that he doesn’t support, The Guardian reports.
“I don’t agree with its message and I don’t like the misleading use of facts in its narrative,” Smith said to The Guardian. A few seconds of Smith’s video, Rare Earthenware, were used in Moore’s film, which criticizes renewable energy.
A firestorm of criticism from influential environmental advocates followed the release of Planet of the Humans in April. Among other things, the film makes the dubious claim that solar and wind power are potentially as harmful to the environment as fossil fuels and that environmentalists are essentially in the pockets of renewable energy corporations. Those claims have been torn apart by environmentalists and scientists who say that the film’s assertions are misleading.
“There is no perfect solution to our energy challenges. But this film does not grapple with these thorny questions; it peddles falsehoods,” Leah Stokes, UC Santa Barbara assistant professor and author of the book on clean energy Short Circuiting Policy, wrote for Vox.
The film was released on YouTube on April 21, and has seen 8.3 million views since its launch.
Climate scientists and environmentalists urged for the removal of the film, calling it “dangerous, misleading and destructive”.
In a letter written by Gasland filmmaker Josh Fox and signed by scientists and activists, the way the film “trades in debunked fossil fuel industry talking points” is criticised.
Following the removal of the film, Gibbs said in a statement yesterday (May 25): “It is a misuse of copyright law to shutdown a film that has opened a serious conversation about how parts of the environmental movement have gotten into bed with Wall Street and so-called ‘green capitalists’.
“There is absolutely no copyright violation in my film. This is just another attempt by the film’s opponents to subvert the right to free speech.”
Planet of the Humans suggests electric cars and solar energy are unreliable, relying on fossil fuels. The film also criticises Al Gore for helping corporations to test “ineffective technologies over real solutions”.
Gibbs added: “Opponents of Planet of the Humans, who do not like its critique of the failures of the environmental movement, have worked for weeks to have the film taken down and to block us from appearing on TV and on livestream.
“Their efforts to subvert free speech have failed, with nearly eight and a half million people already viewing the film on YouTube. These Trumpian tactics are shameful, and their aim to stifle free speech and prevent people from grappling with the uncomfortable truths exposed in this film is deeply disturbing.”
The producers subsequently announced that Planet of the Humans will now stream for free on Vimeo.
***
The controversial film Planet of the Humans, produced by Michael Moore, was taken down from YouTube on Monday because of a copyright infringement claim. The complaint was filed by photographer Toby Smith, who was alarmed that his work was used in a film that he doesn’t support, The Guardian reports.
“I don’t agree with its message and I don’t like the misleading use of facts in its narrative,” Smith said to The Guardian. A few seconds of Smith’s video, Rare Earthenware, were used in Moore’s film, which criticizes renewable energy.
A firestorm of criticism from influential environmental advocates followed the release of Planet of the Humans in April. Among other things, the film makes the dubious claim that solar and wind power are potentially as harmful to the environment as fossil fuels and that environmentalists are essentially in the pockets of renewable energy corporations. Those claims have been torn apart by environmentalists and scientists who say that the film’s assertions are misleading.
“There is no perfect solution to our energy challenges. But this film does not grapple with these thorny questions; it peddles falsehoods,” Leah Stokes, UC Santa Barbara assistant professor and author of the book on clean energy Short Circuiting Policy, wrote for Vox.
Sunday, May 17, 2020
how the world’s worst pandemics finally ended
As human civilizations flourished, so did infectious disease. Large numbers of people living in close proximity to each other and to animals, often with poor sanitation and nutrition, provided fertile breeding grounds for disease. And new overseas trading routes spread the novel infections far and wide, creating the first global pandemics.
Here’s how five of the world’s worst pandemics finally ended.
1. Plague of Justinian—No One Left to Die
2. Black Death—The Invention of Quarantine
3. The Great Plague of London—Sealing Up the Sick
4. Smallpox—A European Disease Ravages the New World
5. Cholera—A Victory for Public Health Research
***
We know how the COVID-19 pandemic began: Bats near Wuhan, China, hold a mix of coronavirus strains, and sometime last fall one of the strains, opportunistic enough to cross species lines, left its host or hosts and ended up in a person. Then it was on the loose.
What no one knows yet is how the pandemic will end. This coronavirus is unprecedented in the combination of its easy transmissibility, a range of symptoms going from none at all to deadly, and the extent that it has disrupted the world. A highly susceptible population led to near exponential growth in cases. “This is a distinct and very new situation,” says epidemiologist and evolutionary biologist Sarah Cobey of the University of Chicago.
But past pandemics do offer hints of the future. While there is no one historical example to follow, humanity has gone through several large epidemics in the past 100 or so years that eventually stopped ravaging society. The ways they came to a halt offer guidance to a world looking for ways to restore health and some sense of normalcy. Three of those experiences, Cobey and other experts say, suggest that what happens next depends on both the evolution of the pathogen and of the human response to it, both biological and social.
***
In this article, we take a look back at some of the other pandemics that humans have endured. Specifically, we investigate cholera, the Black Death, and the Spanish flu, among others. We will note any similarities and take lessons where we can.
***
Pandemics end when the virus doesn't have enough susceptible people to infect.
The catastrophic 1918 Spanish flu pandemic is thought to have infected 500 million people worldwide, many of them soldiers living in close quarters fighting in World War I. Once the war ended and people dispersed, the spread slowed as people had less contact. But the flu was ultimately halted in part because those who survived it had immunity and the virus didn't hop as easily as it did at the beginning.
If the virus comes into contact with another person but that person isn't susceptible to the disease, then that chain of transmission is snuffed out. If one person infects two, those people together infect four and so on, and eventually, the virus runs out of susceptible people to infect, said Joshua Epstein, a professor of epidemiology at New York University. "What happens typically is that enough people get the bug that there just aren't enough susceptible people to keep the chain going."
***
Even a perfect response won’t end the pandemic. As long as the virus persists somewhere, there’s a chance that one infected traveler will reignite fresh sparks in countries that have already extinguished their fires. This is already happening in China, Singapore, and other Asian countries that briefly seemed to have the virus under control. Under these conditions, there are three possible endgames: one that’s very unlikely, one that’s very dangerous, and one that’s very long.
The first is that every nation manages to simultaneously bring the virus to heel, as with the original SARS in 2003. Given how widespread the coronavirus pandemic is, and how badly many countries are faring, the odds of worldwide synchronous control seem vanishingly small.
The second is that the virus does what past flu pandemics have done: It burns through the world and leaves behind enough immune survivors that it eventually struggles to find viable hosts. This “herd immunity” scenario would be quick, and thus tempting. But it would also come at a terrible cost: SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible and fatal than the flu, and it would likely leave behind many millions of corpses and a trail of devastated health systems. The United Kingdom initially seemed to consider this herd-immunity strategy, before backtracking when models revealed the dire consequences. The U.S. now seems to be considering it too.
The third scenario is that the world plays a protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus, stamping out outbreaks here and there until a vaccine can be produced. This is the best option, but also the longest and most complicated.
It depends, for a start, on making a vaccine. If this were a flu pandemic, that would be easier. The world is experienced at making flu vaccines and does so every year. But there are no existing vaccines for coronaviruses—until now, these viruses seemed to cause diseases that were mild or rare—so researchers must start from scratch.
***
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide—about one-third of the planet’s population—and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans. The 1918 flu was first observed in Europe, the United States and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading around the world. At the time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain. Citizens were ordered to wear masks, schools, theaters and businesses were shuttered and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues before the virus ended its deadly global march.
By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity.
Here’s how five of the world’s worst pandemics finally ended.
1. Plague of Justinian—No One Left to Die
2. Black Death—The Invention of Quarantine
3. The Great Plague of London—Sealing Up the Sick
4. Smallpox—A European Disease Ravages the New World
5. Cholera—A Victory for Public Health Research
***
We know how the COVID-19 pandemic began: Bats near Wuhan, China, hold a mix of coronavirus strains, and sometime last fall one of the strains, opportunistic enough to cross species lines, left its host or hosts and ended up in a person. Then it was on the loose.
What no one knows yet is how the pandemic will end. This coronavirus is unprecedented in the combination of its easy transmissibility, a range of symptoms going from none at all to deadly, and the extent that it has disrupted the world. A highly susceptible population led to near exponential growth in cases. “This is a distinct and very new situation,” says epidemiologist and evolutionary biologist Sarah Cobey of the University of Chicago.
But past pandemics do offer hints of the future. While there is no one historical example to follow, humanity has gone through several large epidemics in the past 100 or so years that eventually stopped ravaging society. The ways they came to a halt offer guidance to a world looking for ways to restore health and some sense of normalcy. Three of those experiences, Cobey and other experts say, suggest that what happens next depends on both the evolution of the pathogen and of the human response to it, both biological and social.
***
In this article, we take a look back at some of the other pandemics that humans have endured. Specifically, we investigate cholera, the Black Death, and the Spanish flu, among others. We will note any similarities and take lessons where we can.
***
Pandemics end when the virus doesn't have enough susceptible people to infect.
The catastrophic 1918 Spanish flu pandemic is thought to have infected 500 million people worldwide, many of them soldiers living in close quarters fighting in World War I. Once the war ended and people dispersed, the spread slowed as people had less contact. But the flu was ultimately halted in part because those who survived it had immunity and the virus didn't hop as easily as it did at the beginning.
If the virus comes into contact with another person but that person isn't susceptible to the disease, then that chain of transmission is snuffed out. If one person infects two, those people together infect four and so on, and eventually, the virus runs out of susceptible people to infect, said Joshua Epstein, a professor of epidemiology at New York University. "What happens typically is that enough people get the bug that there just aren't enough susceptible people to keep the chain going."
***
Even a perfect response won’t end the pandemic. As long as the virus persists somewhere, there’s a chance that one infected traveler will reignite fresh sparks in countries that have already extinguished their fires. This is already happening in China, Singapore, and other Asian countries that briefly seemed to have the virus under control. Under these conditions, there are three possible endgames: one that’s very unlikely, one that’s very dangerous, and one that’s very long.
The first is that every nation manages to simultaneously bring the virus to heel, as with the original SARS in 2003. Given how widespread the coronavirus pandemic is, and how badly many countries are faring, the odds of worldwide synchronous control seem vanishingly small.
The second is that the virus does what past flu pandemics have done: It burns through the world and leaves behind enough immune survivors that it eventually struggles to find viable hosts. This “herd immunity” scenario would be quick, and thus tempting. But it would also come at a terrible cost: SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible and fatal than the flu, and it would likely leave behind many millions of corpses and a trail of devastated health systems. The United Kingdom initially seemed to consider this herd-immunity strategy, before backtracking when models revealed the dire consequences. The U.S. now seems to be considering it too.
The third scenario is that the world plays a protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus, stamping out outbreaks here and there until a vaccine can be produced. This is the best option, but also the longest and most complicated.
It depends, for a start, on making a vaccine. If this were a flu pandemic, that would be easier. The world is experienced at making flu vaccines and does so every year. But there are no existing vaccines for coronaviruses—until now, these viruses seemed to cause diseases that were mild or rare—so researchers must start from scratch.
***
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, the deadliest in history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide—about one-third of the planet’s population—and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans. The 1918 flu was first observed in Europe, the United States and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading around the world. At the time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain. Citizens were ordered to wear masks, schools, theaters and businesses were shuttered and bodies piled up in makeshift morgues before the virus ended its deadly global march.
By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity.
Saturday, May 02, 2020
crises lead to innovation
Economic, geopolitical, and health crises throughout human history have often spurred a flurry of innovation, production, and growth. The Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 and 1919 – which killed some 50 million people worldwide – eventually gave way to the “Roaring Twenties,” one of the most productive economic periods the country has ever experienced.5 World War II brought women into the workforce and turned factories in the US into wartime production facilities, assembling all of the materials needed to win the war. There are countless other examples.
These crises are never welcomed ones, and they often lead to devastating, tragic losses. But we must also remember that crises are inevitable – they are part of the human story and always will be.
-- Mitch on the Markets, 5/2/20
These crises are never welcomed ones, and they often lead to devastating, tragic losses. But we must also remember that crises are inevitable – they are part of the human story and always will be.
-- Mitch on the Markets, 5/2/20
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