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NASA is planning to send a tiny autonomous helicopter to Mars on its next rover mission to the red planet.
The space agency announced Friday that the helicopter will be carried aboard the Mars 2020 rover as a technology demonstration to test its ability to serve as a scout and to reach locations not accessible by ground.
The helicopter is being developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The craft weighs less than 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms), has a fuselage about the size of a softball and twin, counter-rotating blades that will spin at almost 3,000 rpm — a necessity in the thin Martian atmosphere. Solar cells will charge its lithium-ion batteries.
Flights will be programmed because the distance to Mars precludes real-time commands from Earth.
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From: MeNeedIt
The Eurovision song contest has concluded for 2018, with the top prize going to Israel’s Netta Barzilai and her quirky girl-power song Toy.
The Eurovision contest is an international tradition pitting performers from 43 nations against each other and decided by viewers all over the world. Along with European nations, Australia and Israel are allowed to compete.
Barzilai’s song, a fast-paced pop number, featured throaty singing and unconventional mouth noises, including squeaks, pops and clucks, as she protested to her listeners that she would not be used as a plaything. Meanwhile, her backup singers cavorted and preened in a manner that was, at times, reminiscent of chickens strutting and flapping their wings.
Some viewers responded negatively online to the performer’s antics, but in the end, her unorthodox performance and #MeToo-friendly message won the day.
The show, staged in Lisbon, Portugal, was not without other controversies: British singer SuRie was interrupted onstage when a protester grabbed her microphone. The protester was quickly subdued and SuRie finished her performance, with viewers online lauding her for her calm response and strong finish.
An Australian broadcaster narrating the event, however, accidentally uttered an expletive on the air, prompting a storm of chatter on Twitter.
A Chinese video service, Mango TV, was barred by the European Broadcast Union from airing the event, after it edited out of Tuesday’s semifinal a performance featuring a romantic dance sequence by two men. It also reportedly blurred out images of rainbow flags in the audience.
Some 200 million viewers were expected to view Saturday’s performances.
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From: MeNeedIt
A former Australian Rules Footballer of Nigerian descent is taking legal action against the sport for alleged racial, sexual and religious discrimination. Joel Wilkinson says the abuse he suffered was a “continuous breach of human rights” and insists that racism is rife in Australia’s most popular professional sport. It is thought to be the first case of its kind in Australia.
In 2014, Wilkinson appeared in an anti-discrimination advert sponsored by the Australian Football League, the AFL in which he spoke of the abuse he had suffered on the field.
“I actually felt like he was trying to make me feel like I was a little kid, a little black kid, a little piece of dirt.”
But the former Gold Coast Suns player now alleges that the League’s public stance on racism is very different from what he says is a “much darker reality.” He insists that his career ended abruptly in 2013 because he was so outspoken about the mistreatment he endured.
He is taking his case for compensation to Australia’s Human Rights Commission after talks with the AFL failed to reach an agreement.
“I have suffered extreme racism during my time in the AFL and post my career in the AFL until this very day,” said Wilkinson. “My career was taken from me. My rights were violated due to racism, religious vilification and racially-motivated sexual harassment that I experienced for many years.”
The AFL said in a statement that it was sorry the ex-player “had suffered experiences of racial abuse” during his time as a footballer, and that it was committed to resolving his complaint.
In 2013, a famous Aboriginal AFL player was taunted by a young spectator who called him an ape.’ The 13-year old girl later apologized for her behavior.
The competition is Australia’s most-watched professional sport. Matches in the city of Melbourne attract up to 100,000 fans. The Australian Football League has more than 80 Indigenous players, about 10 per cent of the total. It has also featured players with Jamaican, Lebanese and Sudanese heritage.
Rights groups have previously praised the League’s efforts to tackle racism in Australia.
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From: MeNeedIt
The Everett House, which serves as the Turkish ambassador’s residence, is a Washington landmark. It is also famous as the one-time home of the Ertegun family, the brothers who would go on to found Atlantic records and change the sound of American jazz and pop music. But the Erteguns also played a role in Washington history by standing with African Americans in what was, at the time, a deeply segregated city. VOA’s Ozlem Tinaz reports.
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From: MeNeedIt
Aardvarks are not the most attractive animals. They have rabbitlike ears, a kangaroo tail and a nose like a pig. But they are mammals, and that means they feed their babies milk. At the Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio, an aardvark mother is contributing to the largest collection of exotic animal milk in the world. As Faiza Elmasry tells us, the milk is used to learn about mammal nutrition and help create milk alternatives for animal babies that need to be hand-raised. VOA’s Faith Lapidus narrates.
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From: MeNeedIt
Advanced sensor technology can monitor a wide range of applications, from water quality to air pollution to energy use. Faith Lapidus tells us how a team of scientists at the University of Washington, with support from the National Science Foundation, is turning the sensors in smartphones into home health care tools.
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From: MeNeedIt
The Trump administration will not stand in the way of the development of artificial intelligence in the United States, a top official said on Thursday, while acknowledging that the burgeoning technology will displace some jobs.
At a White House summit that included companies like Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., technology policy adviser Michael Kratsios said the administration of President Donald Trump did not want to dictate “what is researched and developed.”
“To the greatest degree possible, we will allow scientists and technologists to freely develop their next great inventions right here in the United States,” he said, according to a copy of his remarks provided by the White House.
AI and deep machine learning raise ethical concerns about control, privacy, cybersecurity, and the future of work, companies and experts say.
Kratsios acknowledged that “to a certain degree, job displacement is inevitable.”
He added: “But we can’t sit idle, hoping eventually the market will sort it out. We must do what Americans have always done: adapt.”
The White House, which has previously clashed with scientists over issues such as climate change, conservation and budget cuts, said it would create a new committee on AI. It will be comprised of the most senior research and development officials across the U.S government, tasked with looking at research and development (R&D) priorities and better coordinating federal investments.
“We cannot be passive. To realize the full potential of AI for the American people, it will require the combined efforts of industry, academia, and government,” Kratsios said.
“In the private sector, we will not dictate what is researched and developed. Instead we will offer resources and the freedom to explore,” he added.
Intel Corp.chief executive Brian Krzanich, who attended the summit, said in a blog post that “without an AI strategy of its own, the world’s technology leader risks falling behind.”
AI is already being used in a number of fields. For instance, the National Institute of Health is exploring ways machine learning can improve cancer detections and treatment, while the General Services Administration is using AI to reduce the need for federal auditors, the White House said.
Among more than 30 major companies attending included officials from Ford Motor Co., Boeing Co., Mastercard Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
The Pentagon and various U.S. departments took part, along with senior White House officials including Jared Kushner and Andrew Bremberg, who heads the Domestic Policy Council.
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From: MeNeedIt
Two weeks of climate talks organized by the United Nations ended Thursday as countries failed to resolve differences about implementing the Paris climate accord.
The negotiations will resume in Bangkok in September, where an extra week’s meeting has now been scheduled.
The pact’s 197 signatories have set a December deadline to agree on the precise rules that countries have to stick to under the Paris agreement.
The lack of progress threatens to unravel three years’ worth of work to complete the Paris agreement, a landmark deal reached in 2015 that set a goal to limit fossil-fuel pollution in all nations for the first time and keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
Overall progress at the meeting in Bonn was very slow, with some countries such as China looking to renegotiate aspects of the Paris deal.
Patricia Espinosa, head of the U.N. agency that oversees climate talks, described the package being negotiated as “highly technical and complex.” It aims to ensure that the efforts countries claim they’re making in the fight against global warming can be verified and compared.
The administration of President Barack Obama was widely credited with helping to bring together the diverging interests of rich and poor countries in the drive to secure the Paris deal. His successor, President Donald Trump, withdrew the U.S. from the accord in June 2017. His administration has attacked climate science, saying it questions whether human activity is behind climate change, and is focused on boosting the fossil fuel industry.
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From: MeNeedIt
Young men who smoke are more likely to have a stroke before age 50 than their peers who avoid tobacco, a small study suggests.
Smoking has long been linked to an increased risk of stroke in older adults, but research to date examining this connection in younger adults has mainly focused on women. For the current study, researchers examined data on 615 men who had a stroke before age 50 and compared their smoking habits to a control group of 530 similar men who didn’t have a history of stroke.
Overall, current smokers were 88 percent more likely to have a stroke than men who never smoked, the study found.
Light smokers who had fewer than 11 cigarettes a day were 46 percent more likely to have a stroke. Heavy smokers with a two pack-a-day habit, or more, were over five times more likely to have a stroke.
‘Simple takeaway’
“The simple takeaway is the more you smoke, the more you stroke,” said lead study author Janina Markidan of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Smoking causes inflammation in blood vessels that increases the risk of blood clots forming, which in turn increases the risk of stroke, Markidan said by email.
“Although reducing the number of cigarettes smoked can reduce your risk of stroke, quitting is still the best choice for smokers,” Markidan added.
For the study, researchers focused on what’s known as an ischemic stroke, the most common kind, which occurs when a clot blocks an artery carrying blood to the brain.
Study has limitations
Among the stroke cases included in the study, 239 men had never smoked and 108 were former smokers. Another 103 men smoked less than 11 cigarettes daily, while 97 men smoked between 11 and 20 cigarettes a day and 40 men smoked 21 to 39 cigarettes daily.
An additional 28 men who had strokes smoked more than 40 cigarettes, or two packs, a day.
Most of the men who had strokes in the study were between 35 and 49 years old.
The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how smoking habits might directly influence the potential for a stroke in younger men.
Another limitation is that researchers lacked data on other tobacco products participants used in addition to cigarettes, which might influence their risk of stroke, researchers note in the journal Stroke.
Results hold true for younger smokers
The study team also lacked data on other factors that can independently influence the risk of stroke such as alcohol consumption or exercise habits.
Even so, the results suggest the link between smoking and strokes that is well established for older adults also holds true for younger smokers, said Allan Hackshaw, a researcher at University College London in the UK, who wasn’t involved in the study.
“It shows that smoking has a serious impact even when people are younger,” Hackshaw said by email. “Because treatments for stroke are much better now (fewer die from it straight away), many people who suffer one can have long-lasting consequences and physical disabilities at an age when they are usually expected to be working and physically active/fit.”
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From: MeNeedIt
Mexico on Thursday indicated time was running out to see whether NAFTA nations could agree a new deal in the short term while Canada struck a upbeat tone, saying top-level talks this week had achieved a great deal.
Major differences remain between the three members of the North American Free Trade Agreement after more than eight months of largely slow-moving negotiations launched at the insistence of Washington, which wants major changes to the 1994 pact.
A source close to the talks said U.S. officials have told Canada and Mexico that May 17 or 18 is the deadline for a text that could be dealt with by the current U.S. Congress. A second source confirmed that those dates had been discussed.
Need solutions before elections
Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said he expected to learn by the end of Friday whether a new deal was possible in the short term.
“I think we will be finding out through the day and tomorrow … if we really have what it takes to be able to land these things in the short run,” Guajardo told Reuters.
Top-level talks between the three members this week hit an obstacle as the United States and Mexico sought to settle differences over the key issue of automobiles.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer wants a quick agreement to avoid running into complications caused by a Mexican presidential election on July 1 and U.S. midterm Congressional elections in November.
‘Getting closer’
Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said the three nations had “made a lot of progress since Monday … we are definitely getting closer to the final objective.”
Freeland, speaking to reporters after meetings with senior U.S. legislators on Capitol Hill, sidestepped questions as to when an agreement might be reached.
Guajardo told Reuters that “we have suitcases for two weeks if necessary.”
U.S. President Donald Trump regularly threatens to walk away from NAFTA, underscoring uncertainty over the pact. Business executives complain that the lack of clarity is hitting investment.
Mexico has launched a counterproposal to U.S. demands to toughen automotive industry content rules and boost wages. U.S. President Donald Trump blames cheaper wages in Mexico for manufacturing job losses in the United States.
Many major issues remain
Many other major issues crucial to a deal are still unresolved, including U.S. demands for a five-year sunset clause, and elimination of settlement panels for trade disputes.
After meeting with Lighthizer on Thursday, Guajardo told reporters that the talks were not just covering autos.
“You cannot think that in a process of negotiations we’re going to solve one item without reviewing the overall balance of the agreement,” he said. “We’re going over all the items. It’s very important to stress that.”
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From: MeNeedIt
Cannes opened its doors on Monday for a festival that will show the new “Star Wars” spinoff but welcome fewer stellar names than usual.
Critics have said a jury including Cate Blanchett, Kristen Stewart and Lea Seydoux has more A-list acting talent than the films — many from lesser-known European, Asian and African filmmakers — vying for the Palme d’Or.
“Solo: A Star Wars Story,” will be the only Hollywood blockbuster screened during the fortnight, and even that will have already premiered in Los Angeles.
Netflix, which brought a raft of A-listers last year, is boycotting Cannes due to French rules that would stop it streaming movies for three years after a cinema release.
This will also be the first festival in years without Harvey Weinstein, the movie mogul once famous on the Riviera for his lavish parties, but now the subject of sexual assault allegations that have shaken the global film industry.
Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.
Festival director Thierry Fremaux denied that the lack of U.S. movies indicated Cannes was losing its appeal in Hollywood, where studios increasingly release big films late in the year to get visibility in the run-up to the Oscars, which are awarded in late winter.
“You should never judge on one year,” he told a news conference, while adding that the perhaps the famously harsh press corp at Cannes — where movies are often booed during media screenings — might be “scaring certain productions” away.
Hollywood Reporter critic Scott Roxborough said Cannes remained “the number one film festival for quality cinema worldwide” and that its selection of less commercial movies showed “Cannes is going back to its roots.”
“It’s the only place really you can have an unknown film … that within a hour of being shown everybody is talking about it … within a day, a week, it’s the biggest name in arthouse cinema,” he told Reuters.
There are 21 films in the main competition and dozens more vying for other prizes and screening out of competition. Here are a handful of the most hotly anticipated:
Everybody Knows (Todos lo Saben)
The festival opens with this Spanish-language family drama starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. The writer-director is the Iranian Asghar Farhadi who won foreign language Oscars for “A Separation” and “The Salesman”, taut character-driven realist movies that explore the divisions imposed by social class and national boundaries. “Everybody Knows” is competing for the Palme d’Or.
The House That Jack Built
Danish provocateur Lars von Trier returns after being ejected from the festival in 2011 for telling a news conference he was a Nazi who sympathized with Adolf Hitler — comments he later said were taken out of context.
Matt Dillon stars as a serial killer of women. “We experience the story from Jack’s point of view, while he postulates each murder as an artwork in itself,” according to notes in the festival’s program.
Hollywood Reporter critic Roxborough said the film, screening out of competition, is one of his top-three must-sees, calling it: “a movie that could almost be seen as an answer to the MeToo movement, in a really nasty way.”
BlacKkKlansman
Spike Lee returns to Cannes almost 30 years after “Do the Right Thing” was tipped for, but failed to get, the Palme d’Or. [“He said he was robbed, I agree with him],” said Roxborough.
“BlacKkKlansman,” the true story of an African-American police officer who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan, stars John David Washington (son of Denzel) and Adam Driver.
Lee says the story, set in the 1970s, is more relevant than ever in President Donald Trump’s America.
“Agent Orange refused to repudiate the Klan, the alt-right and the Nazis,” he told Hollywood Reporter. “‘There’s good people on both sides.’ That’s going to be on his gravestone.”
In competition for the Palme d’Or, “BlacKkKlansman” will open in U.S. cinemas on Aug. 10, one day before the anniversary of the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia where counter-protester Heather Heyer was killed by a car driven into the crowd.
The Man who Killed Don Quixote
Terry Gilliam’s two-decade struggle to make this film has entered movie folklore. An initial version, starring Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, was dumped after a series of calamities meant shooting had to stop.
Finally finished, it remains to be seen if this version, with “Brazil” star Jonathan Pryce as the Spanish knight who tilts at windmills, can be shown at Cannes due to a last-minute legal challenge from a movie producer who says he has the rights over it.
“It’s taken him so long to make this movie I think we all owe it to the man to go and check it out,” said Roxborough of the film that should, but may not, close the festival, out of competition, on May 19.
A Paris court on Monday heard an application for an injunction on showing the film, but will not rule until Wednesday.
Leto (The Summer)/ 3 Faces
Two films in the main competition will screen without the presence of their directors – both prevented from traveling by national authorities in their home countries.
Leto, about the Leningrad rock music scene in the latter years of the Soviet Union, is directed by Kirill Serebrennikov who is under house arrest pending a fraud case his supporters say is part of a government crackdown on artistic freedoms.
Iranian director Jafar Panahi was arrested in 2010 and banned from making films, but has continued to work, to international acclaim. Like his 2015 film “Taxi,” “3 Faces” features Panahi playing himself on screen.
The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 8 to May 19.
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From: MeNeedIt