The Food and Drug Administration has recently expanded the eligibility of an effective obesity drug known as Wegovy to children as young as 12. In a clinical trial, children who took Wegovy lost far more weight than those who took a placebo. The label expansion is the latest success for this new generation of obesity treatments, though the drugs themselves continue to be in short supply and expensive without insurance coverage.
The FDA approved Wegovy in June 2021 for adults with a BMI over 30 (the definition of obesity) or with a BMI over 27 and at least one possibly weight-related condition, such as high blood pressure. It was the first new obesity treatment approved in seven years. However, the active ingredient of Wegovy, called semaglutide, had previously been approved in a lower dose formulation by the FDA for type 2 diabetes in 2017, sold under the brand name Ozempic. Both Wegovy and Ozempic are made by the Danish pharmaceutical Novo Nordisk.
In the major randomized and controlled clinical trials that led to Wegovy’s original approval, the once-weekly injectable drug was shown to help people lose an average of 12.4% of their initial body weight over a 68-week period compared to people who received placebo, or about a total 15% weight loss. And Wegovy appears to be just as effective in teens.
According to the results of the company’s STEP TEENS trial, published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, teens who took the drug lost an average 14.7% of their initial body weight over a year’s time, while those on placebo gained 2.7% on average. The treatment group also saw an average 16.1% loss in BMI, compared to a 0.6% increase in the placebo group. The safety profile of Wegovy seems to be similar in teens. The most common adverse events reported in these trials include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, which often appeared early on in treatment as people gradually increased their dosage and waned over time. The rate of discontinuation, or people who decide to stop taking treatment, was low and similar across both groups (around 5%).
Obesity rates have continued to increase in the U.S. and many parts of the world over time, including among teens and young children. These trends only seem to have accelerated during the covid-19 pandemic. And though there remains much debate over the exact health effects of obesity, childhood obesity is thought to raise the risk of serious health problems later in life, such as type 2 diabetes.
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“The prevalence of teen obesity in the U.S. continues to rise, affecting teens and their families. Now, more than ever, we need new options to support teens,” said Aaron S. Kelly, co-director of the Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine at the University of Minnesota and one of the STEP-TEENS study authors, in a statement released last week by Novo Nordisk following the FDA’s decision. “This FDA approval offers an additional tool to address this serious, chronic, progressive disease.”
Up until now, medications have been modestly effective at best in helping people lose weight, or have come with dangerous side-effects, such as stimulants that can cause an unhealthy dependence. And while a balanced diet and exercise is healthy for many reasons, people generally do not achieve and maintain significant weight loss through lifestyle changes alone. Many, but not necessarily all, experts agree that semaglutide represents the first in a class of drugs, known as incretins, that can lead to sustained and safe weight loss, along with many other possible health benefits.
At the same time, Wegovy has been in short supply since its debut, due to unexpected demand and production issues last year that caused the temporary shutdown of one of Novo Nordisk’s key manufacturing facilities. These shortages have likely led to an increase in off-label prescriptions of Ozempic, which is now also in limited supply. At least some patients have complained that they’ve been denied Ozempic for their previously existing diabetes as a result.
Novo Nordisk has claimed that these supply issues will be cleared up by early next year. But even if that happens, Wegovy and similar drugs expected to be approved soon will remain out of reach for many people, due to their hefty price tag. Obesity drugs in general aren’t eligible to be covered by Medicare currently, and many private insurers have been reluctant to cover Wegovy so far. Without insurance, Wegovy can cost upwards of $1,500 a month, and it’s likely that many patients will need to keep taking it in order to maintain their weight loss.
ArtStation is probably the most important website on the whole internet for professional artists, especially those working in entertainment fields like video games (most of our Fine Art links, for example, point there). Which is why the site’s continued allowance of AI-generated imagery has become a point of contention with its users.
The technology, which is rotten to its core, is of particular concern to a community who make a living creating art, and as such should also be a concern to the companies responsible for owning and hosting that community. But as of today, ArtStation has no policy directly restricting the hosting or display of AI-generated imagery on the site, which has led to repeated instances where images made by computers, and not humans, have floated to the top of ArtStation’s “Explore” section, its most popular means of showcasing the work of artists.
That is, understandably, pissing a lot of people off. Indeed, over the last 24 hours so many artists have become so incensed by the site’s allowance of AI-generated imagery that they’ve begun spamming their portfolios, with a protest sparked by illustrator Nicholas Kole and costume designer Imogen Chayes resulting in ArtStation’s front page looking like this at time of writing:
It’s just the same image, originally created by Alexander Nanitchkov and saying “No To AI Generated Images”, pasted over and over again by hundreds of artists:
These artists are right to be upset! The rapidly-encroaching practice of AI-generated imagery is going to trash all kinds of websites, but to allow it on a site specifically designed to showcase the work of talented human artists is an especially bad look.
“ArtStation’s content guidelines do not prohibit the use of AI tools in the process of creating artwork that is shared with the community”, a spokesperson for Epic Games, the owners of ArtStation, tells Kotaku. “That said, ArtStation is a portfolio platform designed to elevate and celebrate originality powered by a community of artists. Users’ portfolios should only feature artwork that they create, and we encourage users to be transparent in the process. Our content guidelines are here.”
The profile of a user submitting AI-generated imagery to ArtStation earlier todayScreenshot: ArtStation
While that’s an expected response given the prevalence of AI-generated imagery currently on the site, and the apparent lack of moderation involved in letting them stay up, Epic also say they “do not make any agreements with companies allowing them to scrape content on our website. If AI companies are doing this without permission and beyond purely academic use (where copyright fair use may apply), they may be infringing the rights of ArtStation creators.”
Epic also say they are “in the process of giving ArtStation users more control over how their work is shared and labeled, and we will provide more details in the near future.”
While that veiled legal threat is perhaps a sign that Epic aren’t quite as cool with the practice as it seems, and word that user controls are coming in the “near future” is promising to an extent, that doesn’t change the fact that ArtStation user’s portfolios have already been fed to these AIs, and that it won’t do anything in the short term to stop AI-generated images from encroaching on a website that’s supposed to be showcasing the best in human art.
For now, the best way to detect AI-generated imagery and ignore it (or even better, to report it) is the same way it has been for the past few months: always ask to see the fingers.
Adobe used to be known as the company that made Acrobat and PhotoShop. Addobe is increasingly becoming known, however, as one of the great digital grifters of the modern age.
From its shonky subscription models to making people pay for certain colours in PhotoShop (big shout out to Pantone there as well), the company is, like so many others in these tumultuous times, more concerned with growing its bottom line at any cost than it is in taking a moment to consider the needs of its users, or the consequences of its actions.
I’m bringing this up today because, less than a week after forcing people to check they weren’t reading an Onion story when learning about the colours thing, the company has announced that it is embracing AI art, which is not only an enormous grift, but also a serious threat to the livelihoods of artists around the world, big and small.
I’ve made my feelings about AI very clear on this website already—I wrote this feature back in August interviewing a range of video game and entertainment industry artists—and think it sucks not just because it’s a threat to artists, but to art. While people’s jobs are of course important, we’re not just talking about cotton gins here, and how this is in many ways a labour v capital breakdown; we’re talking about a process that is encroaching on a fundamentally human pastime and creative pursuit.
Machines don’t make art. They’re machines! They’re just making an approximated casserole out of human art that has been fed into it, in the vast amount of cases without credit or compensation. As Dan Sheehan says in his fantastic piece Art In The Age Of Optimization, AI art isn’t about art, it’s merely “a technology that clearly exists to remove the human element from the process of artistic expression”.
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Anyway! Last week Adobe dropped an announcement saying that AI-generated art was going to be made available as part of the company’s vast library of stock images, going so far as to say the field is “amplifying human creativity”. The company boldly says, repeatedly, stuff like they have “deeply considered these questions and implemented a new submission policy that we believe will ensure our content uses AI technology responsibly by creators and customers alike”, and that “generative AI is a major leap forward for creators, leveraging machine learning’s incredible power to ideate faster by developing imagery using words, sketches, and gestures”.
Creators? Fuck off! These people aren’t creating anything! They’re punching words into a computer that has been fed actual art! And even if Adobe can, as they’re claiming, only release images that have been “properly built, used, and disclosed”, it still sucks! Gah! Attempting to make good on one of AI art’s issues—art theft—doesn’t absolve it from its others, like the fact nothing to do with these images or their creation has anything to do with art!
Reaction among artists has of course been as wildly negative as any other AI art announcement over the past six months, with some criticising the company while others resort to more traditional cries: namely, that artists simply pirate PhotoShop instead of giving this company another cent.
It was a good year for research of all kinds as three men shared the Nobel Prize in physics for their work that showed that tiny particles separated from one another at great distances can be entangled. Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger won the award for their work showing that the counterintuitive field of quantum entanglement is real and also demonstrable.
A team at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution made a breakthrough in determining the origins of life on Earth, and maybe on Mars as well. They found that ribonucleic acid can form spontaneously on basalt lava glass. Such glass was abundant on early Earth at the time when scientists believe that life came to exist—and basalt lava glass exists on Mars today.
And as the year began, a team with members from institutions in France, Spain, Mexico and Switzerland found that a spike protein on the SARS-CoV-2 virus activates human endogenous retroviruses in blood cells. The finding helped to explain many of the commonly observed pathogenic features of the virus. More specifically, they found evidence indicating that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein activates the envelope protein encoded by HERV-W in blood cells.
Also, this past spring, a combined team of archaeologists from Germany and Iraq discovered a 3,400-year-old Mittani Empire-era city that was once located on the Tigris River. The settlement came into view due to an extended drought in the area around the Mosul reservoir that drastically lowered water levels. Studies of artifacts at the site showed them to have been made by the Zakhiku, ancient people who lived in the area over the years 1550 to 1350 BC.
And last winter, researchers working at the Centre for Polar Observation and with the Modelling and British Antarctic Survey, reported that satellite images showed a “mega-iceberg” called A68A had released approximately 152 billion tons of fresh water into the ocean as it scraped past the south Atlantic island of South Georgia. They noted that it had snapped off the Larsen-C Ice Shelf.
Also, this past spring, an international team of researchers analyzing audio recordings received from two microphones aboard the Perseverance rover found that, as expected, sound travels more slowly on Mars than on Earth, and it also has two speeds, depending on pitch—higher sounds travel faster than lower sounds.
In September, a pair of researchers, one with Uppsala University, in Sweden, the other the University of Oviedo in Spain, found that they could observe evolution in action by studying black frogs in areas impacted by the Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown. Pablo Burraco and Germán Orizaola found that prior to the release of radiation in the area, the frogs had all been green.
A combined team of researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History and the Georgia Museum of Natural History studying DNA from a domesticated American horse that once occupied what is now an abandoned Caribbean colony proved that the horses on Assateague island came from Spanish explorers, likely due to a shipwreck.
And just a few months back, a combined team of researchers from Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Montpellier discovered that massive stars sound a warning when they are about to go supernova. They found that stars in the 8 to 20 solar mass range dim precipitously a few months prior to exploding due to the accumulation of materials in the vicinity blocking the view.
Last February, a team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst developed a new material that could absorb and release enormous amounts of energy. They described the rubber-like solid as similar to a “super rubber band,” storing large amounts of energy when stretched and subsequently releasing it.
An international team of researchers using artificial intelligence routines compressed to four equations a quantum problem that previously required 100,000 equations to fully describe. They note that in addition to making the problem easier to work with, the approach could revolutionize the way other problems are tackled in the future.
Over the summer, a team of physicists affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. found that by shining a laser at a group of atoms arranged in a sequence inspired by Fibonacci numbers, they could create a new phase of matter that behaved as it if was running in two time dimensions. This, despite the fact that there was still only a single flow of time in the system.
Last spring, a team at Universiteit Amsterdam, working with a colleague at Amsterdam University Medical Center, found microplastics in human blood for first time. The finding highlights the ubiquity of the tiny particles, many of which are nearly invisible to the naked eye. The team in the Netherlands found particles in almost 80% of samples they tested.
Also, this past autumn, a team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in the U.S. detected the first definitive proof of elusive sea-level fingerprints—where sea levels seesaw between areas close to ice sheet melt and areas far away. The seesawing occurs because of changes and subsequent differences in gravitational pull as ice breaks away from an ice shelf and then melts over time.
An atmospheric scientist with Colorado State University confirmed his discovery of a bioluminescent “milky sea” event via the testimony of a crew aboard a private yacht. Steven Miller discovered the event while studying satellite images and got confirmation from a crew aboard a yacht that happened to be sailing through the area at the time.
A team at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Computer, Computational, and Statistical Sciences Division found an error in a paradigm developed by Riemann and furthered by Helmholtz and Schrodinger that has been used for more than a century to describe how the eye distinguishes color. Using the corrected version is expected to improve visualization in the electronics and paint industries.
Last summer, a team at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology found that Augustinian friars living in medieval Cambridge were twice as likely to be infested with intestinal parasites as others living in the same city. The result was surprising because conditions in monasteries of the time were believed to more sanitary than in the city and because the friars used both latrine blocks and handwashing facilities.
Last summer, scientists working with data from the James Webb Space Telescope and NASA began gearing up for a better look at an exoplanet called 55 Cancri e—a planet that orbits so close to its star that some in the field have compared it to descriptions of Hell in the Bible. At just 1.5 million miles from its sun, it does not rotate; thus, one side is expected always to be burning.
A team at Northwestern University developed a simple method to quickly and easily destroy so-called forever chemicals. Known as PFAS, the chemicals can be broken down using certain inexpensive reagents at low temperatures, leaving behind nothing but benign end products, according to the researchers.
A team with members affiliated with a large number of institutions in Japan and one in Taiwan discovered an unknown structure in the galaxy 3C273 using high contrast imaging. They found a faint radio emission covering a giant galaxy with an energetic black hole at its center. They also found that the emission was generated as gas from inside the black hole and suggest the technique could be used to learn more about quasars.
In July, mankind marked a dubious milestone—by the 28th day of that month, humanity had collectively consumed all that the planet could sustainably produce for the entire year. Called “Earth Overshoot Day,” the date marked a tipping point that cannot be sustained year after year. It highlights the fact that humans are using more than the planet can produce and unless ameliorative actions are taken, shortages will become the norm.
In that same month, a team of physicists at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Physics and Astronomy used mathematical calculations to show that quantum communications across interstellar space should be possible. The finding, they note, suggests that interstellar communications with extraterrestrials should be possible—if any exist.
In August, a team at Cornell University reported on an experiment they had sent to the International Space Station that confirmed a theory by a team member who had recently passed away. The experiments showed that water droplets oscillate and spread across solid surfaces in microgravity—a finding that could have an impact on the way 3D and other spraying operations are done in applications here on Earth.
And a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications answered a 150-year-old chess problem last January—how to solve the n-queens mathematical problem. He found that the equation (0.143n)n could be used to describe the number of ways that queens can be placed on a chessboard such that none are attacking any other on n x n chessboards.
And finally, miners in Angola announced in July that they had excavated the largest pure pink diamond found in 300 years. The diamond turned out to be 170 carats and was named the Lulo Rose, after the mine in Australia where it was discovered. The find marks one of the rarest and purest forms of a natural stone. Its owners, the Lucapa Diamond Company and the Angolan government, announced that it will be sold as soon as possible to the highest bidder.
As a bonus, there was also a “top video” this year. Scientists at Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology used a supercomputer to simulate an alternative explanation regarding the origin of the moon. They ran hundreds of simulations and then used the results to create a video showing an object called Theia colliding with early Earth that left a moon-like body orbiting around Earth.
Speaking of videos, we launched our Science X YouTube channel earlier this year. Feel free to subscribe as we continue to bring you the latest and greatest research news in science, medicine and technology in 2023 and beyond.
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AMD RDNA3 desktop cards have now been pictured and videotaped up close.
It is time to check your favorite YouTuber or website for some initial Radeon RX 7900 series showcase. AMD has just lifted the embargo on unboxing content, which means that reviewers and influencers can now show their samples in details. What they cannot show yet are their performance numbers or take the cards apart.
Most, if not all of the creators received both the Radeon RX 7900 XT and Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs. This is a reminder that these cards are not identical, although they do look very similar. For starters, the full Navi 31 GPU is slightly bigger, and it has built-in RGB lighting. However, both card are dual-slot design and they both have two 8-pin power connectors.
AMD RX 7900 XT board number, Source: Overclock3D
Thanks to these new photos, we now have a confirmation that RX 7900 cards are not using the same board design, but this wasn’t exactly a secret since the XTX card features a wider PCB. The RX 7900XT is using D704 PCB while RX 7900 XTX is equipped with D702 board. Once the full reviews are posted, we will get the full details on the exact changes.
This is also the first time we get to see Radeon RX 7900 series right next to GeForce RTX 40 GPUs. Some unboxing coverage has focused entirely on this subject. Radeon cards are at most 2-slot design, which is clearly much thinner than RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 Founders Edition cards.
Radeon RX 7000 vs. RX 6000 vs. GeForce RTX 40, Source: TechPowerUP & ComputerBase
For those wondering where are custom RDNA3 GPUs, Overclock3D have you covered. They appear to be the only outlet that has showcased a custom XFX MERC 310 GPU alongside their AMD reference cards.
AMD RX 7900 MBA vs. XFX RX 7900 XTX MERC 310, Source: Overclock3D
The AMD Radeon RX 7900 series are set to launch next week on December 13th. AMD has put a price tag of $899 and $999 for its XT and XTX variants respectively.
TeaPakistan 108 for 0 (Shafique 54*, Imam-ul-Haq 52*) trail England 657 (Brook 153, Crawley 122, Pope 108, Duckett 107) by 549 runs
Pakistan openers Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq stood firm against England’s imposing first innings, navigating their way to unscathed half-centuries by tea.
The duo faced up to a spin attack comprising Jack Leach, Will Jacks and latterly Joe Root with class during a session which contrasted with England’s fireworks of the previous four but still contained flashes of excitement.
Imam launched Leach over the rope at deep midwicket to break a run of 11 dot balls from England’s premier spinner and Shafique advanced down the pitch to dispatch Jacks over long-on to bring up Pakistan’s fifty.
Shafique raised his half-century with a glorious drive to the cover boundary off Jacks, his seventh four of the innings, and Imam followed suit a short time later, pushing a Root delivery towards cover for a single.
Still trailing by 549 runs, the home side would have taken some encouragement from the pair’s unbroken century stand after a torrid time in the field.
England, with only one frontline spinner, served up 21 consecutive overs of slow bowling in all as captain Ben Stokes set attacking fields. Jacks fulfilled the part-timer role which helped secure him a Test debut when Ben Foakes failed to recover from the sickness bug which swept through the touring camp on match eve and Root reprised one he has played many times before with Liam Livingstone, England’s other debutant and sometime spinner apparently struggling with a leg problem and kept out of the attack.
It was all a precursor to James Anderson returning to try and extract some reverse swing. There wasn’t much on offer from the limited evidence of the one over he sent down before the interval but, having dominated the match up to lunch, England had still left the hosts with a mountain to climb.
While Pakistan made gains on the second morning, England piled on more pain as newcomer Harry Brook topped a towering scorecard.
England’s record-breaking innings came to an end on 657 with Brook the highest scoring of their four centurions. Having resumed on 101, he slugged his way to 153 in another staggering display by the visiting side.
The hosts managed to prise out the remaining six wickets by lunch, but not before England had added a further 151 runs, having already amassed 506 for 4, the most runs ever scored on the opening day of a Test match.
Stokes, who had taken England past that milestone with a brutal six over long-on off Mohammad Ali in the dying light on Thursday, unleashed another back over bowler Naseem Shah’s head off the second ball on Friday en route to 41 off 18 deliveries. He was out four balls later when Naseem took the pace off and took out the top of middle stump.
Naseem’s fellow quick, Haris Rauf, sat in the dressing room with his right quad wrapped in an ice pack after rolling over the ball while fielding the previous day. Meanwhile, legspinner Zahid Mahmood suffered agony of another kind, his four wickets coming at an eye-watering cost of 235 runs in 33 overs – the most-expensive analysis by a Test debutant.
Zahid was lofted for six down the ground and into the second tier by a skipping Livingstone from the seventh ball he faced in Tests. But he faced just three more before holing out to deep square leg off Naseem.
Jacks missed Naseem’s yorker on the first ball he faced and was struck on the pad. But Pakistan’s review for lbw failed when the ball was shown to be going down the leg side.
Brook took to Zahid in a remarkable over, which went for 27 runs. Playing just his second Test, Brook reverse-swept Zahid for six over extra cover, swept the next ball fine for four, and reverse-swept again for another four. He wasn’t done yet either as he hammered the fourth ball for four through long on and lofted next for six back down the ground. Brook tried to go big once more on the last ball and while he miscued and sent a top-edged back over his own head, the ball trickled away for another three runs to compound Zahid’s woe.
Two fours in three balls off Naseem’s next over, the second of which split keeper and first slip for four, brought up Brook’s 150, although he lofted an attempted sweep next ball to Saud Shakeel at deep square leg to be out for 153 off just 116 balls.
Ollie Robinson took England past 600 with a six off Zahid down the ground before Jacks picked out Naseem at midwicket off Mohammad Ali after a 30-run cameo.
Robinson failed to overturn his lbw dismissal off Zahid for 37 and Anderson miscued Zahid’s googly straight to Imam-ul-Haq at deep square leg to be last man out.
Valkerie Baynes is a general editor at ESPNcricinfo
University of Washington campus.Photo: Karen Ducey (Getty Images)
Diversity & Gender Studies
Diversity studies broadly tackle social constructs and systemic issues in society, examining factors like race, ethnicity, sociality, class, and age, among others. Gender studies focus on the social structures that have historically defined gender and current ideas about gender. Taken together, the two disciplines investigate the breadth of factors that define and shape society, as well as how we treat one another. Our No. 1 school for this degree area is the University of Washington, Seattle. Founded in 1970, its program in Diversity & Gender Studies (then Women’s Studies) is one of the oldest in the country. Social justice is key in the department’s programming, as well as concepts like identity formation and decolonization. Its alumni have won prizes like the esteemed MacArthur Fellowship.
The top three schools for diversity and gender studies are:
1. University of Washington, Seattle
2. University of California, Santa Barbara
3. Smith College
View the full list for Diversity & Gender Studies.
WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) – A deadly explosion occurred in NATO member Poland’s territory near its border with Ukraine on Tuesday, and the United States and its allies said they were investigating unconfirmed reports the blast had been caused by stray Russian missiles.
The explosion, which firefighters said killed two people, raised concerns of Russia’s war in Ukraine becoming a wider conflict. Polish authorities said it was caused by a Russian-made rocket, but Russia’s defense ministry denied involvement.
If it is determined that Moscow was to blame for the blast, it could trigger NATO’s principle of collective defense known as Article 5, in which an attack on one of the Western alliance’s members is deemed an attack on all, starting deliberations on a potential military response.
As a possible prelude to such a decision, however, Poland has first requested a NATO meeting on Wednesday under the treaty’s Article 4, European diplomats said. That is a call for consultations among the allies in the face of a security threat, allowing for more time to determine what steps to take.
The following is an explanation of Article 5 and what might occur if it is activated:
WHAT IS ARTICLE 5?
Article 5 is the cornerstone of the founding treaty of NATO, which was created in 1949 with the U.S. military as its powerful mainstay essentially to counter the Soviet Union and its Eastern bloc satellites during the Cold War.
The charter stipulates that “the Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”
“They agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area,” it says.
AND WHAT IS ARTICLE 4?
Article 4 states that NATO members “will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”
Within hours of the blast in Poland on Tuesday, two European diplomats said that Poland requested a NATO meeting under Article 4 for consultations.
[1/4] Zuzana 155 mm gun howitzer of NATO Enhanced Forward Presence battle group takes position before live fire exercise, during Iron Spear 2022 military drill in Adazi, Latvia November 15, 2022. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
HOW COULD THE UKRAINE WAR TRIGGER ARTICLE 5?
Since Ukraine is not part of NATO, Russia’s invasion in February did not trigger Article 5, though the United States and other member states rushed to provide military and diplomatic assistance to Kyiv.
However, experts have long warned of the potential for a spillover to neighboring countries on NATO’s eastern flank that could force the alliance to respond militarily.
Such action by Russia, either intentional or accidental, has raised the risk of widening the war by drawing other countries directly into the conflict.
IS INVOKING ARTICLE 5 AUTOMATIC?
No. Following an attack on a member state, the others come together to determine whether they agree to regard it as an Article 5 situation.
There is no time limit on how long such consultations could take, and experts say the language is flexible enough to allow each member to decide how far to go in responding to armed aggression against another.
HAS ARTICLE 5 BEEN INVOKED BEFORE?
Yes. Article 5 has been activated once before – on behalf of the United States, in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked-plane attacks on New York and Washington.
WHAT HAS BIDEN SAID ABOUT ARTICLE 5 COMMITMENTS?
While insisting that the United States has no interest in going to war against Russia, President Joe Biden has said from the start of Moscow’s invasion that Washington would meet its Article 5 commitments to defend NATO partners.
“America’s fully prepared with our NATO allies to defend every single inch of NATO territory. Every single inch,” Biden said at the White House in September.
He had declared earlier that there was “no doubt” that his administration would uphold Article 5.
Reporting by Matt Spetalnick;
Editing by Kieran Murray, Grant McCool and Bradley Perrett
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
An illustration showing the internal workings of heavier (left) and lighter (right) neutron stars, imagined as pralines. Illustration: Peter Kiefer & Luciano Rezzolla
Astrophysicists modeling the insides of neutron stars have found that the extremely compact objects have different internal structures, depending on their mass. They suggest thinking of the stars as different types of chocolate praline, a delicious treat—but that’s where the similarities end, at least as far as we know.
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Neutron stars are the extraordinarily dense corpses of massive stars that imploded; they’re second only to black holes in terms of their density. Neutron stars are so-named because their gravitational force causes their atoms’ electrons to collapse onto the protons, creating an object that is almost entirely composed of neutrons.
Neutron stars’ gravitational fields are super intense. If a human observer went near one, they’d be torn apart at an atomic level. Their gravitations fields are so strong that a “mountain” on a neutron star would stand less than a millimeter tall.
The recent research team constructed millions of models to try to discern the internal workings of these stars, which are remarkably difficult to study and, as a result, are more the domain of theory than observation.
The researchers found that lighter neutron stars—those with masses about 1.7 times that of our Sun and under—should have soft mantles and stiff cores. Heavier neutron stars have the opposite, according to the team’s findings, which were published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
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Luciano Rezzolla, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Theoretical Physics and who led the research, likened the stars’ structure to chocolate pralines.
“Light stars resemble those chocolates that have a hazelnut in their centre surrounded by soft chocolate, whereas heavy stars can be considered more like those chocolates where a hard layer contains a soft filling,” Rezzolla said in a Goethe University Frankfurt release.
The researchers modeled over a million possible scenarios for neutron star makeup, based on expectations for the star’s mass, pressure, volume, and temperature, as well as astronomical observations of the objects.
Modeling is a crucial means of interrogating neutron stars, because only a few contraptions on Earth—CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and SLAC’s Matter in Extreme Conditions instrument, for two—are capable of mimicking such intense physics.
To determine the consistencies of the stars, the researchers modeled how the speed of sound would travel through the objects. Sound waves are also used to understand the internal structure of planets, as the InSight lander has intrepidly done on Mars.
“What we have shown, by constructing millions of equation of state models (from which the sound speed can be computed), is that maximally massive neutron stars have a lower sound speed in the core region than in their outer layers,” said Christian Ecker, an astrophysicist at Goethe University, in an email to Gizmodo.
“This hints to some material change in their cores, like for example a transition from baryonic to quark matter,” Ecker added.
The researchers also found that all neutron stars are probably about 7.46 miles (12 km) across, regardless of their mass. That measurement is less than half that of a 2020 finding that the typical neutron star was about 13.6 miles (22 km) across. Despite that size, the average neutron star mass is around half a million Earths. There’s dense, and then there’s dense.
While the findings offer some insight about the diversity of neutron stars in terms of their consistency, the researchers did not investigate the stars’ ingredients or how they fit together. (If you’ve gotten this far, neutron stars are not actually made of chocolate.) Some suspect that neutron stars are neutrons all the way down; others believe that the centers of the stars are factories for exotic, hitherto unidentified particles.
But for the most part, these superdense enigmas remain just that. Thankfully, there are observatories set up to collect more direct data. Mergers (i.e. violent collisions) between neutron stars and with black holes can reveal the mass of the involved objects, as well as the nature of neutron star material.
Projects like NICER, NANOGrav, the CHIME radio telescope, and the LIGO and Virgo scientific collaborations are all teaching physicists about neutron star size and structure.
More observational data can be fed into models for better estimates of the stars’ aspects. Ecker added that very massive neutron stars (in the ballpark of two solar masses) would be particularly helpful in better constraining expectations of the physical characteristics of these extreme objects.
With any luck, we may soon get more details of the exact ingredients of these giant cosmic pralines—and how their recipes may differ depending on their size.
More: Extremely Massive Neutron Star May Be the Largest Ever Spotted
England 170 for 0 (Hales 86*, Buttler 80*) beat India 168 for 6 (Hardik 63, Kohli 50, Jordan 3-43) by 10 wickets
For all of England’s game-breaking talent, this win that takes them into the 2022 Men’s T20 World Cup final was all about doing the basics right.
They protected the short square boundary in Adelaide, giving away only two sixes until the start of the death overs.
They saw a chance to break open a chase of 169 in the powerplay, when the ball was coming on nicely under the lights, and seized it, smashing 10 boundaries while the field was up.
A score 63 for 0 in six became 170 for 0 in 16. Jos Buttler became a supernova. Alex Hales became a dream come true. Jeetega bhai, jeetega became Sweet Caroline.
The Hales gamble
One horrid rain-soaked night at the MCG, England played the way they swore they never would. The captain then came out and said “let it hurt”.
Pain is powerful, but just as well as it disorients, it brings clarity. In that it forces people to do everything possible to never feel it again. And that’s what’s happened.
Since that defeat to Ireland, where they kept second-guessing themselves, England have batted and bowled with ultimate clarity. The selection of Hales was one of ultimate clarity. He came with solid experience in Australian conditions. They needed that experience. Buttler made the call. And now here is the payoff.
A player who, for a long time, came to be known as a disruptive force within the England team was given a second chance. And he’s repaid their faith with an innings that broke the biggest superpower in the world of cricket.
Hales equalled India’s tally of sixes all by himself – seven – reducing their bowlers bowlers to rubble. He even backed himself to clear Adelaide’s massive 88-metre straight boundaries.
India played a hand in their own undoing as ESPNcricinfo’s Karthik Krishnaswamy notes here. They had batted against a bowling attack that allowed them to score a mere 64 runs off 46 balls square of the wicket in the first 15 overs. England though had no such restrictions. Their batters were given all the room they needed to access the short boundary. Hales and Buttler amassed 98 runs off 54 balls square of the wicket in their first 15 overs.
He must have known this because first ball he charged out of his crease, intent on negating the India bowler’s biggest strength. His swing.
These were the kinds of moves Buttler was making all night as he finished on 80 off 49.
He front-loaded Adil Rashid against India’s right-hand heavy top-order. And the legspinner took out Suryakumar Yadav.
He reaffirmed Chris Jordan’s faith in his yorkers. One of those toppled Virat Kohli off his feet.
He silenced a crowd of 40,094 – getting all revved up thanks to Hardik Pandya – with one single shot. A pull for four off Axar Patel.
Buttler was at the centre of a lot of good things – but most of them probably date back to the drawing board.
England won this game in the backroom. They contained a 360-degree player by taking pace off, because at least that way, you’re only defending one side of the pitch. The one in front of the batter.
Buttler backed Rashid to pull off this heist, and this was even after the legspinner had been punished for a boundary first ball all because he had dared to toss it up.
Rashid could easily have protected his figures tonight. Sat back and pointed people to his tournament economy rate (6.25). But no, he didn’t. He bought into the plan and picked up perhaps the most important wicket for England. Just his second of the World Cup.
Suryakumar is the man India look to for acceleration through the middle and the death. With him gone for 14 off 10, the game had changed.
Hardik rising There was only one phase of play that England lost in this game. And that was when Hardik decided enough was enough.
He was 13 off 15 at the start of the 17th over. India were 110 for 3. They had tried to disrupt England.
Rohit Sharma hit one of the shots of the night – a one-bounce four over extra cover off a near Jordan yorker – but he fell three balls later.
Suryakumar succumbed after hitting Ben Stokes for a six and a four.
All of this prompted Kohli to go into anchor mode, which meant the other guy had to go big.
And Hardik did. He brought out the helicopter shot against Jordan. He escorted a wide yorker for four past short third off Sam Curran. He flat batted short balls all around the park.
India made 58 runs in their last four overs. Fifty of them came off Hardik’s bat. This was his scoring sequence from the 18th over: 6, 6, dot, 1, 1, 4, 6, 4, 1, 6, 4, out (having trodden on his stumps while whipping the ball for what would have been another four). Five of those 12 balls were attempted yorkers. Many of them landed pretty close to the perfect spot. But Hardik stands so deep in his crease and brings so much of his wrists into his strokeplay that even they became boundary-scoring opportunities.
From looking like they’d be lucky to get to 140, India had 168. India had hope.
And then nothing. Or maybe its worse than that because now there will be questions about the way they played their first 10 overs (62 for 2 with only seven boundaries) against a team full of power-hitters.
England chasing history They invented the game. They hosted each of the first three World Cups. They absolutely loved cricket. And there were a few nice moments.
England + Cricket = broken-heart emoji
Now they want “I love you more”. Maybe even “I love you most”. Because England, through all the twists and turns and tragicomedy, are now just one win away from being the first men’s team in history to hold both World Cups at the same time.
It’s taken a lot of effort to get here. A complete rewiring of DNA, in fact. Seriously, if you take one of Buttler’s cells and put it under a microscope, you’ll just see a scoop over fine leg for six.
This is England now. This is the revolution that Eoin Morgan began and Buttler sustains. It got its validation at Lord’s on that fine summer’s day in 2019. But you know the thing with these things. Once is never ever enough.
