China has warned the United States to stay out of the South China Sea dispute.
China spoke after talks with rival countries at a regional summit in Laos, premier Li Keqiang said China wanted to work with other countries to “dispel interference” in the contested maritime zone.
However, US president Barack Obama responded by warning Beijing that it must abide by an international tribunal ruling that China’s sweeping claims to the South China Sea had no legal basis
“The landmark arbitration ruling in July, which is binding, helped clarify maritime rights in the region,” Obama told a summit of Asian leaders in Laos on Thursday. Beijing has vowed to ignore the verdict.
“I recognise this raises tensions,” Obama said referring to the ruling “but I also look forward to discussing how we can constructively move forward together to lower tensions and promote diplomacy and stability.”
The Philippines said earlier on Wednesday it was “gravely concerned” that Chinese boats were preparing to build structures at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, upsetting the diplomatic peace at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Vientiane.
China claims much of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims.
Officials said talks between regional leaders and Li on Wednesday went smoothly, but there was no reference to a July court ruling in The Hague that declared some of China’s artificial islands illegal and invalidated its claims to almost the entire waterway.
In a statement released later on Wednesday by China’s foreign ministry about the meeting, Li was paraphrased as saying China was willing to work with Asean countries in “dispelling interference … and properly handling the South China Sea issue”.
He did not elaborate, but such wording is typically used by Chinese leaders to refer to not allowing countries from outside the region with no direct involvement in the dispute, like the United States, from getting involved.
With joint efforts from China and Asean members, the situation in the South China Sea was moving in a positive direction, Li added.
Peace and stability in the area was directly related to prosperity and development of neighbouring countries, he said.
“Countries in the region are the biggest beneficiaries of peace in the South China Sea. History and facts have repeatedly showed that the South China Sea can only be peaceful and stable so long as the regional countries themselves get hold of the key to fixing the problems,” Lie said.
Increasingly assertive action by China’s coast guard ships in the South China Sea risks destabilising the region, according to the authors of new research tracking maritime law enforcement incidents across the vital trade route.
Hours before the meeting, however, the Philippines’ defence ministry released photographs and a map showing what it said was an increased number of Chinese vessels near Scarborough Shoal, which China seized after a standoff in 2012.
Li made no direct mention of Scarborough Shoal in the comments provided by the foreign ministry.
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A large international study of more than 200,000 people in nearly 50 countries has revealed that people with psychosis engage in low levels of physical activity, and men with psychosis are over two times more likely to miss global activity targets compared to people without the illness.
People who have a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or schizoaffective disorder have times (called episodes) when they experience some, or all, of the symptom of psychosis – delusions, hallucinations and confused and disturbed thinking.
The research, led by King’s College London and the South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust, also offers important insights into the barriers that prevent people with psychosis from engaging in regular physical activity. This data will inform interventions aimed at helping people with psychosis to be more active and ultimately, to improve their mental and physical health.
People with psychosis die up to 15 years before the general population, largely due to cardiovascular disease. Although pursuing an active lifestyle is thought to be just as effective in preventing cardiovascular disease as medication (e.g. statins), a number of small studies have suggested that people with psychosis tend to engage in low levels of physical activity.
Credit: King’s College London
To stay healthy, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adults aged 18-64 should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity throughout the week, including walking, cycling, household chores or sport. Physical inactivity is the fourth leading cause of avoidable death and is as harmful as smoking, according to the WHO.
The researchers from King’s sought to examine whether people with psychosis are meeting the WHO’s recommended levels of physical activity.
In their study, published today in Schizophrenia Bulletin, the researchers collected data from the World Health Survey, which comprises more than 200,000 people aged 18-64 from nearly 50 low-and-middle-income countries. These individuals, who were living in their local communities at the time of the study, were divided into three groups: people with a diagnosis of psychosis, those with psychotic symptoms but no diagnosis and a control group (of people with no diagnosis of psychosis and no symptoms in the past 12 months). The participants were interviewed to ascertain who had/had not met recommended levels of physical activity.
Overall, people with psychosis were 36 per cent more likely not to meet the recommended physical activity levels compared to controls. When the researchers looked at men only, those with psychosis were over two times more likely not to meet the recommended levels compared to people in the control sample.
When examining potential barriers to physical activity, the researchers found that mobility difficulties, pain, depression and cognitive impairment explained low levels of physical activity in people with psychosis. These insights will be used to guide the ‘Walk this Way’ study at King’s College London, funded and led by the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) South London.
Dr Brendon Stubbs from King’s College London and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), said: ‘Understanding and overcoming these barriers could be an important strategy to help people with psychosis be more active, and potentially to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease.
‘Our Walk this Way study is the first to specifically target the reduction of a sedentary lifestyle, and an increase in activity levels, in people with psychosis. We will investigate whether health coaching and providing people with pedometers can increase daily activity levels and hope that if successful, this programme will be offered more widely to people with psychosis.’
Dr Fiona Gaughran, also of King’s College London and SLaM, said: ‘People with psychosis have high levels of cardiovascular risk and die earlier as a result. Since physical activity is a key protective factor for cardiovascular disease, our finding that men with psychosis are particularly inactive means that they may benefit most from interventions to increase physical activity and reduce social isolation.
‘It is unclear why men with psychosis showed such low levels of physical activity, although perhaps the earlier onset of illness typically seen in males means that lifestyle habits may have been altered over time by aspects of the illness or its management, such as negative symptoms, sedating medications or hospital admissions. Our data suggests that depression may also be important, which makes sense. Understanding these factors and what we might do about them is an important area for future research.’
Notes to editors
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With the outsourcing of microchip design and fabrication a worldwide, $350 billion business, bad actors along the supply chain have many opportunities to install malicious circuitry in chips. These “Trojan horses” look harmless but can allow attackers to sabotage healthcare devices; public infrastructure; and financial, military, or government electronics.
Siddharth Garg, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and fellow researchers are developing a unique solution: a chip with both an embedded module that proves that its calculations are correct and an external module that validates the first module’s proofs.
While software viruses are easy to spot and fix with downloadable patches, deliberately inserted hardware defects are invisible and act surreptitiously. For example, a secretly inserted “back door” function could allow attackers to alter or take over a device or system at a specific time. Garg’s configuration, an example of an approach called “verifiable computing” (VC), keeps tabs on a chip’s performance and can spot telltale signs of Trojans.
The ability to verify has become vital in an electronics age without trust: Gone are the days when a company could design, prototype, and manufacture its own chips. Manufacturing costs are now so high that designs are sent to offshore foundries, where security cannot always be assured.
But under the system proposed by Garg and his colleagues, the verifying processor can be fabricated separately from the chip. “Employing an external verification unit made by a trusted fabricator means that I can go to an untrusted foundry to produce a chip that has not only the circuitry-performing computations, but also a module that presents proofs of correctness,” said Garg.
The chip designer then turns to a trusted foundry to build a separate, less complex module: an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit), whose sole job is to validate the proofs of correctness generated by the internal module of the untrusted chip.
A chip designed to flag malicious circuitry
Credit: NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Garg said that this arrangement provides a safety net for the chip maker and the end user. “Under the current system, I can get a chip back from a foundry with an embedded Trojan. It might not show up during post-fabrication testing, so I’ll send it to the customer,” said Garg. “But two years down the line it could begin misbehaving. The nice thing about our solution is that I don’t have to trust the chip because every time I give it a new input, it produces the output and the proofs of correctness, and the external module lets me continuously validate those proofs.”
An added advantage is that the chip built by the external foundry is smaller, faster, and more power-efficient than the trusted ASIC, sometimes by orders of magnitude. The VC setup can therefore potentially reduce the time, energy, and chip area needed to generate proofs.
“For certain types of computations, it can even outperform the alternative: performing the computation directly on a trusted chip,” Garg said.
Siddharth Garg, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering
Credit: NYU Tandon School of Engineering
The researchers next plan to investigate techniques to reduce both the overhead that generating and verifying proofs imposes on a system and the bandwidth required between the prover and verifier chips. “And because with hardware, the proof is always in the pudding, we plan to prototype our ideas with real silicon chips,” said Garg.
To pursue the promise of verifiable ASICs, Garg, abhi shelat* of the University of Virginia, Rosario Gennaro of the City University of New York, Mariana Raykova of Yale University, and Michael Taylor of the University of California, San Diego, will share a five-year National Science Foundation Large Grant of $3 million. *ahbi shelat prefers lower-case spelling
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Scientists have found that fish oil supplements can reverse the effects of a high fat diet according to a study published in the Journal of Physiology.
The research from the University of São Paulo shows that giving mice supplement of fish oil prevents or reverses the harmful effects of a high fat diet. This further demonstrates the beneficial properties of fish oil pills, suggesting that they could be effective in preventing obesity and type-2 diabetes in humans.
Fish oil pills are a popular dietary supplement as they have many perceived benefits. A high-fat diet can lead to insulin resistance, weight gain and increased cholesterol, which can lead to obesity and type-2 diabetes. This research reports, for the first time, that consumption of fish oil can prevent and counter the negative effects of a high-fat diet.
Fish oil pills are commonly used as dietary supplements.
Credit: Pixabay
The researchers fed mice that had been administered fish oil a high-fat diet for 4 weeks. They then collected and analysed their body fat samples and compared them to mice on a high-fat diet that had not been consuming fish oil. Factors that affect metabolism, fat deposits and insulin resistance were measured.
Professor Maria Isabel Alonso-Vale, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Federal University of São Paulo and lead investigator of the study explained, ‘Our research suggests that fish oil supplements may be used in addition to other strategies as a preventative measure for insulin resistance and obesity.’
She added, ‘However, it is important to note that this research has been performed in mice which may not translate to humans. More research will need to be done so we can have a better understanding of the effect of fish oil in humans.’
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The pursuit of next-generation technologies places a premium on producing increased speed and efficiency with components built at scales small enough to function on a computer chip.
One of the barriers to advances in “on-chip” communications is the size of the electromagnetic waves at radio and microwave frequencies, which form the backbone of modern wireless technology. The relatively large waves handcuff further miniaturization.
Scientists trying to surpass these limitations are exploring the potential of optical conveyance that exploits the properties of much smaller wavelengths, such as those in the terahertz, infrared and visible frequencies.
A team of researchers at Boston College has developed the first nanoscale wireless communication system that operates at visible wavelengths using antennas that send and receive surface plasmons with an unprecedented degree of control, the team reports in the latest edition of the journal Nature’s Scientific Reports.
Furthermore, the device affords an “in-plane” configuration, a prized class of two-way information transmission and recovery in a single path, according to the study, conducted by a team in the lab of Evelyn J. and Robert A. Ferris Professor of Physics Michael J. Naughton.
Surface plasmons possess unique subwavelength capabilities. Researchers trying to exploit those features have developed metallic structures, including plasmonic antennas. But a persistent problem has been the inability to achieve ‘in-line’ containment of the emission and collection of the electromagnetic radiation.
A Boston College team has developed a device with a three-step conversion process that changes a surface plasmon to a photon on transmission and then converts that elemental electromagnetic particle back to a surface plasmon as the receiver picks it up. The device, illustrated in this video, offers an unprecedented degree of control in this approach to faster, more efficient communications to power computers and optical technologies.
Credit: Michael J. Burns, Juan M. Merlo
The findings mark an important first step toward a nanoscale version – and visible frequency equivalent – of existing wireless communication systems, according to the researchers. Such on-chip systems could be used for high-speed communication, high efficiency plasmonic waveguiding and in-plane circuit switching – a process that is currently used in liquid crystal displays.
The device achieved communication across several wavelengths in tests using near-field scanning optical microscopy, according to lead co-author Juan M. Merlo, a post-doctoral researcher who initiated the project.
“Juan was able to push it beyond the near field – at least to four times the width of a wavelength. That is true far-field transmission and nearly every device we use on a daily basis – from our cell phones to our cars – relies on far-field transmission,” said Naughton.
The device could speed the transmission of information by as much as 60 percent compared to earlier plasmonic waveguiding techniques and up to 50 percent faster than plasmonic nanowire waveguides, the team reports.
Surface plasmons are the oscillations of electrons coupled to the interface of an electromagnetic field and a metal. Among their unique abilities, surface plasmons can confine energy on that interface by fitting into spaces smaller than the waves themselves.
Researchers trying to exploit these subwavelength capabilities of surface plasmons have developed metallic structures, including plasmonic antennas. But a persistent problem has been the inability to achieve “in-line” containment of the emission and collection of the electromagnetic radiation.
The BC team developed a device with a three-step conversion process that changes a surface plasmon to a photon on transmission and then converts that elemental electromagnetic particle back to a surface plasmon as the receiver picks it up.
“We have developed a device where plasmonic antennas communicate with each other with photons transmitting between them,” said Naughton. “This is done with high efficiency, with energy loss reduced by 50 percent between one antenna and the next, which is a significant enhancement over comparable architectures.”
Central to the newfound control of the surface plasmons was the creation of a small gap of air between the waves and the silver surface of the device, said Merlo, who earned his PhD at Mexico’s National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics. By removing a portion of the glass substrate, the team reduced the disruptive pull of the material on the photons in transmission. Expanding and narrowing that gap proved crucial to tuning the device.
With traditional silicon waveguides, dispersion reduces information transmission speed. Without that impediment, the new device capitalizes on the capability of surface plasmons to travel at 90 to 95 percent of the speed of light on a silver surface and photons traveling between the antennas at their inherent speed of light, Merlo said.
“Silicon-based optical technology has been around for years,” said Merlo. “What we are doing is improving it to make it faster. We’re developing a tool to make silicon photonics faster and greatly enhance rates of communication.”
A new study challenges earlier interpretations of an important burial mound at Cahokia, a pre-Columbian city in Illinois near present-day St. Louis. The study reveals that a central feature of the mound, a plot known as the “beaded burial,” is not a monument to male power, as was previously thought, but includes both males and females of high status.
The new study, published in the journal American Antiquity, is one of several recent analyses of the site from researchers at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey at the University of Illinois and their colleagues at other institutions. All of the studies confirm the presence of males and females in the beaded burial.
In 1967, archaeologist Melvin Fowler discovered a massive burial site at Cahokia while excavating an unusual, ridgetop mound. This mound, now called Mound 72, held five mass graves, each containing 20 to more than 50 bodies, with dozens of other bodies buried individually or in groups, sometimes directly over the mass graves. Fowler identified 270 bodies in the mound.
New studies offer insight into the people who lived, died and were buried in mass graves in the pre-Columbian city of Cahokia, near present-day St. Louis.
Scientists later determined that all of the burials occurred between about 1000 and 1200, during the rise and peak of Cahokia’s power and influence. Some of the burials appeared to be high-status individuals whose bodies were placed on cedar litters.
“Mound 72 burials are some of the most significant burials ever excavated in North America from this time period,” said ISAS director Thomas Emerson, who conducted the most recent study with physical anthropologist Kristin Hedman and skeletal analysts Eve Hargrave of ISAS, Dawn Cobb of the Illinois State Museum Society, and Andrew Thompson of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. The ISAS is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at Illinois.
“Fowler’s and others’ interpretation of these mounds became the model that everybody across the east was looking at in terms of understanding status and gender roles and symbolism among Native American groups in this time,” Emerson said.Emerson and his colleagues discovered that some of those early interpretations were based on inaccurate and incomplete information. Most of the errors involved the beaded burial. Here, two central bodies were placed, one on top of the other, on a partial bed of beads that also ran between and around the bodies. Several other bodies, buried at the same time, were arranged around this pair.
Fowler and later archaeologists came to believe that this was a burial of two high-status males surrounded by their servants. They interpreted the arrangement of beads associated with these central figures as the remains of a beaded cape or blanket in the shape of a bird. The pattern of beads near the heads of the two central bodies resembled a bird head, some thought.
Because the bird is a common motif related to warriors and supernatural beings in some Native American traditions, Fowler proposed that the central males of the beaded burial represented mythical warrior chiefs.
Several mass burials and burials of high-status individuals were found in Mound 72, in Cahokia.
“One of the things that promoted the concept of the male warrior mythology was the bird image,” Emerson said. Once this interpretation took hold, many researchers came to see this as evidence that Cahokia was “a male-dominated hierarchy,” he said.
A fresh look at the early archaeologists’ maps, notes and reports and the skeletal remains told a new and surprising story. First, the researchers found that there were 12 bodies associated with the beaded burial – not six, as had been previously reported. And independent skeletal analyses conducted by each of the co-authors – Thompson, Hedman, Hargrave and Cobb – revealed that the two central bodies in the beaded burial were actually male and female.
Further analyses revealed other male-female pairs on top of, and near, the beaded area. Some were laid out as fully articulated bodies. Others were disarticulated bodies, the bones of which had been gathered and bundled for burial near these important couples. The researchers also discovered the remains of a child.
“We had been checking to make sure that the individuals we were looking at matched how they had been described,” Hedman said. “And in re-examining the beaded burial, we discovered that the central burial included females. This was unexpected.”
“The fact that these high-status burials included women changes the meaning of the beaded burial feature,” Emerson said. “Now, we realize, we don’t have a system in which males are these dominant figures and females are playing bit parts. And so, what we have at Cahokia is very much a nobility. It’s not a male nobility. It’s males and females, and their relationships are very important.”
Researchers discovered that a famous ‘beaded burial’ in Mound 72 at Cahokia held high-status males and females, not just males, as was previously thought.
The new findings are more in line with other evidence from Cahokia, Emerson said.
“For me, having dug temples at Cahokia and analyzed a lot of that material, b7R” he said. “Most of the stone figurines found there are female. The symbols showing up on the pots have to do with water and the underworld. And so now Mound 72 fits into a more consistent story with what we know about the rest of the symbolism and religion at Cahokia.”
Emerson said that those who saw warrior symbolism at Cahokia missed the special culture of the time period.
“When the Spanish and the French came into the southeast as early as the 1500s, they identified these kinds of societies in which both males and females have rank,” he said. “Really, the division here is not gender; it’s class.”
“People who saw the warrior symbolism in the beaded burial were actually looking at societies hundreds of years later in the southeast, where warrior symbolism dominated, and projecting it back to Cahokia and saying: ‘Well, that’s what this must be,'” Emerson said. “And we’re saying: ‘No, it’s not.'”
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Funded by an EU grant, researchers from the University of Leicester are investigating an ancient Saharan population, called the Garamantes, dating back to the period from 500 BC to AD 600. The team’s archaeological findings in southern Libya have proved to be crucial in shedding more light on this scarcely-known civilization and the history of pre-Islamic Africa.
According to Wikipedia, the Garamantes were probably present as tribal people in the Fezzan by 1000 BC. They appear in the written record for the first time in the 5th century BC: according to Herodotus, they were “a very great nation” who herded cattle, farmed dates, and hunted the “Ethiopian Troglodytes”, or “cave-dwellers” who lived in the desert, from four-horse chariots. Roman depictions describe them as bearing ritual scars and tattoos. Tacitus wrote that they assisted the rebel Tacfarinas and raided Roman coastal settlements. According to Pliny the Elder, Romans eventually grew tired of Garamantian raiding and Lucius Cornelius Balbus captured 15 of their settlements in 19 BC. In 202, Septimius Severus captured the capital city of Garama.
Map of the Roman empire under Hadrian (ruled 117–138 AD), showing the location of the Garamantes kingdom, in the desert regions south of the Roman province of Africa proconsularis (Tunisia, Libya).
The Garamantes (possibly from the Berber igherman / iɣerman, meaning: “cities” in modern Berber; or possibly from igerramen meaning “saints, holy/sacred people” in modern Berber) were a people who developed an advanced civilization in ancient southwestern Libya. They used an elaborate underground irrigation system, and founded prosperous Berber kingdoms or city-states in the Fezzan area of Libya, in the Sahara desert. They were a local power between 500 BC and 700 AD.
Contemporaries of the Roman Empire, the Garamantes have previously been depicted as a nomadic tribe living in scattered camps in a remote area of the Central Sahara. Recent research has suggested, however, that they were a remarkably advanced people, living in permanent villages and urban settlements, practicing oasis agriculture, backed up by advanced technologies relating to irrigation and manufacturing (metal working, textile production, etc). They traded with both the Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan zones, playing a leading role in the earliest Trans-Saharan trading network, according to Prof. David Mattingly, one of the recognized leaders of Saharan archaeology.
Near East in 600 AD, showing the location of Garamantes before the Arab conquest.
The aim of this ERC Advanced Grant project is to understand more about the Garamantes, their role in Trans-Saharan trade and migration flows and their connections with the neighbouring peoples. Prof. Mattingly, who leads the project, and his team have carried out extensive research work using aerial photography and satellite imagery. Thanks to these sophisticated investigation tools, they have brought to light the existence of an outstanding archaeological heritage, including hundreds of fortified oasis settlements, with advanced water-extraction and irrigation systems, which were exceptionally preserved by their remote setting.
The Sahara now emerges as a much more populous place in the pre-Islamic era than previously believed and, rather than being a barrier, the desert appears to have been a much more connected space that put Mediterranean civilisations in regular contact with Sub-Saharan societies from the late first millennium BC onwards.
After four years, the project has achieved significant results that will have profound implications for the scholars’ understanding of the historic relationships between the Mediterranean world and the Sub-Saharan area, leading to a reshaping of the history and archaeology of the African continent.
The Garamantes were an early civilisation, broadly contemporaneous with the Greco-Roman Mediterranean societies (c.500 BC – AD 700). Hitherto, the contribution of the Garamantes has been minimised or overlooked in general books on the archaeology, civilisation and historical geography of Africa. It can now be argued that they represent the earliest indigenous urbanised state in the central Sahara, a veritable civilisation built on sophisticated oasis agriculture, advanced manufacturing outputs and trade with zones to north and south of the Sahara.
They were a focal point in pre-Islamic times for communication networks that linked the Nile, the Mediterranean and the Maghreb with the Sub-Saharan societies around Lake Chad and the Niger Bend. The existence of an early state of considerable power and sophistication in the Central Sahara is thus of more than local (Libyan) significance. It has profound implications for our understanding of the historic relationships between the Mediterranean world (and Europe) and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Humans living in the pre-Hispanic Mexican city of Teotihuacan may have bred rabbits and hares for food, fur and bone tools, according to a study published August 17, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONEby Andrew Somerville from the University of California San Diego, US, and colleagues.
Human-animal relationships often involve herbivore husbandry and have been key in the development of complex human societies across the globe. However, fewer large mammals suitable for husbandry were available in Mesoamerica.
An illustration of the leporid sculpture from the Oztoyahualco compound of Teotihuacan.
The authors of the present study looked for evidence of small animal husbandry in the pre-Hispanic city of Teotihuacan, which existed northeast of what is now Mexico City from A.D. 1-600. The authors performed stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of 134 rabbit and hare bone specimens from the ancient city and 13 modern wild specimens from central Mexico to compare their potential diets and ecology.
Compared to modern wild specimens, the authors found that Teotihuacan rabbit and hare specimens had carbon isotope values indicating higher levels of human-farmed crops, such as maize, in their diet. The specimens with the greatest difference in isotope values came from a Teotihuacan complex that contained traces of animal butchering and a rabbit sculpture.While the ancient rabbits and hares included in this study could have consumed at least some farmed crops through raiding of fields or wild plants, the authors suggest their findings indicate that Teotihuacan residents may have provisioned, managed, or bred rabbits and hares for food, fur, and bone tools, which could be new evidence of small mammal husbandry in Mesoamerica.
“Because no large mammals such as goats, cows, or horses were available for domestication in pre-Hispanic Mexico, many assume that Native Americans did not have as intensive human-animal relationships as did societies of the Old World,” said Andrew Somerville. “Our results suggest that citizens of the ancient city of Teotihuacan engaged in relationships with smaller and more diverse fauna, such as rabbits and jackrabbits, and that these may have been just as important as relationships with larger animals.”
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For more than 120 years the Venus Table of the Dresden Codex — an ancient Mayan book containing astronomical data — has been of great interest to scholars around the world. The accuracy of its observations, especially the calculation of a kind of ‘leap year’ in the Mayan Calendar, was deemed an impressive curiosity used primarily for astrology.
Venus Table of the Dresden Codex
But UC Santa Barbara’s Gerardo Aldana, a professor of anthropology and ofChicana and Chicano studies, believes the Venus Table has been misunderstood and vastly underappreciated. In a new journal article, Aldana makes the case that the Venus Table represents a remarkable innovation in mathematics and astronomy — and a distinctly Mayan accomplishment. “That’s why I’m calling it ‘discovering discovery,’ ” he explained, “because it’s not just their discovery, it’s all the blinders that we have, that we’ve constructed and put in place that prevent us from seeing that this was their own actual scientific discovery made by Mayan people at a Mayan city.”
Multitasking science
Aldana’s paper, “Discovering Discovery: Chich’en Itza, the Dresden Codex Venus Table and 10th Century Mayan Astronomical Innovation,” in the Journal of Astronomy in Culture, blends the study of Mayan hieroglyphics (epigraphy), archaeology and astronomy to present a new interpretation of the Venus Table, which tracks the observable phases of the second planet from the Sun. Using this multidisciplinary approach, he said, a new reading of the table demonstrates that the mathematical correction of their “Venus calendar” — a sophisticated innovation — was likely developed at the city of Chich’en Itza during the Terminal Classic period (AD 800-1000). What’s more, the calculations may have been done under the patronage of K’ak’ U Pakal K’awiil, one of the city’s most prominent historical figures.
“This is the part that I find to be most rewarding, that when we get in here, we’re looking at the work of an individual Mayan, and we could call him or her a scientist, an astronomer,” Aldana said. “This person, who’s witnessing events at this one city during this very specific period of time, created, through their own creativity, this mathematical innovation.”
The Venus Table
Scholars have long known that the Preface to the Venus Table, Page 24 of the Dresden Codex, contained what Aldana called a “mathematical subtlety” in its hieroglyphic text. They even knew what it was for: to serve as a correction for Venus’s irregular cycle, which is 583.92 days. “So that means if you do anything on a calendar that’s based on days as a basic unit, there is going to be an error that accrues,” Aldana explained. It’s the same principle used for Leap Years in the Gregorian calendar. Scholars figured out the math for the Venus Table’s leap in the 1930s, Aldana said, “but the question is, what does it mean? Did they discover it way back in the 1st century BC? Did they discover it in the 16th? When did they discover it and what did it mean to them? And that’s where I come in.”
“The Observatory” at Chich’en Itza, the building where a Mayan astronomer would have worked.
Unraveling the mystery demanded Aldana employ a unique set of skills. The first involved epigraphy, and it led to an important development: In poring over the Table’s hieroglyphics, he came to realize that a key verb, k’al, had a different meaning than traditionally interpreted. Used throughout the Table, k’al means “to enclose” and, in Aldana’s reading, had a historical and cosmological purpose.
Rethinking assumptions
That breakthrough led him to question the assumptions of what the Mayan scribe who authored the text was doing in the Table. Archaeologists and other scholars could see its observations of Venus were accurate, but insisted it was based in numerology. “They [the Maya] knew it was wrong, but the numerology was more important. And that’s what scholars have been saying for the last 70 years,” Aldana said.
“So what I’m saying is, let’s step back and make a different assumption,” he continued. “Let’s assume that they had historical records and they were keeping historical records of astronomical events and they were consulting them in the future — exactly what the Greeks did and the Egyptians and everybody else. That’s what they did. They kept these over a long period of time and then they found patterns within them. The history of Western astronomy is based entirely on this premise.”
To test his new assumption, Aldana turned to another Mayan archaeological site, Copán in Honduras. The former city-state has its own record of Venus, which matched as a historical record the observations in the Dresden Codex. “Now we’re just saying, let’s take these as historical records rather than numerology,” he said. “And when you do that, when you see it as historical record, it changes the interpretation.”
Putting the pieces together
The final piece of the puzzle was what Aldana, whose undergraduate degree was in mechanical engineering, calls “the machinery,” or how the pieces fit together. Scholars know the Mayans had accurate observations of Venus, and Aldana could see that they were historical, not numerological. The question was, Why? One hint lay more than 500 years in the future: Nicolaus Copernicus.
The great Polish astronomer stumbled into the heliocentric universe while trying to figure out the predictions for future dates of Easter, a challenging feat that requires good mathematical models. That’s what Aldana saw in the Venus Table. “They’re using Venus not just to strictly chart when it was going to appear, but they were using it for their ritual cycles,” he explained. “They had ritual activities when the whole city would come together and they would do certain events based on the observation of Venus. And that has to have a degree of accuracy, but it doesn’t have to have overwhelming accuracy. When you change that perspective of, ‘What are you putting these cycles together for?’ that’s the third component.”
Putting those pieces together, Aldana found there was a unique period of time during the occupation of Chichen’Itza when an ancient astronomer in the temple that was used to observe Venus would have seen the progressions of the planet and discovered it was a viable way to correct the calendar and to set their ritual events.
“If you say it’s just numerology that this date corresponds to; it’s not based on anything you can see. And if you say, ‘We’re just going to manipulate them [the corrections written] until they give us the most accurate trajectory,’ you’re not confining that whole thing in any historical time,” he said. “If, on the other hand, you say, ‘This is based on a historical record,’ that’s going to nail down the range of possibilities. And if you say that they were correcting it for a certain kind of purpose, then all of a sudden you have a very small window of when this discovery could have occurred.”
A Mayan achievement
By reinterpreting the work, Aldana said it puts the Venus Table into cultural context. It was an achievement of Mayan science, and not a numerological oddity. We might never know exactly who made that discovery, he noted, but recasting it as a historical work of science returns it to the Mayans.
“I don’t have a name for this person, but I have a name for the person who is probably one of the authority figures at the time,” Aldana said. “It’s the kind of thing where you know who the pope was, but you don’t know Copernicus’s name. You know the pope was giving him this charge, but the person who did it? You don’t know his or her name.”
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Well-understood physical and chemical processes can easily explain the alleged evidence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program, commonly referred to as “chemtrails” or “covert geoengineering,” concludes a new study from Carnegie Science, University of California Irvine, and the nonprofit organization Near Zero.
Some groups and individuals erroneously believe that the long-lasting condensation trails, or contrails, left behind aircraft are evidence of a secret large-scale spraying program. They call these imagined features “chemtrails.” Adherents of this conspiracy theory sometimes attribute this alleged spraying to the government and sometimes to industry.
This is a condensation trail, or contrail, left behind an aircraft.
Courtesy of Mick West.
The authors of this study, including Carnegie’s Ken Caldeira, conducted a survey of the world’s leading atmospheric scientists, who categorically rejected the existence of a secret spraying program. The team’s findings, published by Environmental Research Letters, are based on a survey of two groups of experts: atmospheric chemists who specialize in condensation trails and geochemists working on atmospheric deposition of dust and pollution.
The survey results show that 76 of the 77 participating scientists said they had not encountered evidence of a secret spraying program, and agree that the alleged evidence cited by the individuals who believe that atmospheric spraying is occurring could be explained through other factors, such as typical airplane contrail formation and poor data sampling.
The research team undertook their study in response to the large number of people who claim to believe in a secret spraying program. In a 2011 international survey, nearly 17 percent of respondents said they believed the existence of a secret large-scale atmospheric spraying program to be true or partly true. And in recent years a number of websites have arisen claiming to show evidence of widespread secret chemical spraying, which they say is linked to negative impacts on human health and the environment.
Crisscrossing contrails
Credit: Wikimedia
“We wanted to establish a scientific record on the topic of secret atmospheric spraying programs for the benefit of those in the public who haven’t made up their minds,” said Davis. “The experts we surveyed resoundingly rejected contrail photographs and test results as evidence of a large-scale atmospheric conspiracy.”
The research team says they do not hope to sway those already convinced that there is a secret spraying program–as these individuals usually only reject counter-evidence as further proof of their theories–but rather to establish a source of objective science that can inform public discourse.
“Despite the persistence of erroneous theories about atmospheric chemical spraying programs, until now there were no peer-reviewed academic studies showing that what some people think are ‘chemtrails’ are just ordinary contrails, which are becoming more abundant as air travel expands. Also, it is possible that climate change is causing contrails to persist for longer periods than they used to.” Caldeira said. “I felt it was important to definitively show what real experts in contrails and aerosols think. We might not convince die-hard believers that their beloved secret spraying program is just a paranoid fantasy, but hopefully their friends will accept the facts.”
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An archaeological expedition from the University of Gothenburg has discovered one of the richest graves from the Late Bronze Age ever found on the island of Cyprus. The grave and its offering pit, located adjacent the Bronze Age city of Hala Sultan Tekke, contained many fantastic gold objects such as a diadem, pearls, earrings and Egyptian scarabs, as well as more than 100 richly ornamented ceramic vessels. The objects, which originate from several adjacent cultures, confirm the central role of Cyprus in long-distance trade.
Hala Sultan Tekke, a Bronze Age city from 1600-1150 BC that covered an area of up to 50 hectares, had far-reaching trade connections that included Sweden. Peter Fischer, professor of Cypriote archaeology at the University of Gothenburg, has led the excavations performed by the Swedish Cyprus expedition for seven seasons since 2010.
This is a Mycenaean (Greek) vessel with fish motifs, c. 1300 BC.
Credit: Peter Fischer
‘The excavations in May and June this year were the most successful to date. We discovered an older city quarter from around 1250 BC and outside the city we found an incredibly rich grave, one of the richest in Cyprus from this period, and an offering pit next to it. The fact that we have discovered a burial site from the Late Bronze Age is quite sensational, since those who died around this time were usually buried within the settlement,’ says Fischer.
The area where the grave was found is exposed to erosion caused by farming. Prior to the excavation, a so-called geophysical survey was performed using radar equipment able to identify what is in the ground down to a depth of two metres. The surveying revealed almost 100 underground ‘pits’, some of which turned out to be wells, some offering pits and – as this year – a grave.
This is an amulet of faience with the Egyptian God Bes.
Credit: Peter Fischer
‘Wells are usually one metre in diameter, but this structure was 4 x 3 metres. The grave seems to be a family tomb for eight children ages 5-10 years and nine adults, of whom the oldest was about 40 years old. The life expectancy was much shorter back then than it is today,’ says Fischer.
The archaeologists found over 100 ceramic vessels and several gold finds, including a diadem, beads, earrings and Egyptian scarabs (picture 1), in the grave and the offering pit. The finds also include gemstones and five cylinder seals, some produced locally and some from Syria and Mesopotamia, as well as a bronze dagger.
Gold-mounted scarab of steatite, likely Egyptian 19th Dynasty, c. 13th century BC.
Credit: Peter Fischer
The archaeologists assign the greatest importance to the more than 140 complete ceramic vessels, most of which were decorated with spectacular illustrations of for example people sitting in a chariot drawn by two horses and a woman wearing a beautiful dress (picture 2). There were also vases decorated with religious symbols and animal illustrations of for example fish. Many of the vessels were imported mainly from Greece and Crete but also from Anatolia, or the equivalence of present-day Turkey.
Credit: Peter Fischer’
‘The pottery carries a lot of archaeological information. There were for example high-class Mycenaean imports, meaning pottery from Greece, dated to 1500-1300 BC. The motif of the woman, possibly a goddess, is Minoan, which means it is from Crete, but the vase was manufactured in Greece. Back in those days, Crete was becoming a Greek “colony”,’ says Fischer.According to Fischer, the painting of the woman’s dress is highly advanced and shows how wealthy women dressed around this time. The motif can also be found on frescos for example in the Palace of Knossos in Heraklion, Crete. Other finds are from Egypt. Two of the stone scarabs are gold-mounted and one features hieroglyphs spelling ‘men-kheper-re’ next to an illustration of a pharaoh. This has given the archaeologists a unique opportunity to tie the roughly 3 500-year-old find to a historic person. The inscription refers to Egypt’s most powerful pharaoh Thutmose III (1479-1425 BC), during whose reign Egypt peaked in size and influence as he conquered both Syria and parts of Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq.
‘We also found evidence in the city of large-scale manufacturing and purple-dying of textiles. These products were used in the trade with the high cultures in Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Crete and Greece, which explains the rich imported finds.
Credit: Peter Fischer
What is most interesting about the finds is the dating: they are from 1500/1400 BC, but the researchers have still only found the burial site but not the city from this period.’It must have been a rich city judging from the grave we found this year. But it is most likely located closer to the burial site in an area that still has not been explored,’ says Fischer.
This year’s excavation period is over and until next year’s on-site work begins, the researchers have some intense processing of finds to look forward to.
‘In spring 2017 we’ll continue our uncovering of parts of the city and the burial site. As the integrity of both areas is threatened by agricultural activities, there is a need for quick action to secure our shared cultural heritage before it is destroyed forever,’ says Fischer.
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Forget steel and aluminum. The robots of tomorrow may be able to squish, stretch and squeeze.
Novel robotic devices, part of the emerging field of soft robotics, offer many advances over conventional robots. Soft robots can more easily maneuver in tough spaces. They can better interact with humans,making them excellent assistants for elderly people. And one day they may lead to high-tech artificial muscles: a life-changing innovation for millions of disabled people around the globe.
Creating artificial muscles requires not only developing a powerful, flexible material, but figuring out how to precisely control and cleverly manufacture it. That’s the mission of Kwang Kim of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and his National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded team.
A small 3-D printed ionic polymer-metal composite soft robotic hand. National Science Foundation researchers are working to transform this material into artificial muscles.
Credit: Kam K. Leang. University of Utah
Kim is lead investigator on a NSF award pairing a diverse group of researchers — at four U.S. universities plus research institutions in Japan and South Korea — to transform a novel polymer-based material into artificial muscles. The research is supported through NSF’s Partnerships for International Research and Education(PIRE) program, which supports innovative, global research collaborations across all fields of science and engineering.
PIRE leverages U.S. funding and expertise to tackle global challenges. Kim’s U.S. team is working with researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, both known for strong expertise in robotics. (KAIST, for example, won the recent Robotics Challenge, hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.)
One of the big challenges in soft robotics is finding the right material. “It has to be soft, but it also has to produce enough power to do lots of different things,” Kim said. His team is using a type of synthetic material called Ionic Polymer-Metal Composites, which is a kind of electroactive polymer — meaning running electricity through the material makes it change shape.
The PIRE award will work to transform electroactive polymers, a type of material that changes shape when electricity runs through it, into artificial muscles.
Credit: Kwang J. Kim, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Kam K. Leang, University of Utah (both formerly of University of Nevada, Reno)
“In robotics you’ve got to be able to move and you’ve got to be able to sense,” said Kam Leang, an associate professor at the University of Utah Robotics Center and a co-investigator on this project. Traditional robots use electric motors to do the former. “In this PIRE, we are using the electroactive polymer itself.”
Electroactive polymers can also be used to sense motion, making them a great candidate for soft robotics. Leang and his colleagues have also devised a way to 3-D print the material. His component of the PIRE research is focused on how to scale up the manufacturing, as well as devising ways to better control the motion of the polymer. Others are working to better understand — and improve — the polymer material to make it more responsive, strong and affordable.
James Carrico, a Ph.D. graduate student at the University of Utah, displaying a small 3-D printed ionic polymer-metal composite soft robotic hand.
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Credit: Kam K. Leang
The project, which received NSF funding last fall, is still in its early stages. Kim, who has been working in electroactive polymers for nearly two decades, said soft robotics itself is still a relatively new field.
“I’m learning every day.”
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New research suggests that it is possible to create a new form of light by binding light to a single electron, combining the properties of both.
According to the scientists behind the study, from Imperial College London, the coupled light and electron would have properties that could lead to circuits that work with packages of light – photons – instead of electrons.
It would also allow researchers to study quantum physical phenomena, which govern particles smaller than atoms, on a visible scale.
Artistic image of light trapped on the surface of a nanoparticle topological insulator.
Credit: Vincenzo Giannini
In normal materials, light interacts with a whole host of electrons present on the surface and within the material. But by using theoretical physics to model the behaviour of light and a recently-discovered class of materials known as topological insulators, Imperial researchers have found that it could interact with just one electron on the surface.
This would create a coupling that merges some of the properties of the light and the electron. Normally, light travels in a straight line, but when bound to the electron it would instead follow its path, tracing the surface of the material.
In the study, published today in Nature Communications, Dr Vincenzo Giannini and colleagues modelled this interaction around a nanoparticle – a small sphere below 0.00000001 metres in diameter – made of a topological insulator.
Their models showed that as well as the light taking the property of the electron and circulating the particle, the electron would also take on some of the properties of the light.
Normally, as electrons are travelling along materials, such as electrical circuits, they will stop when faced with a defect. However, Dr Giannini’s team discovered that even if there were imperfections in the surface of the nanoparticle, the electron would still be able to travel onwards with the aid of the light.
If this could be adapted into photonic circuits, they would be more robust and less vulnerable to disruption and physical imperfections.
Artistic image of light trapped on the surface of a nanoparticle topological insulator.
Credit: Vincenzo Giannini
Dr Giannini said: “The results of this research will have a huge impact on the way we conceive light. Topological insulators were only discovered in the last decade, but are already providing us with new phenomena to study and new ways to explore important concepts in physics.”
Dr Giannini added that it should be possible to observe the phenomena he has modelled in experiments using current technology, and the team is working with experimental physicists to make this a reality.
He believes that the process that leads to the creation of this new form of light could be scaled up so that the phenomena could observed much more easily. Currently, quantum phenomena can only be seen when looking at very small objects or objects that have been super-cooled, but this could allow scientists to study these kinds of behaviour at room temperature.
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In the light of recent controversies regarding bills like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PROTECT IP Act), Americans are having more discussions about the implications of a government-controlled internet. A reality in many parts of the world, regulated and heavily censored internet activity seems to be more of a possibility than ever for the United States as well.
Here are ten of the reasons why governments should not regulate the internet.
To Protect the First Amendment – One of the most cherished rights granted to Americans, the right to free speech and freedom of the press, is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Regulating and censoring online content would be in direct opposition of the Amendment.
Encouraging Entrepreneurial Activity – An open internet also encourages another beloved aspect of the American Dream: the ability to create our own fortunes. The web allows entrepreneurs to fill any one of an endless array of niches, which stimulates economic activity.
Facilitating Innovation – The internet as Americans know it today provides a variety of platforms for exploring emerging technology and even improving upon it, keeping the nation in the race of innovation and development of new areas.
Complications of Regulating Legitimate Sites Under Sweeping Legislation – Broadly worded legislation could make it difficult to regulate legitimate sites, causing them to become lost in the shuffle of “objectionable” sites and depriving users of their potentially valuable information.
Maintaining Citizens’ Right to Privacy – In our post-9/11 world, the concept of a citizen’s right to privacy has changed significantly. The Patriot Act and other similar bills have already increased the amount of surveillance the public endures; regulating the internet would be another step on a very slippery slope.
“Offensive” is Arbitrary – The freedom of religion and the ability to make our own choices are key parts of the American cultural identity; what one person considers offensive may not be questionable in the least to another. In the event of a regulated internet, who would make the final call on web content and its level of offensiveness?
Protecting Educational Value of the Web – While there are certainly dangers lurking in the darker corners of the internet, the vast stores of knowledge that can be accessed outweigh them greatly. Changing the functionality of the web could quite possibly make it more difficult to access educational material in an attempt to censor more controversial content.
Preventing the Increase of Government Spending – The creation of a regulated internet would require an enormous amount of manpower in surveillance alone. Paired with the amount of money that would have to be spent on creating filters and sifting through the almost infinite amount of information available would be staggering.
It Could Fan the Flames of Civil Unrest – The outrage of Egyptian people at their government’s disabling of the internet during a period of political upheaval should serve as a very strong example of why the government should not interfere with the web. An already-disillusioned populace can very quickly become mutinous when their ability to interact with the outside world is taken away.
Savvy Hackers Will Defeat the System Anyway – If groups like Anonymous have proved anything, it’s that a keen mind and a determination to access information will inevitably lead to a back-door solution. Hackers would still be able to override the system to see the same content they do now; however, an already miserably overpopulated prison system would be immensely burdened by the influx of “criminals.”
These are only a few of the reasons why the government should not attempt to censor or filter the internet; like the proverbial iceberg, the bulk of the argument lies beneath the surface of what the average citizen sees.
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A new study challenges earlier interpretations of an important burial mound at Cahokia, a pre-Columbian city in Illinois near present-day St. Louis. The study reveals that a central feature of the mound, a plot known as the “beaded burial,” is not a monument to male power, as was previously thought, but includes both males and females of high status.
The new study, published in the journal American Antiquity, is one of several recent analyses of the site from researchers at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey at the University of Illinois and their colleagues at other institutions. All of the studies confirm the presence of males and females in the beaded burial.
In 1967, archaeologist Melvin Fowler discovered a massive burial site at Cahokia while excavating an unusual, ridgetop mound. This mound, now called Mound 72, held five mass graves, each containing 20 to more than 50 bodies, with dozens of other bodies buried individually or in groups, sometimes directly over the mass graves. Fowler identified 270 bodies in the mound.
New studies offer insight into the people who lived, died and were buried in mass graves in the pre-Columbian city of Cahokia, near present-day St. Louis.
Image courtesy Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, painting by William R. Iseminger.
Scientists later determined that all of the burials occurred between about 1000 and 1200, during the rise and peak of Cahokia’s power and influence. Some of the burials appeared to be high-status individuals whose bodies were placed on cedar litters.
“Mound 72 burials are some of the most significant burials ever excavated in North America from this time period,” said ISAS director Thomas Emerson, who conducted the most recent study with physical anthropologist Kristin Hedman and skeletal analysts Eve Hargrave of ISAS, Dawn Cobb of the Illinois State Museum Society, and Andrew Thompson of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. The ISAS is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at Illinois.
“Fowler’s and others’ interpretation of these mounds became the model that everybody across the east was looking at in terms of understanding status and gender roles and symbolism among Native American groups in this time,” Emerson said.
Emerson and his colleagues discovered that some of those early interpretations were based on inaccurate and incomplete information. Most of the errors involved the beaded burial. Here, two central bodies were placed, one on top of the other, on a partial bed of beads that also ran between and around the bodies. Several other bodies, buried at the same time, were arranged around this pair.
Fowler and later archaeologists came to believe that this was a burial of two high-status males surrounded by their servants. They interpreted the arrangement of beads associated with these central figures as the remains of a beaded cape or blanket in the shape of a bird. The pattern of beads near the heads of the two central bodies resembled a bird head, some thought.
Because the bird is a common motif related to warriors and supernatural beings in some Native American traditions, Fowler proposed that the central males of the beaded burial represented mythical warrior chiefs.
Several mass burials and burials of high-status individuals were found in Mound 72, in Cahokia.
Graphic by Julie McMahon
“One of the things that promoted the concept of the male warrior mythology was the bird image,” Emerson said. Once this interpretation took hold, many researchers came to see this as evidence that Cahokia was “a male-dominated hierarchy,” he said.
A fresh look at the early archaeologists’ maps, notes and reports and the skeletal remains told a new and surprising story. First, the researchers found that there were 12 bodies associated with the beaded burial – not six, as had been previously reported. And independent skeletal analyses conducted by each of the co-authors – Thompson, Hedman, Hargrave and Cobb – revealed that the two central bodies in the beaded burial were actually male and female.
Further analyses revealed other male-female pairs on top of, and near, the beaded area. Some were laid out as fully articulated bodies. Others were disarticulated bodies, the bones of which had been gathered and bundled for burial near these important couples. The researchers also discovered the remains of a child.
“We had been checking to make sure that the individuals we were looking at matched how they had been described,” Hedman said. “And in re-examining the beaded burial, we discovered that the central burial included females. This was unexpected.”
“The fact that these high-status burials included women changes the meaning of the beaded burial feature,” Emerson said. “Now, we realize, we don’t have a system in which males are these dominant figures and females are playing bit parts. And so, what we have at Cahokia is very much a nobility. It’s not a male nobility. It’s males and females, and their relationships are very important.”
Researchers discovered that a famous ‘beaded burial’ in Mound 72 at Cahokia held high-status males and females, not just males, as was previously thought.
Credit: Graphic by Julie McMahon
The new findings are more in line with other evidence from Cahokia, Emerson said.
“For me, having dug temples at Cahokia and analyzed a lot of that material, b7R” he said. “Most of the stone figurines found there are female. The symbols showing up on the pots have to do with water and the underworld. And so now Mound 72 fits into a more consistent story with what we know about the rest of the symbolism and religion at Cahokia.”
Emerson said that those who saw warrior symbolism at Cahokia missed the special culture of the time period.
“When the Spanish and the French came into the southeast as early as the 1500s, they identified these kinds of societies in which both males and females have rank,” he said. “Really, the division here is not gender; it’s class.”
“People who saw the warrior symbolism in the beaded burial were actually looking at societies hundreds of years later in the southeast, where warrior symbolism dominated, and projecting it back to Cahokia and saying: ‘Well, that’s what this must be,'” Emerson said. “And we’re saying: ‘No, it’s not.'”
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If you want to save on your monthly electric bill and reduce your greenhouse gas emissions at the same time, you might buy a new, energy-efficient refrigerator. Or water heater. Or clothes dryer. But if you can only replace one of these, which will give you the biggest payback?
You could try to figure that out by comparing the energy-use labels from your existing appliances with those of the models you might purchase — if you still have your old labels. Even then, the numbers may differ significantly from your actual usage, depending on factors such as age, condition, and your local climate. But soon, there could be a much easier way to figure out exactly how much power is being used by every appliance, lighting fixture, and device in your home, with pinpoint accuracy and at low cost, thanks to devices and software developed by researchers at MIT.
Researchers at MIT have developed a device and software that could figure out exactly how much power is being used by every appliance, lighting fixture, and device in a home, with pinpoint accuracy and at low cost. That could save money on energy turning lights on for people with high energy usage.
The team’s findings, developed over several years of intensive research, are described in a series of papers, including one published this week in the IEEE Sensors Journal, in a paper by MIT Professor of Electrical Engineering Steven Leeb and recent graduates David Lawrence MEng ’16 and John Donnal PhD ’16. Another paper from the team, which also includes as co-author James Paris PhD ’13, is still in press.While many groups have worked on developing devices to monitor electricity use, the new MIT system has some key advantages over other approaches. First, it involves no complex installation: No wires need to be disconnected, and the placement of the postage-stamp-sized sensors over the incoming power line does not require any particular precision — the system is designed to be self-calibrating. Second, because it samples data very quickly, the sensors can pick up enough detailed information about spikes and patterns in the voltage and current that the system can, thanks to dedicated software, tell the difference between every different kind of light, motor, and other device in the home and show exactly which ones go on and off, at what times.
Own your own data
Perhaps most significantly, the system is designed so that all of the detailed information stays right inside the user’s own home, eliminating concerns about privacy that potential users may have when considering power-monitoring systems. The detailed analysis, including the potential for specialized analysis based on an individual user’s specific needs or interests, can be provided by customized apps that can be developed using the MIT team’s system.
Tests of the system have showed its potential to save energy and greenhouse emissions — and even to improve safety. One installation at a military base used for training exercises revealed that large tents were being heated all day during winter months, even though they were unoccupied for most of the daytime hours — a significant waste of money and fuel (which, in a combat setting, could be an important logistical concern). Another test installation, in a home, found an anomalous voltage pattern that revealed a wiring flaw that caused some copper plumbing pipes to carry a potentially dangerous live voltage.
“For a long time, the premise has been that if we could get access to better information [about energy use], we would be able to create some significant savings,” Leeb says. He and his students have been tackling the problem for more than 10 years and bit by bit have found ways to circumvent the daunting problems involved in achieving this basic task.
First was the ability to monitor changes in voltage and current without cutting the main incoming power line to a home or business (an expensive process requiring a licensed electrician) or plugging every appliance into a special monitoring device. Other groups have attempted to use wireless sensors to pick up the very faint magnetic and electric fields near a wire, but such systems have required a complex alignment process since the fields in some places can cancel each other out. The MIT team solved the problem by using an array of five sensors, each slightly offset from the others, and a calibration system that tracks the readings from each sensor and figures out which one is positioned to give the strongest signal.
Interpreting the data flow
The next trick was in figuring out how to analyze the reams of data flowing in from the high-speed sensors, in order to tease out which bits correspond to current and voltage, and how that information could be used to identify “signatures” of specific appliances. This is possible because every motor or device has distinctive characteristics as to exactly how fast and how much the voltage varies, or spikes, at the moment the device switches on, or as it operates. After extensive testing in the lab, in homes, at the Fort Devens Army base outside Boston, and aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Spencer, the team was able to develop a catalog of such signatures, to identify each kind of electrical load.
And finally, given the prodigious amount of raw data generated by the system, the team had to figure out how to extract the useful information and display it in a way that would make it easy for people to make decisions about energy investments. They developed an interface that allows users to “zoom in” on specific time segments, revealing enough data to tell when a refrigerator turns on or off, or goes into its defrost cycle, or how often a water heater is switching on and off during the day.
“A bunch of major players have gotten into, and out of, this field,” says Leeb, including giants like Google and Microsoft. But now, he says, the MIT team has solved the key issues and come up with a practical and very powerful system. One of the major insights they had was that keeping most of the data within the home and sending only small subsets out into the cloud for processing solved two problems at once: It eliminated the privacy concerns of using such a system, and it eliminated the huge bandwidth and data transmission costs that would be required if the raw data was sent to a central facility.
Once the system is developed into a commercial product, Leeb says, it should cost only about $25 to $30 per home. “We’re trying to lower the barriers to installation,” says co-author John Donnal, and this noncontact sensor is simple enough for most home users to install on their own. “It just goes on with a zip tie,” he says.
William Singleton, an engineer at the U.S. Army Fort Devens Base Camp Integration Laboratory, who was not involved in this research, says this work “is an excellent example of how theoretical scientific and mathematical principles can be brought to bear on real world, practical, problem-solving applications.” By using the MIT team’s sensing system, he says, “significant potential savings in fuel, water, and equipment maintenance can be realized. This will provide increased options for the battlefield commander in accomplishing his mission, reduce the overall base camp logistics footprint, and ultimately save lives of warfighters involved in base camp sustainment and resupply.”
The research was supported in part by the Grainger Foundation, the Office of Naval Research Neptune program, the MIT Skoltech Initiative, and the MIT and Masdar Institute Cooperative Program.
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Ransomware – what hackers use to encrypt your computer files and demand money in exchange for freeing those contents – is an exploding global problem with few solutions, but a team of University of Florida researchers says it has developed a way to stop it dead in its tracks.
The answer, they say, lies not in keeping it out of a computer but rather in confronting it once it’s there and, counterintuitively, actually letting it lock up a few files before clamping down on it.
Credit: University of Florida
“Our system is more of an early-warning system. It doesn’t prevent the ransomware from starting … it prevents the ransomware from completing its task … so you lose only a couple of pictures or a couple of documents rather than everything that’s on your hard drive, and it relieves you of the burden of having to pay the ransom,” said Nolen Scaife, a UF doctoral student and founding member of UF’s Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research.Scaife is part of the team that has come up with the ransomware solution, which it calls CryptoDrop.
Ransomware attacks have become one of the most urgent problems in the digital world. The FBI issued a warning in May saying the number of attacks has doubled in the past year and is expected to grow even more rapidly this year.
It said it received more than 2,400 complaints last year and estimated losses from such attacks at $24 million last year for individuals and businesses.Attackers are typically shadowy figures from other countries lurking on the Dark Web and difficult, if not impossible, to find. Victims include not only individuals but also governments, industry, health care providers, educational institutions and financials entities.
Attacks most often show up in the form of an email that appears to be from someone familiar. The recipient clicks on a link in the email and unknowingly unleashes malware that encrypts his or her data. The next thing to appear is a message demanding the ransom, typically anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
“It’s an incredibly easy way to monetize a bad use of software,” said Patrick Traynor, an associate professor in UF’s department of computer and information science and engineering at UF and also a member of the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research. He and Scaife worked together on developing CryptoDrop.
Some companies have simply resigned themselves to that inevitability and budgeted money to cover ransoms, which usually must be paid in Bitcoin, a digital currency that defies tracing.
Ransomware attacks are effective because, quite simply, they work.
Antivirus software is successful at stopping them when it recognizes ransomware malware, but therein lies the problem.
“These attacks are tailored and unique every time they get installed on someone’s system,” Scaife said. “Antivirus is really good at stopping things it’s seen before … That’s where our solution is better than traditional anti-viruses. If something that’s benign starts to behave maliciously, then what we can do is take action against that based on what we see is happening to your data. So we can stop, for example, all of your pictures form being encrypted.”
Scaife, Traynor and colleagues Kevin Butler at UF and Henry Carter at Villanova University lay out the solution in a paper accepted for publication at the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems and presented June 29 in Nara, Japan.
The results, they said, were impressive.
“We ran our detector against several hundred ransomware samples that were live,” Scaife said, “and in those case it detected 100 percent of those malware samples and it did so after only a median of 10 files were encrypted.”
And CryptoDrop works seamlessly with antivirus software.
“About one-tenth of 1 percent of the files were lost,” Traynor said, “but the advantage is that it’s flexible. We don’t have to wait for that anti-virus update. If you have a new version of your ransomware, our system can detect that.”
The team currently has a functioning prototype that works with Windows-based systems and is seeking a partner to commercialize it and make it available publicly.
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Sad music can provide enjoyment, comfort or pain to different people, according to new research looking at the effects of melancholy songs on the emotions.
Researchers at Durham University and the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, said their findings could have implications for how music therapy and rehabilitation could help people’s moods.
The musicologists looked at the emotional experiences associated with sad music of 2,436 people across three large-scale surveys in the UK and Finland.
Credit: Durham University
They identified the reasons for listening to sad music, and emotions involved in memorable experiences related to listening to sad music.
Sad music can be enjoyable
Writing in the prestigious scientific journal PLOS ONE, the researchers said that the majority of people surveyed highlighted the enjoyable nature of such experiences, which in general lead to clear improvement of mood.
The researchers said that listening to sad music led to feelings of pleasure related to enjoyment of the music in some people, or feelings of comfort where sad music evoked memories in others.
However, a significant portion of people also reported painful experiences associated with listening to sad music, which invariably related to personal loss such as the death of a loved one, divorce, breakup, or other significant adversity in life.
The research was funded by the Academy of Finland.
Music rehabilitation and music therapy
Lead researcher Professor Tuomas Eerola, Professor of Music Cognition in the Department of Music, said: “Previous research in music psychology and film studies has emphasized the puzzling pleasure that people experience when engaging with tragic art.
“However, there are people who absolutely hate sad-sounding music and avoid listening to it. In our research, we wanted to investigate this wide spectrum of experiences that people have with sad music, and find reasons for both listening to and avoiding that kind of music.
“The results help us to pinpoint the ways people regulate their mood with the help of music, as well as how music rehabilitation and music therapy might tap into these processes of comfort, relief, and enjoyment.
“The findings also have implications for understanding the paradoxical nature of enjoyment of negative emotions within the arts and fiction.”
Study co-author Dr Henna-Riikka Peltola from the University of Jyväskylä, in Finland said sad music led to mixed emotions.
Dr Peltola added: “There seem to be two types of enjoyable experiences evoked by sad music listening.
“In these instances, music is typically the central source of these experiences, and aesthetic qualities were very much involved in the experienced pleasure.
“Alternatively, sad music is also associated with a set of emotions that give comfort to the listener, and where memories and associations play a strong part of making the experience pleasant. These experiences were often mentioned to confer relief and companionship in difficult situations of life.
“However, a large number of people also associated sad music with painful experiences. Such intense experiences seemed to be mentally and even physically straining, and thus far from pleasurable.”
Pleasure, comfort and pain associated with sad music
The three types of experience associated with listening to sad music (pleasure, comfort and pain) were found across the different surveys.
The researchers added that experiences of enjoyable sadness were not affected by gender or age, although musical expertise and interest in music seemed to amplify these feelings.
Older people reported stronger experiences of comforting sadness, while strong negative feelings when listening to sad music were more pronounced for younger people and women.
Each type of emotional experience associated with sad music could be connected to a distinct profile of reasons, psychological mechanisms, and reactions, the researchers added.
Professor Eerola added: “We think that this demonstrates well the functional nature of these experiences.
“Although the positive experiences seemed to be the most frequently associated with sad music, truly negative experiences are not uncommon in any of the samples in our research.”
Commenting on the study Professor Jörg Fachner, Professor of Music, Health and the Brain, at Anglia Ruskin University, who was not part of the research team, said: “This study confirms that music therapists can work with authentic experiences when using music representing the sorrowful and painful content of sad life events such as the death of a spouse or child.
“Some people enjoy sad music and derive a lot of comfort out of such music in certain situations but when a particular piece of music becomes a container for a negative emotion related to a personal or environmental challenge, a music therapist would carefully start working on its representations.
“A skillful, trained music therapist can sense and adapt to the individual meaning of the sad music representing negative experiences and memories as described in this study.
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Ancient inhabitants of the southern Brazilian highlands were no strangers to the types of home improvements we enjoy today, academics from the University of Exeter have found.
New research has shown for the first time how oversized pit houses in the southern Brazilian highlands were used for centuries thanks to careful repairs by generations of owners.
This is the first evidence that these oversized pit houses in region were continuously occupied.
Ancient inhabitants of the southern Brazilian highlands were no strangers to the types of home improvements we enjoy today, academics from the University of Exeter have found.
Credit: University of Exeter
Academics have demonstrated one house was occupied for more than two centuries.People had assumed the proto-Jê pit house villages of the southern Brazilian highlands had been abandoned and then occupied again throughout history. But this was based on an insufficient amount of data provided by radiocarbon dating.
Academics have now carried out further tests using comprehensive AMS radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modelling of an oversized pit house used between 1395 and 1650 in Campo Belo do Sul, Santa Catarina state, Brazil.
They found twelve well preserved floors, five of which were covered by completely burnt collapsed roofs. The research shows the house was occupied for over two centuries, and that communities built big pit houses, but the smaller homes continued to be inhabited.
Ancient inhabitants of the southern Brazilian highlands were no strangers to the types of home improvements we enjoy today, academics from the University of Exeter have found.
Credit: University of Exeter
The homes was never abandoned, but constantly extended. The occupants built new floors on top of the old ones, showing a single family or group lived there for centuries. As time went on they used different types of ceramics and techniques to renovate and update their home.Lead researcher Jonas Gregorio de Souza said: “Our research shows the disparity in domestic architecture in the southern Brazilian highlands. We have highlighted that it is important to use radiocarbon dating on individual structures to understand how and for how long homes were occupied.
Ancient inhabitants of the southern Brazilian highlands were no strangers to the types of home improvements we enjoy today, academics from the University of Exeter have found.
Credit: University of Exeter
This research shows experts more about how the southern proto-Jê groups lived, and suggests there was a moderate degree of social inequality and the land was used more intensively than previously thought. Experts have found the land was used to bury people, and the mortuary rites were different for a few individuals.Some inhabitants of those houses grew a range of plants, contradicting previous assumptions that they didn’t stay in one place long enough to cultivate horticulture for the whole year.
Mr Gregorio de Souza said: “We now know more about the way these groups lived, and are able to challenge the view, dominant until relatively recently, that these were marginal cultures in the context of lowland South America.
The research was carried out in collaboration with academics from the Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil, University of Reading, Reading, Unisul and Centro Universitário Univates in Brazil.
Understanding the chronology and occupation dynamics of oversized pit houses in the southern Brazilian highlands is published in PLOS ONE.
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Well, it’s official! England voted out of the Euro-zone. A new era begins for the 27 countries that comprise the Eurozone, as the European heavy weight leaves the scene.
1) Why did England leave the Eurozone? Did the English view Merkel and Hollande’s as Europe’s sole dictators and decision makers?
2) Do you agree with England’s departure or disagree?
3) Now that Brexit is a reality, will other European countries adopt a similar referendum to likewise leave the Eurozone?
4) Will Europe boil bad blood with England after Brexit?
5) What are a few consequences of leaving the Euro-zone for England, and Europe?
6) How will this affect China, and The US?
7) What would happen to the Euro-zone if France under Le Penn also exited Europe?
8) Is this affect trade worldwide?
Sebastian Sarbu.
(He is a military analyst and vice-president of National Academy of Security and Defense Planning. Member of American Diplomatic Mission for International Relations)
“I agree with Brexit. The European Union should be able to revive a new policy to reform its institutions.
UK has not agreed with the immigration policy, and also with the economic dependence of the EU. The independence spirit of Great Britain is a conservatory value, one that was successfully implemented because the Britons are very nationalistic and proud people and sometimes national values are more important than other values.
The EU is a bureaucracy. It was an anticipated fact that the risk for the European Union’s success involved the heterogeneity of his construction, of policy and national development of each state member. Germany and France want to assume the EU project and represent their oligarchy. Germany try to exploit the opportunity of Brexit, in the advantage of implementing its own leadership.
Germany wants to impose the older policy of cession of national sovereignty from other state members, like Visegrad. The White House recognized publicly that the European Union should be reformed. In my opinion, it is not dangerous or threat for Europe’s military security. However, it might be dangerous for the economy, and social security and the solution does not look good.”
John Mariotti.
(He as spoken to thousands of people in the business, professional and university audiences in the US and Europe; he hosted a one-hour talk-radio show on the North American Broadcasting Network, (The Life of Business & the Business of Life); founded & moderated, The Reunion Conference, an annual roundtable/think-tank for 16 years)
“Yes, I agree with Brexit. Because a majority of Brits want it. It’s their decision and they will live with the consequences.
However, UK was a late & reluctant member at best, and doesn’t like taking orders from the continental European group (headed by Germany). No surprise.
It’s not up to me–or Barack Obama. Most people who comment (unless they are Brits) don’t have enough first hand knowledge for an informed opinion. After the initial shock wears off, life will go on.
The much bigger issue is how Europe is being invaded and taken over by Muslim hordes from Africa and the Middle East–and what to do about that.
That’s at the heart of Brexit–and that is a very big deal (problem).”
“1) Mainly, U.K. voters were angry about the perceived taking of British jobs and other perceived dislocations caused by inflowing immigrants. The British elites probably think that France and Germany have too much power in the EU, but they were largely for staying in.
2) Britain should do what it needs to do, but the long-term ll-effects on Britain, the EU, and the world economies have been overstated. Commercial relationships will reorder, and Britain may be better off in the long-term outside the EU’s stifling bureaucracy.
3) Brexit could have a domino effect. Other nations may be spurred to hold referendums. The block could unravel into a rump organization, but free commerce could continue under other arrangements without the massive EU bureaucracy.
4) Since nations recognize the benefits of free commerce, there will be an incentive to get past any ill-feelings and restructure commercial relationships.
5&6) There will be short-term turmoil in world markets, but since Britain is the fifth largest economy in the world, it will all be sorted out and Britain will still be prosperous in the world economy.
7) Since France and Germany started what became the EU and still drive it, this development would probably kill the EU as we know it. But Europe might be better off ditching the overbuilt EU and euro currency and going back to a free trade area. The euro currency has always been questionable because there is one currency and many national fiscal policies.
8) It will affect world trade and markets in the short term, but in the long term, trade relations will reorder and life will continue.”
Peter D. Rosenstein.
(He is a non-profit executive, journalist and Democratic and community activist. His background includes teaching; serving as Coordinator of Local Government for the City of New York; working in the Carter Administration; and Vice-chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of the District of Columbia)
“1) Why did England leave the Eurozone? Did the English view Merkel and Hollande’s as Europe’s sole dictators and decision makers?
England left the Eurozone for a number of reasons but I believe the greatest impetus of those who voted to leave was fear of immigrants and anger that they weren’t doing as well economically as they thought they should be doing. Like in many countries there is a large gap in income between those at the top and those at the bottom. In many ways it was a protest vote and most people didn’t understand the consequences of their vote. They thought that voting for nationalism was a good thing for them. I don’t think the average voter in the UK did this as a vote against Merkel or Hollande- most voters most likely don’t even know who they are. This was an irrational vote and we are now seeing that there is a large segment of the population that is already showing remorse over it.
2) Do you agree with England’s departure or disagree?
I think it makes no sense at all. One can’t turn back the clock- like it or not we are in a global economy and just retreating to your own shores won’t help. Donald Trump is proposing that in the US with his America First campaign and I believe Americans will in the end defeat him by a large margin and reject his anti-immigrant, racist, sexist views.
3) Now that Brexit is a reality, will other European countries adopt a similar referendum to likewise leave the Eurozone?
I would question the premise of this. The vote on Brexit was simply a referendum and the government doesn’t have to follow thru with it. The remorse over the vote will give many in government, both those for and against it, reason to hesitate. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a second vote at some time before the UK actually leaves the Eurozone.
4) Will Europe boil bad blood with England after Brexit?
I think there will definitely be some bad blood and what that will imply is yet to be seen. If the UK actually goes through with this it may be seen in various ways including tariffs on UK goods etc.
5) What are a few consequences of leaving the Euro-zone for England, and Europe?
If the UK goes through with this they may find Ireland and Scotland have votes to leave the UK and try to remain in the Eurozone. The young people of the UK, who overwhelmingly voted to stay, will find travel restrictions and other impediments to working in the rest of Europe. Trade agreements will have to rewritten, UK workers in the Eurozone and the Eurozone workers in the UK may find problems with their jobs. Obviously the precipitous drop in the pound will impact those in the UK who want to travel and impact imports coming into the country.
6) How will this affect China, and The US?
I am not sure how it will impact China as I don’t know the level of trade they have with the UK or the Eurozone but clearly any trade agreements they have will have to be rewritten. As to the US with the rise in the dollar it may hurt American companies selling to the UK or other countries- trade agreements will have to be rewritten and the American Secretary of State is already in the UK meeting to talk about this. In the long run if Brexit is carried out, it might be good for the United States as US bonds and other investments will look even safer to the rest of the world.
7) What would happen to the Euro-zone if France under Le Penn also exited Europe?
I don’t know the answer to this but I think looking at the results of the Brexit vote in the UK, at the loss of billions of dollars in the UK and how it has hurt the average person, should give the French pause before they do the same thing.
8) Is this affect trade worldwide?
In the short term it will hurt trade but if it remains new trade agreements will be written and trade will continue – the initial problem will be for stock markets around the world who respond to uncertainty in a negative way. Workers may lose jobs and companies could be hurt until things are clearer.”
Claude Forthomme.
( Senior Editor of Impakter Magazine. Passionate traveller (80 countries+) 25 years experience in United Nations: project evaluation specialist; FAO Director for Europe/Central Asia)
“Brexit is a historic disaster and the 17 million Brits who voted for it were clearly misled by a series of populist, demagogic politicians playing on people’s fears of immigrants and promising to “restore sovereignty”, foremost among them UKIP’s Nigel Farage and the ex-mayor of London, Boris Johnson – both men more intent on advancing their own political career than on defending their country and preserving the British place in the world.
Brexit is bad for the UK economically and politically. The British pound immediately collapsed and the City of London went into a panic. The likelihood of Scotland leaving the UK in order to remain in the European Union suddenly looked very high, and should it happen, its example could be followed by Northern Ireland.
So expect Great Britain to become “little England”.
But Brexit is bad for the EU too: a domino effect is to be feared, especially in France under the chauvinistic impulse of Marine Le Pen, the National Front’s secretary, and in the Netherlands, under Geert Wilder’s Party for Freedom. Other countries who could jump on the bandwagon of referendums are Hungary and Poland.
Referendums, instead of giving voice to the people in a democratic way, have become the tool of choice of populist parties. Hungary’s Orban whose dictatorial manner is causing anxiety across Europe has already announced he’s going to set up a referendum this coming September on the question of refugees, “since Europe won’t deal with them”.
We are entering in a very dangerous phase in Europe, with liberal values increasingly decried, and that should be a matter of concern to America – after all, Europe was (and is) America’s best friend and top ally, and a defender of democratic values across the world.
In fact, for that reason alone – as European values of social justice (including towards refugees) are weakened, Brexit rings an alarm for the whole world, ushering in a period of intolerance, hatred of others and egoism.
That is why Brexit is truly a historic disaster, a step back in time, to that dark period in the 1930s, when, under the mantle of the Big Depression, countries closed in on themselves and Hitler rose on a wave of nationalism, exploiting a desire for revenge for the defeat Germany had suffered in the First World War. This is the kind of feelings Brexit, a highly emotional vote, has be riding on.”
Steven Hansen.
(Publisher and Co-founder of Econintersect, is an international business and industrial consultant specializing in turning around troubled business units; consults to governments to optimize process flows; and provides economic indicator analysis based on unadjusted data and process limitations)
1) Why did England leave the Eurozone? Did the English view Merkel and Hollande’s as Europe’s sole dictators and decision makers?
There are a variety of reasons – but it was the immigration issue which was the deciding factor. England was losing its identity.
2) Do you agree with England’s departure or disagree?
If I were a Brit, I would have voted to leave. No country should be required to change its national identity. Immigration at too fast a rate does not give time to assimilate.
3) Now that Brexit is a reality, will other European countries adopt a similar referendum to likewise leave the Eurozone?
If there is no change to EU policy – then similar referendums are possible. However, I think there will be enough change in policy to keep the flock together.
4) Will Europe boil bad blood with England after Brexit?
Once the dust settles and pragmatism sets in, I think the divorce will be very civilized. After all, every country has a stake in a viable UK.
5) What are a few consequences of leaving the Euro-zone for England, and Europe?
I will bet than NO ONE can accurately guess this answer. My bet is that the consequences will be much less than the current emotionally driven drivel is suggesting.
6) How will this affect China, and The US?
All change is disruptive – but within a few years adjustments will have been made and it will be business as usual.
7) What would happen to the Euro-zone if France under Le Penn also exited Europe?
Ah, we are playing with a “what if” senario. What if a comet hit Germany?
8) Is this affect trade worldwide?
Although there may be some adjustments, I find it very unlikely there is any long term effects of trade.”
Dr. Helmi Hamdi.
(He has a Ph.D. and Master’s degree in Applied Financial Economics from Paul Cezanne University, Aix-Marseille III France. He is currently a Senior Economist at the Central Bank of Bahrain)
“1) Why did England leave the Eurozone? Did the English view Merkel and Hollande’s as Europe’s sole dictators and decision makers?
‘Let’s be clear and honest since the beginning, England left the Eurozone for one major reason which is immigration. I am not talking about racism, but English people who supported the Brexit, publicly said in all TVs; Presses and mass media around the world that they can’t bear anymore the massive waves of immigrants in their country. Nevertheless, a recent study by the Deutsche Bankshowed that migration actually hasn’t harmed workers in the UK. The second minor reason of leaving the Eurozone (in my personal view)is to restore the sovereignty of the kingdom and to be far away from the directives of Brussels. I am not very convinced about the second reason, declared by many British leaders and citizens.
It is worth recalling that German and France are the two largest Economies in the Eurozone and unlike the UK, both countries adopt the single currency. Therefore, the German chancellor and the French President have been working together since the onset of the global financial crisis to limit its impact of the crises on the Eurozone. The UK was not under the single currency regime, the reason why the most important decisions on Europe have been taken by the German and French leaders.
2) Do you agree with England’s departure or disagree?
I strongly disagree with the exit of the UK from the Euro area. Nowadays, the Kingdom entered in an uncertain universe without any contingency plan. Even supporters of Brexit confessed that they do not have a Plan B. Otherwise, after Brexit, there is nothing prepared so far: no strategy to follow and no policy to implement.
2) Now that Brexit is a reality, will other European countries adopt a similar referendum to likewise leave the Eurozone?
Since the announcement of the referendum vote’ results, many European leaders, mostly from the far right political and nationalists parties, asked for an exist form the Euro-area. This includes: France, Italy, Netherland, Norway and many others. However, few days after seeing the first disastrous impact of the Brexit on the UK economy and after acknowledging that supporters of the Brexit did not have yet a plan B, we rarely heard a recall of an Exit in one of the countries cited above. So in my view, no more referendums will be organized in any country in Europe.
5) What are a few consequences of leaving the Euro-zone for England, and Europe?
So far, the UK has experienced 2 important exits:
– Exit from the Euroarea following referendum of June 24th
– Exit from the 3A rating after seeing the first impacts of the Brexit. (2 notches in one go downgrade by S&P )
In my personal view, the UK will be facing many other scenarios in the coming weeks or months:
The first scenario will be marked by:
– Huge movements of delocalization (industry, manufacturing and banks)
– Massive capital outflows (already billions of Pound left the country)
– Further currency depreciation, (the Pound is already in its lowest level (% US$) since 41 years so far).
The second scenario: the worst one will be followed by:
The Bank of England could intervene by injecting money and launching new sophisticated easing programs.
Finally, the catastrophic scenario is :
The spread of the UK crisis in Europe and to the world to become a global financial crisis. It is worth mentioning that following Brexit, the IMF announced on June 29th that it will lower growth forecast for German economy. I think that the revision down will also involve many other European countries, notably peripheral countries.
Another fear is the explosion of Great Britain, as Scotland wants to remain in the Euroarea while it is attached to the UK.
7) What would happen to the Euro-zone if France under Le Penn also exited Europe?
Despite the increasing popularity of the “National Font” leaded by Marine LePenn, the far right political party will never win the forthcoming national election and will never get the second position. French people learned many lessons on the 2002 elections where Jean-Mari LePenn passed to the second round of the election. This was a shock to the entire France. Now, if it happen again all of us know that Marine LePenn is a supporter of Frexit and there will be a high probability that she will suggest a referendum on the subject. If France, the second largest European country, leaves the Eurozone, then it will certainly be the end of the Union and of its single currency.
8) Is this affect trade worldwide?
Following the Brexit, the UK is forced to rethink of new strategy with its trading partners including those in Europe. Hence, the UK has to implement new trade policy based on its new status. This could affect the trade and could also see Britain with new trading partners in place of old European ones.”
Halyna Mokrushyna.
(Holds a doctorate in linguistics and MA degree in communication. She publishes in Counterpunch, Truthout, and New Cold War on Ukrainian politics, history, and culture. She is also a contributing editor to the New Cold War: Ukraine and beyond and a founder of the Civic group for democracy in Ukraine)
“Brexit, in my opinion, was a clear “no” to the imposition of globalization, based on values of trade and money. It was a vote against the power of European neo-liberal bureaucrats that were so unwisely confident that no country can leave their trumpeted ‘economic’ paradise.
European Union is transforming slowly into the ‘United States of Europe” with Germany and to a less extent France calling the shots. Brits have never been deeply integrated into the EU – they kept their own currency; have not been part of Schengen zone; have opposed the creation of the European army. Brits remain a nation with the mentality of ‘islanders’.
Cameron deserves respect for calling this referendum. It remains to be seen whether the British parliament will follow through with the expression of will of British people. But people have spoken. And Brexit showed a deep division within Great Britain. England and Wales voted for exit (that is why I use the name Britain, not only England), while Scotland and Northern Ireland voted for staying. In terms of social composition of voters, Brexit was supported by workers and peasants, and by older population. Youth voted for the “future”, which, according to neo-liberal propagandists, is with the so-called free market, controlled by invisible transnational 1%. Nation-states are not good for this 1%, because national governments are the only institution that has the power to oppose the power of transnational capital, if that nation-state is truly independent. Example of Greece was a very sad illustration of what happens to a country, indebted till the throat to European bankers. We will see what happens with Great Britain.
The official ideology of human rights and multiculturalism, which the neo-liberal leadership and European bureaucrats thrust on peoples of Europe, is hypocritical because it is in the name of this ideology that France, Germany, Spain sent troops to Libya, Syria, Iraq, sowing chaos and destruction. Hundred thousand refugees flooding Europe is a direct and manifest consequence of this short-sighted Western arrogance and self-confidence. At least, if the British government proceeds with the exit, Brits will have more control over their borders and political decisions.
And I think Britain will exit. Even if they wanted to stay, the angry and prompt reaction of Brussels does not really leave Britain a choice. You do not want to be part of our ‘big happy family’? Off you go!
The reaction of Brussels is already evident. The core members of the Union will try to centralize the political power and bring under more control national economies. And the periphery members will obey. The European Union since its inception was built on the alliance of two European heavyweights – France and Germany. The European Union is not homogenous. It is a bulky and clumsy formation, based mostly on economic interests, in spite of solemn declarations of common European values. Crisis with refugees and the reaction of official Hungary and Slovakia, as well as public opposition within Germany and other countries clearly showed that not everybody agrees with the dictate of Brussels to welcome strangers with open hearts and wallets.
I do not think that we will see any other exit from the European Union in the nearest future, unless the whole structure collapses exactly because Europe is not united by any strong ideology, such as nationalism. But the European elites will do everything they can to keep it together. It is in their own interests – to have a free zone for movement of capital, commodities, and labor.
The European Union bureaucrats will hold grudge against Britain for some time, although they will not show it. Reason will prevail, because, after all, Britain is part of free trade zone. As for Britain, it will not suffer that much economically. Britain has a strong economy and finances, and it will not fall into Greece’s trap. Britain is also seen as equal by France and Germany, not as Greece, a poor relative begging for money. Precisely for this reason I do not see any other country leaving the EU soon – they all are too dependent financially and economically on European bankers. As for a possibility of France exiting the European Union, it is a remote one. France is one of the founding members of the European Union, and the majority of French people support it. Marine Le Pen lacks political power to change this.
Brexit is a stunning victory of democracy over capital. The Britain Stronger in Europe campaign had a £6.88m fund, while the Vote Leave had £2.78m, more than twice less. And yet the No vote won. Interests of the part of British capital and British workers and farmers coincided. Britain won in this referendum, and it will win in the long term, because it will have more independence on how to spend its own money and whom to invite within its borders.”
John D. Vernon Sr.
(He has proudly served the United States of America for over 37 years as a Military Officer, retiring at the rank of Colonel,later serving as a Department of Defense civilian, and finally as a Township Supervisor.In 2012, John ran as a Conservative candidate for the U.S. Senate in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He is the CEO, American Warrior Press)
“I think it’s a blinding flash of the obvious that the Brexit vote was a signal by the British citizens that they have had enough with the European Union (EU). This is also a vote of no confidence for David Cameron which is why he announced his resignation.
Whether the Brexit vote outcome is the right thing or not is not for us to say, just like citizens here in the US do not like criticism from non-citizens when we vote on any particular topic. But, only time will tell whether or not it was the right decision, but one thing is for sure.
The Brexit vote outcome was a result of the anger built up in the hearts and souls of the British people much like the colonists of this country did in 1776.
Taxed and forced to accept refugees that have not been vetted by British officials, but rather forced on the population by non-elected leaders in Brussels, Brexit is a modern day revolution.
It is anticipated that once the initial flap of the Brexit is realized, the British currency will stabilize. But the real question is what will happen to the rest of the EU? And, can the remaining countries survive.
Progressives from all over the globe including President Obama have voiced their displeasure with Brexit. This is because they abhor democracy and the voice of the people. To them, big government knows better and open borders is how they envision the world. Unfortunately, terrorists throughout the region get a vote and their goal is the utter destruction of the West.
The British people voted to take control of their destiny. Anyone who thinks otherwise has been asleep at the switch. It was a storm long brewing and will likely sweep across Europe causing political change in many countries. It is this change that many leaders are afraid. Their gig is up and the elites will be deposed.
On the world market scene Brexit will only be a blip on a radar screen. However, for fragile markets like China, Brexit represents uncertainty and for those in the East, uncertainty is not only risky but potentially a wake up call for their own market strategy. I predict in another twelve months, we won’t be talking about the Brexit vote or the the wave of change this decision brought to the EU. We will however be talking about the effects of refugees and their failure to assimilate, as well as the cost countries must shoulder.
For the remaining countries, this facet is what will bring them closer to the brink of economic collapse. This my friends is what we have to fear, not the vote of the majority.”
Nake M. Kamrany in collaboration with Andreas Kallmuenzer, University of Innsbruck, AustriaJessica Greenhalgh, University of Southern California
(He is an eminent Afghan-American development economist with superior experience in economic development who is held in high esteem by the international development community, Afghan leaders, scholars, the private sector and intellectuals. He has more than 20 publications on the political economy of Afghanistan)
“On June 23, 2016, the Briton voters shocked the world with their vote (49% to 51%) to leave the European Union (EU). The vote of the younger generation was almost 80% in favor of remaining with the EU to 20% for leaving the EU. The puzzling issue in this vote disparity by age is to understand the motivation and incentives of the voter’s bloc. Ostensibly, the vote does not seem to be enhancing Britons economic and political position. The proponents claim to regain Briton’s sovereignty including important national policy decisions and borders based on immigration issue although Britain’s immigrants are legal and can be managed under its current legal system. In contrast, the U.S., for example, has a large number of non-documented residents. It follows that the incentives of the U.K. voters must have been different than just the immigration issue. Research has shown that the contributions of immigrants to host countries are significant in new skills, cheaper labor, new businesses, and entrepreneurship. Ostensibly, the senior U.K. voters acted emotionally rather than rationally and were yearning to recreate the dignity and global stature of the former British Empire.
Since the end of WWII, United Kingdom has lost most of its colonies in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world and has lost its former position as a great power. That inevitable process was explicated in Paul Kennedy seminal book, which explained the inevitability of the rise and fall of great powers. Great Britain was no exception in light of heavy military expenditures that it sustained as an empire and fell into the cycle. It has been on its way to becoming a Small Britain as a victim of a falling empire by the end of World War II. The former colonies emancipated one by one.
However, Britons voting to leave the EU is not going to rectify the British downfall, in fact it can be argued that the exist vote is going to be counterproductive. For instance, as a response to the vote, the British pound took a nose dive and the exchange rate vis-à-vis U.S. dollar went down to a 31 year low after the Brexist vote. The pound sterling lost about 11% in value against U.S. dollars. This depreciation leads to higher import costs, most notably gasoline and consumer products, and lower export earnings, assuming inelastic demand for U.K. exports. Besides, London will no longer be the world’s financial center and thousands of employees in the financial sector will be (or will have to be) seeking employment elsewhere in Europe. British citizen will not be able to move freely throughout Europe anymore, and 2 million British expatriates living across Europe are confronting a sea of uncertainty. They may lose their property rights as local citizens, right to work, own and operate a business and may face a host of regulatory imperatives imposed upon them.
The “leave vote” has caused Britain without a functioning government and the uncertainty associated thereof raising the issue of how to reverse the “leave” vote including the possibility of another referendum and avoid the invocation of the formal process of divorce from EU under Article 50 of the 2007 Lisbon Treaty.
In the final analysis, if the “leave” vote is implemented, it would discriminate against the younger population of Britain, whose orientation is globalism rather than nationalism, and who do not wish to leave their privileges to enjoy the freedom of movement, export-import, investment, employment and social interaction with Europe. The “leave” vote, which caused consternation across Europe and political disarray in London, was more emotional than rational and, if possible at all, it must be reversed for the benefit of Great Britain as well as Europe and the world at large.”
