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Category: Science

  • MIL-OSI Global: Even as urban foxes get bolder, people appreciate rather than persecute them, say psychologists

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Blake Morton, Lecturer of Animal Psychology, University of Hull

    starlings_images/Shutterstock

    For many, urban red foxes are a familiar sight in back gardens or city streets. Often, people delight in seeing them and the connection to wildlife they bring. Others find them a nuisance, whether because of their smell, poo or loud screaming noises during the breeding season. Some anecdotal reports indicate that foxes could be becoming bolder within cities – even riding on buses, stealing shoes or taking naps on someone’s garden shed.

    Our study for the British carnivore project shows for the first time that foxes within the UK are indeed behaving more boldly within cities compared to rural populations – but that most people remain tolerant of them anyway.

    Foxes are vital to ecosystem health and represent an important “flagship” species for urban residents’ connection to the natural world. However, bolder fox behaviour could, in theory, lead to more conflict with humans, particularly as people encroach more on green space through increasing urbanisation. It is therefore crucial to understand how to avoid conflict with these animals and explore positive ways to coexist.

    Stories and imagery can play an important role in shaping our attitudes about wildlife. However, although foxes are often portrayed as “sly” and “cunning” in popular culture, it remains unclear how this might affect public perceptions. Identifying factors that influence people’s feelings and attitudes towards foxes is important for understanding how we can coexist amicably alongside them.

    Communicating information about bolder urban foxes through press releases and YouTube videos, for instance, runs the risk of people creating false impressions or sensationalised beliefs about fox behaviour. This could undermine important conservation initiatives to protect the welfare of urban foxes, including efforts to avoid unethical treatment or persecution of these animals.

    Foxy behaviour

    Our recent study tested whether messages about bolder urban foxes are biasing how people feel about them. To do this, 1,364 British people were randomly selected to take part in an online experiment.

    Participants were not told what the study was about. Half were given stories depicting bold and cunning fox behaviour and shown a short video of foxes exploring and solving food puzzles that we had left overnight in people’s back gardens.

    Half the study participants were shown this three-minute video of foxes solving food puzzles.

    Other participants were shown relatively neutral content, including a video of foxes walking through different landscapes.

    Afterwards, all participants answered 24 questions that enabled us to evaluate their perceptions of foxes, including whether they felt fox behaviour negatively impacted their everyday lives.

    Half the study participants were shown this short video of foxes walking through various habitats.

    The study revealed that content about bold and cunning fox behaviour did not have a significant effect on participants’ tolerance of foxes, compared to people in the control group. In fact, across both the experimental and control groups, 83% of people displayed feelings about foxes that were more positive than negative. This suggests that participants from the experimental group remained positive despite being made aware that bold and intelligent behaviour from foxes probably explains their “pesky” interactions with people.

    Previous studies have found that foxes are a very well-liked species throughout much of the UK, despite other studies suggesting that attitudes are more mixed in urban areas like London. Our latest study provides the most up-to-date evidence showing that this remains the case. However, as foxes continue to become bolder within cities, which our previous work suggests, it will become very important to continue to monitor whether (or how) attitudes change towards these animals throughout the country.

    Our results illustrate that the likeability factor of foxes is deeply rooted and difficult to change just by discussing their nuisance behaviour in a single setting. Although foxes are often perceived to be bold and crafty, our online experiments showed that most people remained generally tolerant of them anyway.

    By giving residents more of a voice in urban planning, solutions can be designed to encourage people to coexist with foxes without persecuting these animals, such as how to dispose of our waste properly to deter bin-raiding. This, in our view, is great news for foxes and people.

    Blake Morton received funding from the University of Hull, UKRI Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (Grant No.
    NE/X018342/1), and EU Social Fund Plus for the study.

    Charlotte Hopkins received funding from NERC for this project (Grant No. NE/X018342/1)

    – ref. Even as urban foxes get bolder, people appreciate rather than persecute them, say psychologists – https://theconversation.com/even-as-urban-foxes-get-bolder-people-appreciate-rather-than-persecute-them-say-psychologists-234110

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: New solar cells break efficiency record – they could eventually supercharge how we get energy from the Sun

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sebastian Bonilla, Associate Professor of Materials, University of Oxford

    Thanun Vongsuravanich / Shutterstock

    The sight of solar panels installed on rooftops and large energy farms has become commonplace in many regions around the world. Even in grey and rainy UK, solar power is becoming a major player in electricity generation.

    This surge in solar is fuelled by two key developments. First, scientists, engineers and those in industry are learning how to make solar panels by the billions. Every fabrication step is meticulously optimised to produce them very cheaply. The second and most significant is the relentless increase in the panels’ power conversion efficiency – a measure of how much sunlight can be transformed into electricity.

    The higher the efficiency of solar panels, the cheaper the electricity. This might make you wonder: just how efficient can we expect solar energy to become? And will it make a dent in our energy bills?

    Current commercially available solar panels convert about 20-22% of sunlight into electrical power. However, new research published in Nature has shown that future solar panels could reach efficiencies as high as 34% by exploiting a new technology called tandem solar cells. The research demonstrates a record power conversion efficiency for tandem solar cells.

    What are tandem solar cells?

    Traditional solar cells are made using a single material to absorb sunlight. Currently, almost all solar panels are made from silicon – the same material at the core of microchips. While silicon is a mature and reliable material, its efficiency is limited to about 29%.

    To overcome this limit, scientists have turned to tandem solar cells, which stack two solar materials on top of each other to capture more of the Sun’s energy.

    In the new nature paper, a team of researchers at the energy giant LONGi has reported a new tandem solar cell that combines silicon and perovskite materials. Thanks to their improved sunlight harvesting, the new perovskite-silicon tandem has achieved a world record 33.89% efficiency.

    Perovskite solar materials, which were discovered less than two decades ago, have emerged as the ideal complement to the established silicon technology. The secret lies in their light absorption tuneability. Perovskite materials can capture high energy, blue light more efficiently than silicon.

    In this way, energy losses are avoided and the total tandem efficiency increases. Other materials, called III-V semiconductors, have also been used in tandem cells and achieved higher efficiencies. The problem is they are hard to produce and expensive, so only small solar cells can be made in combination with focused light.

    The scientific community is putting tremendous effort into perovskite solar cells. They have kept a phenomenal pace of development with efficiencies (for a single cell in the lab) rising from 14% to 26% in only 10 years. Such advancements enabled their integration into ultra-high-efficiency tandem solar cells, demonstrating a pathway to scale photovoltaic technology to the trillions of Watts the world needs to decarbonise our energy production.

    The cost of solar electricity

    The new record-breaking tandem cells can capture an additional 60% of solar energy. This means fewer panels are needed to produce the same energy, reducing installation costs and the land (or roof area) required for solar farms.

    It also means that power plant operators will generate solar energy at a higher profit. However, due to the way that electricity prices are set in the UK, consumers may never notice a difference in their electricity bills. The real difference comes when you consider rooftop solar installations where the area is constrained and the space has to be exploited effectively.

    The price of rooftop solar power is calculated based on two key measures. First, the total cost to install solar panels on your roof, and second, how much electricity they will generate over their 25 years of operation. While the installation cost is easy to obtain, the revenues from generating solar electricity at home are a bit more nuanced. You can save money by using less energy from the grid, especially in periods when it is costly, and you can also sell some of your surplus electricity back to the grid.

    However, the grid operators will pay you a very small price for this electricity, so sometimes it is better to use a battery and store the energy so you can use it at night. Using average considerations for a typical British household, I have calculated the cash savings consumers would gain from rooftop solar electricity depending on the efficiency of the panels.

    If we can improve panel efficiency from 22% to 34% without
    increasing the installation cost, savings in electricity bills will rise from £558ְ/year up to £709/year. A 20% bump in cash savings that would make solar rooftops extremely attractive, even in grey and cloudy Britain.

    The higher the efficiency of solar panels, the cheaper the resulting electricity.
    IM Imagery / Shutterstock

    So when can we buy these new solar panels?

    As research continues, considerable efforts are being made to scale up this technology and ensure its long-term durability. The record breaking tandem cells are made in laboratories and are smaller than a postage stamp. Translating such high performance to metre-square areas remains a vast challenge.

    Yet, we are making progress. Earlier this month, Oxford PV, a solar manufacturer at the forefront of perovskite technology, announced the first sale of its newly developed tandem solar panels. They have successfully tackled the challenges of integrating two solar materials and making durable and reliable panels. While they are still far from 34% efficiencies, their work shows a promising route for next generation solar cells.

    Another consideration is the sustainability of the materials used in tandem solar panels. Extracting and processing some of the minerals in solar panels can be hugely energy intensive. Besides silicon, perovskite solar cells require the elements lead, carbon, iodine and bromine as components to make them work properly. Connecting perovskite and silicon also requires scarce materials containing an element called indium, so there is plenty of research still required to address these difficulties.

    Despite the challenges, the scientific and industrial community remains committed to developing tandem solar devices that could be integrated into almost anything: cars, buildings and planes.

    The recent developments toward high efficiency perovskite-silicon tandem cells indicate a bright future for solar power, ensuring solar continues to play a more prominent role in the global transition to renewable energy.

    Sebastian Bonilla receives funding from UK Research and Innovation, The Royal Academy of Engineering, and The Leverhulme Trust.

    – ref. New solar cells break efficiency record – they could eventually supercharge how we get energy from the Sun – https://theconversation.com/new-solar-cells-break-efficiency-record-they-could-eventually-supercharge-how-we-get-energy-from-the-sun-239417

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Nature is adapting to climate change – why aren’t we?

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Jack Marley, Environment + Energy Editor, UK edition

    Humanity may be no better prepared for the impacts of climate change today than in the 1970s.

    So says a new study led by Stanford University researchers that compared how sensitive societies are to extreme weather now versus 50 years ago. This research has yet to be peer-reviewed, and its conclusions run counter to what many climate policy experts have long assumed. If they are accurate, it means that additional wealth, technology and climate-savvy have not meaningfully enhanced our protection as the weather has become more hostile.


    This roundup of The Conversation’s climate coverage comes from our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 35,000+ readers who’ve subscribed.

    Earth’s atmosphere has warmed and contains more moisture as a result of fossil fuel burning. Europeans reeling from Storm Boris can testify to the failure of even wealthy countries to adapt to this reality says Chris Medland, a PhD candidate in climate change resilience at the University of Surrey.



    Read more:
    Who’s to blame when climate change turns the lights off?

    Eventually, everyone will feel this deficit.

    “Your home may not be in the path of the next storm but the infrastructure it relies on might be,” Medland says.

    Flood defences, power lines, rail networks – all of these things and more need to be built or upgraded to withstand mounting storms. Yet in the recently flooded UK, the companies that run utilities are not expressly obliged to ensure their networks remain resilient to climate change, Medland says. Nor is it clear who is ultimately responsible for keeping the lights on as the crisis intensifies.

    Invaders must die?

    If the accounts of biologists are anything to go by, the natural world is adapting to the effects of climate change far more radically than any human institution.

    “Faced with the degradation of their habitat, the species that will survive will be those that are able to adapt,” says Suzanne Bonamour, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

    Bonamour studies an endangered seabird, the crested cormorant, and its struggles to feed itself and its brood amid stormier seas. These birds can migrate to escape a winter squall, but only some do.



    Read more:
    How cormorants are rethinking their migration routes in the face of climate change

    Bonamour wonders whether adult birds might transmit this behaviour to their chicks, but she says that there is little that species can do to compensate for the catastrophe humans are engineering.

    Adjusting to a rapidly changing climate is a very tall order.
    LABETAA Andre/Shutterstock

    When plants and animals seeking cooler climes settle on new shores, they usually get a hostile reception. Attempting to root out these migrants is generally a mistake according to Heather Kharouba, an ecologist at the University of Ottawa.

    “Stated plainly, the vast majority of intentionally or unintentionally introduced species are not a threat to native ecosystems,” she says.



    Read more:
    Climate change means we may have to learn to live with invasive species

    Some arrivals do cause problems. In North America, “invasive species” include the emerald ash borer, an insect from north-eastern Asia that damages ash trees. But most control measures are laborious and expensive failures, Kharouba says. Some are even harmful, like using herbicides that afflict the native and non-native alike.

    Kharouba cites numerous examples of introduced species enriching their new homes. More generally, there is a trade-off: forests in the eastern US that are turning gold with autumn’s onset now harbour fewer species, but they store more carbon.

    “All this means that introduced plants could be well placed to support, or even buffer, current ecosystems as they undergo transitions due to climate change,” Kharouba says.

    Nature offers stark evidence that the world is changing rapidly. What if we embraced it?

    ‘Not just a challenge’

    Climate activists have typically shied away from discussing “climate adaptation” for fear of sounding defeatist says Joost de Moor, an assistant professor of political science at Sciences Po. There is cause to remain laser-focused on cutting emissions, he adds, but no excuse to neglect the question entirely.

    If change is inevitable, what sort of world do we want to emerge from the climate crisis? In March 2023, protesters in western France seized the initiative when they opposed the construction of a 628,000 sq metre reservoir in the rural Sainte-Soline commune, de Moor says.



    Read more:
    How climate activists finally seized the issue of adaptation in 2023

    France had suffered a historic drought, and so a huge artificial water reserve might have seemed prudent. Not if it involved draining a common resource, the water table, to serve a few farmers whose methods of agriculture already placed an untenable strain on struggling ecosystems, protesters argued.

    The campaign sparked a vital debate about whose needs ought to be prioritised in a future with greater hardship says Lucien Thabourey, a sociologist of environmental activism at Sciences Po. Fortunately, there is also a conversation to be had about the ways in which everyone might live better.



    Read more:
    Sainte-Soline : un tournant pour les mouvements écologistes ?

    “Some of the actions taken by humans to minimise the risk of catastrophic floods can actually make life more pleasant anyway, even when it isn’t raining,” says Maryam Imani, an associate professor of water systems engineering at Anglia Ruskin University.



    Read more:
    Torrential rain represents an opportunity to build a better society

    “For this reason, we should see rains like this not just as a challenge, but as an opportunity.”

    – ref. Nature is adapting to climate change – why aren’t we? – https://theconversation.com/nature-is-adapting-to-climate-change-why-arent-we-239750

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Fan reviews and parodies of Amazon’s The Rings of Power show that ownership is not just determined by contracts

    Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lincoln Geraghty, Professor of Media Cultures, University of Portsmouth

    The fan reaction to season one of The Rings of Power in 2022 was, to put it mildly, very mixed. Following the 2017 announcement that Amazon had bought the rights to adapt some of J.R.R Tolkien’s lesser-known work, many fans were cautious in their celebration.

    I research fandoms, so I am particularly drawn to the levels of critical analysis and humour fans employ in their review videos and parodies of The Rings of Power. They highlight that while multi-billion-dollar corporations may have the financial clout to own valuable IP and some of the biggest entertainment franchises, ownership is not just determined by contracts.

    Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) stands as testament to the director’s passion for Tolkien, Middle Earth and cinematic storytelling.

    With The Rings of Power, Amazon was clearly trying to capture some of that for the small screen. They hoped to use the franchise to compete with other streaming platforms such as Netflix and Disney+, as well as copy HBO’s success with series like Game of Thrones. Epic fantasy television offered Amazon the potential for new subscribers, awards and priceless word-of-mouth marketing.

    However, that is not quite what happened. Early promotion for season one was scarce, the teaser trailer was ratioed (meaning it had thousands more dislikes than likes) and a campaign to use social media influencers and vloggers as promoters backfired.

    The trailer for season two of The Rings of Power.

    When marketing backfires

    Amazon flew a number of social media influencers and vloggers to Mallorca in Spain to watch the first teaser trailer, and then filmed their praise and reactions to be shared on their channels and Amazon’s own social media.

    But fans quickly spotted that a number of the influencers and vloggers had never made Lord of the Rings content before and most of the reactions were scripted, depending on language and nationality of the vloggers. When these promos started to be ratioed on YouTube, Amazon took them down.

    Now with season two upon us, the lack of faith in Amazon’s adaptation has not only continued – it has noticeably grown. Some content creators have reacted negatively to the company’s and showrunners’ attempts at turning the very small amount of the story and lore, to which they have rights, into many hours worth of television.

    Yet, it is how the fans respond which is often more intriguing and revealing than what they are responding to. The overall tone and argument that fans share about the series is that it lacks faithfulness to Tolkien’s world and tries to adapt and copy Jackson’s version of Middle Earth, rather than create something appealing in its own right.

    This is best highlighted in recent videos produced by well-known and controversial Lord Of The Rings fan, Nerdrotic, who outlines in enormous detail how season two has gone further in trying to sound and look like Jackson’s movies.

    Nerdrotic’s criticism of The Rings of Power.

    The use of clips, dialogue, sound effects and references to press sources raises such content to almost academic level of critique. His cultural capital and knowledge of the story and lore is clearly displayed, and used to both raise the source material up while he puts the Amazon adaptation down.

    This is typical of fans who feel their beloved text is under attack – they come to its defence by building a case for its original quality and value.

    Fan parodies

    The use of parody and humour to pour scorn on the series is also a common practice among fans. New digital technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) allow fans to create a sense of realism that again demonstrates their knowledge and love of the original works.

    Charlie Hopkinson’s Gandalf Reviews deepfake sketches have found an audience that both knows the lore but is also familiar with and enjoys the format of reaction videos made popular on YouTube. Setting Gandalf in a sitcom where he chats with other characters while watching Lord of the Rings may seem glaringly unfaithful to the material, but it uses displacement of those same characters to highlight the importance and value of the original story and movies.

    One of the Gandalf deep fake videos.

    Fans develop a strong sense of ownership over their favourite media or books. They have taken fantasy, science fiction, comic book and horror franchises to their heart and put time, money and energy into getting to know them in every detail.

    Because of the level of financial and personal investment, they feel they “own” the text and have helped make it popular in the first place. Therefore, they would argue they have every right to feel threatened, angry or frustrated at what they perceive as harm being done to it and so, by extension, them.

    Streaming platforms such as Amazon have tried to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market by mining well-known IP to lure in fans and non-subscribers alike. However, as The Rings of Power has shown, attempts at courting fans can come at a cost which may never be recouped.

    The relationship between fans and entertainment corporations is as fraught as ever. Amazon needs Tolkien fans, but at the same time doesn’t seem to recognise the fact that the fans may not need them – or another adaption – to keep them entertained. They can do that for themselves.


    Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

    Lincoln Geraghty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Fan reviews and parodies of Amazon’s The Rings of Power show that ownership is not just determined by contracts – https://theconversation.com/fan-reviews-and-parodies-of-amazons-the-rings-of-power-show-that-ownership-is-not-just-determined-by-contracts-238704

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: House Science Committee Passes Bills to Advance Research and Technology Development on AI, Nuclear Energy, and Natural Disasters

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan (Virginia 4th District)

    Washington, D.C. – Today, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee passed four bills on a bipartisan basis to advance research and technology development, ensuring that the United States remains a global leader in artificial intelligence, energy, and natural disaster resilience: 

    • H.R. 9671, the Department of Energy (DOE) Artificial Intelligence Act, provides updated guidance for DOE’s activities in developing advanced artificial intelligence systems to carry out its national security, energy, and scientific discovery missions. 
    • H.R. 9710, the Small Modular Reactor Demonstration Act, gives direction and guidance to DOE to create demonstration projects and empower research on small modular reactors and micro-reactors. 
    • H.R. 9720, the AI Incident Reporting and Security Enhancement Act, directs National Institute Standards and Technologies (NIST) to use existing vulnerability management processes to account for AI vulnerabilities. 
    • H.R. 9723, the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Reauthorization Act, reauthorizes and revamps NIST’s program to improve collaboration and research on the effects of climate change on windstorm behavior. 

    Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan (VA-04), a member of the House Science Committee, successfully offered an amendment to H.R. 9723 based on her recently introduced H.R. 9771, the Building and Upgrading Infrastructure for the Long Term (BUILT) Act. McClellan’s amendment will support interdisciplinary coordination to address the risks to infrastructure integrity resulting from changing climate and environmental conditions. Watch her testimony in committee here.

    “As the climate crisis continues to worsen, we must take immediate action to mitigate the most devastating impacts and protect our communities and critical infrastructure systems from harm,” said Congresswoman McClellan. “Devastating extreme weather events remind us of the urgency of the moment and the need to continue improving our resiliency efforts. I offered provisions from my BUILT Act as an amendment to the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program Reauthorization Act of 2024 to invest in our future by promoting forward-looking research into climate resiliency.” 

    The BUILT Act directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to facilitate research on how climate conditions can affect subsurface properties and how technology can be used to assess infrastructure integrity risks, as well as to convene a workshop of representatives across the public and private sector.

    The BUILT Act is endorsed by the American Geophysical Union and the National Institute of Building Sciences. Both are concerned with the advancement of solutions to solve local and community-based problems with the built environment.

    “The nation’s deficient infrastructure must be improved to protect American lives,” said Dr. George Guszcza, President and CEO of the National Institute of Building Sciences. “NIST recognizes the role lifeline infrastructure plays to support community resilience and recovery after disasters. Together, we can build a framework to design resilient buildings and infrastructure.”

    Learn more about the House Science Committee markup here. Read McClellan’s BUILT Act one-pager and bill text. 

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Global: Oilsands workers are resistant to sustainable jobs, new research finds

    Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Parker Muzzerall, PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, University of British Columbia

    Like it or not, the energy transition is happening.

    The International Energy Agency predicts global fossil fuel production will reach its peak by 2030. Governments around the world — including Canada’s — are racing to implement policies aimed at achieving a net-zero energy economy by 2050.

    To reach that target, Canada has a lot of work to do.

    In 2022 alone, Canada emitted 708 megatonnes of CO2-eq (carbon dioxide equivalent, which measures the global warming potential of different greenhouse gases). On the production side, oil and gas extraction accounted for 3.5 per cent of Canada’s GDP and the oil and gas industry directly employed around 150,000 Canadians.

    While oil and gas production isn’t going to stop tomorrow, or even by the end of this decade, Canada must put policies in place today to ensure that those most dependant on the oil and gas industry are supported as the country — and the world — moves away from fossil fuels.

    Sustainable jobs

    In June 2024, the Canadian government took an important first step at doing so by giving royal assent to the Sustainable Jobs Act. Over the next few years, the act is intended to create a suite of policy programs aimed at ensuring all Canadians have equal opportunity and access to decent, well-paying jobs in a net-zero future.

    While the Sustainable Jobs Act is primarily intended to support oil and gas workers, my recent study published in the journal Environmental Sociology identifies one important problem: oil and gas workers like the jobs they already have.

    Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, the phrase “just transition” has become common shorthand in policymaker, academic and activist circles to describe policies like the Sustainable Jobs Act that explicitly seek to support vulnerable citizens through the renewable energy transition.

    In fact, the Sustainable Jobs Act was originally referred to as the Canadian Just Transition plan before the name was changed after the idea of a “just transition” became the target of fierce opposition from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

    Talking to oilsands workers

    Smith’s opposition to the term “just transition,” and also to the eventual Sustainable Jobs Act, is rooted in a fundamental belief that the Canadian oil and gas industry is not going anywhere and that the federal government should not interfere in the lives of hard-working Albertans.

    These beliefs, and the emotions underlying them, made appearances in my interviews with oilsands workers, too.

    Through 18 interviews with a diverse cross-section of oilsands employees — ranging from accounts managers to process operators — it was obvious that these hard-working people also remain optimistic about the long-term economic viability and need for the oilsands industry.

    More importantly, they are also strongly opposed to the idea of a just transition because, as one participant put it, “it’s almost like an incentive to leave oil and gas behind.”

    Beneath this concern, the participants also expressed a belief and a sense of frustration that the federal government and Canadians in other parts of the country do not care about them and their feelings of being excluded from Canada’s vision for the future. These feelings were underscored by a strong sense of regional pride in the Fort McMurray community and its oilsands industry.

    While climate advocates may shake their heads — or fists — at these findings, the feelings of my participants make perfect sense when you consider that, for these workers, the energy transition represents not just a threat to their livelihood but a threat to their community and way of life.

    As multiple participants made clear, without the oilsands, Fort McMurray would become a “ghost town.”

    Localizing transition policies

    So, what should policymakers and climate advocates committed to an equitable energy transition do with the knowledge that the workers for whom sustainable jobs are intended are not, in fact, all that interested in sustainable jobs?

    The answer lies, at least in part, in reframing how we think about transition policies.

    Large, national-level efforts like the Sustainable Jobs Act are effective at setting high-level policy priorities. But without specific plans to account for the vast geographic diversity in the Canadian energy economy, policy packages like this can also drive regional animosity by making some communities feel like decarbonization “sacrifice zones.”

    Instead, we need to embed transition planning within a place-based approach to regional and community development. This means creating pathways for all communities to thrive in a low-carbon future. This is particularly true for single-resource and rural communities with economies that are often highly reliant on fossil fuels and tend to be located farther away from green jobs.

    It’s easy for these regions to feel excluded from Canada’s vision for a net-zero future. And that’s not fair. No community should be decarbonized into a ghost town.

    Passing the Sustainable Jobs Act was an important first step. Creating sustainable jobs that are regionally accessible, locally meaningful and economically desirable is the next big hurdle.

    Parker Muzzerall receives funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

    – ref. Oilsands workers are resistant to sustainable jobs, new research finds – https://theconversation.com/oilsands-workers-are-resistant-to-sustainable-jobs-new-research-finds-239057

    MIL OSI – Global Reports –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Malliotakis Announces $500,000 Federal Grant to Solve Richmond County Cold Cases using DNA Technology

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis (NY-11)

    (STATEN ISLAND, NY) – Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis is announcing a $500,000 federal grant to the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office (RCDA) which will enable the DA’s Office to establish a Cold Case Unit, and dedicate more time to investigating violent cold cases that already have suspect DNA profiles.

    The grant is administered through the Bureau of Justice Assistance and awarded under the FY24 Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA grant program and will provide the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office the resources to help close their estimated 100 violent crime cold cases where DNA evidence exists.

    The RCDA will enter all “criteria cases” into the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and National Missing and Unidentified Persons System databases. The RCDA’s Director of Forensic Science will then evaluate the inventory of criteria cases, identify evidence that is consistent with New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner’s (OCME) testing policies and collaborate with the Executive Assistant District Attorney in charge of the Cold Case Unit to determine which cases would benefit from additional testing leading to further prosecutions. 

    “DNA analysis is a powerful tool that enables law enforcement to catch and prosecute violent perpetrators, especially in long-unsolved cold cases where crucial evidence has been awaiting testing,” said Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis. “By using advanced DNA technology, the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office will have the ability to re-examine cold violent cases more efficiently that already have a suspect DNA profile to bring justice to victims and keep violent offenders behind bars. I am proud to have supported District Attorney McMahon in pursuit of this grant and happy it was awarded.”

    “As Staten Island’s chief law enforcement officer, I am committed to securing the resources, technology, and manpower necessary to ensure that all victims of crime, including cold case crime victims and their families receive justice. Whether recent or decades-old, unresolved crime cases have a devastating impact on our community, robbing victims and their families of closure and preventing the perpetrators of these crimes from ever being held accountable in the courtroom. Cold case crime victims and their families are no less deserving of justice and now, thanks to a United States Department of Justice (DOJ) grant, the Richmond County District Attorney’s Office has been awarded $500,000 which will enhance my office’s ability to better serve these families. This quarter-million dollar windfall will not only help to establish a dedicated Cold Case Unit in my office but will undoubtedly be instrumental in supporting the investigation and prosecution of violent crime cold cases where DNA from a suspect has been identified. We thank the DOJ and Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis for their combined efforts and look forward to providing resolution and justice for the families of cold case crime victims, holding the perpetrators of these crimes accountable under the law, and continuing to secure justice for the victims of crime no matter how much time has passed,” said Richmond County District Attorney Michael McMahon.

    READ MORE HERE.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: USGS deploys wave sensors along Florida’s coast ahead of Hurricane Helene

    Source: US Geological Survey

    Potential impacts from Helene include danger of life-threatening storm surge along the entire west coast of the Florida Peninsula and Florida Big Bend, as well as devastating hurricane-force winds across portions of northern Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center.

    The sensors will measure water levels and give insight on factors such as wave height and frequency, storm tide and storm surge. The sensors will be in place from before Helene arrives until the storm departs, and at that time, scientists will retrieve the instruments and analyze collected data.

    The resulting information can be used to fine-tune future storm surge and coastal change forecasts. The sensor data can help identify areas hit the hardest by storm surge and guide emergency responders and local officials with recovery efforts. Insight can also help inform flood insurance maps and building codes to improve structural designs for public safety.

    “Studying Helene and other storms gives real-world insight that’s valuable in helping with community preparedness,” said Kevin Grimsley, who is part of this deployment effort and the associate center director for data with the USGS Caribbean-Florida Water Science Center. “Wave sensors capture data at a very high frequency, so we are able to receive extremely detailed and comprehensive records.”

    The wave sensors are housed in vented aluminum pipes a few inches wide and about a foot long. They are being installed on bridges, piers, and other structures that have a good chance of surviving the storm. 

    Information on the sensor deployment and the incoming data will be available on the USGS Flood Event Viewer.

    As the USGS continues to take all appropriate preparedness actions in response to Helene, those ­­­in the storm’s projected path can visit ready.gov or listo.gov for tips on creating emergency plans and putting together an emergency supply kit.

    This photograph, taken during a previous storm, shows a USGS scientist installing a storm tide sensor on a bridge. Those sensors use the same metal housing that can hold USGS wave sensors. Credit: Jonathan Willis, USGS.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Nature Preserve Vintage Museum Collection, Modern Research Intersect in Century-Long Bee Study

    Source: US Agriculture Research Service

    Nature Preserve Vintage Museum Collection, Modern Research Intersect in Century-Long Bee Study

    Contact: Amaani Lyle
    Email: Amaani.Lyle@usda.gov

    September 25, 2024

    At a tranquil nature reserve in South Michigan, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist and her collaborators connected olden wild bee sample collections and modern technology to better decode the ecological traits and habits pollinators, critical links to environmental stability.  

    Kelsey Graham, an ARS Pollinating Insect Research Unit scientist, co-led the collaborative, intensive wild bee study at the University of Michigan’s E.S. George Reserve with a sampling period covering 1921 to 2018, which in tandem with advanced computer analyses revealed long-term bee population trends that may hold the keys to new and enhanced conservation approaches.

    “These studies point to clear indicators of an urgent need for diligent and consistent conservation efforts to protect bee diversity, which is crucial for our ecosystem health, human health and agricultural productivity,” Graham said.

    In a recent publication of Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Graham’s research article “A century of wild bee sampling: historical data and neural network analysis reveal ecological traits associated with species loss,” explains how the study reached inflection points along the way, finding alarming declines in species richness, evenness and overall bee community diversity. Researchers also found that 64% of the more common bee species exhibited a more than 30% decline in abundance.

    “In 1972 and 1973, the late zoologist Francis C. Evans detected 135 bee species, compared to our recent surveys in 2017 and 2018, which recorded only 90 species, with just 58 species present in both sampling periods,” Graham noted. “These samplings indicate a substantial shift in the bee community composition.”

    Mikayla Ward, an undergraduate research technician at Michigan State University, collects bees using an insect net in September 2018 at the E.S. George Reserve. (Photo courtesy of Kelsey Graham, ARS)

    To better understand why some species disappeared from the preserve, the ARS team and its partners leveraged neural networks, which determined that certain types of bees were more likely to vanish. Specifically, researchers discovered that oligolectic ground-nesting bees (meaning, bees that collect pollen from a few types of plants and nest in the ground) and kleptoparasitic bees (who steal food from other bees) are most vulnerable.

    In comparison, the study found polylectic cavity-nesting bees (or bees that collect pollen from various plants and nest in cavities) are more likely to remain at the preserve.

    Similarly, the findings demonstrated that bees active for longer periods each year have a better chance of remaining in the community if they collect pollen from a variety of plants.

    In short, bees with certain traits, such as being picky about food, will continue to struggle compared to their more flexible counterparts.

    Wild bees on flowers found at the E.S. George Reserve, Livingston County, Michigan. (Photo courtesy of Kelsey Graham, ARS)

    Scientists also noted the significance of climate response, as bee species in the contemporary sampling period had a more southerly overall distribution compared to the historic community, indicating communities are shifting in response to warming temperatures.

    This study, Graham explained, exhibits the utility and importance of publicly available historical long-term data in deciphering complex indicators of bee population trajectories, findings that may have otherwise been obscured in a lesser scope and timeframe.

    “Combining traditional analysis techniques with neural networks helped us reveal shifts in geographic ranges and declines in bee abundance and diversity as they relate to species traits,” Graham said. “Such analyses help our understanding of bee population trends to inform the science and practice of bee conservation.”

    The Agricultural Research Service is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific in-house research agency. Daily, ARS focuses on solutions to agricultural problems affecting America. Each dollar invested in U.S. agricultural research results in $20 of economic impact.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI: E Ink Wins Manufacturer of the Year at the 9th Annual Massachusetts Manufacturing Awards Ceremony

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    BILLERICA, Mass., Sept. 25, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — E Ink (8069.TW) the originator, pioneer, and global commercial leader in ePaper technology, today announced that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts recognized E Ink as a leading manufacturer in the state at the 9th Annual Manufacturing Awards. Companies across the Commonwealth, including E Ink, were honored by the Legislative Manufacturing Caucus and accepted their awards on September 25 at Gillette Stadium. 

    The award recognizes E Ink in part because of its ongoing manufacturing and production of ePaper displays in Massachusetts. E Ink’s Billerica and South Hadley facility has been actively producing the Company’s proprietary ink and film products since 2009. E Ink has since acquired both sites and plans further expansion in the future. The Company is also looking to invest in automation within the factories to stay competitive in a challenging manufacturing environment.

    The most notable product manufactured in Massachusetts is E Ink’s black and white ink and film, which is used in millions of eReaders and electronic shelf labels, in transportation signs throughout the world, including at the MBTA, and in the world’s first color-changing car, produced with BMW. E Ink’s innovative and rugged ePaper enables a variety of applications that value a low power display that is easy on the eyes.

    “Massachusetts stands at the forefront of advanced manufacturing in the United States, thanks to the collaborative efforts of government and industry,” said Paul Apen, E Ink’s US Chief Operating Officer. “Under the leadership of Speaker Mariano, Senate President Spilka, and Governor Healey, the Legislature has made strategic investments in this critical sector. At E Ink, we are committed to driving innovation, enhancing production, and creating jobs for residents in the Commonwealth.”

    Formed in August 2014, the Manufacturing Caucus includes more than 70 legislators from around the Commonwealth. Lawmakers focus on training for manufacturing employees, encouraging innovation by helping start-ups access resources, and expanding apprenticeship opportunities in key manufacturing sectors.  To celebrate October’s Manufacturing Month, the Commonwealth’s Legislative Manufacturing Caucus teamed up with The Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CAM), along with MassMEP, MassRobotics, Forge, WPI, and the MassHire boards, who hosted the “Massachusetts Manufacturing Mash-Up” at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

    As a global leader in ePaper technology, E Ink is not only committed to delivering innovative technology via advanced manufacturing processes but is also prioritizing sustainability. The company is actively focused on reducing carbon emissions throughout the product design and manufacturing processes by conducting carbon footprint verification and providing customers with a sustainable framework for the design and integration of ePaper products.

    E Ink has also set the ambitious goal of achieving Net Zero by 2040 and RE100 by 2030, which means sourcing the company’s entire energy utilization from renewable sources. As of December 2023, E Ink’s global operations and sales sites have already achieved RE35 with factories and offices in Billerica, Fremont, and South Hadley (United States), and sales offices in Tokyo (Japan) and Seoul (South Korea), successfully reaching RE100 by using 100 percent renewable energy. In September 2023, E Ink’s science-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets were validated and approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). For years, E Ink was identified as having 99.9 percent of Green Revenue according to the FTSE Russell Green Revenue 2.0 Data Model, underscoring the positive environmental impact of ePaper products.

    About E Ink

    E Ink Holdings Inc. (8069.TWO), based on technology from MIT’s Media Lab, provides an ideal display medium for applications spanning eReaders and eNotes, retail, home, hospital, transportation, logistics, and more, enabling customers to put displays in locations previously impossible. E Ink’s electrophoretic display products make it the worldwide leader for ePaper. Its low power displays enable customers to reach their sustainability goals, and E Ink has pledged using 100% renewable energy in 2030 and reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2040. E Ink has been recognized for their efforts by receiving, validation from Science-Based Targets (SBTi) and is listed in both the DJSI World and DJSI Emerging Indexes. Listed in Taiwan’s Taipei Exchange (TPEx) and the Luxembourg market, E Ink Holdings is now the world’s largest supplier of ePaper displays. For more information please visit www.eink.com. E Ink. We Make Surfaces Smart and Green.

    Contact:
    V2 Communications on behalf of E Ink
    eink@v2comms.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Major international business summit coming to London for first time in 2025

    Source: Mayor of London

    • A major international business summit will be heading to London for the first time ever next year.

     

    Today, it was confirmed that the Concordia Europe Summit will be held in the capital in late spring 2025, which will bring together hundreds of global, regional and national policymakers to showcase investment and partnership opportunities across the capital.

     

    The announcement was made at the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, attended by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. The Concordia Summit brings together leaders from the public and private sectors to foster collaboration and create market-led solutions. This year’s theme Navigating a New Era, for the 14th Annual Summit, will cover pivotal topics from the transformative impact of AI on industries to the landscape of international business, geopolitics, migration, healthcare, education, and more. Notable speakers at this years event including Barbara Humpton, CEO Siemens Corporation and Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber – speakers at previous Summits include current American President Joe Biden, former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as business leaders Walmart CEO, Doug McMillon and LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky.

     

    Sadiq was at the annual summit as part of his four-day trip to America to bang the drum for London as the best place in the world to invest and grow a business and discuss the capital as an emerging hub for tech innovation, particularly in AI, fintech, and life sciences.

     

    During his trip the Mayor met with business leaders from Accordion, the world’s leading advisory and tech platform for the private equity market who have announced they will be opening an office in London. Sadiq also met with leaders from CliftonLarsenAllen (CLA) the eight largest accountancy firm in the US who have acquired the London-based AI and analytics platform Engine and will launch their international brand CLA Global in London to run all of their activities outside of North America.

     

    In a further boost to the capital, Constant Contact, an adtech company supporting small and medium businesses will open an office in Marylebone in October 2024 – and Thoropass, a compliance and audit platform from NYC is also opening an office in London. This follows the Salesforce announcement in June of a $4billion investment into the UK including a new office in Southwark.  

     

    Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “I am delighted that the 2025 Concordia Europe Summit will be held in London – it really is a perfect match. London is a city teeming with innovations and ideas, and the Concordia summit provides the best forum for them to be shared.

     

    “I look forward to working with the team to make it the best Summit it can be – as we continue to build a fairer and better London for everyone.”

     

    Today’s announcement was made by Concordia Co-founder & Chairman of the Board Nicholas Logothetis.

     

    Matthew Swift, Co-founder, President & CEO, Concordia, said: “Our Europe Initiative is a powerful element of our programming and convening, representative of a significant portion of our global membership community. I could not imagine a better city than London to bring together leaders from across sectors and geographies to address critical issues through our Concilium format. I am grateful for the collaboration and trust placed upon us by the Mayor of London on this exciting development for our 2025 agenda.”

      

    The Mayor is in New York this week during the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly to encourage US businesses to expand and invest in London and promote the capital as an unrivalled destination for tourists. He will also remind global leaders that now is the time to take firm action to tackle climate change.

     

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Climate change fuels August heat waves across Canada – Results from Canada’s Rapid Extreme Weather Event Attribution system demonstrate that human-caused climate change made heat waves at least 10 times more likely in August in some instances

    Source: Government of Canada News

    Analysis from Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Rapid Extreme Weather Event Attribution has shown that, in all cases, human-caused climate change made heat waves in August 2024 more likely to have occurred. In some instances, it was at least 10 times more likely.

    September 25, 2024– Ottawa, Ontario

    Analysis from Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Rapid Extreme Weather Event Attribution hasshown that, in all cases, human-caused climate change made heat waves in August 2024 more likely to have occurred. In some instances, it was at least 10 times more likely.

    This system uses climate models to compare today’s climate with a pre-industrial one to explain how much human-caused climate change affected the likelihood of each heat wave.

    In three cases, human-caused climate change made heat waves far more likely to occur. This means that human influence on the climate made the following events at least 10 times more likely to happen:

    Inuvik, Northwest Territories (August 6 to 10)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 26.5 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 13.0 °C

    Kitikmeot, Nunavut (August 7 to12)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 25.0 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 12.4 °C

    Kivalliq, Nunavut (August 8 to 14)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 27.1 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 12.2 °C

    In seven cases, human-caused climate change made the heat waves much more likely to occur. This means that human influence on the climate made the following events at least two to 10 times more likely to happen:

    Atlantic Canada (August 24 to 27)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 23.9 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 6.7 °C

    Eastern Ontario (July 31 to August 2)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 29.2 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 5.8 °C

    Fort Smith, Northwest Territories (August 8 to 13)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 26.9 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 9.2 °C

    Northern British Columbia (August 7 to 11)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 23.6 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 7.0 °C

    Northern Quebec (August 13 to 16)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 23.6 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 7.8 °C

    Southern Quebec (July 27 to August 3)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 28.3 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 7.6 °C

    Yukon (August 5 to 9)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 24.1 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 8.9 °C

    Finally, human-caused climate change made the following heat wave more likely to occur. This means that human influence on the climate made the following event at least one to two times more likely to happen.

    Manitoba (July 30 to August 1)

    • Peak daily high temperature during the heat wave: 28.3 °C
    • Degrees above normal daily high temperature*: 6.4 °C

    * The normal daily high temperature is an average over 1991–2020 of all of the region-averaged daily high temperatures in the month surrounding the event.

    Prolonged heat waves are a major contributor to more intense wildfires across Canada. The 2023 wildfires in Canada burned almost 15 million hectares of forest and cost Canadians tens of billions of dollars in damages.[1] Understanding how human influence on the climate has increased the chance of a particular heat wave, soon after it occurs, can help inform adaptation strategies and heat wave response procedures for a changing climate while the event and its impacts are still top of mind.

    We urge the public to regularly monitor weather forecasts, take all weather alerts seriously, and get prepared for weather-related events by developing an emergency plan and being ready to adjust their travel plans. Canadians can download the WeatherCAN app to receive weather alert notifications directly on their mobile devices. Alerts help Canadians prepare to face severe weather events, save lives, and reduce the impacts on property and livelihoods.

    [1] Jain, P., Barber, Q.E., Taylor, S.W. et al. Drivers and Impacts of the Record-Breaking 2023 Wildfire Season in Canada. Nature Communications 15, 6764 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51154-7

    Media Relations
    Environment and Climate Change Canada
    819-938-3338 or 1-844-836-7799 (toll-free)
    media@ec.gc.ca

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Minister Champagne and Executive Vice-President Vestager meet in Montréal to strengthen strategic cooperation

    Source: Government of Canada News

    Discussion topics included competition, artificial intelligence, digital partnership and research opportunities

    Discussion topics included competition, artificial intelligence, digital partnership and research opportunities

    September 25, 2024 – Montréal, Quebec

    The Canada–European Union relationship is based on shared values, a long history of close cooperation and strong people-to-people ties. As key strategic partners, Canada and the European Union share a similar vision to ensure a responsible digital transition, make our economies more competitive and create new middle-class jobs for our people.

    The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, met with Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s Executive Vice-President for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age and Commissioner for Competition, in Montréal to discuss issues of mutual interest and address bilateral and global issues, such as artificial intelligence, economic security, digital partnership, competition policy, and research and innovation.

    In the morning, Minister Champagne and Executive Vice-President Vestager attended the unveiling of the new Anyon MonarQ quantum computer at the École de technologie supérieure. The Minister highlighted how Canada and the European Union can continue to invest in talent, research and innovation to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges and build a better future for everyone.

    They also participated in a fireside chat organized by the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations, during which they discussed the close Canada–European Union relationship, ongoing challenges on the global and domestic scene, and ways Canada and the European Union can work together to build fair marketplaces and deploy safe and responsible new technologies.

    Media Relations
    Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
    media@ised-isde.gc.ca

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Casten, Blumenauer Introduce Bill to Help Communities Facing Flood Damage

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Sean Casten (IL-06)

    September 25, 2024

    Washington DC — Today, Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06) and Congressman Earl Blumenauer (OR-03) introduced the Protecting Families and the Solvency of the National Flood Insurance Program Act of 2024, which would authorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide additional mitigation assistance to families affected by flooding and address the problems of delays in buyouts for communities facing repetitive losses.

    “Having spent my entire adult life fighting climate change, I am alarmed by the increased frequency and severity of flooding—devastating not only the coasts, but communities right here in the Midwest,” said Rep. Sean Casten. “In Illinois alone, there are over 400,000 homes and over 30,000 business properties with operational flooding risk. The science is crystal clear that this climate-driven devastation will only get worse and more costly, yet the National Flood Insurance Program remains woefully unprepared to meet the needs of communities hit hardest. After meeting with dozens of local mayors, municipal leaders, and first responders, I’m proud to introduce legislation to improve the buy-out program to help families facing climate-driven flood damage get the financial relief and help with voluntary relocation they need faster.”

    “Nowhere is the cost of failure more pronounced than the National Flood Insurance Program. We cannot afford to keep risking lives and taxpayer dollars by rebuilding structures in the same flood-prone areas as the climate crisis makes disasters more frequent and intense. With simple, preventative steps like my legislation with Congressman Casten, we can help disaster victims break the cycle of repetitive flood loss,” said Congressman Earl Blumenauer.

    FEMA provides funding for communities to purchase flood-prone properties and convert the land to open space. This property acquisition can be a beneficial strategy for flood mitigation. However, the buyout process poses challenges that can discourage homeowner and community participation. Currently, buyouts through the National Flood Insurance Program can take more than five years to complete through FEMA, far too long for families living in damaged and potentially hazardous houses. The bill would cut through the red tape to deliver buy-outs quicker to victims of flooding, especially in underserved communities. This bill will make buyouts more accessible, equitable, and efficient. In 2022, the Government Accountability Office conducted a study of FEMA’s buyout program and issued recommendations. One of the recommendations was to preapprove certain properties for acquisition, which is exactly what this bill does.

    Annual flooding in the U.S. costs up to $496 billion and will increase as a result of climate change, the cost of which will be borne disproportionately by disadvantaged communities. This increased frequency and severity of flooding will come not only from the coast, but from increased rainfall and riverine flooding across the country. 

    In Illinois, there are 413,129 residential properties, 50,977 miles of roads, 36,816 commercial properties, 996 infrastructure facilities, and 2,476 social facilities with operational flood risk* today.

    The Protecting Families and the Solvency of the National Flood Insurance Program Act of 2024:

    • Addresses the problem of delays in buyouts by authorizing buyouts-in-lieu-of-claim-payments in high-priority cases.
      • If the property has been identified as a repetitive loss or severe repetitive loss property
      • Has been designated by the participating community as substantially damaged.
      • Would otherwise be filing a claim for the maximum level of coverage.
      • Right now, a buyout looks at an effective floodplain.
    • Allows for additional assistance to residents who may wish to move but are unable to afford relocation by requiring FEMA to apply the special assistance provisions of the Uniform Relocation Act to buyouts.
    • Provides FEMA with authorities to provide an additional measure of mitigation assistance to currently underserved communities, in line with provisions in the Infrastructure and Jobs Act that make this allowance for the next 5 years and expands the current narrow definition of “small and impoverished” communities.
    • Incentivizes community action to address repeat flooding by offering access to and potentially a larger share of mitigation assistance funding for implementation of locally developed flood plans. 
    • Assures that FEMA assistance to address recurrent flooding, including buyout offers, is not limited to neighborhoods that have previously been mapped into FEMA-designated Special Flood Hazard Areas.

    Text of the legislation can be found here.

    The legislation has been endorsed by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

    # # #

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Translation: Minister Champagne meets with Executive Vice-President Vestager in Montreal to strengthen strategic cooperation

    MIL OSI Translation. Canadian French to English –

    Source: Government of Canada – in French

    Topics discussed included competition, artificial intelligence, digital partnerships and research opportunities.

    Topics discussed included competition, artificial intelligence, digital partnerships and research opportunities.

    September 25, 2024 – Montreal (Quebec)

    The Canada-European Union relationship is based on shared values, long-standing close cooperation and strong people-to-people ties. As key strategic partners, Canada and the European Union share a similar vision to ensure a responsible digital transition, make their economies more competitive and create jobs for the middle class.

    The Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, met in Montreal with the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for a Europe Fit for the Digital Age and Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, to discuss topics of mutual interest as well as bilateral and global issues, including artificial intelligence, economic security, digital partnerships, competition policy, and research and innovation.

    In the morning, they attended the unveiling of Anyon’s new MonarQ quantum computer at the École de technologie supérieure. The Minister emphasized that by continuing to invest in talented people, research and innovation, Canada and the European Union can solve some of the world’s greatest challenges and build a better future for the benefit of the community.

    Minister Champagne and Executive Vice-President Vestager also participated in an informal discussion organised by the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations, during which they discussed the close relationship between Canada and the European Union, ongoing challenges on the global and domestic stage, and the collaboration that Canada and the European Union can demonstrate to establish fair markets and safe and responsible technologies.

    Audrey MilettePress SecretaryOffice of the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industryaudrey.milette@ised-isde.gc.ca

    Media RelationsInnovation, Science and Economic Development Canadamedia@ised-isde.gc.ca

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.

    MIL Translation OSI

  • MIL-OSI USA: SCHUMER ANNOUNCES $3.2+ MILLION TO TRAIN THE NEXT GENERATION OF SEMICONDUCTOR WORKERS AT THE ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & IN CLASSROOMS IN SCHOOLS ACROSS NY VIA HIS CHIPS & SCIENCE LAW

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for New York Charles E Schumer
    NY Received Two Of Just 7 Awards Across America To Jumpstart The National Semiconductor Technology Center’s Workforce Partner Alliance Program Which Will Help Get Students The Hands-On Training They Need For Good-Paying Jobs At Companies Like Micron, GlobalFoundries, Corning, And Edwards Vacuum Expanding Now In Upstate NY Thanks To Schumer’s CHIPS & Science Law
    Awards To The American Federation Of Teachers Program Will Provide Training So Teachers Can Help Students Get Ready For Semiconductor Careers, Expanding An Initiative That Is Being Piloted In 10 School Districts Across New York State & RIT’s Program Plans To Help Over 500 Students Get Microelectronics-Related Skills Necessary To Thrive In The Growing Semiconductor Industry
    Schumer: We’re Training The Future Of America’s Semiconductor Industry By The Next Generation Of Workers Here In NY
    U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced $3,200,347 in federal funding to boost New York-based programs to prepare New York high school and college students for careers in the semiconductor industry. The awards include $1,720,400 for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to expand a program that prepares teachers in school districts across NY to help students get ready for careers in the semiconductor industry and $1,479,947 for the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) to implement a new online certificate program to train students across microelectronics-related educational tracks.
    “It’s all-hands-on-deck to build the workforce of the future and awards like today’s will help classrooms across New York get students ready to be the next generation of semiconductor workers.  I am proud to have pushed for and secured this more than $3.2 million federal investment from my CHIPS & Science Law that will help students in New York and across America get the hands-on training they need to enter careers in the booming chip industry,” said Senator Schumer. “AFT’s program will provide training to teachers across New York and beyond so that hundreds of students at school districts throughout NY can develop the skills they need to thrive in the growing domestic semiconductor industry, and RIT’s program will provide training to hundreds of college students so that they can succeed in the thousands upon thousands of new jobs being created in New York in the semiconductor industry. This will prepare our students for good-paying jobs at companies like Micron, GlobalFoundries, Corning, Edwards Vacuum, and more as we see the chip industry expand in Upstate NY thanks to my CHIPS & Science Law. This federal investment in high-quality training is how we can support Upstate New York’s historic growth in the semiconductor industry spurred by my CHIPS and Science Law, and attract even more investment to the region by having a high-skilled workforce.”
    The AFT and RIT are two of just seven award recipients in the nation, and the AFT is the only recipient whose project focuses on K-12 students. The federal funding comes from the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC)’s Workforce Partner Alliance Program, which is funded by Schumer’s CHIPS & Science Law. Schumer personally called and wrote to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Natcast CEO Deirdre Hanford for both programs to be awarded this funding.
    Schumer explained that the AFT’s program will help expand their partnership with Micron to help students in school districts across New York, with plans to expand in Michigan and Minnesota, prepare for careers at companies that are vital to America’s semiconductor industry like Micron, which announced a historic $100 billion investment to build a cutting-edge memory megafab in Central New York. This award will boost the framework Schumer announced with AFT last year that will be piloted in 10 school districts and BOCES (Boards of Cooperative Educational Services), including Baldwinsville, Chittenango, East Syracuse Minoa, Liverpool, New York City (Brooklyn STEAM Center and Thomas Edison High School), Niagara Falls, North Syracuse, Syracuse, OCM BOCES, and Watertown. The curriculum framework rolling out now in New York classrooms aims to help thousands of high school students hone the foundational skills necessary for career success in the booming semiconductor industry, working with industry partners like Micron to equip them with the skills they need to enter these careers.
    “I crafted the CHIPS & Science Law with Upstate NY as my north star, because I knew that with targeted federal investments like this, the communities in Upstate NY that powered America’s industrial past could be the ones to build its future and bring critical manufacturing back from overseas to America. I’ve worked closely with the Administration to make the case for federal investment in Upstate NY’s R&D and workforce training programs, and I’m pleased that the Commerce Department and Natcast, which was created to operate the National Semiconductor Technology Center, recognizes New York’s premier work and leadership in boosting the nation’s semiconductor workforce,” added Schumer.
    RIT’s program will expand the domestic skilled workforce in the semiconductor industry with a focus on creating opportunities for disadvantaged and underrepresented workers to get access to the thousands of new jobs being created by new semiconductor industry investments in the U.S., including across Upstate NY, spurred by the CHIPS & Science Law. RIT’s goal is to train 555 students at both the bachelor’s and master’s degree levels through a new online certificate program to address workforce shortages in the microelectronics sector.
    “I want to thank Sen. Schumer for his vision around the CHIPS and Science Act and ensuring that investments in workforce development were part and parcel of this law, and for his tremendous advocacy for projects like ours that benefit students, educators and communities in New York. We are grateful that Natcast is recognizing, in its first ever set of grants, the promise and potential of these curriculum frameworks that educators, in partnership with industry, have authored through their union,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “What we seeded in New York will now spread as a model nationwide. These frameworks pave student pathways to the booming microchip sector and lead directly to good, middle-class jobs. They connect teacher expertise and student passions to career, college and life. And they’re anchored in our shared vision of real solutions that puts kids and educators at the center of the manufacturing renaissance happening right now across America.”
    “I want to thank Senator Schumer and the Biden-Harris Administration for providing this opportunity that RIT will use to address workforce shortages in the microelectronics industry here in the U.S.,” said RIT President David Munson. “Technology is driving unprecedented changes in the way we work. RIT is committed to fostering diversity and removing educational barriers for a new wave of highly-skilled workers, who will need to be analytical problem solvers with an ability to adapt to evolving career fields.”
    A copy of Schumer’s letter to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo about the AFT project can be found here and about the RIT project can be found here.
    Schumer has an extensive record of championing workforce development efforts for Upstate NY, particularly to support the growth of the semiconductor industry and broader tech and manufacturing sectors. The senator recently announced a major $40 million from his CHIPS & Science Law as one of only 12 Tech Hub award winners for the Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse region. This includes major funding for workforce training initiatives to close gaps in upskilling, hiring, and retention, especially for populations that have been historically excluded from tech and manufacturing-related job opportunities. Earlier this year, Schumer also announced that after his advocacy, a major $6 million federal investment by the U.S. Department of Labor was made for the Manufacturers Association of Central New York (MACNY) to expand Registered Apprenticeships for advanced manufacturing, including the semiconductor industry, to get workers the skills they need for these highly in-demand, good-paying jobs.
    Last year, Schumer also announced $5 million in DoD funding for Syracuse University and partners to expand microelectronics workforce training and connect job seekers with defense manufacturing and tech employers, as well as $2 million in DOL funding for the Workforce Development Board of Herkimer, Madison and Oneida Counties and Mohawk Valley Community College to boost technical training. Schumer also secured $2 million for MVCC to create a new state-of-the-art semiconductor-and-advanced-manufacturing training center. Additionally, Schumer brought NSF Director Dr. Sethuraman Panchanathan to Syracuse to meet with key stakeholders and see with his own eyes how Central New York is primed to be a global manufacturing hub and discuss how federal STEM training investment could support this effort.
    In addition, Schumer just last week announced $30 million in Department of Defense funding for the New York-based Northeast Regional Defense Technology Hub (NORDTECH) to boost semiconductor and other cutting-edge tech research & development and workforce training at Upstate NY universities and research institutions. This funding comes from the $2 billion CHIPS for America Defense Fund which Schumer helped establish in his CHIPS & Science Law, and helped secure Upstate NY’s spot in competing for as one of the first Microelectronic Commons Hubs last year, and will put Upstate NY at the forefront of cutting-edge tech R&D for the defense industry leading the future of this technology for America’s national security.
    Thanks to Schumer’s CHIPS & Science Law, Upstate New York has seen a major revival in tech manufacturing. Micron has announced plans for a historic $100+ billion investment to build a cutting-edge memory fab in Central New York with support of an over $6 billion preliminary CHIPS agreement. GlobalFoundries plans to invest over $12 billion to expand and construct a second, new state-of-the-art computer chip factory in the Capital Region, with support of $1.5 billion preliminary CHIPS agreement. Wolfspeed has opened the first, largest, and only 200mm silicon carbide fabrication facility in the world in the Mohawk Valley, with plans to further expand their operations. TTM Technologies, a printed circuit board manufacturer, plans to invest up to $130 million to expand their facilities in Onondaga County, creating up to 400 good-paying jobs. Menlo Micro will invest over $50 million to build their microchip switch manufacturing facility in Tompkins County, creating over 100 new good-paying jobs. In addition, Upstate New York is home to semiconductor supply chain companies like Corning Incorporated, which manufactures glass critical to the microchip industry at its Canton and Fairport, NY plants, and following Schumer’s advocacy, Edwards Vacuum has announced a $300+ million investment to build a dry pump manufacturing facility, creating 600 good-paying jobs to support the growing chip industry in Western New York.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: The Coastal Science Navigator Companion Guide

    Source: US Geological Survey

    The Coastal Science Navigator Companion Guide

    An Introduction to the Coastal Science Navigator and a snapshot into USGS coastal change hazard-related products

    The Coastal Science Navigator Companion Guide introduces you to USGS coastal change hazards-related products—including interactive data maps, downloadable software, geonarratives, and more.

    The Companion Guide highlights 64 products in total, showcasing what the USGS has to offer coastal resource managers, long-term planners, and scientists researching and responding to coastal hazards. While it is not representative of all the information, tools, and data available, we hope it serves as a compelling snapshot of USGS products and encourages you to explore the Coastal Science Navigator to discover more of the products you need.

    We created the Companion Guide so we could have a tangible product to distribute at in-person events. As a highly visual booklet, with colorful imagery showing scenic fieldwork sites and coastal change hazards-related product interfaces, it’s a great resource to share with your peers.

    What Can You Expect from the Companion Guide?

    The Companion Guide is organized by timescale, highlighting products relevant to the present, past, and future. Additional sections are dedicated to downloadable software and geographic scope (where USGS products are applicable). The Companion Guide also provides a table containing all 64 products that match them to their applicable timescale(s) and geographic scopes. 

     

    What is the Coastal Science Navigator?

    The Coastal Science Navigator is an online gateway to USGS Coastal Hazards products. It was created to ensure partners and other stakeholders can easily locate and identify which may be of use to them.

    Using the Navigator

    Users can find relevant products using either the Guided Search or Filter Search functions presented on the Navigator’s home page. The Guided Search asks users a short series of questions to lead them to products and tools that may be useful for their specific needs. Users can then explore the applicable products or choose to refine the applied filters to narrow or widen their results. The Filter Search allows users to see all available products and apply filters to narrow the adjacent list to relevant tools and resources. A plain-language summary is available for each product that provides a link to the product itself, a concise product description, a list of special features, contact information, and associated properties such as geographic scope, time scale, coastal hazard themes, and product function, type, and output.

    Designed with user-input

    The idea for the Coastal Science Navigator was born after synthesizing stakeholder input and learning that coastal resource managers, long-term planners, and federal and state partners are overwhelmed with too many tools and have little time to find and adopt products that may better fit their needs. The Navigator helps address these issues by providing information about available coastal resources in one place and enabling users to curate a list of applicable products and tools.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Sorensen Announces Over $12.2 Million for Safety Upgrades at Local Airports

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Eric Sorensen (IL-17)

    MOLINE, IL – Today, Congressman Eric Sorensen (IL-17) announced $12,269,860 from the U.S. Department of Transportation for safety and infrastructure upgrades at Chicago-Rockford International Airport (RFD) in Rockford, the Quad Cities International Airport in Rock Island County, and the Central Illinois Regional Airport (CIRA) in McLean County.  

    “Too many of my neighbors across Central and Northwestern Illinois have to travel miles and sit through hours of traffic just to catch their flights at O’Hare or Midway,” said Sorensen. “By investing in safety upgrades at our local airports, our communities will have better access to affordable air travel right in their backyards. This important funding will be used to repair runways, prevent flooding, and purchase new safety equipment that will make our local airports sustainable for the future. I will always look for ways I can bring tax dollars back home to build up our communities through reliable transportation options.”  

    Northern Illinois 

    “We sincerely thank the FAA’s Airport Improvement Grant Program for the nearly $8 million in grant funding to support RFD’s taxiway replacement project,” said Zack Oakley, Executive Director of Chicago Rockford International Airport. “This vital taxiway section, used by all aircraft operating at RFD, was built during the early 1990s and has been crucial to our operations for over 30 years. With this support, we will replace the infrastructure and continue delivering safe, efficient, and excellent service to all, further strengthening our role as the economic engine of Northern Illinois and specifically the Rockford region.” 

    The Greater Rockford Airport Authority will receive $7,946,166 to reconstruct 2,624 feet of the existing paved Taxiway F pavement that has reached the end of its useful life at Chicago-Rockford International Airport.  

    Western Illinois  

    “The Metropolitan Airport Authority of Rock Island County appreciates the continued support of Senators Durbin and Duckworth as well as Congressman Sorensen in securing discretionary federal funding to support the Quad Cities International Airport,” saidBenjamin Leischner, A.A.E., Executive Director, Quad Cities International Airport. “This money will be used to improve airport safety by eliminating standing water on the airfield that has historically been an attractant to wildlife. Construction is estimated to begin next year with a local contractor.” 

    The Metropolitan Airport Authority of Rock Island County will receive $2,765,727 to construct new drainage improvements to adequately handle storm water runoff and mitigate substances that attract wildlife at the Quad Cities International Airport. 

    Central Illinois 

    “The Bloomington-Normal Airport Authority is grateful for Congressman Sorensen’s support of the Central Illinois Regional Airport and, specifically, for this new infrastructure and safety grant,” said Alan Sender, Chairman of the Board of Commissioners for the Bloomington-Normal Airport Authority. “The federal grant announced by the Congressman will advance two major projects at CIRA in the years ahead: the rehabilitation of Runway 11/29 and the purchase of a new aircraft rescue and fire fighting vehicle. Both components are key for the continued safe operation of the airport.” 

    The Bloomington-Normal Airport Authority will receive $1,557,967 for CIRA to replace one existing rapid response aircraft rescue and fire fighting vehicle to meet safety requirements. In addition, this funding will be used to rehabilitate 5,960 feet of the existing paved Runway 11/29 at CIRA to maintain the structural integrity of the pavement and minimize foreign object debris.  

    Congressman Eric Sorensen serves on the House Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Prior to serving in Congress, Sorensen was a local meteorologist in Rockford and the Quad Cities for nearly 20 years. His district includes Illinois’ Quad Cities, Rockford, Peoria, and Bloomington-Normal.

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: NASA Sets Coverage for Agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 Launch, Docking

    Source: NASA

    NASA will provide coverage of the upcoming prelaunch and launch activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station.
    Liftoff is targeted for 1:17 p.m. EDT, Saturday, Sept. 28, from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This is the first human spaceflight mission to launch from that pad. The targeted docking time is approximately 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 29.
    Live coverage of the prelaunch news conference, launch, the post-launch news conference, and docking stream on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of additional platforms, including social media.
    The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will carry NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to the orbiting laboratory for an approximate five-month science mission. This is the ninth crew rotation mission and the 10th human spaceflight mission for NASA to the space station supported by Dragon since 2020 as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
    The deadline for media accreditation for in-person coverage of this launch has passed. The agency’s media credentialing policy is available online. For questions about media accreditation, please email: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov.
    Media looking for access to NASA live video feeds can subscribe to the agency’s media resources distribution list to receive daily updates and links.
    NASA’s mission coverage is as follows (all times Eastern and subject to change based on real-time operations):
    Friday, Sept. 27
    11:30 a.m. – One-on-one media interviews at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with various mission subject matter experts. Sign-up information will be emailed to media accredited to attend this launch.
    1:15 p.m. – NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Panel: Space Station 101 with the following participants:

    NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free
    Robyn Gatens, director, NASA’s International Space Station Program, and acting director, NASA’s Commercial Spaceflight Division
    Jennifer Buchli, chief scientist, NASA’s International Space Station Program
    John Posey, Dragon engineer, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program

    Media may ask questions in person and via phone. Limited auditorium space will be available for in-person participation. For the dial-in number and passcode, media should contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 12:15 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, at ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.
    Coverage of the virtual news conference will stream live on NASA+, YouTube, Facebook, and the agency’s website. Members of the public may ask questions online by posting questions to the YouTube, Facebook, and X livestreams using #AskNASA.
    5 p.m. – Prelaunch news conference from Kennedy with the following participants:

    NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free
    Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
    Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
    Dina Contella, deputy manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
    Jennifer Buchli, chief scientist, NASA’s International Space Station Program
    William Gerstenmaier, vice president, Build & Flight Reliability, SpaceX
    Brian Cizek, launch weather officer, 45th Weather Squadron, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

    Coverage of the virtual news conference will stream live on NASA+ and the agency’s website.
    Media may ask questions in person and via phone. Limited auditorium space will be available for in-person participation. For the dial-in number and passcode, media should contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, at ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.
    Saturday, Sept. 28
    9:10 a.m. – Launch coverage begins on NASA+ and the agency’s website.
    1:17 p.m. – Launch
    Following the conclusion of launch and ascent coverage, NASA will switch to audio only. Continuous coverage resumes on NASA+ at the start of rendezvous and docking and continues through hatch opening and the welcome ceremony. For NASA+ information, schedules, and links to streaming video, visit:

    Home

    3 p.m. – Postlaunch news conference with the following participants:

    NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy
    Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate
    Dana Hutcherson, deputy program manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
    Dina Contella, deputy manager, NASA’s International Space Station Program
    Sarah Walker, director, Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX

    The virtual news conference will stream live on NASA+, YouTube, and the agency’s website.
    Media may ask questions in person and via phone. Limited auditorium space will be available for in-person participation. For the dial-in number and passcode, please contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, at ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.
    Sunday, Sept. 29
    3:30 p.m. – Arrival coverage begins on NASA+ and the agency’s website.
    5:30 p.m. – Targeted docking to the forward-facing port of the station’s Harmony module
    7:15 p.m. – Hatch opening
    7:40 p.m. – Welcome ceremony
    All times are estimates and could be adjusted based on real-time operations after launch. Follow the space station blog for the most up-to-date operations information.
    Audio Only Coverage
    Audio only of the news conferences and launch coverage will be carried on the NASA “V” circuits, which may be accessed by dialing 321-867-1220, -1240 or -7135. On launch day, “mission audio,” countdown activities without NASA+ launch commentary, will be carried on 321-867-7135.
    Launch audio also will be available on Launch Information Service and Amateur Television System’s VHF radio frequency 146.940 MHz and KSC Amateur Radio Club’s UHF radio frequency 444.925 MHz, FM mode, heard within Brevard County on the Space Coast.
    Live Video Coverage Prior to Launch
    NASA will provide a live video feed of Space Launch Complex-40 approximately six hours prior to the planned liftoff of the Crew-9 mission. Pending unlikely technical issues, the feed will be uninterrupted until the prelaunch broadcast begins on NASA+, approximately four hours prior to launch. Once the feed is live, find it online at:  http://youtube.com/kscnewsroom
    NASA Website Launch Coverage
    Launch day coverage of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission will be available on the agency’s website. Coverage will include livestreaming and blog updates beginning no earlier than 9:10 a.m. Sept. 28, as the countdown milestones occur. On-demand streaming video and photos of the launch will be available shortly after liftoff.
    For questions about countdown coverage, contact the Kennedy newsroom at 321-867-2468. Follow countdown coverage on the commercial crew or Crew-9 blog.
    Attend Launch Virtually
    Members of the public can register to attend this launch virtually. NASA’s virtual guest program for this mission also includes curated launch resources, notifications about related opportunities or changes, and a stamp for the NASA virtual guest passport following a successful launch.
    Watch, Engage on Social Media
    Let people know you’re following the mission on X, Facebook, and Instagram by using the hashtags #Crew9 and #NASASocial. You can also stay connected by following and tagging these accounts:
    X: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @NASASocial, @Space_Station, @ISS_Research, @ISS National Lab, @SpaceX, @Commercial_Crew
    Facebook: NASA, NASAKennedy, ISS, ISS National Lab
    Instagram: @NASA, @NASAKennedy, @ISS, @ISSNationalLab, @SpaceX
    Coverage en Espanol
    Did you know NASA has a Spanish section called NASA en Espanol? Make sure to check out NASA en Espanol on X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube for more coverage on Crew-9.
    Para obtener información sobre cobertura en español en el Centro Espacial Kennedy o si desea solicitar entrevistas en español, comuníquese con Antonia Jaramillo: 321-501-8425;antonia.jaramillobotero@nasa.gov; o Messod Bendayan: 256-930-1371; messod.c.bendayan@nasa.gov.
    NASA’s Commercial Crew Program has delivered on its goal of safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the United States through a partnership with American private industry. This partnership is changing the arc of human spaceflight history by opening access to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station to more people, more science, and more commercial opportunities. The space station remains the springboard to NASA’s next great leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars.
    For NASA’s launch blog and more information about the mission, visit:
    https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
    -end-
    Joshua Finch / Jimi RussellHeadquarters, Washington202-358-1100joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
    Steven Siceloff / Danielle Sempsrott / Stephanie PlucinskyKennedy Space Center, Florida321-867-2468steven.p.siceloff@nasa.gov / danielle.c.sempsrott@nasa.gov / stephanie.n.plucinsky@nasa.gov
    Leah CheshierJohnson Space Center, Houston281-483-5111leah.d.cheshier@nasa.gov

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: The Marshall Star for September 25, 2024

    Source: NASA

    By Wayne Smith
    NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center honored top contractors, subcontractors, teams, and individuals of fiscal year 2024 at the 38th meeting of Marshall’s Small Business Alliance. The awards honor aerospace companies and leaders who have demonstrated support of the center’s small business programs and NASA’s mission of exploration.

    The event took place Sept. 19 at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center’s Davidson Center for Space Exploration in Huntsville. Around 650 participants from industry and government gathered to network, learn about business opportunities, and recognize outstanding achievements in support of NASA’s mission and the small business community. Those attending represented 32 states and 10 nations.
    “The Marshall Small Business Alliance is an outreach tool designed to introduce the business community to the NASA marketplace,” said David Brock, small business specialist for the agency’s Office of Small Business Programs at Marshall. “Those in attendance can gain valuable insight into Marshall’s exciting programs and projects, upcoming procurement opportunities, and get an opportunity to network with Marshall prime contractors.”
    Marshall Director Joseph Pelfrey welcomed attendees, while Jeramie Broadway, deputy director of Marshall’s Office of Strategic Analysis and Communications, provided an update on the center for fiscal year 2025 and beyond.
    Marshall’s Industry & Advocate Awards are presented annually and reflect leadership in business community and sustained achievement in service to NASA’s mission.
    “We are excited about this year’s winners,” Brock said. “Each play a key role in helping NASA achieve successes in support of key programs and projects, including the Human Landing System and Space Launch System rocket. Maintaining and sustaining an experienced and competitive industry base is what makes America strong, and small businesses are at the core of those successes.”

    Marshall manages the Human Landing System and Space Launch System programs.
    This year’s award recipients are:
    Small Business Prime Contractor of the Year
    Media Fusion
    Small Business Subcontractor of the Year
    Zin Technologies
    Large Business Prime Contractor of the Year
    Jacobs
    Mentor-Protégé Agreement of the Year
    Jacobs (mentor) and CodePlus (protégé)
    Procurement Person of the Year
    Joseph Tynes  
    Program Person of the Year
    Patrick McVay
    Small Business Technical Coordinator of the Year
    Leah Fox
    Technical Person of the Year
    David Hood

    NASA civil service employees nominate eligible individuals and organizations for awards. A panel of NASA procurement and technical officials evaluates each nominee’s business practices, innovative processes, adoption of new technologies and their overall contributions to NASA’s mission and the agency’s Small Business Program.
    Award recipients in the following categories become candidates for agency-level Small Business Industry and Advocate Awards:

    Large and Small Business Prime Contractors of the Year
    Small Business Subcontractor of the Year
    Procurement Team or Person
    Technical, Small Business Technical Coordinator/Technical Advisor
    Program Person or Team of the Year

    Learn more about Marshall’s small business initiatives.
    Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
    › Back to Top

    By Serena Whitfield
    A new flag is reaching for the Moon outside the Huntsville Operations Support Center at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center following a Sept.19 ceremony, marking contributions from center team members toward the launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission.
    The Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station will carry NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. The mission is scheduled to launch Sept. 28 no earlier than 12:17 p.m. CDT.

    Crew-9 will be the first human spaceflight mission to launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This is the ninth crew rotation mission with SpaceX to the orbiting laboratory under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP). The crew will spend approximately five months at the station, conducting more than 200 science and research demonstrations before returning in February 2025.
    Once aboard the space station, Hague and Gorbunov will become members of the Expedition 72 crew and perform research, technology demonstrations, and maintenance activities. The pair will join NASA astronauts Don Petitt, Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner. Wilmore and Williams, who launched aboard the Starliner spacecraft in June, will fly home with Hague and Gorbunov in February 2025.

    The flag raising has been a tradition for missions supported at Marshall’s Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC), as well as a tradition within the CCP to celebrate the successful conclusion of NASA’s Agency Flight Readiness Review prior to launch. The HOSC provides engineering and mission operations support for the space station, the CCP, and Artemis missions, as well as science and technology demonstration missions. The Payload Operations Integration Center within HOSC operates, plans, and coordinates the science experiments onboard the space station 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
    The CCP support team at Marshall provides crucial programmatic, engineering, and safety and mission assurance expertise for launch vehicles, spacecraft propulsion, and integrated vehicle performance. Marshall’s role within the CCP is to support certification that the spacecraft and launch vehicle are ready for launch. The support team performs engineering expertise, particularly for propulsion, as well as program management, safety and mission assurance, and spacecraft support. 

    The flag-raising ceremony was a joint effort between the Payload and Mission Operations Division (PMOD) and CCP team. Dave Gwaltney, technical assistant, specialty systems, and Commercial Crew Program representative, gave the introductions. He recognized Brady Doepke, structural analyst for liquid propulsion systems, for his significant contributions in preparation for Crew-9 mission success. Gwaltney said Doepke exemplified leadership and innovation through his guidance of Marshall’s CCP engineering team, which resulted in a successful risk assessment of the updated SpaceX turbine wheel fleet leader acceptance criteria.
    Payload and Mission Operations Division Manager Nicole Pelfrey also recognized Thomas “Reid” Lawrence as the division’s Crew-9 honoree.
    “Reid serves dutifully in the HOSC as part of the HOSC’s Data Operations Control Room Operations Engineers,” Pelfrey said. “Reid has a number of technical specialties, including his expertise in the Backup Control Center activation procedures. This expertise has been vital over the past year as JSC has worked through power upgrades. He also diligently ensures our ISS payload users receive their data and is a key engineer for the testing, verification, and operation of our HOSC interfaces that support commercial crew communications.”
    Whitfield is an intern supporting the Marshall Office of Communications.
    › Back to Top

    NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center hosted the Rossi Prize Recognition Dinner at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville on Sept. 18. The dinner was held to recognize the IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) team members honored with the Bruno Rossi Prize, a top prize in high-energy astronomy. From left, Martin Weisskopf, Rossi Prize awardee and NASA emeritus scientist, who served as the principal investigator for IXPE during its development, launch, and commissioning; Paolo Soffitta, Rossi Prize awardee, and the Italian Space Agency’s principal investigator for IXPE; Hashima Hasan, program scientist for IXPE at NASA Headquarters; Andrea Marinucci, IXPE team member and researcher with the Italian Space Agency; and Marshall Director Joseph Pelfrey, who provided welcome remarks at the dinner. “The Bruno Rossi Prize highlights how partnerships and teamwork can push the boundaries of scientific knowledge,” Pelfrey said. “The (IXPE) mission, a groundbreaking collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency, represents over 30 years of dedicated effort and stands as a testament to the innovative work of a truly multinational team.” (NASA/Jennifer Deermer)

    Rossi Prize winners Weisskopf and Soffitta, center seated, are joined by a plush goat, the unofficial mascot of the IXPE mission, and other IXPE team members at the Rossi Prize Recognition Dinner. Read more about the award and the prize winners. (NASA/Jennifer Deermer)
    › Back to Top

    By Wayne Smith
    Talk with Shannon Segovia for any length of time and you’ll quickly discover the care and enthusiasm she has for her position as director of the Office of Communications at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. And that care and enthusiasm extends to those she works with across the center to share news about Marshall missions and team members.
    In her role, Segovia oversees a team responsible for media relations and public affairs, digital and social media, stakeholder relations and engagement, internal and employee communications, and executive communications for the center.

    “We manage these activities for the entire center of about 7,000 people, so it is a definitely a very busy job!” said Segovia, a native of Athens, Alabama, who was named as permanent communications director this summer after more than 12 years at Marshall.
    She was the deputy director of communications starting in June 2023 after working as Marshall’s news chief and public affairs team lead starting in 2019. From 2012 to 2019, Segovia was a public affairs officer at the center. Prior to joining NASA, she was the communications manager for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Chattanooga, Tennessee.
     At Marshall, she said it’s the people who continue to be her biggest motivators.
    “As a public servant, I want the people I serve – the people who follow our channels, listen to the news stories we create, and attend our events – to know why NASA’s missions are important and critical to the world we live in,” Segovia said. “I am so fortunate to have such a brilliant team, and they motivate me daily with their hard work.”
    “I’m also motivated by my husband and family because I want to make them proud. I want my nieces and nephews to have a bright future, and I truly believe the work we are doing at NASA will help them do that.”
    Question: What excites you most about the future of human space exploration, or your NASA work, and your team’s role it?
    Segovia: NASA’s missions depend on public and stakeholder support, and that is what our office does – ensures people know what we are doing at NASA and specifically at Marshall, why it is important, and how our missions are benefiting humanity. From social media posts to events like the South Star music festival to interviews with media outlets and stakeholder tours, we use every channel we can to tell others about the work we are doing at Marshall and NASA. Our office touches every organization at the center, and it is so exciting to have a front seat to everything we are doing to get humans back to the Moon and on to Mars.

    Question: What has been the proudest moment of your career and why?
    Segovia: I helped take a team of 12 Marshall female engineers to The Today Show in 2019 for a segment about International Women’s Day. As a public affairs specialist, one of our job duties is to prepare subject matter experts for interviews, making sure they have messages, talking points, and anything else they need. I have never been more proud to be a woman and to work for Marshall than I was that day, seeing how well these women represented NASA and the extraordinary achievements they have made possible. It also made me even more thankful for the job I have – preparing them to make sure they felt confident and could talk about their work was a wonderful experience. The other moment in my career I will never forget is the Artemis I launch in November 2022. I’ve supported the Space Launch System since I started working at NASA, and seeing that rocket fly was one of the best moments of my career. It was the culmination of so much hard work and sacrifice from so many people and was truly an overwhelming and amazing experience.
    Question: Who or what inspired you to pursue an education/career that led you to NASA and Marshall?
    Segovia: My parents have always been my No. 1 fans, encouragers, and supporters. They instilled in me a strong work ethic and the belief I could do anything I wanted to do if I worked hard. They made education a priority for my brothers and I and would do anything to help us succeed. I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful family. My mom always wanted me to do something in the medical field, but a biology course in college changed my mind quickly on that. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do but had been at school for two years and needed to declare a major. I liked to write and read but didn’t know how to make a career out of that until I went to a journalism class taught by Ms. Bobbie Hurt at the University of North Alabama, and I was hooked. She became my mentor and really taught me how to be a good writer, which has been the foundation for my entire career. I ended up with a double major in journalism and public relations, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
    Question: What advice do you have for employees early in their NASA career or those in new leadership roles?
    Segovia: Find people to whom you can go to for advice, who have your back, and can help you accomplish your goals. I’ve had some amazing mentors, teammates, and bosses who have not only supported me but pushed me to do things I wasn’t sure I could do and helped me even when I messed up. I would not be here without them, and I think it is so important to have those people in your entire career, but especially when you are new. Ask for help when you need it. Time flies, so enjoy the season and job you are in. You will know when it is time to move on, but being present and learning from where you are will help you succeed.
    Question: What do you enjoy doing with your time while away from work?
    Segovia: I love the water – ocean, river, pool, lake – I like being outside and water activities. I love to read and travel, and also to spend time with family and friends. I have three nieces and two nephews, and I like to go to their games and activities. I have a 4-year-old terrier mix named Ted and I enjoy taking him on walks and to the park.
    Smith, a Media Fusion employee and the Marshall Star editor, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.
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    NASA has awarded a total of $1.5 million to two U.S. teams for their novel technology solutions addressing energy distribution, management, and storage as part of the agency’s Watts on the Moon Challenge. The innovations from this challenge aim to support NASA’s Artemis missions, which will establish long-term human presence on the Moon.

    This two-phase competition has challenged U.S. innovators to develop breakthrough power transmission and energy storage technologies that could enable long-duration Moon missions to advance the nation’s lunar exploration goals. The final phase of the challenge concluded with a technology showcase and winners’ announcement ceremony Sept. 20 at Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Ohio, home of the visitor center for NASA’s Glenn Research Center.
    “Congratulations to the finalist teams for developing impactful power solutions in support of NASA’s goal to sustain human presence on the Moon,” said Kim Krome-Sieja, acting program manager for Centennial Challenges at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “These technologies seek to improve our ability to explore and make discoveries in space and could have implications for improving power systems on Earth.”

    The winning teams are:

    First prize ($1 million): H.E.L.P.S. (High Efficiency Long-Range Power Solution) of Santa Barbara, California
    Second prize ($500,000): Orbital Mining Corporation of Golden, Colorado

    Four teams were invited to refine their hardware and deliver full system prototypes in the final stage of the competition, and three finalist teams completed their technology solutions for demonstration and assessment at Glenn. The technologies were the first power transmission and energy storage prototypes to be tested by NASA in a vacuum chamber mimicking the freezing temperature and absence of pressure found at the permanently shadowed regions of the Lunar South Pole. The simulation required the teams’ power systems to demonstrate operability over six hours of solar daylight and 18 hours of darkness with the user three kilometers (nearly two miles) away from the power source.
    During this competition stage, judges scored the finalists’ solutions based on a Total Effective System Mass (TESM) calculation, which measures the effectiveness of the system relative to its size and weight – or mass – and the total energy provided by the power source. The highest-performing solution was identified based on having the lowest TESM value – imitating the challenges that space missions face when attempting to reduce mass while meeting the mission’s electrical power needs.

    Team H.E.L.P.S. (High Efficiency Long-Range Power Solution) from University of California, Santa Barbara, won the grand prize for their hardware solution, which had the lowest mass and highest efficiency of all competitors. The technology also featured a special cable operating at 800 volts and an innovative use of energy storage batteries on both ends of the transmission system. They also employed a variable radiation shield to switch between conserving heat during cold periods and disposing of excess heat during high power modes. The final 48-hour test proved their system design effectively met the power transmission, energy storage, and thermal challenges in the final phase of competition.
    Orbital Mining Corporation, a space technology startup, received the second prize for its hardware solution that also successfully completed the 48-hour test with high performance. They employed a high-voltage converter system coupled with a low-mass cable and a lithium-ion battery.
    “The energy solutions developed by the challenge teams are poised to address NASA’s space technology priorities,” said Amy Kaminski, program executive for Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “These solutions support NASA’s recently ranked civil space shortfalls, including in the top category of surviving and operating through the lunar night.”

    [embedded content]
    Watch the finale of NASA’s Watts on the Moon challenge, a $5 million, two-phase competition designed to develop breakthrough power transmission and energy storage technologies.

    During the technology showcase and winners’ announcement ceremony, NASA experts, media, and members of the public gathered to see the finalist teams’ technologies and hear perspectives from the teams’ participation in the challenge. After the winners were announced, event attendees were also welcome to meet NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen.
    The Watts on the Moon Challenge is a NASA Centennial Challenge led by Glenn. Marshall manages Centennial Challenges, which are part of the agency’s Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program in the Space Technology Mission Directorate. NASA contracted HeroX to support the administration of this challenge.
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    Manufacturing equipment that will be used to build components for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for future Artemis missions is being installed at the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility.
    The novel tooling will be used to produce the SLS rocket’s advanced exploration upper stage, or EUS, in the factory’s new manufacturing area. The EUS will serve as the upper, or in-space, stage for all Block 1B and Block 2 SLS flights in both crew and cargo configurations.

    In tandem, NASA and Boeing, the SLS lead contractor for the core stage and exploration upper stage, are producing structural test articles and flight hardware structures for the upper stage at Michoud and the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Early manufacturing is already underway at Michoud while preparations for an engine-firing test series for the upper stage are in progress at nearby Stennis Space Center.
    “The newly modified manufacturing space for the exploration upper stage signifies the start of production for the next evolution of SLS Moon rockets at Michoud,” said Hansel Gill, director at Michoud. “With Orion spacecraft manufacturing and SLS core stage assembly in flow at Michoud for the past several years, standing up a new production line and enhanced capability at Michoud for EUS is a significant achievement and a reason for anticipation and enthusiasm for Michoud and the SLS Program.”

    The advanced upper stage for SLS is planned to make its first flight with Artemis IV and replaces the single-engine Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) that serves as the in-space stage on the initial SLS Block 1 configuration of the rocket. With its larger liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant tanks feeding four L3 Harris Technologies- built RL10C-3 engines, the EUS generates nearly four times the thrust of the ICPS, providing unrivaled lift capability to the SLS Block 1B and Block 2 rockets and making a new generation of crewed lunar missions possible.
    This upgraded and more powerful rocket will increase the SLS rocket’s payload to the Moon by 40%, from 27 metric tons (59,525 lbs.) with Block 1 to 38 metric tons (83,776 lbs.) in the crew configuration. Launching crewed missions along with other large payloads enables multiple large-scale objectives to be accomplished in a single mission.

    Through the Artemis campaign, NASA will land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the Moon. The rocket is part of NASA’s deep space exploration plans, along with the Orion spacecraft, supporting ground systems, advanced spacesuits and rovers, Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. NASA’s SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.
    NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the SLS Program and Michoud.
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    Chris Pereira can personally attest to the immense gravitational attraction of black holes. He’s been in love with space ever since he saw a video on the topic in a high school science class.
    But it wasn’t just any science class. It was one specially designed for English learners.

    “I was born and raised in Guatemala,” Pereira said. “I came here at 14 unable to speak any English.”
    Pereira did not know how to navigate the U.S. educational system either, but after that class, he was certain he wanted a career in space.
    Thus began a journey that ultimately landed him at L3Harris Technologies, where he works in the Aerojet Rocketdyne segment as an engineer and operations integrator on the RS-25 engine – used to power the core stage of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket that will launch astronauts to the Moon under NASA’s Artemis campaign.
    Pereira’s first step was to stay after class and ask to borrow a copy of the video on black holes. His teacher not only obliged but took him across the street to the local library to get his first library card.
    Pereira quickly recognized that the pathway to his desired career in space was through higher education. It was equally clear, however, that he was not yet on that pathway. English as a Second Language classes, including that science class, did not count toward college admissions. His guidance counselor, meanwhile, was nudging him toward the trades.
    But with the help of teachers and a new guidance counselor, he got himself on the college-bound track.
    “I came to understand there were multiple career pathways to explore my interest in space,” Pereira said. “One was engineering.”
    There was a lot of catching up to do, so Pereira took eight classes per day, including honors courses. He also worked every day after school cleaning a gymnasium from 6 to 11 p.m. to help his family make ends meet.
    Pereira earned his mechanical engineering degree at California State University at Los Angeles while also working as a senior educator at the California Science Center to cover the cost of his college tuition and living expenses.
    Pereira’s first career experience was as an intern in manufacturing engineering at Aerojet Rocketdyne. “I learned that making 100% mission-success engines requires a strong culture of attention to detail, teamwork and solid work ethics.” Pereira said. His first full-fledged engineering job was with Honeywell Aerospace working on aircraft programs.
    Eventually, space came calling – literally. “My mentor at Aerojet Rocketdyne called me up and said, ‘Chris, I have a job for you,’” Pereira said.
    He began his new job working on rocket engine programs including the AR1 and RS-68 but shifted to the RS-25 after NASA awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a contract for newly manufactured versions of the engine. Initial versions of the SLS are using refurbished engines from the Space Shuttle Program. Evolved versions of the RS-25 recently concluded a critical test series and will debut with the fifth Artemis flight.
    As RS-25’s operations integrator, Pereira is responsible for ensuring that the many pieces of the program – from tracking on-time procurement of supplies and labor loads to coordinating priorities on various in-demand machine centers – come together to deliver a quality product.
    Playing a key role in the nation’s effort to return astronauts to the Moon feels a bit like coming home again, Pereira said. “You develop your first love, work really hard, take different pathways and encounter new passions,” he said. “It’s almost funny how the world and life work out – it’s like I’ve taken a big circle back to my first love.”
    NASA is working to land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft, supporting ground systems, advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.
    NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the SLS Program.
    Read other I Am Artemis features.
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    Renee Weber, chief scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, talks during the “Legacy of the Invisible” event in downtown Huntsville on Sept. 20. About 300 people attended the event, which coincided with the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The celebration featured “No Straight Lines,” a new mural at the corner of Clinton Avenue and Washington Street by local artist Float. The mural honors Huntsville’s rich scientific legacy in astrophysics and highlights the groundbreaking discoveries made possible by Marshall scientists and engineers. Other speakers included Collen Wilson-Hodge, principal investigator of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The event also offered members of the community the opportunity to meet the scientists who worked on some of NASA’s most revolutionary astrophysics missions. Featured exhibits from Marshall included the Apollo Telescope mount, the main science instrument on Skylab; the High Energy Astrophysics Program (HEAO); the BATSE instrument on the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory; Chandra X-ray Observatory; Fermi; IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer); and Marshall’s X-Ray and Cryogenic Facility. “I had a really nice time at the event,” Weber said. “It’s always great to see such interest and enthusiasm in our science work from the public.” Wilson-Hodge said the mural is an artistic depiction of the historic event detected with the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory on Aug. 17, 2017. “On that day, for the first time ever, we observed both a gamma-ray burst and gravitational waves from two very dense neutron stars merging to form a black hole,” she said. (NASA/Serena Whitfield)

    From left to right, scientists and astrophysicists from Marshall, Cori Fletcher, Michelle Hui, Steven Ehlert, Weber, Colleen Wilson-Hodge, Lisa Gibby, and the artist Float pose for a photo in front of the “No Straight Lines” mural at the corner of Clinton Avenue and Washington Street in Huntsville. (NASA/Serena Whitfield)
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    Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found a galaxy cluster has two streams of superheated gas crossing one another. This result shows that crossing the streams may lead to the creation of new structure.

    Researchers have discovered an enormous, comet-like tail of hot gas – spanning over 1.6 million light-years long – trailing behind a galaxy within the galaxy cluster called Zwicky 8338 (Z8338 for short). This tail, spawned as the galaxy had some of its gas stripped off by the hot gas it is hurtling through, has split into two streams.
    This is the second pair of tails trailing behind a galaxy in this system. Previously, astronomers discovered a shorter pair of tails from a different galaxy near this latest one. This newer and longer set of tails was only seen because of a deeper observation with Chandra that revealed the fainter X-rays.
    Astronomers now have evidence that these streams trailing behind the speeding galaxies have crossed one another. Z8338 is a chaotic landscape of galaxies, superheated gas, and shock waves (akin to sonic booms created by supersonic jets) in one relatively small region of space. These galaxies are in motion because they were part of two galaxy clusters that collided with each other to create Z8338.
    This new composite image shows this spectacle. X-rays from Chandra (represented in purple) outline the multimillion-degree gas that outweighs all of the galaxies in the cluster. The Chandra data also shows where this gas has been jettisoned behind the moving galaxies. Meanwhile an optical image from the Dark Energy Survey from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile shows the individual galaxies peppered throughout the same field of view.
    The original gas tail discovered in Z8338 is about 800,000 light-years long and is seen as vertical in this image. The researchers think the gas in this tail is being stripped away from a large galaxy as it travels through the galaxy cluster. The head of the tail is a cloud of relatively cool gas about 100,000 light-years away from the galaxy it was stripped from. This tail is also separated into two parts.

    The team proposes that the detachment of the tail from the large galaxy may have been caused by the passage of the other, longer tail. Under this scenario, the tail detached from the galaxy because of the crossing of the streams.
    The results give useful information about the detachment and destruction of clouds of cooler gas like those seen in the head of the detached tail. This work shows that the cloud can survive for at least 30 million years after it is detached. During that time, a new generation of stars and planets may form within it.
    The Z8338 galaxy cluster and its jumble of galactic streams are located about 670 million light-years from Earth. A paper describing these results appeared in the Aug. 8, 2023, issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is available here.
    NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
    Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
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    What does it take to build a massive spacecraft that will seek to determine if a mysterious moon has the right ingredients for life? Find out in a new video series called “Behind the Spacecraft,” which offers behind-the-scenes glimpses into the roles of five engineers working on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, from building the spacecraft’s communications systems to putting it through rigorous tests so the orbiter can meet its science goals in space.

    [embedded content]

    With its launch period opening Oct. 10, Europa Clipper is the agency’s first mission dedicated to exploring an ocean world beyond Earth. The spacecraft will travel 1.8 billion miles to the Jupiter system, where it will investigate the gas giant’s moon Europa, which scientists believe contains a global saltwater ocean beneath its icy shell.
    The videos are being released here weekly. The first two are already out.
    Meet the team:

    Dipak Srinivasan, lead communications systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, makes sure the Europa Clipper team can communicate with the spacecraft. Learn more about his work in the video above.
    Sarah Elizabeth McCandless, navigation engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, helped plan Europa Clipper’s trajectory, ensuring the spacecraft arrives at Jupiter safely and has a path to fly by Europa dozens of times. Learn more about Sarah’s work here.
    Jenny Kampmeier, a science systems engineer at JPL, acts as an interface between mission scientists and engineers.
    Andres Rivera, a systems engineer at JPL and first-generation American, works on Europa Clipper’s cruise phase — the journey from Earth to Jupiter.
    Valeria Salazar, an integration and test engineer at JPL who spent her childhood in Mexico, helped test the Europa Clipper spacecraft to ensure its launch readiness.

    Europa Clipper experts will answer questions about the mission in a NASA Science Live show airing in English on Oct. 1, and in Spanish on Oct. 3. The broadcasts will appear on NASA+, YouTube, Facebook, and X. The Spanish broadcast will be streamed on the NASA en Español YouTube channel. Viewers can submit questions on social media using the hashtag #askNASA or by leaving a comment in the chat section of the Facebook or YouTube stream.
    Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission and will fly through the most punishing radiation environment of any planet in the solar system. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and, during multiple flybys of Europa, will collect a wealth of scientific data with nine science instruments and an experiment that uses its telecommunications system to gather gravity data.
    Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The main spacecraft body was designed by APL in collaboration with JPL and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, manages the launch service for the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
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    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Why are we seeing more pandemics? Our impact on the planet has a lot to do with it

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Anikeeva, Research Fellow, School of Public Health, University of Adelaide

    ImageFlow/Shutterstock

    Pandemics – the global spread of infectious diseases – seem to be making a comeback. In the Middle Ages we had the Black Death (plague), and after the first world war we had the Spanish flu. Tens of millions of people died from these diseases.

    Then science began to get the upper hand, with vaccination eradicating smallpox, and polio nearly so. Antibiotics became available to treat bacterial infections, and more recently antivirals as well.

    But in recent years and decades pandemics seem to be returning. In the 1980s we had HIV/AIDS, then several flu pandemics, SARS, and now COVID (no, COVID isn’t over).

    So why is this happening, and is there anything we can do to avert future pandemics?

    Unbalanced ecosystems

    Healthy, stable ecosystems provide services that keep us healthy, such as supplying food and clean water, producing oxygen, and making green spaces available for our recreation and wellbeing.

    Another key service ecosystems provide is disease regulation. When nature is in balance – with predators controlling herbivore populations, and herbivores controlling plant growth – it’s more difficult for pathogens to emerge in a way that causes pandemics.

    But when human activities disrupt and unbalance ecosystems – such as by way of climate change and biodiversity loss – things go wrong.

    For example, climate change affects the number and distribution of plants and animals. Mosquitoes that carry diseases can move from the tropics into what used to be temperate climates as the planet warms, and may infect more people in the months that are normally disease free.

    We’ve studied the relationship between weather and dengue fever transmission in China, and our findings support the same conclusion reached by many other studies: climate change is likely to put more people at risk of dengue.

    COVID was not the first pandemic, and is unlikely to be the last.
    Jaromir Chalabala/Shutterstock

    Biodiversity loss can have similar effects by disrupting food chains. When ranchers cleared forests in South America for their cattle to graze in the first half of the 20th century, tiny forest-dwelling, blood-feeding vampire bats suddenly had a smörgåsbord of large sedentary animals to feed on.

    While vampire bats had previously been kept in check by the limited availability of food and the presence of predators in the balanced forest ecosystem, numbers of this species exploded in South America.

    These bats carry the rabies virus, which causes lethal brain infections in people who are bitten. Although the number of deaths from bat-borne rabies has now fallen dramatically due to vaccination programs in South America, rabies caused by bites from other animals still poses a global threat.

    As urban and agricultural development impinges on natural ecosystems, there are increasing opportunities for humans and domestic animals to become infected with pathogens that would normally only be seen in wildlife – particularly when people hunt and eat animals from the wild.

    The HIV virus, for example, first entered human populations from apes that were slaughtered for food in Africa, and then spread globally through travel and trade.

    Meanwhile, bats are thought to be the original reservoir for the virus that caused the COVID pandemic, which has killed more than 7 million people to date.

    Climate change can affect the distribution of animals which carry disease, such as mosquitoes.
    Kwangmoozaa/Shutterstock

    Ultimately, until we effectively address the unsustainable impact we are having on our planet, pandemics will continue to occur.

    Targeting the ultimate causes

    Factors such as climate change, biodiversity loss and other global challenges are the ultimate (high level) cause of pandemics. Meanwhile, increased contact between humans, domestic animals and wildlife is the proximate (immediate) cause.

    In the case of HIV, while direct contact with the infected blood of apes was the proximate cause, the apes were only being slaughtered because large numbers of very poor people were hungry – an ultimate cause.

    The distinction between ultimate causes and proximate causes is important, because we often deal only with proximate causes. For example, people may smoke because of stress or social pressure (ultimate causes of getting lung cancer), but it’s the toxins in the smoke that cause cancer (proximate cause).

    Generally, health services are only concerned with stopping people from smoking – and with treating the illness that results – not with removing the drivers that lead them to smoke in the first place.

    Similarly, we address pandemics with lockdowns, mask wearing, social distancing and vaccinations – all measures which seek to stop the spread of the virus. But we pay less attention to addressing the ultimate causes of pandemics – until perhaps very recently.

    Often we treat the proximate causes of illness, but not the ultimate causes.
    Basil MK/Pexels

    A planetary health approach

    There’s a growing awareness of the importance of adopting a “planetary health” approach to improve human health. This concept is based on the understanding that human health and human civilisation depend on flourishing natural systems, and the wise stewardship of those natural systems.

    With this approach, ultimate drivers like climate change and biodiversity loss would be prioritised in preventing future pandemics, at the same time as working with experts from many different disciplines to deal with the proximate causes, thereby reducing the risk overall.

    The planetary health approach has the benefit of improving both the health of the environment and human health concurrently. We are heartened by the increased uptake of teaching planetary health concepts across the environmental sciences, humanities and health sciences in many universities.

    As climate change, biodiversity loss, population displacements, travel and trade continue to increase the risk of disease outbreaks, it’s vital that the planetary stewards of the future have a better understanding of how to tackle the ultimate causes that drive pandemics.

    This article is the first in a series on the next pandemic.

    Olga Anikeeva receives funding from Green Adelaide.

    Jessica Stanhope receives funding from the Ecological Health Network and Green Adelaide. She is affiliated with the Environmental Physiotherapy Association.

    Peng Bi receives funding from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, AusAID,

    Philip Weinstein receives funding from competitive external granting bodies. He is affiliated with Nature Foundation, Australian Entomological Society, and the South Australian Museum.

    – ref. Why are we seeing more pandemics? Our impact on the planet has a lot to do with it – https://theconversation.com/why-are-we-seeing-more-pandemics-our-impact-on-the-planet-has-a-lot-to-do-with-it-226827

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: In a too-close-to-call US presidential election, will ‘couch-sitters’ decide who wins?

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Bleich, Professorial fellow, Jeff Bleich Centre for Democracy and Disruptive Technologies, Flinders University

    In countries with compulsory voting, such as Australia and many in Latin America, the system usually ensures an overwhelming majority of voters cast their ballots election after election.

    In the United States, it’s a very different story. Two-thirds of eligible voters turned out to vote in the 2020 presidential election – the highest rate since 1900. Turnout in presidential elections before 2020 tended to hover between 50% and 65%.

    Often, it’s the voters choosing to stay home on the couch who effectively decide an election’s outcome.

    Under the United States’ unusual Electoral College presidential voting system, the candidate who wins the most votes nationally does not necessarily win the election. Twice in the past 25 years, Democrats have won the popular vote in the presidential race and still lost the election. That includes Donald Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

    As such, victory depends on getting more voters “off the couch” in key battleground states where the decisive Electoral College votes are up for grabs. In those states, it doesn’t matter what percentage of people show up to vote, or how much a candidate wins by, it is winner take all.

    A voter who doesn’t vote, therefore, actually makes an active choice — they remove a vote from the candidate they would have likely chosen, and so give an important advantage to the person they would not have voted for.

    The “couch” is effectively where Americans go to vote against their self-interest.

    Who is more incentivised to vote?

    As this year’s presidential election between Trump and Kamala Harris approaches, we ask a simple question: whose “couch” will decide one of the most consequential elections in living memory?

    Recent research demonstrates that partisanship is an important driver of voter choice in presidential elections.

    The fact that the US is deeply divided is not news to most, but current survey data show how evenly split along partisan lines it actually is. With about 30% of Americans identifying as a Republican and 30% identifying as a Democrat, there is virtually no difference in the total number of voters who support each major party.

    The remaining 40% of Americans identify as “independent” – that is, not loyal to either major political party. Almost seven decades of research on the American voter shows, however, that independents heavily “lean” towards one party or the other, with about half leaning Republican and the other half leaning Democrat.

    One possible insight into which group has greater incentive to vote is polling on people’s dissatisfaction with their party’s candidate.

    According to the most recent Gallup Poll data, 9% of Republicans currently have an unfavourable opinion of Trump. In contrast, only 5% of Democrats have an unfavourable opinion of Harris.

    Partisan voters who are dissatisfied with their party candidate have a massive incentive to “stay on the couch” and refrain from voting. They don’t really want to vote for “the other team”, but they can’t stand their own team anymore either.

    For example, Republican women in the suburbs, veterans and traditional Republicans have started to abandon Trump over his stances on reproductive rights and national security, and his temperament. The Trump campaign clearly knows this. At a rally in New York a few days ago, he told attendees to “get your fat ass out of the couch” to go vote for him.

    Should these disaffected Republican and Republican-leaning voters stay home on November 5, Harris may well have a decisive edge over Trump.

    When the couch wins, America loses

    In 2016, Trump defied the polls and traditional voter turn-out trends by convincing some disaffected, working-class Democrats to stay on the couch, vote for an unelectable third party candidate or, in some cases, vote for him.

    Could this happen again? Or will Democrats be able to reverse this phenomenon by getting exhausted Republicans suffering Trump fatigue to stay home, while motivating everyone from Taylor Swift fans to “never Trumpers” to veterans of foreign wars to get out to vote.

    Recent trends suggest overall turnout will be comparatively high, in line with the past three federal US elections.

    Democrats have traditionally benefited from higher voter turn-out, but it is not as clear this is still the case in 2024. Recent research shows higher turnout rates seem to have favoured the Republican Party since 2016.

    Yet both parties still have significant numbers of people who don’t vote. According to the Pew Research Center, 46% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents didn’t vote in the past three elections (2018, 2020 and 2022), compared to the 41% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.

    So again, who sits on the couch matters. Inevitably, many of those who stay home will get precisely what they don’t want. When the couch wins, America loses.

    Jeff Bleich is a former US ambassador to Australia and a member of the National Security Leaders for America, a group of 700 former generals, admirals, service secretaries, ambassadors, and other national security professionals, that has endorsed Kamala Harris in the presidential election. He was also special counsel to President Barack Obama and served as chair of the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board under President Donald Trump and as a member of President Joe Biden’s (non-partisan) National Security Education Board.

    Rodrigo Praino receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government Department of Defence, and SmartSat CRC.

    – ref. In a too-close-to-call US presidential election, will ‘couch-sitters’ decide who wins? – https://theconversation.com/in-a-too-close-to-call-us-presidential-election-will-couch-sitters-decide-who-wins-239394

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Moscow doctors have introduced the latest method of treating a common disease in men

    MIL OSI Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    Doctors of the urology center of the Moscow Multidisciplinary Scientific and Clinical Center (MMNCC) named after S.P. Botkin have introduced the latest minimally invasive method of treating prostate adenoma. This is the most common disease in men, which significantly affects the quality of life. It occurs in about a third of patients aged 40-45 years and in 70 percent after 60.

    The method of the capital’s doctors is based on the use of sterile high-temperature steam. It is delivered to the prostate through the urethra using special instruments under local anesthesia. The procedure does not require surgical incisions. Sterile steam passes through the tissues of the enlarged prostate and reduces its size, improving the quality of urination. The operation takes about 15 minutes and does not require long-term hospitalization.

    The Urology Center of the S.P. Botkin MMNCC was the first among the clinics of the capital Department of Health was equipped with high-tech equipment to perform such operations. Urologists underwent specialized training to perform them.

    According to the head of the urological center, professor and academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dmitry Pushkar, the new method of treating prostate adenoma is the most modern and most gentle of all those that exist today. More than 100 patients have already received high-quality care.

    The Moscow Urology Center, the S.P. Botkin MMNCC, began operating in November 2023. Doctors can perform up to 17,000 urological surgeries per year, including endourological, laparoscopic, and robotic interventions. The center includes a consultative and diagnostic department, three general urology departments and two oncourology departments, as well as seven operating rooms equipped with expert surgical equipment, and an intensive care unit. The minimally invasive surgical interventions used here allow patients to quickly recover and maintain a high quality of life.

    Moscow Mayor Talks About Implementation of New Moscow Healthcare Standard

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    http://vvv.mos.ru/nevs/item/144392073/

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and or sentence structure not be perfect.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: The big physics day “PhysFest” will take place at NSU this Sunday

    MIL OSI Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University –

    The large-scale program of the event will begin on September 29 at 11:00 in the main building of NSU (Pirogov St., 2). Participants will be able not only to have a fascinating time, but also to expand their knowledge in the field of natural science, get involved in fundamental science, and meet practicing scientists.

    The history of the project began in 2023, when Faculty of Physics The university successfully held the “Physics Day at NSU” as part of the All-Russian Physics Day. The event attracted great interest: it was attended by about 700 people, including more than 500 schoolchildren of different ages. It became clear that PhysFest should become regular, since it promotes the popularization of physics and science in general, attracts new schoolchildren to study the subject, and highlights the activities of NSU and the Physics Department as platforms that allow one to gain knowledge in this area.

    This year, the Science Festival has acquired a larger scale — PhysFest received grant support from Rosmolodezh. The program of the day includes: demonstration of unique physics experiments, interactive exhibitions, lectures, master classes, competitions and mini-Olympiads in physics.

    The project partners were scientific institutes of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, departments and workshops of the Physics Faculty of NSU, and the PetroGM company.

    — The project promotes the dissemination of knowledge about physics, helps young people understand the importance of this science in the modern world. In addition, PhysFest has a large social effect — popularization of scientific research activities, development of pre-university natural science training, familiarization of schoolchildren with career opportunities in science and high-tech industries, — said the project manager, Deputy Dean of the Physics Department of NSU Roman Spitsyn.

    According to the organizers, a full-fledged Physics Festival at NSU is not only an opportunity to get closer to science and get to know the university, but also to contribute to your future education. It is also an opportunity to have a fun and unusual time with the whole family.

    Registration for PhysFest is open at the main site of the festival, and in VKontakte group You can learn more about the day’s events and choose the ones you like.

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    http://www.nsu.ru/n/media/nevs/education/big-day-physics-physicsfest-will-be-held-in-NSU-this-Sunday/

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and or sentence structure not be perfect.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: NSU postgraduate student develops catalyst for converting diesel fuel into synthesis gas

    MIL OSI Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Novosibirsk State University – Novosibirsk State University –

    4th year postgraduate student Faculty of Natural Sciences of NSU Vladislav Shilov has developed a structured catalyst for converting diesel fuel into synthesis gas, which currently has no industrial analogues. In 2023, the results of his work on this topic were awarded a scholarship from the Novosibirsk Region government. The researcher developed this device as part of his dissertation work under the scientific supervision of the head of the heterogeneous analysis department of the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Chemical Sciences Pavel Valerievich Snytnikov.

    This year, the department’s research team, with the participation of Vladislav Shilov, is creating a fuel processor for obtaining synthesis gas that runs on commercial diesel fuel. It integrates the developed catalyst for converting diesel fuel to obtain synthesis gas from diesel. In the future, in cooperation with consortium members within the framework of the NTI project “Hydrogen as the Basis of a Low-Carbon Economy”, it is planned to create a power plant based on planar solid oxide fuel cells, combined with a diesel fuel processor for generating electricity.

    — We were the first to achieve complete conversion of commercial diesel fuel into hydrogen-containing gas suitable for fuel cells. When creating the catalyst, we encountered a serious difficulty: the conversion of diesel fuel into synthesis gas is a high-temperature process (about 700 – 1000 °C), as a result of which the active component of the catalyst quickly sinters. Therefore, for these applications, we were the first to use a metal substrate made of FeCrAl alloy as a structured carrier, which has good heat and mass transfer properties. This is what makes the system we developed unique. The method of applying layers of catalytic coating to a metal mesh is quite complex and was developed over several years. This was not an easy task — the coating of the active component peeled off or cracked. We needed to increase the adhesive (i.e., “bonding”) properties of the substrate surface so that each layer of the catalytic coating would reliably adhere to it. We found a technological solution to this problem. Now we have reached the level where we can carry out small-scale production of structured catalysts for various catalytic applications, said Vladislav Shilov.

    When creating the diesel fuel conversion catalyst, experiments were conducted in a laboratory setup. Now the researchers are faced with the task of creating a model of the fuel processor into which it will be integrated. Diesel fuel, water and air will enter the system, which as a result of the catalytic reaction will be converted into synthesis gas suitable for use in solid oxide fuel cells. Now this work is in the active stage and is nearing completion. Next, scientists will have to evaluate the operation of the entire power plant in order to begin industrial implementation.

    — The structured catalyst we developed also turned out to be highly active in converting light hydrocarbon fuels into synthesis gas, which interested our industrial partner, the InEnergy group of companies, which is engaged in the creation of power plants based on fuel cells. This year, the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with InEnergy, launched small-scale production (about 600 units) of compact power plants TOPAZ-GAMMA M, operating on natural gas and propane-butane, where our development was used. One such power plant was presented by our research group at the International Forum of Technological Development “Technoprom”, where it aroused great interest, — said Vladislav Shilov.

    Electrochemical generators running on diesel fuel can be used as a stationary, backup or auxiliary source of electric power, since it is a more convenient carrier of hydrogen. Compared to other alternative carriers, diesel fuel has the largest amount of hydrogen per unit volume, and its long-term storage is carried out at ambient temperature and pressure. In this regard, natural gas transported through gas pipelines and propane-butane are significantly inferior to this type of fuel. Electrochemical generators running on diesel fuel can be used as a stationary, backup or auxiliary source of electric power.

    According to Vladislav Shilov, this technology will find application in remote northern regions, in the conditions of the Far North and in the development of the Arctic, as well as at other sites where diesel fuel is the main energy source. It is possible that this development will be of interest to the Russian Ministry of Defense, where most of the equipment also runs on this type of fuel. But in order to launch small-scale production of diesel electrochemical generators, it is necessary to complete work on creating a prototype in laboratory conditions and contact companies interested in launching these devices into small-scale production. The developers have no doubt that such investors will certainly be found.

    — Such devices have a much higher efficiency compared to internal combustion engines. They are environmentally friendly — their emissions are carbon dioxide and water vapor. They are distinguished by silent operation, a long service life and do not require frequent maintenance. And the use of fuel cells to generate electricity allows it to be extracted from energy sources by directly converting the energy of chemical bonds into electrical energy. The efficiency of this process is higher than when using standard diesel generators, in which the energy of chemical bonds is first converted into heat, then into mechanical energy and only then into electrical energy. Increasing the efficiency of power plants will reduce the volume of resource-intensive delivery of diesel fuel to remote, Arctic regions. In addition, the use of the developed power plants will be more environmentally friendly due to the reduction in the volume of diesel fuel consumption, — explained Vladislav Shilov.

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    http://vvv.nsu.ru/n/media/nevs/science/postgraduate-student-nnsu-developed-a-catalyst-for-conversion-of-diesel-fuel-into-synthesis-gas/

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and or sentence structure not be perfect.

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI: Les Mills expands global reach of premium fitness services through the Digital Vending Machine® from Bango

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, Sept. 25, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Bango (AIM:BGO) is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Les Mills, a premier global fitness service provider, to globally expand the accessibility of its digital fitness subscriptions. LES MILLS+ is now available through the Digital Vending Machine® (DVM™), enabling telcos and other resellers to offer this high-quality fitness service to their customers as a bundle, add-on, or as part of a Super Bundling content hub.

    The popularity of at-home workouts has skyrocketed in recent years, driven by their convenience and accessibility. The proliferation of digital fitness platforms, innovative home gym equipment, and the widespread adoption of remote work have fueled this trend. Virtual fitness classes, personalized training apps, and online workout communities now offer individuals a multitude of ways to stay active from home.

    LES MILLS+ offers an unparalleled workout experience with exceptional trainers, motivating music, and science-backed routines designed for optimal results. With this new partnership, telcos can now provide their customers access to these world-class workouts, whether they prefer to exercise at the gym, at home, or on the go. By tapping into the growing demand for fitness and wellness, telcos can diversify their content offerings with LES MILLS+, while Les Mills expands its reach through these new telco channels.

    The DVM™ enables telcos and other resellers to quickly, easily, and cost-effectively broaden their range of third-party services. It allows them to scale their subscription service offerings at a much faster rate than traditional in-house solutions. A single connection to the DVM™ opens up a wide array of subscription services for telcos, allowing them to deliver various bundles, discounts, and offers to attract and retain customers. For content providers like Les Mills, this means significantly extending their subscription service reach to consumers worldwide beyond their direct market channels. Consumers benefit by gaining access to the best deals on their favorite subscriptions.

    “Distribution is key. Reaching a wider audience is crucial, and the Digital Vending Machine® is the perfect solution. It simplifies the process of distributing our service to a broader audience, reducing complexity and saving time, allowing more people worldwide to stay fit and healthy with Les Mills workouts and programs.” Luke Waldren, Chief Customer Officer at Les Mills.

    “Les Mills is a fantastic addition to the Digital Vending Machine®, enriching the range of content available to telcos with fitness services. The variety of content enhances appeal and aligns perfectly with Super Bundling content hubs, providing telcos with an excellent way to offer a broad range of subscription services in one convenient place.” Anil Malhotra, CMO at Bango.

    About Bango

    Bango enables content providers to reach more paying customers through global partnerships. Bango revolutionized the monetization of digital content and services, by opening-up online payments to mobile phone users worldwide. Today, the Digital Vending Machine® is driving the rapid growth of the subscriptions economy, powering choice and control for subscribers.

    The world’s largest content providers, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft trust Bango technology to reach subscribers everywhere.

    Bango, where people subscribe. For more information, visit www.bango.com

    About Les Mills

    Les Mills is the global leader in group fitness and creator of over 25 programs available in leading fitness facilities around the world. Les Mills programs include the world’s first group exercise resistance training workout BODYPUMP™, BODYCOMBAT™ (martial arts), RPM™ (indoor cycling), BODYBALANCE™ (yoga), LES MILLS GRIT™ (30-minute high-intensity interval training) and its latest fitness innovation – LES MILLS FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH.

    The company was founded by Les Mills – a four-time Olympian and head coach of New Zealand’s track and field team – who opened his first gym in 1968 with the aim of taking elite sports training to the masses. Today, Les Mills workouts are delivered by 130,000 certified instructors in 21,000 clubs across 100 countries, as well as via the LES MILLS+ streaming platform and Extended Reality (XR).

    Media contact: 

    Anil Malhotra, CMO, Bango 
    anil@bango.com 
    Tel: +44 7710 480 377 

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Groundbreaking study revises the origins of biodiversity An international team of scientists has made a groundbreaking discovery that could reshape our understanding of how global biodiversity evolved.

    Source: University of Aberdeen

    The findings of the study could revolutionise the way we think about the evolution of biodiversityAn international team of scientists has made a groundbreaking discovery that could reshape our understanding of how global biodiversity evolved.
    By reconstructing the evolution of species over the past 45 million years, researchers found that the geographic origins of many plants, insects and mammals are more closely linked than previously thought.
    Led by the University of Aberdeen in collaboration with Bangor University in Wales, Lakehead University in Canada, and several Indonesian institutes including IPB University in Bogor, the team used Southeast Asia – one of the world’s most biodiversity-rich regions – as a natural laboratory to trace the geographic origins of a wide range of species.
    Their findings challenge long-standing theories that groups of flora and fauna evolved separately on different landmasses before diversifying across the region.
    Central to this research is a new evolutionary model, developed at the University of Aberdeen, which enabled the team to include extinct species in their analysis for the first time.
    This innovative approach has not only provided a more complete evolutionary picture but has paved the way for a fresh understanding of how biodiversity arose and spread across landmasses. The model is now being used in international collaborations to revisit the evolutionary history of other continents, promising to reshape our understanding of global biodiversity.
    “We wondered whether several groups of plants and animals could have the same geographic origin as new geological evidence contrasted with current reconstructions of species’ origin and spread,” said Dr Leonel Herrera Alsina, Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen’s School of Biological Sciences. “However, the ongoing extinction of species throughout evolution takes away key information to reconstruct the past.”
    The inclusion of extinct species in the modelling process allowed researchers to trace evolutionary patterns further back in time, revealing that many groups of species in Southeast Asia spread across the entire region earlier than previously thought.
    This result reinforces the idea that land bridges existed and acted as stepping stones in the spread of species out of Borneo and Continental Asia.
    “Previous methods ignored the impact of extinct species but, by incorporating them, we’ve been able to create a more accurate and comprehensive picture of how the incredible biodiversity of this region evolved,” said Professor Lesley Lancaster, Personal Chair at the University of Aberdeen.
    “This new understanding aligns with recent geological findings and could transform how we view the origins and spread of species globally.”
    Professor David Burslem, Director of the Interdisciplinary Institute at the University of Aberdeen, emphasised the broader significance of the study: “This research underscores the importance of studying ecological and geological processes in unison. The evolutionary patterns we see today are deeply intertwined with the region’s geological history. Integrating these disciplines allows us to better understand the origins of biodiversity and how it has developed over millions of years.”
    The study, published this week by the Royal Society, sheds new light on the evolutionary history of life on Earth and offers valuable insights into how evolutionary processes can be integrated into conservation prioritisation, helping to safeguard biodiversity as ecosystems face increasing pressures from climate change.
    “Our findings revolutionise the way we think about the evolution of biodiversity, not just in Southeast Asia but globally,” added Professor Justin Travis, Personal Chair at the University of Aberdeen. “This model, now being used in collaborations around the world, opens the door to revisiting long-held theories about evolution on other continents as well.
    “The work sets the stage for future research that will revise our understanding of how species have adapted and diversified over millions of years.”
    The research was funded by UKRI’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The paper is published in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Africa: ‘We will not remain silent as apartheid is perpetrated against others’ – President Ramaphosa

    Source: South Africa News Agency

    President Cyril Ramaphosa has told the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that South Africa will not remain silent and watch as apartheid is perpetrated against others.

    In his address to the Assembly’s annual high-level debate on Tuesday, President Ramaphosa said the South African story bears witness to the enduring role of the United Nations in global affairs. 

    In supporting South Africa’s struggle for liberation, the President highlighted that the UN affirmed the principles of the UN Charter – fundamental human rights, the dignity and worth of every person, and the equal rights of nations large and small. 

    “It affirmed the aspiration contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that we should strive for a world free of barbarous acts that outrage the conscience of mankind.

    “We South Africans know what apartheid looks like. We lived through it. We suffered and died under it. We will not remain silent and watch as apartheid is perpetrated against others. Through the United Nations and the instruments it wields, we must end this suffering,” the President said. 

    He further reiterated South Africa’s call for an immediate cease fire, and for the release of all hostages.

    He highlighted that the violence the Palestinian people are being subjected to is a grim continuation of more than half a century of apartheid. 

    “The only lasting solution is the establishment of a Palestinian State, existing side by side with Israel with East Jerusalem as its capital,” he said. 

    Earlier this month, The Presidency announced that South Africa is set to submit its Memorial to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in October 2024, presenting evidence to support its claim that Israel is committing genocide in Palestine.

    The Memorial will outline facts and arguments as part of a broader legal effort to hold Israel accountable under international law.

    READ | SA to file Memorial to the ICJ on Israel matter

    Addressing the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine, and the Sahel region, the President highlighted the country’s role in supporting international efforts for conflict resolution. 
    “Our moral conscience further demands that we exert every effort to bring peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to Sudan, to Yemen, to Ukraine and to the troubled Sahel region. We must realise the aspirations of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination.”

    He emphasised that achieving and maintaining peace and security requires the collective will of the community of nations.

    Reform of the UN Security Council 

    “It requires that the UN Security Council is representative and inclusive. Seventy-eight years since its formation, the structure of the UN Security Council remains largely unchanged. 

    “Africa and its 1,4 billion people remain excluded from its key decision-making structures.  The Security Council has not fulfilled its mandate to maintain international peace and security,” he said. 

    The President called for the UN Security Council to be reformed as a matter of urgency and become more inclusive so that the voices of all nations are heard and considered.

    “Africa stands ready to play its part in building a safer global order. The African Union and its member states are engaged in mediation, dialogue, and diplomacy across the continent, to create conditions under which peace and development can take hold. 

    “There must be greater collaboration between the AU [African Union] and the UN towards resolving these conflicts, and also in addressing their root causes,” he said. 

    President Ramaphosa is leading South Africa’s delegation to the High-Level General Debate of the 79th Session of the General Assembly (UNGA79) in the United States of America.

    The High-Level General Debate of the UNGA79 is taking place at the United Nations headquarters in New York, from 24 to 30 September 2024. 

    Speaking at the African Minerals Forum hosted by the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) and Prosper Africa on Monday, the President emphasised the importance of the critical minerals sector in driving global economic growth and sustainability. 

    By leveraging key sectors such as mining, energy, and manufacturing, the President said South Africa is set to improve its business environment and attract much-needed investment.
    The President addressed the session on the sidelines of the UNGA.

    READ | Critical minerals sector key to driving global economic growth

    –SAnews.gov.za

    MIL OSI Africa –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Policing will always use Artificial Intelligence responsibly

    Source: United Kingdom National Police Chiefs Council

    Trials of AI programmes have been ongoing to help ease call demand, tackle child exploitation and to identify DA

    That’s the message from policing’s first-ever lead for Artificial Intelligence (AI) as he reaffirms his commitment to transforming the service.  

    Temporary Chief Constable Alex Murray took up this role in March this year and wants to focus on three key areas: improving productivity, making policing more effective in cutting crime and tackling the criminal use of AI. 

    He is also keen to highlight the innovative work and ambitious pilots already underway to help meet those key objectives.  

    They include:  

    • AI trials in control rooms to help call handlers manage demand and focus on those most at risk.  
    • The development of redaction tools, transcription and translation services.   
    • Tools which can search through huge amounts of data to find out where potential child exploitation is taking place.    
    • The NPCC is also taking part in the Probable Futures programme, a four-year research project which reviews all AI systems across law enforcement and will create a responsible and ‘operational-ready’ framework for using AI. 

    T/Chief Constable Murray said:

    “There are huge benefits to using AI across the wider criminal justice system, not just in policing, and we should not shy away from it. 

    “Technology is moving at such a fast pace, and it will never be this slow again which means we need to mobilise now and equip our workforce for the future. If we don’t, we risk falling behind the criminals who are embracing and exploiting these tools.  

    “AI offers huge opportunities for policing. It can automate a range of administrative tasks such as closing call logs, redacting huge court bundles and translating documents. It can help our call handlers to prioritise those who need their assistance most and can even help identify patterns and trends in evidence. These gains in productivity mean officers and staff will ultimately have more time to be back out in their community.  

    “There is always more demand for policing than it can supply and AI helps release officer time so they can concentrate on those who need them most. 

    “The public can be assured that AI is not replacing officers. Police will remain at the heart of everything we do because violent disorder, domestic abuse, child sexual exploitation for example, will always need a trained human officer to interact, offer support and make the final decisions and that will never change.” 

    The former West Mercia officer, now a Director in the NCA, added:

    “I want to be very clear with the public that our use of AI will always be responsible, transparent and explainable and this is why we have all signed up to the first-ever AI covenant. 

    “The responsible use of AI is paramount if we are to deliver a service that is trusted by communities. People will see the only motivation here is to improve what we do and to better achieve our mission of making people safer.   

    “We are open to scrutiny and want to build transparency into what we do. For us, innovation is about keeping our communities safe, not for profit, not for the sake of it.  

    “We will are committed to working with key partners, academia and industry leaders to improve but will always be open and transparent about our actions and intentions.”  

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: PM to visit Maharashtra on 26 September

    Source: Government of India

    PM to visit Maharashtra on 26 September

    PM to lay foundation stone and dedicate to nation various projects worth over Rs. 22,600 crore

    PM to dedicate to nation three PARAM Rudra Supercomputers

    PM to launch and dedicate to nation various initiatives of petroleum and natural gas sector worth Rs. 10,400 crore

    PM to inaugurate Solapur Airport

    PM to dedicate to nation Bidkin Industrial Area

    Posted On: 25 SEP 2024 2:28PM by PIB Delhi

    Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will visit Pune, Maharashtra on 26th September. At around 6 PM, from District Court Metro Station, he will flag off the Metro train scheduled to run from District court to Swargate, Pune. Thereafter at around 6:30 PM, he will inaugurate, lay the foundation stone and dedicate to the nation various projects worth over Rs. 22,600 crore.

    The inauguration of Pune Metro section of District Court to Swargate will mark the completion of Pune Metro Rail Project (Phase-1). The cost of the underground section between District Court to Swargate is around Rs 1,810 crore.

    Further, Prime Minister will also lay the foundation stone for Swargate-Katraj Extension of Pune Metro Phase-1 to be developed at the cost of around Rs 2,950 crore. This southern extension of around 5.46 km is completely underground with three stations namely Market Yard, Padmavati and Katraj.

    Prime Minister will lay the foundation stone for the Memorial for Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule’s First Girls’ School at Bhidewada.

    In line with his commitment to make India self-reliant in the field of Supercomputing technology, Prime Minister will dedicate to the nation three PARAM Rudra Supercomputers worth around Rs. 130 crore, developed indigenously under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM). These supercomputers have been deployed in Pune, Delhi and Kolkata to facilitate pioneering scientific research. Giant Metre Radio Telescope (GMRT) in Pune will leverage the supercomputer to explore Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) and other astronomical phenomena. Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) in Delhi will enhance research in fields like material science and atomic physics. S.N. Bose Centre in Kolkata will drive advanced research in areas such as physics, cosmology, and earth sciences.

    Prime Minister will also inaugurate a High-Performance Computing (HPC) system tailored for weather and climate research. This project represents an investment of Rs. 850 crore, marking a significant leap in India’s computational capabilities for meteorological applications.  Located at two key sites, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) in Pune and the National Center for Medium Range Weather Forecast (NCMRWF) in Noida, this HPC system has extraordinary computing power. The new HPC systems are named ‘Arka’ and ‘Arunika,’ reflecting their connection to the Sun. These high-resolution models will significantly enhance the accuracy and lead time of predictions related to tropical cyclones, heavy precipitation, thunderstorms, hailstorms, heat waves, droughts, and other critical weather phenomena.

    Prime Minister will launch and dedicate to the nation various initiatives of petroleum and natural gas sector worth Rs. 10,400 crore. These initiatives will focus on energy, infrastructure, safety and convenience of truck and cab drivers, cleaner mobility and a sustainable future.

    To enable ease of driving, Prime Minister will launch the Way Side Amenities for truck drivers at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra; Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab; Songadh, Gujarat; Belagavi and Bangalore Rural, Karnataka. With the objective of developing modern facilities for the comfortable journey break at one place designed to cater to the needs of truckers and cab drivers during their long journeys, way side amenities such as affordable boarding and lodging facilities, clean toilets, safe parking space, cooking area, WiFi, Gym, etc. are being developed at a cost of around Rs. 2,170 crore at 1,000 retail outlets.

    To develop multiple energy choices like petrol, diesel, CNG, EV, CBG, Ethanol blended petrol (EBP), etc. at one retail outlet, Prime Minister will launch Energy Stations. Nearly 4,000 energy stations would be developed over Golden Quadrilateral, East-West and North-South Corridors and other major highways over next  5 years at a cost of around Rs. 6000 crore. Energy stations will help in providing seamless mobility through provision of alternate fuels under one roof to the energy seeking customers.

    To facilitate smooth transition to Green Energy, De-carbonization and Net Zero Emission and reducing the range anxiety of Electric Vehicle drivers, Prime Minister will dedicate to the nation 500 EV charging facilities. Further, 10,000 EV Charging stations (EVCS) are being targeted to be developed by FY 2025 at an estimated cost of Rs. 1,500 crore.

    Prime Minister will dedicate to the nation 20 Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) stations across the country including 3 in Maharashtra. To promote the adoption of clean fuel such as LNG for long distance transportation, 50 LNG Fuel Stations will be developed in various states of the country by Oil and Gas companies at a cost of around Rs. 500 crore.

    Prime Minister will also dedicate to the nation 1500 E20 (20% ethanol blended) petrol retail outlets worth around Rs 225 crore.

    Prime Minister will inaugurate the Solapur Airport which would significantly improve connectivity, making Solapur more accessible to tourists, business travellers and investors. The existing terminal Building of Solapur has been revamped to serve around 4.1 lakh passengers annually.

    Prime Minister will dedicate to the nation Bidkin Industrial Area, a transformative project covering an expansive 7,855 acres under the National Industrial Corridor Development Program of Govt. of India, situated 20 kms south of Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar in Maharashtra. The project developed under Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor holds immense potential as a vibrant economic hub in the Marathwada region. Central Government has approved this project with an overall project cost of over Rs. 6,400 crore for development in 3 phases.

    ***

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    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –