According to new research, the number of people who will suffer as a result of extreme droughts is expected to increase to more than 2 times its current levels in the latter half of this century.

This new information comes from research performed by a global network of scientists begin led by a team at Michigan State University. More than 20 helped to author the results.

Currently about 3 percent of the world population is greatly impacted by severe drought. Much more than just a lack of clean water, the drought conditions lead to food shortages for those in the areas.

The new research predicts that this number will increase to around 8 percent by the late 21^st century. The results were recently published in Nature Climate Change.

“More and more people will suffer from extreme droughts if a medium-to-high level of global warming continues and water management is maintained in its present state,” said Yadu Pokhrel – civil and environmental engineer and lead author of the research paper.

“Areas of the Southern Hemisphere, where water scarcity is already a problem, will be disproportionately affected. We predict this increase in water scarcity will affect food security and escalate human migration and conflict.”

Additionally, the scientists are projecting that two-thirds of the planet will see a large reduction in natural land water storage. This includes the water which normally accumulates in snow and ice, rivers, lakes and reservoirs, wetlands, soil and groundwater. All of which is being driven by climate change.

This land water storage, represents critically important components of the world’s water and energy supply. “Our findings are a concern,” Pokhrel said.

“To date, no study has examined how climate change would impact land water storage globally. Our study presents the first comprehensive picture of how global warming and socioeconomic changes will affect land water storage and what that will mean for droughts through the end of the century.”

The post Suffering from Extreme Droughts will Double appeared first on CitizenNewsWire.

The Arecibo telescope is one of the largest radio telescopes in the world. Weighing in at 1.8 million pounds, Arecibo’s massive structure was suspended by cables attached to towers in the mountains of Puerto Rico.

Those outside the astronomy community may remember the telescope as it was used in the film ‘Contact’ starring Jodi Foster. The Arecibo telescope was being used in the SETI (search to extraterrestrial intelligence) program in the movie – and in real life.

The first indication of trouble came on November 6, 2020 when the first of 3 support cables broke. Engineers were on scene to evaluate the damage and develop a plan to repair the telescope. The remaining 2 cables should have been able to support the telescope while repairs were being made.

However, at only 60% of its designed breaking strength, a second cable broke. This signaled to engineers that the cables had grown very weak over time, and from hurricanes over the years. As a result, it was deemed unsafe to attempt repairs.

Staff working at the other facilities in the Arecibo Observatory were warned of the danger. Fortunately, they took the appropriate precautions to keep everyone safely away from the main telescope.

Earlier this week, at 8:55am eastern time on December 1, 2020, the structure completely collapsed. Fortunately, no one was injured but there was damage to some of the other facilities at Arecibo.

What’s next for Arecibo?

The University of Central Florida (UCF) currently operates the facility. They receive funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Together the two are working on plans to maintain other elements of the facility and make repairs to those damaged in the collapse. There are currently no plans to resurrect the 305-meter telescope however.

“We are saddened by this situation but thankful that no one was hurt,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.

“When engineers advised NSF that the structure was unstable and presented a danger to work teams and Arecibo staff, we took their warnings seriously and continued to emphasize the importance of safety for everyone involved. Our focus is now on assessing the damage, finding ways to restore operations at other parts of the observatory, and working to continue supporting the scientific community, and the people of Puerto Rico.”

Among the facilities being repaired include the observatory’s 12-meter radio astronomy telescope, and the roof of the LIDAR facility.

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The potential ramifications for this decision are quite enormous as, apart from altering the domestic political arrangement of the nation, granting Gilgit Baltistan status as a province also has vast ramifications for the Kashmir conflict between Pakistan and India.

Gilgit Baltistan, although not ethnically or culturally contiguous with the wider Kashmir region is nevertheless considered a part of it. The Republic of India however, maintains that Gilgit Baltistan is a part of Indian Kashmir and is illegally occupied by Pakistan. Granting the territory provincial status will undoubtedly cause tensions between the two nations to flare up considerably.

Aside from upsetting its neighbor, Pakistan has also garnered the ire of Kashmiri nationalists and separatists whose desires for a Kashmiri ethno-state clearly clash with Pakistan’s attempt at integration.

It’s interesting to note that Pakistan’s new decision to create a Gilgit Baltistan province is not too dissimilar to India’s earlier attempt to end Kashmir’s special status. This indicates a wider trend of territorial consolidation between the two countries. A trend where each seems to want to strengthen their hold on their respective portions of the Kashmir valley.

Perhaps, it could even be said that the creation of a Gilgit Baltistan province could possibly lead to the end of the Kashmir conflict in its entirety.

Both states seem to favor consolidation of the territory that they already occupy, and both are deeply opposed to any calls for an independent Kashmiri state.

For Kashmiri nationalists and separatists, this attempt to ‘divide their homeland’ is nothing short of a betrayal from Islamabad and, a signal that maybe Pakistan is no longer committed to Kashmiri freedom or unity.

The post What a Gilgit Baltistan Province means for Kashmir and Pakistan appeared first on CitizenNewsWire.

The company issuing the warning is Asigra Inc. The organization is touted as a leader in backup and recovery software that delivers comprehensive backup repository cyber protection. They have been awarded Product of the Year Gold winner, three times, by TechTarget for their Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software.

Asigra is currently working to maintain operational continuity, and productive operations, for clients as it responds to these impending threats.

“The organization has observed continuing ransomware attacks across the country and around the world. Malicious actors have adjusted their ransomware tactics over time to include pressuring victims for payment by threatening to release stolen data if they refuse to pay.” stated the US Government’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

“Malicious actors increasingly use tactics such as deleting system backups, which make restoration and recovery more difficult or infeasible for impacted organizations.”

According to Asigra, most organizations are falling into a false sense of security – assuming that their backup data will be available after a ransomware attack. However, the company is warning that in many recent attacks, the backup data is targeted by the attackers.

Asigra is pointing to these 5 areas as the cyber security ransomware challenges which businesses must address in 2021 to remain in safe operations:

1.            Ransomware Attacks on Kubernetes Containers: The deployment of Kubernetes-based containers is growing rapidly as it allows software to run consistently between computing environments, making it highly portable, productive and ideal for digital transformation. Along with these advantages comes the generation of massive data volumes, making these new environments prime targets for new ransomware variants. Mitigating these attacks will require an industry-wide approach to ensuring the viability of these environments before, during and after such attacks.

2.            Cyber-targeting of SaaS-Based Applications: With the increase in distributed enterprise operations and remote work environments, there will be continued adoption of SaaS-based applications. Beyond the flexible use of these applications, they offer cost, time and scalability advantages in many cases. However, they also create a new data source that is vulnerable to ransomware and must be protected.

3.            AI-Driven Cyberattacks: Artificial intelligence and the technologies that enable it are becoming more advanced. The resulting new capabilities are allowing criminal organizations to conduct more complex and targeted attacks. To counter these more intelligent attacks, organizational defenses must also evolve.

4.            Ransomware Payments to Become Illegal: The US government has expressed intentions to align the payment of cyber ransoms with the support of terrorist organizations and will likely make these payments illegal. It is expected that other nations will enact such laws as well, especially to defend against possible nation-state sponsored actors. Without the ability to retrieve criminally encrypted data or recover properly, ransomware attacks will become business ending events.

5.            Managed Security Service Provider Registration with the Government: The US government will move to require MSPs/MSSPs that provide cybersecurity services to register their organizations with the government, adding more regulations as the ransomware trend continues to accelerate.

Ensuring that viable backup data is available and unharmed is essential to for a business to survive a ransomware attack.  

To make this happen, the organization’s backup infrastructure, including access to backup software controls, must be ensured.

“Organizations need to ready themselves to properly and quickly respond to ransomware attacks regardless of what has been attacked. One way to do this is to make backup data very difficult to hack,” said David Farajun, Chief Executive Officer, Asigra, Inc.

“Regardless of the imposing number of routes that ransomware will take in 2021, having a well-planned response plan to get your systems back up and running in the least amount of time will be critical to ensuring business viability.” Additional details about Asigra’s enhanced data protection suite is available on the company web site https://www.asigra.com.

The post 5 Ransomware Cyber Security Threats for 2021 appeared first on CitizenNewsWire.

Italians are creative and when it comes to a forced closure within their four walls. The first activity they throw themselves into with ardor and passion is cooking! Experimenting with new recipes and enjoying the pleasure of good food becomes their primary focus.

Born just this spring, in a difficult time was the initiative called “Italia Keeps on Cooking.” It is a social campaign to raise awareness among the population not to stop cooking to stay united and creative!

A symbol of this initiative is an apron with the words “Italia Keeps on Cooking”, distributed to numerous Italian chefs to convey a message of help and hope for the precarious situation of Italian restaurants.

In addition to an awareness and cooperation initiative, it was also a charity project. The entire proceeds from the sale of these aprons were donated to the Luigi Sacco Hospital in Milan and to the intensive care unit, highly involved in the battle against Covid-19.

In hard times like these, where the uncertainty of what will happen prevails, sadness, anxiety and melancholy can be relieved by a good plate of pasta or a delicious dessert.

In fact, several studies have shown that during the forced lockdown, the population has significantly increased the search for recipes on social networks, especially those concerning bread-making and homemade pasta.

There is a trend towards the search for tradition and simplicity of the ingredients.

Below is a simple, satisfying and tasty recipe that can be cooked and eaten on those days when you feel down in the dumps. Times when you need to keep the whole family busy with a fun activity and especially on a cold evening.

PASSATELLI IN MEAT BROTH

(Passatelli is a homemade pasta of the Emilian tradition, very simple and which often uses leftovers).

Doses for 4 people:

– Eggs (about 3) 170 g                                                                – Breadcrumbs 120 g

– Parmesan to be grated 120 g

– 1/2 lemon zest                                                                           – Nutmeg to taste

-Salt up to taste                                                                             – Meat broth 1 l

PROCEDURE:

• Put some good meat broth on the fire.
• While the broth is cooking, prepare the dough: grate the lemon zest and keep it aside; break and beat the eggs for a few moments in a bowl with a pinch of salt.
• In a larger container pour the breadcrumbs and grated Parmesan.
• Add the lemon zest, a little grated nutmeg to the parmesan and pour in the eggs.
• Mix the ingredients with a spatula or by hand until the mixture becomes elastic and compact; If too soft, add a little breadcrumbs, if too dry, add a little broth.
• Wrap the mixture in a film and let it rest for 2 hours at room temperature.
• Put the dough inside a potato masher with large holes and mash directly into the broth that is boiling. Cut the passatelli with a knife to a length of about 4 cm.
• As soon as the passatelli come to the surface, they are ready! Transfer to a plate with the broth and add Parmesan cheese and ground black pepper to taste.

This dish can also be eaten without broth! Just take them out of the broth and add some pesto(ex: courgettes, tomatoes or basil) or smoked bacon or even mushrooms.

Taking refuge every now and then in comfort food, with the joy of having prepared something tasty together with the family, will increase the good mood and will be a valid help to survive in these difficult moments.

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not eaten well.” (Virginia Woolf)

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The new bridge designs come from a team of engineers and researchers at Texas A&M University and the University of Colorado Boulder. The National Science Foundation (NSF) provided funding for the research.

Their designs appear to result in a structure that is more damage-resistant. Less damage could mean saving billions in repair costs after a large earthquake.

So far, these designs have been limited to the lab, and are still in the early stages of development, but appear promising.

The design is based on how limbs and joints in the body work to support us while also absorbing impact and allowing for some flexibility.

Current bridge designs will crack and even break when subjected to very large quakes. They are constructed of steel and poured re-enforced concrete. There is no flexibility in these structures.

They are built to support their own weight plus expected traffic loads. But they are static structures built on a stationary surface. The problems come when the surface is no longer stationary – like with an earthquake.

The team calls their design a hybrid sliding-rocking bridge. During an earthquake, “the joints allow some of the energy from the ground motion to spread while the segments move slightly, sliding over one another rather than bending or cracking,” explains the NSF in a press release on the design.

When the team compared their ‘limb-inspired’ bridge design to current designs when subjected to a quake, the results were dramatic.

The columns in the new design “showed very little damage even when subject to motions reminiscent of a powerful once-in-a-few-thousand-years earthquake.”

What’s more, the damage that did occur could be repaired easily and inexpensively. The complete detailed of the study were published in the Journal of Structural Engineering.

The post ‘Limb-inspired’ Bridge Design Holds up to Earthquakes Better appeared first on CitizenNewsWire.

A group of engineers at Purdue University have developed an incredibly small rectangular micro robot which can travel through the human body to deliver medicine. Or they can be used as a diagnostic tool to report back on your health.

The robot as tiny as a few human hairs, according to the recent announcement by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Seen in this image of a penny, the micro-robot is the tiny speck smaller than the ‘U’ in United States.

Why are these Micro-Robots important?

Current medicines often have very negative side-effects. Much of this is due to the fact that the medicines travel throughout various areas of the body in order to reach their target. In this way, the medication can adversely impact other organs and body parts.

By placing the medicine onboard a tiny robot like this one, it can be programmed to wait until it reaches a very specific part of the body before releasing the medicine.

How do they work?

This first micro robot has been tested in live animals. It has been able to travel throughout a colon by essentially doing back flips. In the end, developers aim to use these robots eventually transport therapeutic drugs through the colons and other organs have rough terrain.

The tiny device derives its power from a magnetic field outside of the patient. Doctors would use the same field to control the robot – directing it to the target location.

“When we apply a rotating external magnetic field to these robots, they rotate just like a car tire would over rough terrain,” said David Cappelleri, a Purdue mechanical engineer. “The magnetic field also safely penetrates different types of mediums, which is important for using these robots in the human body.”

This video explains more about how the micro-robots work.

The NSF helped to fund this research. The work has been cited as the “first demonstration of a microrobot tumbling through a biological system in vivo.”

According to the study, the microrobots are nontoxic and biocompatible. They are made of polymer and metal.

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A recent report in Nature describes a Room-Temperature Superconductivity breakthrough by a team at the University of Rochester and the University of Las Vegas, Nevada.

A superconductive material is one in which there is basically no resistance flow of electric current. This means that there is no power loss as a current travels through a circuit.

Until now, achieving superconductivity in materials was only possible at extremely low temperatures. This has made them impractical for use in today’s tech. This breakthrough however, could change everything.

The research team is led by physicists Ranga Dias and Ashkan Salamat of  the University of Rochester and UNLV respectively. Their research is being funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“It’s a game changer,” said Salamat.

“The discovery is new, and the technology is in its infancy and a vision of tomorrow, but the possibilities are endless. This could revolutionize the energy grid and change every device that’s electronically driven.”

Instead of using ultra low temperatures (close to -273 Celsius) to achieve superconductivity, the teams did it with pressure. Extremely high pressure – similar to the crushing pressure near the Earth’s core.  

The researchers are still at an early stage in their work. But if they can continue to see success as they try to use less or no pressure, a whole new wave of technological advances lies ahead.

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Penrose received the award “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity.” While Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez were cited by the Nobel Assembly as well “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy.”

Many may recognize Roger Penrose for the ‘Penrose Staircase.” This was the inspiration behind the famous staircase drawing by Escher – a staircase that seems to loop back on itself never really going anywhere.

But In 1965, Roger Penrose was the first to prove mathematically that Black Holes are in fact a natural consequence of relativity theory. Einstein had predicted Black Holes, but it was Penrose who proved they were real.

The three Nobel Prize recipients all received funding from the Nation Science Foundation.

Penrose developed his ‘black hole formation’ theory at Rice University. Gentzel uses his NSF funds working with infrared astronomy at the University of California-Berkeley.

Meanwhile, at UCLA, Ghez and her team have used the NSF money on the development of instrumentation for the W.M. Keck Observatory. Using this powerful observatory, they have been able to track the orbit of a star circling the supermassive black hole which sits at the center of Milky Way galaxy in which we live.

In a statement, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said, “Few phenomena in the universe have captivated the imaginations of both the public and the scientific community like black holes, and thanks to these researchers, all of whom have received NSF support, we have to rely on our imaginations a little less.”

“They used mathematics and innovative astrophysics techniques to explore the nature of these incredible objects and reveal the supermassive black hole at the center of our own galaxy.”

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The pair received this year’s Nobel Prize for what the assembly cited as “improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats.”

Watch the 2020 Nobel Prize for Economics Announcement

Celebrating their achievements, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released a statement in which they touted the work, done by Milgron and Wilson, that led to the award.

The NSF has been a sponsor of the two researchers over the years. The pair had received funding for research into game theory. This work ultimately helped them develop the auction system for which they are now being honored.

NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan issued the following statement on the Nobel announcement:

“Cooperation and competition are fundamental aspects of economics, and they govern the complex auctions societies use to allocate everything from minerals and energy to landing slots at airports,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.

“Understanding how bidders process information is crucial for designing these auctions, especially when the seller’s primary goal is to benefit society.”

The auction formats that Milgron and Wilson developed allow multiple, simultaneous transactions in a highly complex and efficient manner.

Why Auction Formats are Nobel Prize Worthy

If you’re wondering why the development of complex auctions deserves government funding, here’s an example.

Wireless carriers like Verizon, AT&T and others have to pay license fees to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the use of the radio spectrum in which they broadcast and receive all of your cell phone calls and data.

There is a limited amount of this spectrum bandwidth. As a result, competing carriers pay a premium for it. What’s more, they have to bid for it with the FCC.

According to the NSF, the license fees from these wireless carriers have been worth over $60 billion for U.S. taxpayers. The auction formats developed by the Nobel Prize winning pair are used to award the bids and generate that revenue.

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