China and other countries could be planning to build more coal plants to stimulate their economies in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic but nearly half of global coal plants will run at a loss this year, research showed on Wednesday. [...] Global coal use in electricity generation must fall by 80% below 2010 levels by 2030 to limit global warming, according to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Across the world, governments and health authorities are working together to find solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, to protect people and get society back up and running. Software developers are contributing by crafting technical tools to help combat the virus and save lives. In this spirit of collaboration, Google and Apple are announcing a joint effort to enable the use of Bluetooth technology to help governments and health agencies reduce the spread of the virus, with user privacy and security central to the design.
[...] Privacy, transparency, and consent are of utmost importance in this effort, and we look forward to building this functionality in consultation with interested stakeholders. We will openly publish information about our work for others to analyze.
Billions of dollars worth of food is going to waste as growers and producers from California to Florida are facing a massive surplus of highly perishable items. As US food banks handle record demand and grocery stores struggle to keep shelves stocked, farmers are dumping fresh milk and plowing vegetables back into the dirt as the shutdown of the food service industry has scrambled the supply chain. Roughly half the food grown in the US was previously destined for restaurants, schools, stadiums, theme parks and cruise ships. The impact could be up to $1.32bn from March to May in farm losses alone, according to a National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition report.
A rare hole has opened up in the ozone layer above the Arctic, in what scientists say is the result of unusually low temperatures in the atmosphere above the north pole. The hole, which has been tracked from space and the ground over the past few days, has reached record dimensions, but is not expected to pose any danger to humans unless it moves further south. If it extends further south over populated areas, such as southern Greenland, people would be at increased risk of sunburn. However, on current trends the hole is expected to disappear altogether in a few weeks.
Bill Gates recently resigned from the board of Microsoft to focus full time on philanthropy. It’s a perfect time to remember: billionaire-funded philanthropy is a public-relations scam.
Bill Gates’ former science adviser, Boris Nikolic, has formally said he won’t serve as one of the three executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, according to new court papers.
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde dismissed on Thursday the possibility of a generalised cancellation of debts contracted during the coronavirus crisis. “That seems totally unthinkable to me. It’s not the right time to ask the cancellation question, right now we are concentrated on keeping the economy going,” Lagarde said in an interview on France Inter radio. “Later we will look at how to pay down the debt and how we manage public finances in the most efficient way,” she added. Former ECB chief Mario Draghi has called for corporate debt cancellations.
The game ahead for the elites, taking advantage of the crisis, might well contain these four elements: a social credit system, mandatory vaccination, a digital currency and a Universal Basic Income (UBI). This is what used to be called, according to the decades-old, time-tested CIA playbook, a “conspiracy theory.” Well, it might actually happen. [...] So the key working hypothesis is that Covid-19 could be used as cover for the usual suspects to bring in a new digital financial system and a mandatory vaccine with a “digital identity” nanochip with dissent not tolerated: what Slavoj Zizek calls the “erotic dream” of every totalitarian government. [...]Yet underneath it all, amid so much anxiety, a pent-up rage seems to be gathering strength, to eventually explode in unforeseeable ways. As much as the system may be changing at breakneck speed, there’s no guarantee even the 0.1 percent will be safe.
Abstract: The ongoing stream of human consciousness relies on two distinct cortical systems, the default mode network and the dorsal attention network, which alternate their activity in an anticorrelated manner. We examined how the two systems are regulated in the conscious brain and how they are disrupted when consciousness is diminished. We provide evidence for a “temporal circuit” characterized by a set of trajectories along which dynamic brain activity occurs. We demonstrate that the transitions between default mode and dorsal attention networks are embedded in this temporal circuit, in which a balanced reciprocal accessibility of brain states is characteristic of consciousness. Conversely, isolation of the default mode and dorsal attention networks from the temporal circuit is associated with unresponsiveness of diverse etiologies. These findings advance the foundational understanding of the functional role of anticorrelated systems in consciousness.
Soil gets its characteristic earthy smell from certain chemicals produced primarily by soil-dwelling bacteria called Streptomyces. But until now, we didn’t know why these bacteria produce these odours and what role they play in the soil ecosystem. To find out more, Paul Becher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp and his colleagues set up field traps in woodland containing colonies of Streptomyces.
They thought that the smell may act as a signal to other organisms that they are poisonous, because some bacteria like Streptomyces can be toxic. Instead, the smell – which comes from gases released by Streptomyces, including geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol (2-MIB) – seems to attract invertebrates that help the bacteria disperse their spores. Becher and his team found that springtails – tiny cousins of insects – that feed on Streptomyces were drawn to the traps containing the bacterial colonies, but weren’t drawn to control traps that didn’t contain Streptomyces. By comparison, insects and arachnids weren’t attracted to the traps containing Streptomyces.
The Air Force will test SpaceX-developed technology in an upcoming demonstration that will reportedly include a live-fire exercise targeting drones and cruise missiles, the latest test of experimental technologies. The April 8 event, the next iteration of the military’s Advanced Battle Management System exercises, takes place at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona; White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico; and Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, Defense Daily reported.
NetCents jumped into action as soon as it learned of the plans US Congress made to legislate for this US Federal Reserve Digital Currency as part of two different versions of the first COVID-19 Stimulus Bill ("Stimulus Bill" or the "Bill"). Ultimately this aspect of the legislation wasn't included in the final version of the first Stimulus Bill, but the Board and Advisors of NetCents have agreed that this "Digital Dollar" will be included in subsequent legislation. The Bill is expected to establish a "Digital Dollar", defined as 'a balance expressed as a dollar value consisting of digital ledger entries that are recorded as liabilities in the accounts of any Federal Reserve Bank or ... an electronic unit of value, redeemable by an eligible financial institution.' This will create a cryptocurrency backed and guaranteed by the US Federal Government. The Bill goes on to define a digital wallet, and a requirement that US chartered banks offer these wallets.
Digital dollar proposals, included in an early draft of a massive U.S. coronavirus-induced stimulus bill, have reignited the debate over government-run payment platforms. A provision for a digital dollar was part of a draft stimulus bill put together by the U.S. Democratic Party as a means to make payments to people and businesses hit by coronavirus-induced economic turmoil, but it didn't make the final cut. While plans for the digital dollar have fallen by the wayside for now, others aren't far behind—China's digital yuan is in the pipeline and now a digital euro is being trialled by France's central bank.
'The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed' - William Gibson
Theory: - Business people are 0-4y in the future - Technologists & Designers are 0-10y in the future - Scientist & Theorists are 0-40y in the future - Authors are 0-60y in the future - Zen Monks are in the now
Plans for a pilot project to provide high-speed 5G wireless internet in Brussels have been halted due to fears for the health of citizens, according to reports. “I cannot welcome such technology if the radiation standards, which must protect the citizen, are not respected, 5G or not,” Environment minister Céline Fremault told Bruzz.
Microsoft chief technology officer Kevin Scott grew up fascinated by the 1960s Apollo space program and then-President John F. Kennedy's vision of a moon shot. Now, he envisions just as ambitious a project taking shape as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. Just as the U.S. government significantly invested to put Neil Armstrong and others on the moon by 1969—$200 billion in today's dollars by his estimate—Scott said similar funding in artificial intelligence technology could be a difference-maker for our nation's battered health care system.
Microsoft has patented a cryptocurrency mining system that leverages human activities, including brain waves and body heat, when performing online tasks such as using search engines, chatbots, and reading ads. “A user can solve the computationally difficult problem unconsciously,” the patent reads.