- ‘Past Lives,’ ‘A Thousand and One’ and ‘All of Us Strangers’ Top Gotham Awards Film Nominees Hollywood Reporter
- Gotham Awards Nominations: ‘All of Us Strangers’ Leads With Four Nominations Variety
- Gotham Awards Nominations: ‘All Of Us Strangers’ Tops Movie List; Ryan Gosling Gets ‘Barbie’ Nom With Budget Caps Removed Deadline
- 2023 Gotham Award Nominations IndieWire
- ‘Past Lives,’ ‘All of Us Strangers’ Lead Gotham Awards Nominations Vanity Fair
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Teyana Taylor Matches With Daughters in Jeans & Timberland Boots at ‘A Thousand and One’ Premiere – Footwear News
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Tree Rings Chronicle a Mysterious Cosmic Storm That Strikes Every Thousand Years : ScienceAlert
The history of Earth’s bombardment with cosmic radiation is written in the trees.
Specifically, when radiation slams into Earth’s atmosphere, it can alter any nitrogen atoms it slams into to produce a form of carbon, which is in turn absorbed by plants. Linking spikes in this carbon isotope with the growth rings in trees can give us a reliable record of radiation storms going back thousands of years.
This record shows us that the most colossal of these events, known as Miyake events (after the scientist who discovered them), occur around once every thousand years. However, we don’t know what causes them – and new research suggests that our leading theory, involving giant solar flares, could be off the table.
Without an easy way to predict these potentially devastating events, we’re left with a serious problem.
“We need to know more, because if one of these happened today, it would destroy technology including satellites, internet cables, long-distance power lines and transformers,” says astrophysicist Benjamin Pope of the University of Queensland in Australia.
“The effect on global infrastructure would be unimaginable.”
The history of Earth’s encounters with storms of cosmic radiation is there to decipher if you know how to look. The main clue is a radioactive isotope of carbon called carbon-14, often referred to as radiocarbon. Compared to other naturally occurring isotopes of carbon on Earth, radiocarbon is relatively scarce. It forms only in the upper atmosphere, when cosmic rays collide with nitrogen atoms, triggering a nuclear reaction that creates radiocarbon.
Because cosmic rays are constantly colliding with our atmosphere, we have a constant but very small supply of the stuff raining down on the surface. Some of it gets caught up in tree rings. Since trees add a new growth ring every year, the radiocarbon deposition can be traced back through time, giving a record of radiation activity over tens of millennia.
A large spike in radiocarbon found in trees around the world means an uptick in cosmic radiation. There are several mechanisms that can cause this, and solar flares are a big one. But there are some other possible sources of radiation storms that haven’t been conclusively ruled out. Nor have solar flares been conclusively ruled in.
Because interpreting tree ring data necessitates a comprehensive understanding of the global carbon cycle, a team of researchers led by mathematician Qingyuan Zhang of the University of Queensland set about reconstructing the global carbon cycle, based on every scrap of tree ring radiocarbon data they could get their hands on.
“When radiation strikes the atmosphere it produces radioactive carbon-14, which filters through the air, oceans, plants, and animals, and produces an annual record of radiation in tree rings,” Zhang explains.
“We modeled the global carbon cycle to reconstruct the process over a 10,000-year period, to gain insight into the scale and nature of the Miyake events.”
The results of this modeling gave the team an extremely detailed picture of a number of radiation events – enough to conclude that the timing and profile is inconsistent with solar flares. The spikes in radiocarbon do not correlate with sunspot activity, which is itself linked with flare activity. Some spikes persisted across multiple years.
And there was inconsistency in the radiocarbon profiles between regions for the same event. For one major event, recorded in 774 CE, some trees in some parts of the world showed sharp, sudden rises in radiocarbon for one year, while others showed a slower spike across two to three years.
“Rather than a single instantaneous explosion or flare, what we may be looking at is a kind of astrophysical ‘storm’ or outburst,” Zhang says.
The researchers don’t know, at this point, what might be causing those outbursts, but there are a number of candidates. One of those is supernova events, the radiation from which can blast across space. A supernova possibly did take place in 774 CE, and scientists have made links between radiocarbon spikes and other possible supernova events, but we have known supernovae with no radiocarbon spikes, and spikes with no linked supernovae.
Other potential causes include solar superflares, but a flare powerful enough to produce the 774 CE radiocarbon spike is unlikely to have erupted from our Sun. Perhaps there’s some previously unrecorded solar activity. But the fact is, there’s no simple explanation that neatly explains what causes Miyake events.
And this, according to the researchers, is a worry. The human world has changed dramatically since 774 CE; a Miyake event now could cause what the scientists call an “internet apocalypse” as infrastructure gets damaged, harm the health of air travelers, and even deplete the ozone layer.
“Based on available data, there’s roughly a one percent chance of seeing another one within the next decade,” Pope says.
“But we don’t know how to predict it or what harms it may cause. These odds are quite alarming, and lay the foundation for further research.”
The research has been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences.
Why Three Thousand Years of Longing Tanked at the Box Office
George Miller’s art house film starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba made just $2.9 million against a $60 million production budget
Activision Blizzard is giving a thousand game testers full-time jobs and pay bumps
Activision Blizzard has just announced that all temporary and contingent QA workers of its Activision Publishing and Blizzard divisions are being converted to full-time employees — meaning nearly 1,100 temp game testers are getting full-time jobs with benefits. They’ll be making higher wages, too, with a new minimum hourly rate of $20.
Here is a full statement from Jessica Taylor, Activision Blizzard’s vice president of corporate communications:
Across Activision Blizzard, we are bringing more content to players across our franchises than ever before. As a result, we are refining how our teams work together to develop our games and deliver the best possible experiences for our players. We have ambitious plans for the future and our Quality Assurance (QA) team members are a critical part of our development efforts.
Therefore, today we announced the conversion of all US-based temporary and contingent QA team members at Activision Publishing (AP) and Blizzard – nearly 1,100 people in total – to permanent full-time employees starting July 1. Additionally, we are increasing the minimum hourly rate for these team members to $20/hr or more effective April 17. These employees also will be eligible to participate in the company’s bonus plan and will have access to full company benefits.
This change follows a process that began last year across AP and Blizzard of converting temporary and contingent employees, including 500 at AP’s studios, to permanent full-time employees.
The change follows significant worker activism after Raven Software, an Activision studio known for its work on the Call of Duty series, announced in December that it was going to lay off QA contractors. Some workers went on strike in protest, and some have since created a union, the Game Workers Alliance. We’ve reached out to the Game Workers Alliance for their response to Activision Blizzard’s move. Epic Games announced a similar decision to convert testers into full-time employees earlier this year.
Activision has also been under significant pressure following the state of California’s July lawsuit alleging the company fostered a culture of “constant sexual harassment.” The Wall Street Journal reported in November that CEO Bobby Kotick has been aware of sexual misconduct allegations at the company for years. California’s lawsuit is ongoing, though a judge recently approved an $18 million settlement struck with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding its separate lawsuit.
The changes also happen under the shadow of Microsoft’s impending $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard.
Activision provided two emails about the changes to The Verge that Activision Publishing and Blizzard execs sent to their teams this week to alert them of the changes. We have included them below:
Email to Activision Publishing US employees from Josh Taub, Activision Publishing’s chief operating officer
From: Josh Taub
Subject Line: Update to QA
Team,
During the last two years, Call of Duty has expanded and evolved. Our development cycles have gone from an annual release to an “always on” model. In response to greater engagement, we’ve increased our live services business across all platforms. Our offerings now encompass season passes, operators, and the awesome content available in our stores. We’ve also grown our workforce and support across our studios, along with exciting new plans on mobile.
In light of these changes, and as we look to our ambitious plans for the future, we are further refining how our development teams work together. QA is, and continues to be, critical to our development success. We have amazing QA teams in place that work hard to ensure our players have the best possible gaming experiences – thank you!
I’m pleased to announce that we are converting all US-based temporary and contingent QA workers to full time employees (FTEs). We are increasing their hourly rate to a minimum of $20/hr and providing access to full company benefits, and they will be eligible to participate in the company’s bonus program.
This change follows the conversion of nearly 500 temporary and contingent workers to permanent full-time employees at Activision Publishing’s studios, and other ongoing conversions that have taken place in the past few months.
As Call of Duty evolves, we anticipate periods where the workload will fluctuate and exceed our expanded team’s bandwidth. With this in mind, we’re adding extra support for our team from external partners. This is a long-standing studio and industry practice that will give us more flexibility and capacity to support the business needs and enable our internal teams to focus on the results that most impact our business.
Together, we will change the game and take Call of Duty to the next level.
-Josh
Email to Blizzard employees from Mike Ybarra, the head of Blizzard
From: Mike Ybarra
Subject: Delivering Blizzard Quality: QA Full Time Conversions
Hi Blizzard,
We’ve shared with many of you the exciting experiences we’re bringing to players in 2022 and beyond. There’s so much happening across our teams – and this is just the beginning of our renewed focus in putting our teams and players at the forefront of everything we do.
Our ability to deliver great games at the “Blizzard quality” level our players expect is vital to ensuring we exceed player expectations. Over the last 6 months, I’ve had the opportunity to listen and engage with members of our QA team and we’ve had several meetings where I outlined my philosophy about contract/full-time roles. I want to thank everyone who helped educate me and expressed their views on how we can make Blizzard the best player-focused game studio. We all know QA is integral to our success in ensuring the best possible gameplay experiences.
Some time ago QA leadership started shifting their approach to staffing the team, converting more temporary and contract workers (TEAs) to full-time employees (FTEs), and using partners to support short-term spikes in workload. Today, this shift in approach is culminating in a conversion of all of the remaining U.S.-based TEAs/contractors in QA – more than 90 people across Irvine, Austin and Albany – to FTEs. We’re also increasing the minimum hourly rate for QA to $20/hour, and they will be eligible for our bonus program and increased benefits.
We have amazing QA talent, and I’m very happy to make this change so that we can focus and deliver for players around the globe. If you have any questions, please reach out to me, your HR partner or Wladia Summers.
Thank you for your feedback and helping us make this change.
Thank you,
Mike
Disclosure: Casey Wasserman is on the board of directors for Activision Blizzard as well as the board of directors of Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.
20 years after ‘A Thousand Miles,’ the Vanessa Carlton tune is still everywhere
Just ask Terry Crews, who can thank it for his big break.
Vanessa Carlton’s debut single — released 20 years ago on February 12, 2002 — was an undeniable smash.
Now, after 1,000 and 20, here are a few more “By the Numbers” facts about the distinctive earworm, whose enduring trajectory somehow touches ’60s pop, ’70s rock, and “America’s Got Talent.”
Before its release as a single, “A Thousand Miles (Interlude)” was included in “Legally Blonde.”
Five: Top Position on the US Billboard Hot 100 and Australia chart
The tune hit No. 1 on the Mainstream Top 40 and Adult Contemporary charts, and hit big around the world.
Three: Grammy Nominations
The tune had the misfortune of going up against Norah Jones and lost Record of the Year and Song of the Year to “Don’t Know Why.” It was also up for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s).
Three: Times the Song Is Featured in the ‘White Chicks’ Movie
The 2004 comedy starred Shawn and Marlon Wayans, but it gave actor-host Crews the catalyst to stardom he needed. “How did you know? I love this song!” he says enthusiastically when one of the title characters mockingly plays it.
One: Rock Music Luminaries Who Officiated Carlton’s Wedding
On December 27, 2013, Carlton was married — by Stevie Nicks.
June 25, 2019: Date of Carlton’s Broadway Debut
Despite never repeating the smash success of her first hit, Carlton continued to record — and even made it the Great White Way as Carole King in the musical “Beautiful.”
Three: Seconds in the Piano Intro
Unknown: Number of Possible Inspirations for the Song
Carlton says she wrote the tune for a now-famous movie actor, whose name or even gender she won’t reveal.
Where a Thousand Digital Eyes Keep Watch Over the Elderly
ITAMI, Japan — In his early 70s, Koji Uchida began to vanish.
The first time, the police found him sitting in front of a vending machine 17 miles from home. He began to go missing regularly, once wandering for two days before turning up at a stranger’s apartment, hungry and barely able to remember his name, his mind clouded by dementia.
At a loss for what to do, his family asked the local government to put Mr. Uchida under digital surveillance.
In Itami, the suburb of Osaka where Mr. Uchida’s family lives, more than 1,000 sensors line the streets, each unit emblazoned with a smiling cartoon figure bracketed by Wi-Fi squiggles. When Mr. Uchida went out walking, the system recorded his location through a beacon hidden in his wallet and sent his family a steady stream of alerts. When he veered off course, the family could easily find him.
Itami is one of several localities that have turned to electronic tracking as Japan, the world’s grayest nation, confronts an epidemic of dementia. The programs offer the promise of protecting those in cognitive decline while helping them retain some independence, but they have also evoked fears of Orwellian overreach.
Japan’s surveillance efforts presage the conundrums facing countries across the globe as their populations rapidly age: how to manage the huge expense of care for people living ever-longer lives, as well as the social costs to families and other loved ones.
The Japanese government sees the task as critical to the country’s future stability, envisioning fundamental changes to nearly every aspect of society, including education, health care and even, as in Itami, infrastructure.
The surveillance system there is one of the more extreme examples of this adaptation. Advocates for people with dementia, including some with the condition itself, have raised serious concerns about digital tracking, warning that the convenience and peace of mind offered by surveillance could threaten the dignity and freedom of those under watch.
The monitoring of older people has deepened questions of consent as electronic surveillance systems have become a fixture worldwide, applied broadly both in wealthy, open nations like the United States and Britain and in authoritarian ones like China.
Japanese people are intensely protective of their personal privacy, and many municipalities have adopted less intrusive forms of electronic tracking. As with any tool, the value of the Japanese systems will ultimately be determined by how they are used, said Kumiko Nagata, the lead researcher at the Tokyo Dementia Care Research and Training Center.
She sees promise in applications that give users more freedom by relieving fears that they will get lost. But she worries that the systems will “just be used as tools for dealing with ‘problem’ people” — anyone who has become a burden on a family or officials.
As the nation with the world’s oldest population, Japan is most vulnerable to the ravages of dementia: memory loss, confusion, slow physical decline and, most heartbreakingly, the ineluctable dissolution of the self and relationships with others.
Japan has the world’s highest proportion of people with dementia, at about 4.3 percent of the population, according to an estimate by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. A 2012 Japanese government study found more than 4.62 million residents with dementia, and some researchers estimate that a quarter of the Japanese population will have the condition by 2045.
Dementia is the leading cause of missing-person cases in Japan. More than 17,000 people with dementia went missing in 2020, up from 9,600 in 2012, the first year official data was reported.
That year, the government issued its first national dementia policy, and it has been grappling ever since with building a legal framework to better accommodate those with the condition.
One major outcome has been an increased focus on helping people with dementia “age in place” — instead of consigning them to nursing homes — in hopes of improving their quality of life and lessening the load on overtaxed care facilities.
But home-based dementia care can be a major source of anxiety for caregivers and those in cognitive decline. While many localities in Japan offer adult day care, it can be expensive and leave gaps in supervision for those most likely to wander.
National policies and messaging on accommodating those with dementia often conflict with social expectations and the behavior of local authorities. Families sometimes hide away people with dementia, fearing that erratic behavior could attract social stigma or inconvenience the community. For those who repeatedly wander, the police may pressure families to keep them at home or closely monitor their movements.
In 2007, a 91-year-old man with dementia wandered away from his home in central Japan and was hit and killed by a train. Its operator sued his grieving family for damages arising from the delay in service, and a regional court ruled in the company’s favor. The decision was reversed on appeal, but the damage was done for families worried that a slip-up could be ruinous.
Public perceptions of those with dementia have improved in the last decade, said Miki Sato, 46, who was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 43 and staffs a company that provides work opportunities for others with the condition. But there is still a tendency to put families’ needs above those of individuals, she said.
People with dementia “want to be trusted,” she said, adding: “The number of people who want to use these GPS trackers is pretty low compared to the number of people who are made to use them.”
For Ms. Sato, who helped develop an app with location tracking to assist people with dementia as they shop for groceries, “the most important thing is that it’s that person’s choice.”
Still, her fear of becoming lost is real: On bad days, train stations and street names blend together, and addresses dance at the edge of her memory.
“As my symptoms advance, I could imagine that I might use them myself,” she said of the tracking systems.
When people with dementia disappear, most Japanese communities still take an analog approach to finding them. Volunteer search teams are activated, and the authorities play alerts on local radio stations or on the public address systems found in most neighborhoods.
Some localities have turned to low-tech solutions, such as key chains with instructions on how to help those who are lost. But as more people with dementia live at home, digital solutions have become more alluring.
Those range from the more intrusive, such as security cameras and tracking devices that can be slipped into a shoe, to more passive options like QR codes that can go on a fingernail and alert caregivers when scanned.
Although localities and companies have made large investments in developing and promoting the programs, they remain sparsely used, in part because of ethical concerns.
The problem of informed consent in particular is a tricky one, especially in cases where it can be difficult to assess whether a person with dementia is capable of giving it.
The registration process for the systems is typically initiated by caregivers, and only as a last resort. Medical professionals then evaluate prospective surveillance candidates. They are not required to notify the individuals themselves.
Take, for example, the city of Takasaki in central Japan, which introduced its own GPS tracking system in 2015. Much like their peers in Itami, caregivers there can unilaterally share their wards’ photos and give the police permission to get access to their location data.
Itami’s mayor, Yasuyuki Fujiwara, said that when he first proposed a surveillance program, he was “worried about the perception that we would be spying on private citizens.”
Mr. Fujiwara initially pitched the idea as a tool for stopping crime and keeping an eye on children as they walked to school. Before long, cameras began popping up citywide, their locations chosen with public comment. In 2015, the city opened the program to the families of older people prone to wandering.
The cameras themselves don’t track people. They are equipped with receivers that communicate with small beacons carried by those enrolled in the program. When bearers of the beacons pass by, the device records their position and sends it to a smartphone app that an authorized caregiver can check.
Mr. Fujiwara offered assurances that the data could be viewed only by the family. Still, only 190 older people used the program last year, while nearly half of all elementary school students in the city of 200,000 were registered.
Mr. Uchida’s son, Shintaro, who works in the city hall, signed his father up in 2019. (His family agreed to discuss Mr. Uchida’s experience to further public understanding of dementia.)
His father was a proud man who believed in staying busy. After he retired, he immediately landed another job. In his early 70s, though, he began having trouble driving. His memory faded.
Mr. Uchida, now 78, had spent decades in Itami, raising his family and working at a printing company. But when he went on his daily walks, the streets were no longer familiar. During one month, Mr. Uchida disappeared three times, his wife, Keiko, said. The tracking program helped slow his wandering, but could not stop it.
In March, his family reluctantly placed him in a nursing facility.
His beacon now sits in his home, indicating only his absence.
Over a Thousand Powerful Cosmic Explosions Detected by FAST Telescope in 47 Days
An international research team led by Prof. LI Di and Dr. WANG Pei from National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC) caught an extreme episode of cosmic explosions from Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 121102, using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). A total of 1,652 independent bursts were detected within 47 days starting August 29, 2019 (UT).
It is the largest set of FRB events so far, more than the number reported in all other publications combined. Such a burst set allows for the determination, for the first time, of the characteristic energy and energy distribution of any FRB, thus shedding light on the central engine powering FRBs.
These results were published in Nature on October 13, 2021.
FRBs were first detected in 2007. These cosmic explosions can be as short as one-thousandth of a second while producing one year’s worth of the Sun’s total energy output. The origin of FRBs is still unknown. Although even aliens have been considered in models for FRBs, natural causes are clearly favored by the observations. The recent focuses include exotic hyper-magnetized neutron stars, black holes, and cosmic strings left over from the
Scientists have found that a small fraction of FRBs repeat. This phenomenon facilitates follow-up studies, including localization and identification of FRBs’ host galaxies.
FRB 121102 is the first known repeater and the first well-localized FRB. Scientists have identified its origin in a dwarf galaxy. In addition, this FRB is clearly associated with a persistent radio source. Both clues are crucial to solving the cosmic mystery of FRBs. The behavior of FRB 121102 is hard to predict and commonly described as “seasonal.”
While testing the FAST FRB backend during the commissioning phase, the team noticed that FRB 121102 was acting up with frequent bright pulses. Between August 29 and October 29, 2019, 1,652 independent burst events were detected in a total of 59.5 hours. While the burst cadence varied during the series, 122 bursts were seen during the peak hour, corresponding to the highest event rate ever observed for any FRB.
Such high cadence facilitates a statistical study of these FRB bursts. The researchers found a clear characteristic energy of E0= 4.8 × 1037 erg, below which the generation of the bursts became less efficient. The burst energy distribution can be adequately described as bimodal, namely, a log-normal function for low E bursts and a Lorentz function for high E bursts, implying that weaker FRB pulses may be stochastic in nature and the stronger ones involve a ratio between two independent quantities.
“The total energy of this burst set already adds up to 3.8% of what is available from a magnetar and no periodicity was found between 1 ms and 1000 s, both of which severely constrains the possibility that FRB 121102 comes from an isolated compact object,” said Dr. WANG.
More than six new FRBs have been discovered through the Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST Survey (CRAFTS, https://crafts.bao.ac.cn/), including one new 121102-like repeater. “As the world’s largest antenna, FAST’s sensitivity proves to be conducive to revealing intricacies of cosmic transients, including FRBs,” said Prof. LI.
This project has been part of a long-running collaboration since the commissioning phase of the FAST telescope. Major partner institutions include Guizhou Normal University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Cornell University, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, West Virginia University, CSIRO, University of California Berkeley, and Nanjing University.
Reference: “A bimodal burst energy distribution of a repeating fast radio burst source” by D. Li, P. Wang, W. W. Zhu, B. Zhang, X. X. Zhang, R. Duan, Y. K. Zhang, Y. Feng, N. Y. Tang, S. Chatterjee, J. M. Cordes, M. Cruces, S. Dai, V. Gajjar, G. Hobbs, C. Jin, M. Kramer, D. R. Lorimer, C. C. Miao, C. H. Niu, J. R. Niu, Z. C. Pan, L. Qian, L. Spitler, D. Werthimer, G. Q. Zhang, F. Y. Wang, X. Y. Xie, Y. L. Yue, L. Zhang, Q. J. Zhi and Y. Zhu, 13 October 2021, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03878-5
Over a thousand cosmic explosions traced to repeating fast radio burst
Using China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope, or FAST, researchers detected 1,652 bursts over the course of 47 days, between August 29 and October 29, 2019. This is the largest set of fast radio burst events so far.
Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are millisecond-long emissions of radio waves in space, and astronomers have been able to trace some radio bursts back to their home galaxies. Scientists have yet to determine the actual cause of the flashes. But the short bursts can produce a year’s worth of our sun’s total energy output.
Individual radio bursts emit once and don’t repeat. But repeating fast radio bursts are known to send out short, energetic radio waves multiple times. FRB 121102 has been known as a repeating fast radio burst since 2016.
During testing of the FAST telescope as it was being commissioned, researchers noticed FRB 121102 was frequently flaring and sending out radio signals, with a varying cadence. A total of 122 bursts were recorded during the peak hour, making it the highest rate ever for any fast radio burst. The 1,652 individual bursts occurred over a total of 59.5 hours spread across 47 days.
“This was the first time that one FRB source was studied in such great detail,” said study coauthor Bing Zhang, an astrophysicist and distinguished professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in a statement. “The large burst set helped our team hone in like never before on the characteristic energy and energy distribution of FRBs, which sheds new light on the engine that powers these mysterious phenomena.”
The energy of the signals “severely constrains the possibility that FRB 121102 comes from an isolated compact object,” said study coauthor Wang Pei, an assistant professor from the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a statement.
While some people favor the idea that aliens could be the source of these bursts, scientists are leaning toward black holes or hyper-magnetized neutron stars called magnetars.
Magnetars are dense stars, about the size of a city like Chicago or Atlanta, with the strongest magnetic fields found in the universe. Scientists think the bursts could originate from the magnetic field of magnetars.
Previous observations showed that usually when they repeat, it’s sporadic or in a cluster.
With this new impressive set of activity from FRB 121102, researchers can better understand the energy associated with these flashes. This could help scientists learn more about the potential source of fast radio bursts.
Fast radio bursts were only discovered in 2007, followed by the discovery that some of them can repeat in 2016. Now, researchers know they can have patterns as well.
“As the world’s largest antenna, FAST’s sensitivity proves to be conducive to revealing intricacies of cosmic transients, including FRBs,” said lead study author Li Di, a professor at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a statement.
China flooding: ‘Once in a thousand years’ rains devastated Henan, but there is little talk of climate change
Scientists have been warning for years that the climate crisis would amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and more frequent — and the latest catastrophes are seen as a timely reminder the threat could hit much closer to home than some might think.
But this week, with much of China’s central Henan province devastated by record rains, there was little reference to the broader climate crisis among Chinese officials, scientists or state media.
The silence is all the more conspicuous given how much Chinese authorities have emphasized the extremeness and rarity of the weather. At one point, the provincial capital of Zhengzhou was pelted by nearly 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain in an hour. In just three days, it had 24 inches (61 centimeters) — or nearly a year’s worth — of rainfall, according to the Zhengzhou meteorological station.
Zhengzhou’s weather station called it a “once in a thousand years” downpour. Henan’s water resources department went a step further, claiming rain levels recorded at some stations could only be seen “once every 5,000 years.”
Liu Junyan, climate and energy project leader for Greenpeace East Asia, said without the impact of climate change, “it is very difficult to imagine such extreme rainfall would occur in an inland city like Zhengzhou.”
But she said it is rare for Chinese weather and climate authorities to acknowledge a potential climate change connection in the aftermath of extreme occurrences, because such analysis requires more research and data. “Out of caution, they basically avoid talking about it,” she said. Such associations are also seldom reported by state media, she added.
That stands in stark contrast to how climate scientists and the media have responded in the West. While full analysis is needed to confirm to what degree changes to the earth’s climate have affected specific extreme weather events, many experts agree the trend is clear.
It is not that Chinese leaders do not admit climate change is real. On the contrary, President Xi Jinping wants China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, to become a global leader on the climate crisis. Last year, he pledged to hit domestic peak emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, earning international praise.
Chinese authorities are also wary that climate activism popular among young people in the West could spread to China. Last September, 17-year-old Ou Hongyi, known as the Greta Thunberg of China, was detained and questioned for hours by police when she joined the Global Climate Strike in Shanghai, an international event that attracted thousands of protesters at more than 3,500 locations worldwide.
That has made it difficult for the Chinese public to realize how they are personally related to the climate crisis, Liu said. Like some in the West, Chinese people tend to perceive the dangers of climate change as something remote — threatening only the melting ice caps in the Arctic or low-lying islands in the tropics. And although emission cuts and green reforms are often mentioned in state media and classrooms, many treat them as just another state policy for local governments to follow.
“For many, climate change is more of an issue about politics, about economic gains and costs, and international collaboration,” Liu said.
In the 18 hours before the evening rush on Tuesday, Zhengzhou’s weather station issued five consecutive red alerts for torrential rain. According to guidance from the China Meteorological Administration, the alert should have prompted authorities to halt gatherings, suspend classes and businesses — advice Zhengzhou authorities apparently failed to heed. As the deaths of 12 passengers trapped on a flooded subway gripped the nation, some have questioned why authorities didn’t shut down it down earlier to avoid casualties.
The situation could be worse in smaller towns and villages around Zhengzhou with far less contingency planning, rescue resources and media exposure, Liu said.
The last time Henan saw similarly intense downpours was nearly half a century ago. In 1975, a super typhoon dumped huge amounts of rain onto the province — one village at the center of the storm saw 63 inches (160 centimeters) of rain in three days. Overflowing rivers burst 62 dams, killing more than 26,000 people by the official count, though other estimates were several times higher.
“In Henan, the (disaster) unfolded too quickly in such a short time,” she wrote. “But in other places, it’s like boiling a frog in warm water — it might not cause any immediate life threatening danger, but in the long run, I reckon it’ll also affect how we live and work.”
Photo of the day
Diving in headfirst: Chinese athletes practice for the diving event in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday ahead of the Olympic Games, which begin on Friday. The Chinese delegation includes more than 770 people, including athletes, coaches and support staff, according to state-run news outlet CCTV — and more than 99% of the delegation is fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
Arrested over a children’s book
Police said in a statement that the five people — all core members of the General Union of Hong Kong Speech Therapists — were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to publish seditious material that incited hate toward the Hong Kong government, one of the crimes laid out in the security law.
In a separate news conference, however, police said they had been arrested under articles 9 and 10 of the law — which allow the government to regulate the internet, the media, and other communications to prevent “terrorist activities” and to “promote national security education in schools.”
CNN has reached out to police, but was not offered an explanation as to the discrepancies in the statements.
In the news conference, police said the storylines depicted in the children’s books “beautify illegal acts of political violence,” and urged parents to get rid of books that would “harm the mind of the next generation.”
Police denied accusations the law was being used as a “legal trap” for publishers or media outlets — but the arrests are deepening fears of censorship nevertheless. In the past year, authorities have ordered schools to ban certain textbooks that may violate the law, blocked websites on national security grounds, and revised film censorship guidelines to abide by the law.
Around Asia
- Myanmar doctors in hiding have set up underground networks of clinics to help battle the country’s Covid outbreak, with the military junta accused of using the pandemic as a weapon against the people.
- An Indonesian man is facing arrest after disguising himself as his wife to board a flight, despite reportedly testing positive for Covid.
- More than two thirds of Indians surveyed above the age of 6 showed antibodies against Covid-19, providing yet more evidence the virus may have spread far more widely than official figures suggest.
- The Australian government and a United Nations body are facing off on Friday over whether the Great Barrier Reef is “in danger” of losing its “outstanding universal value” — meaning it could lose its World Heritage status.
Chinese tech IPOs on Wall Street could come to a grinding halt
A wave of Chinese firms have reportedly backed off of plans to go public in the United States.
Tough US laws requiring audits for foreign companies and a growing crackdown by Beijing has made it increasingly tough for Chinese tech companies to approach Wall Street.
Since February, shares of overseas-listed Chinese tech firms have lost a staggering $1 trillion in value, marking one of the biggest sell-offs of all time, according to Goldman Sachs analysts.
And, after a disastrous IPO by ride-hailing giant Didi, TikTok owner Bytedance, social e-commerce platform Xiaohongshu, fitness app Keep and medical data company LinkDoc Technology have all either shelved or scrapped plans to list in New York, according to media reports.
It “may very well be” the end — at least temporarily — to US listings for Chinese companies, according to Doug Guthrie, a professor and director of China Initiatives at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management. He added that a “serious pause” on such listings could be in effect until US-China relations improve.
There are still ways for Chinese companies to tap overseas investment even if the US is no longer an option. They can go to Hong Kong, for example, which also has a diverse pool of international investors and a regulatory regime that meets international standards.
But the US market still has an irreplaceable role, as it’s bigger than any other financial market in the world, has a greater turnover in stocks and places a higher value on company earnings. That means a company listing in America may find it easier to achieve a higher valuation and sell more shares.
–By Laura He and Michelle Toh