The Bernese theoretical astrophysicist Kevin Heng has achieved a rare feat: On paper, he has derived novel solutions to an old mathematical problem needed to calculate light reflections from planets and moons. Now, data can be interpreted in a simple way to understand planetary atmospheres, for example. The new formulae will likely be incorporated into future textbooks.
For millennia, humanity has observed the changing phases of the Moon. The rise and fall of sunlight reflected off the Moon, as it presents its different faces to us, is known as a “phase curve.” Measuring phase curves of the Moon and Solar System planets is an ancient branch of astronomy that goes back at least a century. The shapes of these phase curves encode information on the surfaces and atmospheres of these celestial bodies. In modern times, astronomers have measured the phase curves of exoplanets using space telescopes such as Hubble, Spitzer,
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New mathematical solutions to an old problem in astronomy
For millennia, humanity has observed the changing phases of the Moon. The rise and fall of sunlight reflected off the Moon, as it presents its different faces to us, is known as a “phase curve”. Measuring phase curves of the Moon and Solar System planets is an ancient branch of astronomy that goes back at least a century. The shapes of these phase curves encode information on the surfaces and atmospheres of these celestial bodies. In modern times, astronomers have measured the phase curves of exoplanets using space telescopes such as Hubble, Spitzer, TESS and CHEOPS. These observations are compared with theoretical predictions. In order to do so, one needs a way of calculating these phase curves. It involves seeking a solution to a difficult mathematical problem concerning the physics of radiation.
Approaches for the calculation of phase curves have existed since the 18th century. The oldest of these solutions goes back to the Swiss mathematician, physicist and astronomer, Johann Heinrich Lambert, who lived in the 18th century. “Lambert’s law of reflection” is attributed to him. The problem of calculating reflected light from Solar System planets was posed by the American astronomer Henry Norris Russell in an influential 1916 paper. Another well-known 1981 solution is attributed to the American lunar scientist Bruce Hapke, who built on the classic work of the Indian-American Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in 1960. Hapke pioneered the study of the Moon using mathematical solutions of phase curves. The Soviet physicist Viktor Sobolev also made important contributions to the study of reflected light from celestial bodies in his influential 1975 textbook. Inspired by the work of these scientists, theoretical astrophysicist Kevin Heng of the Center for Space and Habitability CSH at the University of Bern has discovered an entire family of new mathematical solutions for calculating phase curves. The paper, authored by Kevin Heng in collaboration with Brett Morris from the National Center of Competence in Research NCCR PlanetS—which the University of Bern manages together with the University of Geneva—and Daniel Kitzmann from the CSH, has just been published in Nature Astronomy.
Generally applicable solutions
“I was fortunate that this rich body of work had already been done by these great scientists. Hapke had discovered a simpler way to write down the classic solution of Chandrasekhar, who famously solved the radiative transfer equation for isotropic scattering. Sobolev had realised that one can study the problem in at least two mathematical coordinate systems.” Sara Seager brought the problem to Heng’s attention by her summary of it in her 2010 textbook.
By combining these insights, Heng was able to write down mathematical solutions for the strength of reflection (the albedo) and the shape of the phase curve, both completely on paper and without resorting to a computer. “The ground-breaking aspect of these solutions is that they are valid for any law of reflection, which means they can be used in very general ways. The defining moment came for me when I compared these pen-and-paper calculations to what other researchers had done using computer calculations. I was blown away by how well they matched,” said Heng.
Successful analysis of the phase curve of Jupiter
“What excites me is not just the discovery of new theory, but also its major implications for interpreting data”, says Heng. For example, the Cassini spacecraft measured phase curves of Jupiter in the early 2000s, but an in-depth analysis of the data had not previously been done, probably because the calculations were too computationally expensive. With this new family of solutions, Heng was able to analyze the Cassini phase curves and infer that the atmosphere of Jupiter is filled with clouds made up of large, irregular particles of different sizes. This parallel study has just been published by the Astrophysical Journal Letters, in collaboration with Cassini data expert and planetary scientist Liming Li of Houston University in Texas, U.S.A.
New possibilities for the analysis of data from space telescopes
“The ability to write down mathematical solutions for phase curves of reflected light on paper means that one can use them to analyze data in seconds,” said Heng. It opens up new ways of interpreting data that were previously infeasible. Heng is collaborating with Pierre Auclair-Desrotour (formerly CSH, currently at Paris Observatory) to further generalize these mathematical solutions. “Pierre Auclair-Desrotour is a more talented applied mathematician than I am, and we promise exciting results in the near future,” said Heng.
In the Nature Astronomy paper, Heng and his co-authors demonstrated a novel way of analyzing the phase curve of the exoplanet Kepler-7b from the Kepler space telescope. Brett Morris led the data analysis part of the paper. “Brett Morris leads the data analysis for the CHEOPS mission in my research group, and his modern data science approach was critical for successfully applying the mathematical solutions to real data,” explained Heng. They are currently collaborating with scientists from the American-led TESS space telescope to analyze TESS phase curve data. Heng envisions that these new solutions will lead to novel ways of analyzing phase curve data from the upcoming, 10-billion-dollar James Webb Space Telescope, which is due to launch later in 2021. “What excites me most of all is that these mathematical solutions will remain valid long after I am gone, and will probably make their way into standard textbooks,” said Heng.
Atmospheric chemistry on paper
Heng, K. et al, Closed-formed solutions of geometric albedos and phase curves of exoplanets for any reflection law, Nature Astronomy (2021). DOI: doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01444-7
Kevin Heng et al, Jupiter as an Exoplanet: Insights from Cassini Phase Curves, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2021). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/abe872
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With 9 Words, Tim Cook Just Explained the Biggest Problem With Facebook
It’s really not a secret at all that Apple and Facebook aren’t friends. They aren’t even all that friendly of enemies. Sure, they’re mostly polite, but there’s no mistaking the degree to which there is hostility between the two companies.
It’s sort of a strange position for two companies that arguably depend on each other in some unusual ways. For example, Facebook certainly depends on the iPhone considering that mobile represents 98 percent of the social platform’s usage. Sure, a good portion of that comes from Android devices, but in the U.S. at least, the iPhone is probably Facebook’s most important platform.
Of course, Facebook is also important to the iPhone. If suddenly you couldn’t use Facebook’s apps, that would be bad for Apple considering that people genuinely like using Facebook, despite its problems. Many of those people would switch to something else if they couldn’t use it on their iPhone.
Still, the two companies can’t seem to resist the urge to take shots at each other every chance they get. For example, Facebook took out full-page ads decrying Apple’s decision to require developers to request permission before tracking users across apps and websites. That’s a big deal to Facebook considering its business is largely based on doing just that.
Tim Cook responded that he isn’t “focused on Facebook at all.” Which, as I wrote at the time, is both brilliant and brutal in its dismissal of the company.
More recently, Facebook threw shade at Apple over the latter company’s announcement that it was implementing a change in future versions of iOS in order to detect CSAM images uploaded to iCloud Photos. Will Cathcart, the CEO of WhatsApp (which is owned by Facebook) said that Apple’s decision represented a surveillance state and was the wrong approach.
We’ll set aside, for a moment, the fact that Facebook is widely considered the worst privacy offender in a tech industry that can’t resist monetizing user data at every opportunity. The bigger point is that–considering how much emphasis Apple puts on privacy–Facebook saw a chance to hit the company where it hurts most.
Now, Cook has another response, this time in an interview with The Australian Financial Review about tech companies and privacy:
Technology doesn’t want to be good. It doesn’t want to be bad, it’s neutral. And so it’s in the hands of the inventor and the user as to whether it’s used for good, or not used for good…The risk of not doing that means that technology loses touch with the user. And in that kind of case, privacy can become collateral damage. Conspiracy theories or hate speech begins to drown everything else out. Technology will only work if it has people’s trust.
That last part is important–those nine words about how “technology will only work if it has people’s trust.” That’s as clear an explanation of what’s wrong with Facebook as I’ve heard yet. And, while Cook doesn’t specifically mention Facebook, the part about “conspiracy theories or hate speech,” makes it pretty clear who he’s referring to.
The point seems to be that tech companies, specifically Facebook, are focused on building features and products, without regard for the impact they have on user privacy. It’s not hard to see how that is true. Facebook has reportedly been working on ways to analyze encrypted messages for the purpose of targeting ads at WhatsApp users–something it hasn’t been able to do so far.
The company has also gone out of its way to defend its use of tracking user data as the key to the free and open internet, and crucial to small businesses. Even if those things are true, it really just makes Cook’s point, which is that “privacy can become collateral damage.” If your business model depends on gathering up and monetizing as much data from your users as possible, it’s pretty hard to also protect their privacy.
It is also worth mentioning that Apple is facing its own criticism over how it handles user privacy right now. Of course, much of that pushback is related to the fact that Apple has long been a champion of protecting personal data, and its decision to include technology on the iPhone that can “scan” your photos for CSAM, feels like a shift in that promise.
It makes sense that Apple would want to shift the focus back to what it considers far worse privacy offenders while reminding everyone of its own privacy bona fides. Of course, the reason that matters is the reason Cook mentions: trust. Sometimes it seems like there is a huge disconnect between the way Facebook sees its role in the world, and the way the rest of us see it. It’s hard to give Facebook the benefit of the doubt if you don’t trust that it has your best interests in mind.
Beijing shoves Canada’s China problem into the path of Trudeau’s reelection quest
Another Chinese court ruling for a third Canadian, Michael Kovrig, is likely close behind — and it could land in the middle of Trudeau’s reelection bid, which he plans to announce on Sunday.
Trudeau’s main rivals are already talking about what they would do about Canada’s clash with China.
The opposition Conservatives are accusing the prime minister of being too soft on Beijing. The New Democrats say Canada must do more to rescue its citizens.
Campaign-trail rhetoric aside, Canada appears to have few options and little leverage in the cases of Spavor, Kovrig and Schellenberg.
The 2018 arrests behind this week’s ruling
The cases are widely seen as connected to senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s fight in a Canadian court against a U.S. extradition request.
Chinese authorities rounded up Kovrig and Spavor on spying charges in December 2018, nine days after Canadian police arrested Meng in Vancouver on the American warrant related to fraud allegations against her in the U.S.
Meng’s arrest angered Beijing and the legal ordeals of the Canadians are seen by many as retaliation for her arrest.
Close observers suggest it’s no coincidence the Canadians’ Chinese courtroom developments picked up as Meng’s extradition hearings started to wind down in Vancouver.
Spavor intends to appeal his 11-year sentence. The court date for Kovrig’s verdict has yet to be set, Canadian officials say.
A few weeks after Meng’s arrest, a Chinese court changed Schellenberg’s initial sentence of 15 years for drug trafficking to a death sentence. On Tuesday, Schellenberg lost his death penalty appeal and his case will move to a higher court.
Trudeau condemned the Spavor decision as “absolutely unacceptable and unjust.” The trial, he added, “did not satisfy even the minimum standards required by international law.”
The line Canada won’t cross
Solutions to the problem appear to be limited for middle-power Canada, which boasts about its adherence to the rule of law and respect for the independent judiciary.
Trudeau’s Liberals and the Conservatives, their main foes, have pledged to honor Canada’s extradition treaty with the U.S.
The detained Canadians are unlikely to see any change in their legal situations unless Meng is freed — a step Trudeau has firmly refused to take.
When asked whether releasing Meng to free the two Michaels was an option, Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong told POLITICO that his party, much like the Trudeau government, won’t bend on Canada’s commitment to the rule of law.
“We have to allow the judicial proceeding taking place in Vancouver to play itself out,” Chong said of the Meng case. “Interfering in that judicial proceeding is not an option.”
Playing politics with policy
The Conservatives have long tried to make gains on Trudeau’s China policy by accusing him of shrinking away from Beijing.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole has framed Trudeau’s approach to China as a “failure of leadership.” He has urged him to “finally grow a spine” and ban Huawei 5G gear from Canadian networks. He insists the prime minister lacks a plan to free Kovrig and Spavor.
Following Spavor’s sentencing this week, O’Toole told reporters that Trudeau “has been offside with respect to China” during his six years in power. On Tuesday, O’Toole called on Canada to boycott February’s Beijing Olympics.
“We have to stand up to China’s threats and belligerence,” Chong said. “By standing up to these threats, we make it clear to China that this form of hostage diplomacy is not going to work. The government was too late in waking up to that reality.”
Indeed, Trudeau has avoided open confrontation with Beijing in a delicate effort to free Spavor and Kovrig.
In dealing with Beijing, Trudeau has had to consider how much trade-dependent Canada relies on China, its second-biggest partner, to buy products ranging from iron ore to canola to lobster.
He’s had to counterbalance economic realities with political ones. The high profile of the drawn-out cases of Kovrig, a diplomat on leave, and Spavor, an entrepreneur, have made bilateral tensions a pressing concern for Trudeau.
After Spavor’s sentence this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau offered a hint at the dilemma.
Garneau stressed to reporters how the Trudeau government has worked to rally international allies to pressure Beijing on the cases of the detained Canadians and to end arbitrary detention in general.
“It’s important to send that message to China, so that if we do have relations with China — which we want to have — that they be done within international rules based law,” said Garneau. “Canadians understand the complex relationship that we have with China. I think that they understand that we are doing everything possible.”
Beijing took notice of the Canadian and international reactions to the Spavor and Schellenberg decisions. The Chinese government also sent a warning.
“A word for the Canadian side: the attempt to conduct ‘megaphone diplomacy’ and gang up on China failed in the past, and will never have its way in the future,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a statement posted on a government website.
Where the Liberals stand
The prime minister’s lack of a public, comprehensive China policy could make for a political target in the election.
A recent article in Maclean’s noted that Trudeau has had four foreign ministers since becoming prime minister in 2015, but none with a mandate letter that even mentions China.
Entering the election campaign, polls suggest a harder line toward China would be good politics in Canada.
Pollsters have found the public’s positive opinions about China plunged to new lows after the arrests of Kovrig and Spavor — and that any improvements in sentiment hinge on China freeing them.
Trudeau has called the arrests of the “two Michaels” arbitrary on “trumped-up” charges. But he’s been reluctant to take unilateral steps that might provoke Beijing:
— Nearly three years after it launched a national security review, Canada remains the only member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance yet to announce whether it plans to restrict Huawei gear from its 5G infrastructure.
— When Parliament overwhelmingly supported a symbolic motion in February declaring Beijing’s mistreatment of Uyghur Muslims a genocide, Trudeau and his 36 cabinet ministers abstained from voting.
— And in April, POLITICO reported that Canadian officials told organizers of the Halifax International Security Forum (HFX), a major defense conference to which Ottawa is a top sponsor, that the government would pull its support if its prestigious John McCain Prize went to President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan. Canadian Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan later denied the Trudeau government threatened to withhold funding.
Where the Conservatives stand
Chong argues Trudeau has failed to play hardball with Beijing even when the U.S. has pressed Ottawa to cooperate.
For example, he criticizes Trudeau’s inaction on Huawei gear and questions Trudeau’s decision to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank even though the Obama administration had urged Canada not to.
Chong, who was sanctioned in May by Beijing in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed on Chinese officials, said the Conservatives would take a more-forceful approach.
He said the Conservatives, if elected, would immediately ban Huawei 5G equipment, withdraw Canada from the AIIB and seek to join the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue partnership, which includes Australia, India, Japan and the U.S.
Chong said the Conservatives would also put an onus on Canadian importers to certify products they’re importing from China have not been produced using forced labor.
He also argued the Conservatives would work much more closely with allies, and especially with the U.S., when it comes to freeing the two Michaels.
“The U.S. is a superpower, it has immense tools at its disposal to put pressure on the Chinese authorities,” Chong said.
Where the U.S. fits in
President Joe Biden has vowed to confront China, which he’s called America’s “most serious competitor,” on any challenges it poses to U.S. prosperity, security and democracy. The president also said the U.S. would counter China’s “aggressive, coercive action.”
Since Biden’s arrival, the U.S. has opted for multilateral action to counter China’s aggression rather than the Trump administration’s go-it-alone strategy.
The new U.S.-led, coordinated approach should help Canada stand up to China.
Trudeau uses every meeting with allies — including with Biden — to put pressure on China to release the two Michaels.
“Human beings are not bartering chips,” Biden said in February after a virtual summit with Trudeau. “We’re going to work together until we get their safe return.”
Following Biden’s arrival in the White House, the Trudeau government carefully started hardening its approach to China.
— In March, Canada joined allies in imposing sanctions on individuals and entities allegedly linked to abuses against Uyghurs in China. It has called for Beijing to provide independent investigators “unfettered access” to the region.
— Earlier this year, Canada spearheaded an international effort to publicly pressure countries that arrest foreign nationals to gain leverage over other states. But the declaration on arbitrary detention doesn’t name China.
— In June, Canada joined 43 other states at the United Nations in signing a joint statement condemning the human rights situation in China’s Xinjiang region and raising concerns about Hong Kong and Tibet. Canada’s participation sparked testy exchanges between Trudeau and Beijing.
Trudeau’s predicament has even prompted other Western democratic leaders to look to him for his thoughts on dealing with China.
In June, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson invited Trudeau to lead the G-7’s discussion on the alliance’s approach to Beijing, a senior Canadian official told POLITICO. Trudeau also used the pull-aside at the summit with Biden to once again raise the issues of China and the two Michaels.
The heart of the crisis
The Canada-China standoff revolves around a complicated legal battle that has locked Ottawa into an almost impossible position.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, is accused of fraud in connection to her alleged violation of American sanctions on Iran. She has denied wrongdoing.
Her Canadian court process to avoid extradition and appeals could drag on for years.
The three Canadians are unlikely to see any change in their legal situations unless Meng is freed. U.S. Department of Justice officials have held talks with Meng’s legal team about the possibility of a deferred prosecution agreement, according to sources familiar with the conversations.
Garneau told reporters Wednesday that Dominic Barton, Canada’s ambassador to China, spent three weeks in Washington this past spring in talks with Biden administration officials about ways to secure the release of the two Michaels.
Kirsten Hillman, Trudeau’s envoy to the U.S., has also been working on a constant basis with American officials, he added.
“I can’t go into further details, but those intense discussions continue,” said Garneau, who later declined to offer more on whether the talks have involved the possible return of Meng to China.
In the meantime, Beijing’s pressure tactics have been feeding into Trudeau’s cautiousness.
Veteran Liberal MP John McKay said the two Michaels’ situations stifle Ottawa’s freedom to act when it comes to the diplomatic and security concerns related to China.
“That just shows you hostage diplomacy works, doesn’t it?” said McKay, who chaired Parliament’s public safety and national security committee.
He said Canada is uniquely vulnerable as an open society with a lot of its GDP dependent on trade.
Before the two Michaels were arrested, Trudeau made a strong push to deepen Canada’s business ties with Beijing with the hope of striking a free trade deal.
But Canada put the effort on ice last year as Trudeau’s foreign minister criticized China’s “assertive, coercive diplomacy.”
The stark reality is that Canada doesn’t have a ton of leverage — something that could change following the departure of the Trump administration.
McKay said Canada’s foreign policy has been summed up like this: Don’t get too far ahead of the Americans and don’t get too far behind.
“We have our limitations,” said McKay. “For four years, the Americans have been AWOL and now I think the Americans are back.”
Real life vs. reality
A senior Canadian government official told POLITICO last month that pundits, the media and politicians who pressure Ottawa to hit hard should be realistic about Canada’s heft in the world.
“There’s always this talk as if Canada determines its own foreign policy by itself and we don’t,” the insider said. “We like to say that we’re soft power or that we’re a midsized country — we’re not even really a midsized country.”
They added that Canada really does “punch way above” its weight. But that, regardless of who is in power, Canada’s foreign policy is successful when it has lots of trade deals and lots of multilateral relationships.
Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s ambassador to Beijing from 2012 to 2016, told POLITICO that if Ottawa wants to free the two Michaels, Washington clearly has to be involved.
“They have more levers,” said Saint-Jacques, who was Kovrig’s boss at the Canadian embassy in Beijing. “On our side, there’s not much that we can do.”
Biden’s personal commitment to work toward securing the Canadians’ freedom was received in Canada with, at least on the surface, relief. But delivering on the vow could prove far more complex.
Biden’s tough stance toward China — and his efforts to rally other Western democracies to confront Beijing — have added layers to the stalemate.
Arnold Chacon, interim chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, recently told a Wilson Center webinar that his government is treating the two Michaels as though they were Americans.
Indeed, Kovrig has a direct connection to powerful players close to Biden. Before his appointment, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was on the board of the International Crisis Group, which employed Kovrig. And Robert Malley headed the ICG before becoming Biden’s special envoy for Iran; he has campaigned publicly for Kovrig’s release.
Hillman told the same event that Canada is grateful for the vocal and very specific support the two Michaels have been getting from the top of the Biden administration. She said she has an engagement nearly every week with the administration or members of Congress about Kovrig and Spavor.
The Meng case is top of mind for Beijing as well. Late last month, a top Chinese official demanded the U.S. drop its extradition case against her.
China’s increasingly brazen arrests of foreign nationals highlights a tension that is squeezing democracies.
A source familiar with Canada’s work to lead dozens of nations in signing a joint declaration condemning arbitrary detentions as a tool of foreign policy said it was a response to the arrests of the two Michaels. But the statement’s failure to actually mention China highlights the hesitancy of many democratic governments to be anything but coy with Beijing.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials brought up the two Michaels’ peril in conversations with Chinese officials and with allies. Two former senior U.S. officials told POLITICO that the U.S. government used the Canadians’ detention to urge other nations against letting Huawei build their 5G infrastructure. The argument was simple: How could you deny that Huawei was an arm of the Chinese government, when Beijing was willing to take hostages and use extortion on the company’s behalf?
Publicly and privately, the Trump administration urged the Chinese to free Kovrig and Spavor, and said they were treating them as if they were detained Americans. The Biden administration has maintained that posture — thus far, without results.
At the end of the G-7 summit, Trudeau told reporters there was a very clear consensus among the leaders that what happened to the two Michaels should have never occurred.
“This approach is not just harming their standing in the global economy, but is also harming their own interests,” Trudeau said of Beijing. “It is counterproductive for China to be engaging in this and that is something that we are all speaking with one voice on.”
Betsy Woodruff Swan contributed to this report.
No gear, no problem! 3 ways to earn Bitcoin through cloud mining and staking
Bitcoin’s (BTC) rapid recovery above $46,000 has renewed calls for a $100,000 BTC price by the end of 2021, while the effects of China’s crackdown on the mining industry are slowly beginning to fade as the Bitcoin network hash rate shows signs of recovery.
One of the side benefits of China’s crackdown is that it has lowered the barriers of entry into the Bitcoin mining space, which has been shown to provide profits in both bull and bear markets.
Bitcoin mining is one of the few ways that investors can acquire BTC without directly purchasing it from the market, and is quickly becoming an industry dominated by big money interests that can afford the electricity costs and upkeep required to run a mining operation.
Here are some options available for the average crypto stacker to acquire more BTC through cloud mining contracts, crypto lending platforms and centralized exchanges (CEX).
Cloud mining contracts
The cloud mining industry has been around since Bitcoin’s early days, and it offers those interested in mining Bitcoin who lack the space, equipment and electricity required an opportunity to outsource their production.
Some of the more well-known companies that offered cloud mining services include Genesis Mining and HashNest, but demand for their services has exceeded their capabilities, resulting in all their Bitcoin mining contracts being sold out.
One of the current mining operators with available contracts is Shamining, a company based in the United Kingdom that has been in operation since 2018, and claims to have data centers worldwide with locations in California, Mexico, Cape Town, South Africa and London, England.
Through this service, users can rent mining equipment and pay for the associated costs of operating the units, while the company handles the physical housing, operation and maintenance. Once operational, generated proceeds can be withdrawn to a Bitcoin wallet specified by the user.
Current rental contracts include two options for GPU miners, which cost around $283 for 23,580 gigahashes per second (GH/s) or $1,066 for 94,340 GH/s, and another option for ASIC miners with a current cost of $2,571 for 235,849 GH/s of mining power.
All contracts indicate that they have profitability that starts at 143%.
Another option that allows users more flexibility regarding the parameters of their mining contract is ECOS, a company that grew out of the Free Economic Zone located in Hrazdan, Armenia, and has been in operation since 2017.
As seen in the graphic above, a 50-month contract for 9 terahashes per second currently costs $1,668 and is projected to result in a profit of 272.82% at a BTC price of $70,000.
It should be noted that all cloud mining services offer warnings about the high risks involved and that no level of profit can be guaranteed. This could be due to a variety of circumstances, including fluctuating electricity prices, Bitcoin price volatility and advances in mining technology that lead to substantial increases in mining difficulty, which renders older equipment obsolete.
Related: Bitcoin mining difficulty jumps a second time as miners settle offshore
Crypto lending services
A more traditional option available for hodlers to acquire more Bitcoin by utilizing their current stack that doesn’t require any further investment, like mining, is through lending services that offer a yield on deposits.
Nexo and Celsius are two of the most well-known lending platforms that allow cryptocurrency users to borrow funds against their crypto holdings or earn rewards for deposits.
At the time of writing, Celsius offers users an annual percentage yield (APY) of 6.2% for Bitcoin deposits, and Nexo offers a standard return of 5% on flexible-term deposits, while fixed-term deposits that go a minimum of one month can earn 6%.
A third option that provides users with a 4% return on BTC deposits is BlockFi, a crypto asset service provider that offers interest accounts and crypto-backed loans and has also recently launched a Bitcoin rewards credit card.
Related: What bear market? Investors throw record cash behind blockchain firms in 2021
Earn BTC from centralized exchanges
Several centralized exchanges also offer Bitcoin holders a return on their BTC deposits, albeit at lower rates than those mentioned above.
Binance, the largest CEX in the crypto ecosystem, offers users an estimated APY of 0.5%, while third-ranked exchange Huobi offers 1.32%.
The best yield offered on a United States-based CEX can be found on Gemini where users can earn 1.65% on their deposits.
KuCoin offers a more free-market approach to BTC lending where lenders can set the parameters of the loan terms, choosing between contract lengths of seven days, 14 days and 28 days while getting to set their own daily interest rates to compete with other lenders on the market.
The lowest rate currently offered on KuCoin is an annual rate of 1.82% on a seven-day contract.
As seen in the data provided, there are multiple ways to increase a Bitcoin stack as opposed to simply buying on the open market, but they are becoming scarcer as time progresses.
With large institutions, energy companies and governments beginning to develop Bitcoin mining infrastructures, smaller market participants are increasingly being squeezed out as cloud mining facilities are unable to keep pace with demand.
Bitcoin lending is increasingly looking like the main way BTC holders will be able to earn a yield paid in BTC in the future, while Bitcoin-backed loans offer a way for hodlers to access the value of their tokens without the need to sell and create a taxable event.
Want more information about trading and investing in crypto markets?
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Missouri girl spent 5 days on oxygen, illustrating the growing problem of children not being vaccinated for Covid-19
Baker told CNN Marionna’s symptoms began July 26 with complaints of headaches and feeling tired. Things kicked into high gear on August 2 when she said she couldn’t breathe. But after a trip to urgent care and being prescribed medication, Baker said her daughter could not breathe at all the next day.
She took Marionna to an emergency room, where a doctor told her she was being taken to Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri — about a 2½-hour drive from where Baker and her daughter live in southern Missouri. Baker said she followed her daughter in an ambulance because she was not allowed to ride with them due to Covid protocols.
“I was just praying that she knows I’m behind her and she’ll get here safe,” Baker said.
While she is now getting better, Baker said she regrets letting Marionna decide for herself not to get vaccinated and warns other parents to get their eligible children vaccinated.
“Get a vaccine so you won’t have to be in a hospital bed (and) can’t breathe,” Marionna told CNN through tears.
Dr. Wail Hayajneh, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the children’s hospital, said doctors have recently seen 10 to 15 kids each day with Covid-19 and none of them are vaccinated.
Hayajneh said the hospital has seen 22 cases of MIS since the beginning of the pandemic.
“I’m very sad because in pediatrics we believe in prevention, as an infectious disease person I think prevention is the core of dealing with infectious disease. Prevention is cheap, prevention is achievable, prevention in the United States is in the reach of our hands and we don’t do it,” he said.
Dr. Aline Tanios, the surgical unit medical director at the hospital, said things are definitely much worse than last year around this time when there were very few Covid-19 cases. Now, she said the hospital is full of children with respiratory problems and blood clots that are linked to Covid-19.
“It’s agonizing sometimes, especially when you see these kids spiraling down before they head to the ICU,” she said.
For Clarissa Capp, a registered nurse, she’s not only frustrated but heartbroken for children because the most crucial years of their lives are being spent in masks and learning remotely, which can contribute to mental health issues.
“It really hurts me because I wish they could live the childhood I lived and I hope future kids are able to get back to that,” she said.
For Marionna, the 14-year-old who spent five days on oxygen, she says she didn’t think it was necessary to get the vaccine. Her mother, Baker, said she didn’t push Marionna to get the vaccine because she, herself, was nervous but ultimately got the vaccine because of her underlying health conditions.
Marionna is now recuperating at home and will not be eligible for the vaccine for another 90 days, her mother said.
Wolfsburg, we have a problem: How Volkswagen stalled in China
BEIJING, Aug 9 (Reuters) – In late December 2019, managers at Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) headquarters in Wolfsburg realised they might have a serious problem in China, the company’s biggest market and ticket to its electric future.
Its flagship Passat sedan had fared badly in an unofficial safety test carried out by an insurance industry body which simulated a front-on driver’s side collision, a test that’s been widely used in the United States for around a decade.
The car was mangled. The crash-test video went viral, attracting millions of views and triggering a social media furore across China, where the German auto king’s success is built on its reputation for superior quality and engineering.
Volkswagen was not obliged to do anything – the Passat had passed the Chinese regulator’s frontal collision test, the same test that’s used in much of Europe, and one that the carmaker and many industry experts believe better reflects driving conditions in China.
Nonetheless, Wolfsburg acted swiftly, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Days after the test results were announced, it assembled a team of dozens of engineers and managers to work with SAIC-Volkswagen, the 50/50 joint venture that makes Passats in China, they said.
In early 2020, that team decided that strengthening metal components should be added to the front of all new Passats and a variety of other models made at the Shanghai-based venture, at a cost of about 400 yuan ($62) per vehicle, according to the sources.
That structural modification, details of which have not been previously reported, would amount to tens of millions of dollars for the hundreds of thousands of vehicles that would be affected at the venture a year, the sources said. It was a significant cost for a company that had said it was trying to trim manufacturing costs in China and globally.
The intervention in the face of online consumer activism underlines the importance of China, the world’s biggest car market, and one which Volkswagen is relying on to fund its 35-billion-euro ($42 billion) transition to electric vehicles and make good on its pledge to overtake Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) to become global EV leader by 2025.
Global automakers’ expensive renunciation of oil comes at a time when they can no longer count on the dominance they have enjoyed in decades gone by in China, where they’re feeling the heat from local gasoline and electric players challenging them on technology and design.
A Volkswagen spokesperson said it developed products specifically for the Chinese market and that the test failed by the Passat had simulated a head-on collision between two cars, a scenario it said was less likely in China than the United States.
“In China there are central barriers on the highways,” Volkswagen added. “In China there aren’t normally as many trucks or pickup trucks compared to U.S. traffic scenarios.”
Asked about the 400-yuan modification, the spokesperson said Volkswagen was constantly improving its products according to customer feedback, and to make them safer.
‘UTMOST IMPORTANCE FOR VW’S HEALTH’
It’s difficult to compare designs of Passats across Volkswagen’s markets as they are often fundamentally different vehicles built on different production platforms.
The new Passat in China was the first model to have such a structural modification when it was rolled out in mid-2020, according to the sources. It passed the insurance industry test that its predecessor had failed.
But the reputational and financial damage has proved more persistent for Volkswagen, which has been the top-selling foreign carmaker in China and has made largely healthy profits during its over three decades there, the longest of any overseas player.
Volkswagen’s profit per vehicle in the country has fallen from levels of 1,400-1,500 euros around 2015 to around 1,000 euros and even closer to 800 euros in most recent quarters, according to Bernstein analysts who described China as “of utmost importance for VW’s financial health”.
Sales of the Passat, and more broadly at the venture with SAIC Motor (600104.SS), have slumped – something Volkswagen has attributed mainly to the backlash over the failed crash test, as well as product lineup issues and a global chip shortage.
In a sign of the financial pressures facing the industry, one internal memo, seen by Reuters, showed SAIC-Volkswagen’s finance team ordered managers to cut costs at workshops by 30% in 2019, versus the year before, when China’s car sales dropped for the first time since 1990s.
Volkswagen declined to comment on the Bernstein profitability figures or the internal memo.
SAIC-Volkswagen’s revenue dropped 26% to 174.5 billion yuan last year versus 2019, while profit fell 23% to 31 billion yuan. Sales of the Passat, once one of the best-sellers in its sedan class before the insurance body’s test, fell 32% to 145,805 vehicles, according to consultancy LMC Automotive.
While the COVID-19 pandemic clearly played a big role, the decline at the venture was far steeper than the overall 6.8% fall in Chinese passenger vehicle sales in the same period, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association.
Moreover Volkswagen’s other main venture in the country, with local automaker FAW – whose products were not involved in the crash test controversy – saw sales rise 1.5%, though VW officials say it gained momentum by introducing SUVs and premium Audi models to the market.
The two joint ventures make up the bulk of Volkswagen’s Chinese business, accounting for all its local production. They have historically been close in numbers of vehicles sold, though FAW has taken the lead in recent years.
There’s been no respite for SAIC-Volkswagen in 2021, with sales falling 7.8% in the first six months compared with a year earlier when the pandemic raged. FAW-Volkswagen saw sales grow 23% while overall Chinese passenger car sales jumped about 29%.
CRASH TEST FRACTURED ‘A-PILLAR’
The C-IASI test that the Passat initially failed in 2019 was developed by a Chinese insurance industry body, the CIRI Auto Technology Institute, which was unsatisfied with the standard C-NCAP test conducted by CATARC, a government-backed vehicle testing agency.
It said many insurers felt that C-NCAP failed to distinguish in enough detail between vehicles in terms of collision safety, and started publishing test results in 2018.
Most foreign car brands received positive results in the C-IASI test, though even those that fared poorly did not receive the online backlash that was aimed at the Passat.
The C-IASI test subjects 25% of the car’s front to a head-on impact. It fractured the Passat driver’s side front roof support, known as the A-pillar.
The standard C-NCAP test hits 40% of the car front, which allows the impact to be better absorbed.
The CIRI and CATARC did not respond to requests for comment.
In the United States, a 25% frontal impact test is used by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a nonprofit group funded by auto insurers. IIHS tests are widely publicized, and automakers design vehicles to pass them as well as federal crash tests.
Volkswagen’s China chief Stephan Woellenstein acknowledged in January that the failed crash test and subsequent online backlash had triggered the decline in Passat and SAIC venture sales.
Last month, though, he said Volkswagen had fixed the problems revealed by the test, that the ructions of the episode had subsided and the carmaker’s Chinese business was recovering.
“We have once again clearly one of the safest cars on the market in this segment,” Woellenstein told reporters in July. “We will once again take up the old leadership of the Passat.”
But there is quite some ground to regain in the large family car segment.
A total of 47,480 Passats were sold in the first six months of this year in China, some way behind the 91,110 Toyota Camrys (7203.T) and 89,157 Honda Accords (7267.T), according to LMC.
The figures from the same period of 2019, before the pandemic struck, show how steeply the Volkswagen model has fallen away of late: 91,400 Passats were sold versus 111,968 Accords and 85,396 Camrys.
($1 = 6.4610 Chinese yuan renminbi; $1 = 0.8423 euros)
Reporting by Yilei Sun and Tony Munroe; Additional reporting by Jan Schwartz and Christoph Steitz; Editing by Joe White and Pravin Char
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
“Founding Father” of Lithium-Ion Batteries Helps Solve Persistent 40-Year Problem With His Invention
The “Founding Father” of lithium-ion batteries used SNS neutrons to confirm coating cathode material (blue) with lithium-free niobium oxide (light green) greatly reduced first-cycle capacity loss and improved long-term capacity. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL
In the late 1970s, M. Stanley Whittingham was the first to describe the concept of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, an achievement for which he would share the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Yet even he couldn’t have anticipated the complex materials science challenges that would arise as these batteries came to power the world’s portable electronics.
One persistent technical problem is that every time a new lithium-ion battery is installed in a device, up to about one-fifth of its energy capacity is lost before the device can be recharged the very first time. That’s true whether the battery is installed in a laptop, camera, wristwatch, or even in a new electric vehicle.
The cause is impurities that form on the nickel-rich cathodes—the positive (+) side of a battery through which its stored energy is discharged.
To find a way of retaining the lost capacity, Whittingham led a group of researchers that included his colleagues from the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY Binghamton) and scientists at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Brookhaven (BNL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL). The team used x-rays and neutrons to test whether treating a leading cathode material—a layered nickel-manganese-cobalt material called NMC 811—with a lithium-free niobium oxide would lead to a longer lasting battery.
The results of the study, “What is the Role of Nb in Nickel-Rich Layered Oxide Cathodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries?” appear in ACS Energy Letters.
VULCAN is designed for deformation, phase transformation, residual stress, texture, and microstructure studies. Load frames, furnaces, battery chargers, and other auxiliary equipment for in situ and time-resolved measurements are integrated into the instrument. As a time-of-flight diffractometer at the world’s most intense pulsed, accelerator-based neutron source, VULCAN provides rapid volumetric mapping with a sampling volume of 2-600 mm3 and a measurement time of minutes for common engineering materials. In extreme cases, VULCAN has the ability to study kinetic behaviors in sub-second time frames. Credit: DOE
“We tested NMC 811 on a layered oxide cathode material after predicting the lithium-free niobium oxide would form a nanosized lithium niobium oxide coating on the surface that would conduct lithium ions and allow them to penetrate into the cathode material,” said Whittingham, now a SUNY distinguished professor and director of the Northeast Center for Chemical Energy Storage (NECCES), a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center led by SUNY Binghamton.
Lithium batteries have cathodes made of alternating layers of lithium and nickel-rich oxide materials (chemical compounds containing at least one oxygen 
SNS produces neutrons with an accelerator-based system that delivers short (microsecond) proton pulses to a steel target filled with liquid mercury through a process called spallation. Those neutrons are then directed toward state-of-the-art instruments that provide a variety of capabilities to researchers across a broad range of disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, and materials science. Credit: DOE
To understand how the niobium affects nickel-rich cathode materials, the scientists performed neutron powder diffraction studies at the VULCAN engineering materials diffractometer at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source (SNS). They measured the neutron diffraction patterns of pure NMC 811 and niobium-modified samples.
“Neutrons easily penetrated the cathode material to reveal where the niobium and lithium atoms were located, which provided a better understanding of how the niobium modification process works,” said Hui Zhou, battery facility manager at NECCES. “The neutron scattering data suggests the niobium atoms stabilize the surface to reduce first-cycle loss, while at higher temperatures the niobium atoms displace some of the manganese atoms deeper inside the cathode material to improve long-term capacity retention.”
The results of the experiment showed a reduction in first-cycle capacity loss and an improved long-term capacity retention of greater than 93 percent over 250 charge-discharge cycles.
“The improvements seen in electrochemical performance and structural stability make niobium-modified NMC 811 a candidate as a cathode material for use in higher energy density applications, such as electric vehicles,” said Whittingham. “Combining a niobium coating with the substitution of niobium atoms for manganese atoms may be a better way to increase both initial capacity and long-term capacity retention. These modifications can be easily scaled-up using the present multi-step manufacturing processes for NMC materials.”
Whittingham added that the research supports the objectives of the Battery500 Consortium, a multi-institution program led by the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The program is working to develop next-generation lithium-metal battery cells delivering up to 500-watt hours per kilogram versus the current average of about 220-watt hours per kilogram.
Reference: “What is the Role of Nb in Nickel-Rich Layered Oxide Cathodes for Lithium-Ion Batteries?” by Fengxia Xin, Hui Zhou, Yanxu Zong, Mateusz Zuba, Yan Chen, Natasha A. Chernova, Jianming Bai, Ben Pei, Anshika Goel, Jatinkumar Rana, Feng Wang, Ke An, Louis F. J. Piper, Guangwen Zhou and M. Stanley Whittingham, 18 March 2021, ACS Energy Letters.
DOI: 10.1021/acsenergylett.1c00190
The research was supported by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Vehicle Technologies Office, and used resources at BNL’s National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) and at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source.
SNS and NSLS-II are DOE Office of Science user facilities. UT-Battelle LLC manages ORNL for the DOE Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.