text:
15th & 16th July Current Affairs Headlines
Author July 16, 2020 No Comments Current Affairs HeadlinesCurrent Affairs in EnglishCurrent Affairs in HindiCurrent Affairs Jan 2020Current Affairs QuizCurrent Affairs Quiz in EnglishDaily Current AffairsDaily QuizJuly Current AffairsJune 2020 Current AffairsJune Current Affairs in English
15th & 16th July Most Important Current Affairs Quiz: Video Discussion
The United Nations, at its General Assembly in November 2014, declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day. World Skills is proud to be part of global recognition and promotion of skills. This year's theme is Skills for a Resilient Youth in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond.
Indian Railways targets to become 'Green Railway' by 2030
The Ministry of Railways is set a goal for converting Indian Railways into Green Railways by 2030. The Ministry of Railways has taken a various measures towards mitigation of global warming and combating climate change.
Union Minister of Railways: Piyush Goyal.
Iran drops India from Chabahar rail project
Iran has dropped India from Chabahar rail project which comprises rail line from Chabahar port to Zahedan, along the border with Afghanistan. The Iranian government cited delays from the Indian side in funding and starting the project, for its decision of dropping India from the project. Now, Iranian Railways will go ahead without India's assistance and utilize around $400 million from the Iranian National Development Fund.
India hands over outdoor fitness equipment to Maldives
India has handed over outdoor fitness equipment for 61 islands across the Maldives under a cash grant of 8 million US dollars. The installation of equipment would involve the participation of all 61 island councils and further strengthen the idea of decentralization and a cherished ideal for President Ibrahim Solih's government.
The project is expected to contribute to the Maldivian government's 'healthy lifestyles' policy through easier access to fitness equipment.
President of the Maldives: Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
Capital of Maldives: Male; Currency of the Maldives: Maldivian Rufiyaa.
Govt approves Rs 107 cr for fire-fighting facilities at Haldia Dock
The government has approved Rs 107 crore for modern fire-fighting facilities at Haldia Dock Complex of Kolkata Port to ensure safe cargo operations, especially petrochemical goods. Kolkata Port is one of the top 12 major ports in the country.
It was approved by Union Minister of State (I/C) for Shipping Shri Mansukh Mandaviya. The modern fire-fighting facility will enable the Haldia Dock Complex in the safe handling of the movement of petro-chemical products.
The existing fire-fighting facility does not support the handling the LPG and other petroleum products as per the guideline of Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD) of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Tamil Nadu launches television-based learning programme for 10th standard students
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswamy has launched a television-based learning programme for the Tenth standard students. The state-run Kalvi television channel will initially air two-and-a-half hours of teaching programmes for the students during the weekdays. The move is aimed at helping students to continue their studies through the alternative method until the schools reopen.
Madhya Pradesh tops in implementing PM Svanidhi scheme
Madhya Pradesh comes first among the other states in the implementation of PM Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi (PM SVANidhi). The scheme is presently serving the beneficiaries of 378 urban bodies of the state.
Till now 8,70,330 street vendors have registered under the scheme, out of which 1,76,000 street vendors have been issued the identity cards and vending certificates. Apart from this, 15,500 cases have been approved in the state along with an interest-free loan of around 15 crores 50 lakh.
Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh: Shivraj Singh Chouhan; Governor: Anandiben Patel.
International Headlines
China launches "APSTAR-6D" telecommunication satellite
China has successfully launched "APSTAR-6D" telecommunication satellite via a Long March 3B carrier rocket from Xichang Satellite Launch Center.
The commercial satellite 'APSTAR-6D' has been developed by China Academy of Space Technology. The satellite aims to provide high-speed communications with a capacity of almost 50 gigabytes/sec. APSTAR-6D is a part of Chin's First Global High-Throughput Broadband Satellite Communication System.
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp Headquarters: Beijing, China.
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp President: Xu Qiang.
Andrzej Duda re-elected as Poland President
Andrzej Duda has been re-elected as the President of Poland. He won the presidential elections recently held in Poland after winning 51.21% of the votes, defeating the opposition candidate, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski who got 48.79% votes.
Capital of Poland: Warsaw; Currency: Polish złoty.
Sachin Awasthi honoured with Global Humanitarian Award 2020
Sachin Awasthi has been acknowledged with the "Top Publicist" award in the Global Humanitarian Awards 2020, in London. Sachin Awasthi is a person who organised a 5-day long clean Ganga information journey which was begun from Haridwar to Varanasi, it's also called as Vande Gange Swachhata Jan Jagran Yatra.
The Global Humanitarian Award intends to acknowledge the common men and women who are paying contributions to the betterment of society and the world.
World Humanitarian Drive (WHD) founder & chairman: Abdul Basit Syed.
World Humanitarian Drive (WHD) Headquarters: London, United Kingdom.
Gurbux Singh, Palash Nandi to be honoured with Mohun Bagan Ratna
According to ATK-Mohun Bagan club, Hockey legend Gurbux Singh and former first-class cricketer Palash Nandi will receive this year's Mohun Bagan Ratna.
The club has decided not to hold the customary 'Mohun Bagan Day' function on July 29 this year owing to the pandemic. July 29 was the date of Bagan's IFA Shield triumph in 1911 when they defeated East Yorkshire Regiment 2-1.
Ashok Kumar, a member of India's 1975 World Cup-winning hockey team, will be given the Lifetime Achievement Award along with Pranab Ganguly (football) and Monoranjan Porel (athletics). Joseba Beitia will get the best footballer (senior) prize. Sajal Bag (U-18) has been chosen as the best youth player.
ISRO Chief K Sivan named for Von Karman Award 2020
Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) Chief, Kailasavadivoo Sivan has named for Von Karman Award 2020 by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).
The Von Karman Award is known as the highest distinction of the IAA. Dr K. Sivan is going to receive an award in March 2021 at Paris France. The Von Karman award was established in 1982 and is the premier award of the Academy.
It is given annually to recognize outstanding lifetime achievements in any branch of science without limit of nationality or gender.
International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Founder: Dr Theodore Von Karman.
International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Headquarters: Paris, France.
Chhattisgarh awarded "Elites Excellence Awards 2020"
Chief Minister Darpan website and mobile app prepared for monitoring Chhattisgarh Government's ambitious Suraji Gaon Scheme and other flagship schemes, has been awarded "Elites Excellence Awards-2020" at the national level.
Chhattisgarh has been awarded this honour by the country's prestigious IT institution Elites Technomedia, New Delhi under the 'Digital India initiative'.
CM of Chhattisgarh: Bhupesh Baghel; Governor of Chhattisgarh: Anusuiya Uikey.
CM K Palaniswami honours with Paul Harris Fellow Recognition
Tamil Nadu's Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami has honoured with Paul Harris Fellow recognition by Rotary Foundation of Rotary International, Chicago.
The person recognised as the fellow will receive a certificate along with a lapel pin. They are also eligible to buy a Paul Harris Fellow medallion.
Governor of Tamil Nadu: Banwarilal Purohit.
President of Rotary International: Holger Knaack.
Agreement & MoUs
UNICEF INDIA partners with FICCI for #Reimagine Campaign
UNICEF INDIA has tied-up with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry's (FICCI), Socio-Economic Development Foundation (SEDF) to jointly develop UNICEF's #Reimagine Campaign.
The campaign intends to help the most helpless populations and children during the COVID-19 response and its after-math in India. The campaign will also assist in bypassing the potential long-term damage to business operations as well as employment pipeline.
President of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry: Sangita Reddy.
Business & Banking News
Qualcomm Ventures acquires 0.15% stake in Jio Platforms
Qualcomm Ventures has acquired 0.15% stakes in Jio Platforms. The Reliance Industries (RIL) announced the sale of 0.15% stake in Jio Platforms to Qualcomm Ventures. The transaction cost Rs 730 crores to the Qualcomm Ventures.
Jio Platforms Limited is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited and runs digital applications and holds controlling investments in technology-related units. It exists under the laws of the Republic of India and aims to provide high-quality and affordable digital services across India.
Qualcomm Ventures is a global fund of Qualcomm that invests in pioneering companies across the wireless ecosystem in various areas such as 5G, Artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of things (IoT), automotive, networking as well as enterprise.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Qualcomm: Steve Mollenkopf.
Visa partners Federal Bank to launch "Visa Secure"
Visa, a global leader in payments technology has tied-up with Federal Bank to launch "Visa Secure" to the bank's cardholders. "Visa Secure" is a modernized technology that provides a quicker and frictionless checkout experience to the consumers.
Adoption of new improved technology will enable the bank to focus on customer-centric digital solutions that make online shopping experiences seamless. Visa Secure is a global authentication program which is built on EMVCo 3DS (3D Secure) 2.0 protocol.
MD & CEO of Federal Bank Ltd: Shyam Srinivasan.
Mukesh Ambani's $72 billion fortune makes him richer than Elon Musk and Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin
India's richest man Mukesh Ambani surged past Silicon Valley tech titan Elon Musk as well as Alphabet Inc. co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to become the world's sixth-richest person.
The chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd., whose wealth surpassed Warren Buffett's last week, is now worth $72.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The sudden surge in Ambani's wealth since April is because his three-year-old telecom arm Reliance Jio has raised more than $15.6 billion in the last four months from Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, Saudi PIF (Public Investment Fund) and more.
Top Jeff Bezos(US) with USD 184billion, 2. Bill Gates(US) with USD 115billion, 3. Bernard Arnault(France) USD 94.5billion.
Hemang Amin appointed as interim CEO of BCCI
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has appointed Hemang Amin as its interim chief executive officer (CEO). He will replace Rahul Johri who recently resigned as the chief executive officer (CEO) of BCCI and his resignation was accepted by the BCCI office-bearers.
Vidhu Nair appointed as Ambassador of India to Turkmenistan
Government of India has appointed Dr. Vidhu P. Nair as the next Ambassador of India to Turkmenistan. Nair is presently serving as the Director in the Ministry of External Affairs. He is a Foreign Service Officer of 2002 batch.
Capital of Turkmenistan: Ashgabat; Currency: Turkmenistan Manat.
Rudrendra Tandon appointed India's next Ambassador to Afghanistan
Indian Foreign Service officer, Rudrendra Tandon has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Afghanistan. Tandon is presently serving as Indian envoy to ASEAN at Jakarta.
Afghan afghani is the currency of Afghanistan.
Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan.
President of Afghanistan: Ashraf Ghani.
Vikram Doraiswami appointed India's next Ambassador to Bangladesh
Indian Foreign Service officer, Vikram Doraiswami has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to Bangladesh. Doraiswami is currently serving as additional secretary in-charge of international organisations and summits at the headquarters of the external affairs ministry in Delhi.
IIT Kanpur develops UV sanitizing device 'SHUDH'
IIT Kanpur has developed an Ultraviolet (UV) sanitizing device named Smartphone operated Handy Ultraviolet Disinfection Helper (SHUDH). This device has 6 UV lights of 15 Watts each that can be individually monitored from a distance. Initial testing has proved that the device at its full operation can disinfect a 10×10 squared feet room in about 15 minutes.
Prof. Abhay Karandikar is currently serving as the Director of IIT Kanpur.
Russian varsity claims successful trials of world's first Covid-19 vaccine
A Russian Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University has claimed the clinical trials of the world's first vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on volunteers have been completed successfully.
The vaccine was produced by Russia's Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. The trials in the first stage comprised 18 volunteers and the second one involved 20 people. All of them were kept in isolation in a hospital for 28 days.
President: Vladimir Putin
Capital: Moscow
Currency: Russian Ruble
Prime minister: Mikhail Mishustin
Former Socceroos captain Mile Jedinak retires from sport
Former Socceroos captain Mile Jedinak has announced his retirement from the sport. Socceroos is the official nickname of the Australia national soccer team that represents Australia in international men's soccer.
Jedinak made his national team debut in 2008 and made 79 appearances for Australia. He also won the 2015 Asian Cup title for the team. He has appeared for his national side in three World Cups.
Wim Suurbier, Dutch Football Legend, passes away
Netherlands and Ajax defender Wim Suurbier, a key member of the 1970s Dutch squad who played in two World Cup finals, passed away at the age of 75. With Ajax from 1964 to 1977, he won three European Cups and seven national titles.
Wim Suurbier was also part of the Dutch sides that lost in the 1974 and 1978 World Cup finals, to West Germany and Argentina. He ended his career with 60 caps.
Previous Previous post: Hindu Editorial with Vocabulary: July Month – Day 9
Next Next post: 15th & 16th July Current Affairs Headlines in Hindi


Magic Soap is one of our favorite and most popular products. Its effects are almost immediate and very tangible. Like our moisturizers and lip balms, Magic Soap is rich in naturally occurring antioxidants and bioflavonoids that nourish skin and boost collagen production.
softens dry, cracked skin on feet, elbows, hands, etc.
The first time you wash with Magic Soap, you may notice a slight stickiness on your skin after rinsing. The flower lipids in this product will initially exfoliate multiple layers of dead skin cells as well as the sticky sebum and metabolic waste that keeps them attached to live skin. If you experience a slight stickiness after rinsing, simply wash the area 2-3 times consecutively to thoroughly exfoliate skin.
To use: Apply sparingly to wet skin. Gently massage product onto face, being sure to spend a few extra seconds on problem areas. Rinse with lukewarm water. Follow immediately with one of our moisturizers. For normal skin, we recommend using the soap 4 to 5 times per week. For blemished, active, oily and/or acne-prone skin, use daily until some balance is achieved. Magic Soap can also be used as a body wash. A soft linen washcloth is recommended.
Due to the totally natural and handmade qualities of Magic Soap, texture can range from a thick liquid to firmish semi-solid.
Contains: pure castile soap with hemp oil, flower lipids, essential oils. Vegan.
Magic Soap is packaged in amber colored glass. Necessary precaution needs to be taken when used in the bath or shower to avoid injury from broken glass. Magic Soap is not recommended for kids under 12. Their skin typically does need exfoliation, therefore the soap could be too stimulating and/or irritating.
Our products don't contain any emulsifiers, thickeners, stabilizers, binders or preservatives. The oils and lipids used in our soap are all natural and will respond to temperature changes, becoming harder when cool and softer when warm. Small lumps here and there are totally normal. None of this affects the efficacy of our products.
What's Magic Soap all about?
Listen to this informative talk by Leilihana that explains the benefits of our super unique cleanser.


text:
1929 Bugatti 38 Price Upon Request
1931 Bugatti Type 38
By the early 1930s Ettore Bugatti had established an unrivalled reputation for building cars with outstanding performance on road or track. Indeed, the world's greatest racing drivers enjoyed countless successes aboard the Molsheim factory's products and often chose them for their everyday transport. Although Bugatti is best remembered for its racing models, most of the 6,000-or-so cars produced at the Molsheim factory were touring cars of sporting character.
This particular example is an exquisite, fine and perfectly detailed representation of the most elegant period of the Grand Routier Bugatti, a style dating from the late 1920s. The Bugatti was delivered new to Paris in 1931 to a Monsieur Gilbert, fitted with a faux cabriolet coupe body by Gangloff of Colmar to Design Number 749G. Not much is known of its earlier life, but we do know that by the 1970s it was owned by Uwe Hucke. The Bugatti was entrusted to specialist restorer Helmut Feierbrand, who under instruction from Hucke constructed a Type 44 Fiacre body which is fitted to the car to this day. Furthermore the car was fitted with a Type 44 radiator, cambox, single plug type 44 cylinder blocks and a Type 38 gearbox.
The car is overpopulated with fine and exquisite detailing, such as a full set of Jaeger cable and chronometric clocks encased in the typical period oval-shaped instrumentation binnacle, alongside a traditional light-sprung four-spoke steering wheel, betraying the car's early competition genetics and very much in the style of racing cars of the period. The interior is beautifully finished in stunning high-quality fawn leather, with the appropriate door pulls and interior furniture, including fine woven grab handles to the rear.
Externally, in line with its stunning bespoke interior, the car boasts all of the highest quality features, typical of the world's most expensive cars of this period, including a very expensive Marshall lighting equipment throughout, with polished aluminium ACE-style wheel discs, a beautiful hand-made rear leather baggage trunk mounted behind the coachwork, and a sideboard-mounted additional petrol can in untarnishable finish, appropriately completed with the iconic initials of one of the world's greatest motor car designers, Etorre Bugatti, which to this day remains a trademark associated with the brand.
For any Bugatti collector or historic motoring enthusiast, opening the bonnet of an 8-cylinder Bugatti has become an unforgettable experience, and the straight 8 engine fitted to this machine definitely provides such instant euphoria. From the exquisite machine-turned finishes through to the stunning and practical use of period high technology alloys, the under bonnet of this car typifies what is often said about Bugatti engines, in that "it's not an engine, it's a cathedral".
This wonderful machine is accompanied with sundry paperwork and documentation which is available for inspection upon request. A quite magnificent representation of the heady and exciting world of ultra-high quality motor cars during the exciting inter-war years.
View 1931 Bugatti Type 38 on www.coys.co.uk for further details.
COYS - Showroom Contact Location
237 - 241 Lower Mortlake Road Richmond Phone +44 (0) 208 6147 888 City London
TW9 2LL Fax +44 (0) 208 6147 889 State London
United Kingdom Mobile Country United Kingdom
Car 1929 Bugatti 38

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Mitski's 'Be The Cowboy' Is A Monument To Devastating Melancholy And Swaggering Daydreams
by: Leah Lu January 9, 2019
Getty Images/Uproxx Studios
Mitski's Be The Cowboy landed at No. 3 on our 2018 critic poll's best albums list. Check out the poll here, and our thoughts on the album's impact below.
There are countless pieces floating around the internet written about Mitski's Be The Cowboy, unsurprisingly so –- the musician's brilliant fifth studio album has amassed critical acclaim, consistently topping year-end lists. Be The Cowboy is the musical embodiment of a power move, an album that comes with sparkling, unmissable notes of rebellion.
Upon first listen, one might initially assume that each track was birthed from one of Mistki's own diary entries –- Confessional! Courageously raw! Deeply personal! However, she's described Be The Cowboy as a meticulous character study and "experiment in narrative and fiction." And when you might be inclined to pine a lover to the receiving end of her laments, you learn that she maybe wasn't singing to another person all along: The record's opening track, "Geyser," showcases Mitski laying her heart open: "You're my number one / You're the one I want," she croons, but she's doing so with a fire in her eyes, directing her words towards what she deems her closest relationship — her music career.
Mitski has also given ample insight into what it means to "be the cowboy" figuratively. In an interview with Trevor Noah, she likened the cowboy in the album's title to the kind of Clint Eastwood, Marlboro commercial trope: "There's such an arrogance and a freedom to it that is so appealing to me, especially because I'm an Asian woman and I think I walk into a room and feel like I have to apologize for existing," she said. "This album's protagonist is someone like me who feels like they want to channel or embody that energy of a cowboy."
She agreed that Asian culture might be one of the furthest things from "cowboyness" — "The idea of a cowboy is so American because of the idea of a man riding into town, wrecking sh*t, and then walking out like he's the hero," she continued. Sonically, the record exudes that insouciant power. Her lyrical stories ride galloping disco beats, beats that churn forward like a pulse. On one of the album's most dance-y songs, "Nobody," Mitski divulges the sensation of total isolation and repulsion: "I've been big and small and big and small and big and small again / And still nobody wants me," she sings, and even as her voice lets off into a dissonant, deluded daze, the music keeps pumping. Some of the most cutting lines are sung on "A Pearl": "You're growing tired of me," and "It's just that I fell in love with a war / Nobody told me it ended / And it left a pearl in my head / And I roll it around every night just to watch it glow." It's devastating, but it still beckons you to throw your arms up and spin until it all goes black.
Up until this point, I had listened to Mistki's earlier albums with a pretty similar disposition, usually taking on some pitiful posture of mourning. Hearing her snarl on tracks like "First Love / Late Spring" from 2014's Bury Me At Makeout Creek or "Francis Forever" and "Your Best American Girl" from Puberty 2 introduced me to new emotional landscapes as I first began to consciously reckon with my own Asian-American identity, my pervasive loneliness, and how the two of those more often than not played into each other. I'd wallow, and then I'd turn on Mitski and almost instantly feel buoyed — there was someone out there who looked like me, and felt things like me, and articulated those nuanced frustrations in a way that made me feel slyly victorious. And that was enough.
As the last trash fire year folds into itself and we collectively tread forward with what leftover hope seems plausible, I've been waxing poetic in my journal and reading old ones to compare where I once was with where I am now. Loneliness used to be appealing to write about in earnest, but then year after year I realize it's become my only constant, and any effort to continue that same narrative seems tired and eye-rollingly void of novelty.
Being home for the holidays induced in me something like whiplash. When I am away from the things I resent for tying me down, I am free to indulge the part of me that wants to rage, to give way to my performative inclinations, to become more and more like some metaphorical cowboy. That world-building is what defined 2018 for me, and from what I know, for many others, too: Rather than being characterized by our desires for things humiliatingly far out of reach, we reveled in our sad, odd fantasies and instead conjured up these aspirational characters we'd rather be. Typically, these dream selves are brasher ("I know that I ended it / But why won't you chase after me?" Mitski inquires pointedly on "Why Didn't You Stop Me") and farther ahead ("I bet all I have on that furrowed brow / And at least in this lifetime / We're sticking together," she settles in on "Me And My Husband").
But when I return back to where I came from, I realize that my eagerness to become an enigma doesn't eliminate the deeper hurts I carry: The hurts that come with feeling like a perpetual outsider, of juggling two cultural identities that seem almost entirely contrary to one another. And when I look closer, they never even faded for a moment –- they're unmoving, serving as an undercurrent to all of my lashing out. In an interview with Vinyl Me Please, Mitski said, "I should just be the swaggering white guy onstage… I should just forget that I'm an Asian woman, and just be like, 'What would a cowboy do in this situation?' and he'd be like, 'I ain't gon' take that sh*t!'" That approach, while maybe not fully remedial, is still effective, and still helps us get by. it did in 2018, at least. This year, "being the cowboy" wasn't just a reference to a cutesy album name; it became a lifestyle, a survival mechanism.
The album closes with a slow-burning ballad (one that still somehow teeters with the anticipation that runs through Be The Cowboy, ready to spill over), depicting a scene of "Two Slow Dancers" in a school gymnasium. It's an homage to the passage of time, a four-minute song that stops time for a moment for us to think back on all the lives we've lived, all the people we've transformed into and out of. On the last day of the year, Mitski tweeted its lyrics out, followed by a short and sufficient statement: "Goodbye to 2018 that wrote this song."
and the ground has been slowly pulling us back down
you see it on both our skin
we get a few years and then it wants us back
it would be 100 times easier
if we were young again
but as it is, and it is
we're just two slow dancers
last ones out
(happy new year)
— mitski (@mitskileaks) January 1, 2019
Before the song fades, it swells once last time as Mitski repeats the line, "To think that we could stay the same." It's tinged with a sense of melancholic vigor that we might be able to make the moments that make up the here and now last longer. But then it settles, giving way to an inevitable ending, allowing time to sweep us into whatever comes next -– and whatever comes next could be even more beautiful.
Be The Cowboy is out now via Dead Oceans. Get it here. Check out more of our 2018 critics poll results here.
Topics: #2018 Uproxx Music Critics PollTags: 2018 Uproxx Music Critics Poll, Be The Cowboy, Critic's Poll 2018, Mitski


Build your empire of love in the Empire State. We have thousands of online personal ads in the state of New York. Are you looking for a date or a serious relationship with a New York single? New singles in Lincolnton,New York are joining daily, and many singles are making connections every day. Match.com makes dating easy in Lincolnton, with dating options available through thousands of Lincolnton personals.


text:
Based on the Marvel comic series by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, Ant-Man is the story of a recently-convicted thief who is given a chance to find redemption when he meets a scientist, who had created a shrinking technology many years ago, who wants his help to stop his former protégé from creating something similar to what he made in the hopes of global domination. Directed by Peyton Reed and screenplay by Joe Cornish, Adam McKay, Paul Rudd, and Edgar Wright from a story by Cornish and Wright, the film is an origin story of sorts where this thief is given a chance to do good and fulfill the legacy of the man who was once donned the suit known as Ant-Man. Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Wood Harris, Martin Donovan, Michael Pena, Judy Greer, Tip "T.I." Harris, Damian Dastmalchian, and Michael Douglas as Dr. Hank Pym/the original Ant-Man. Ant-Man is an exhilarating and whimsical film from Peyton Reed.
The film is a simple origin story of sorts of a man who shrinks to the size of an ant where he fights off bad guys and can go back to normal size whenever he can. Yet, it's so much more as it is about redemption not just for the man who created the suit and myth but also the one who would don the suit and stop the creator's former protégé from creating one of his own for his own gain. Plus, it's also the story of what happens when something so brilliant as its creator realizes what could wrong as he also bears the weight of responsibility over what happened as it relates to the loss of his own wife. The film's screenplay which was largely written by Adam McKay, with Rudd writing much of the comic dialogue, doesn't just explore two men wanting to do things right but also cope with the responsibilities of themselves.
For Dr. Hank Pym, he was the man that found the formula to shrink himself into the size of an ant and succeeded to the point that he would become Ant-Man and would create a suit for his wife as Wasp. Yet, a mission that involved the two led to Wasp's death where Pym felt deeply responsible as he had become somewhat estranged with his daughter Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) who works for Pym's protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll). Adding to the chaos for Pym is the fact that he refused to share his knowledge of what he created to anyone including his friends in S.H.I.E.L.D. where he realizes that Cross' work on Pym's formula is getting closer as he becomes uneasy about not in what could go wrong. It's also in what happens if it goes into the wrong hands and used in ways that could make the world even worse where Van Dyne is aware of her father's worries where she also works as a spy for her father. Upon meeting this recently-released thief in Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), Pym realizes that there is a way he could fix the mistakes in his life.
The Lang character is also very interesting as he is just this brilliant thief that has just been released from prison as he also has a young daughter that he wants to be there for. Unfortunately, his criminal record prevents from finding work as well as be able to see and support his daughter while his ex-wife is about to marry a cop who doesn't like Lang. When Lang meets Dr. Pym and Van Dyne, he isn't sure about donning the suit which he stole early in the story while being unaware of its powers. Yet, he realizes that his skills as a thief and breaking into some of the most highly secure places can benefit where he would also bring in a group of criminals to help him and Dr. Pym in getting the suit that Cross has created. While the script does have a lot of exposition and a narrative structure that is expected from the world of superhero origins. It does have a lot of humor but also some big dramatic stakes as it relates to what Cross is up to and the people he plans on making money with that includes one of Pym's former colleagues from S.H.I.E.L.D.
Peyton Reed's direction is quite straightforward in terms of what is expected from a superhero origin story yet manages to find ways to bring in a sense of style into the story. Shot largely on location in San Francisco with some shots set in Atlanta, the film does maintain something that is more homegrown as it plays into Lang's attempt to set his life back on course while Dr. Pym is forced to sit in the sidelines as his business has grown into something bigger than he realized under Cross' leadership. Reed's usage of wide and medium shots do play into some of the big moments in the film while using the latter for some of the intimate moments where Van Dyne would reluctantly train Lang in becoming Ant-Man in combat fighting. The meshing of genres do work where it's not just in the action and suspense but also in the humor.
Much of the humor doesn't just involve some of the action sequences and Lang's banters towards situations and those he would meet. It's also in the supporting characters such as Lang's former cellmate Luis (Michael Pena) who would provide some of the funniest moments that involve people he know and what he heard in these dizzying sequences that are ridiculous but fun. Reed would also create an air of suspense that is part of a homage to heist films as it relates to the climax that would involve Lang and Cross where it is elaborate but also thrilling. Even as Reed maintains the idea of what is stake but also uncover some huge revelations about a world that Lang would encounter. Overall, Reed creates an engaging and fun film about a man who shrinks to the size of an ant to save the world.
Cinematographer Russell Carpenter does excellent work with the film's cinematography as it is largely straightforward with some stylish lights for scenes set at night as well as well as the way some of the film's action sequences are lit. Editors Dan Lebental and Colby Parker Jr. do nice work with the editing as it is quite straightforward with some stylish flair in some of the montages and in some of the action scenes without deviating into intense fast-cutting editing styles. Production designers Shepherd Frankel and Marcus Rowland, with set decorator Leslie A. Pope and supervising art directors Nigel Churcher and David Lazan, do amazing work with the look of Cross' lab as well as the home of Dr. Pym and the apartment where Lang lives with other former convicts. Costume designer Sammy Sheldon does fantastic work with the look of the Ant-Man suit as well as the Yellow Jacket suit that Cross is designing while much of the clothes are very casual.
Visual effects supervisors Jon Capleton, Dinesh K. Bishnoi, Jake Morrison, Greg Steele, Dan Sudick, and Alex Wuttke do brilliant work with the visual effects from the look of the ants as well as the way Ant-Man would shrink and reverse at times along with a very surreal sequence set during the film's climax. Sound designers David Farmer, David C. Hughes, and Shannon Mills, with co-sound editor David Laurie, do superb work with the sound in the way some of the sound effects are mixed along with some of the natural moments in some of the locations and how Lang hears them when he's shrunk. The film's music by Christophe Beck is terrific for its bombastic orchestral score that plays into the sense of adventure and comedy along with some of the dramatic moments while music supervisors Alejandro de la Llosa and Dave Jordan create a fun soundtrack that features music from Camilo Azuquita, Roy Ayers, the Commodores, HLM, and the Cure.
The casting by Sarah Finn is incredible as it features appearances from Hayley Atwell and John Slattery as S.H.I.E.L.D. co-founders Peggy Carter and Howard Stark, respectively, who deal with Pym's departure knowing they've screwed things up while Anthony Mackie makes a fun appearance as Sam Wilson/Falcon who has a big encounter with Lang in a key scene. Other notable small roles include comedian Garrett Morris as a man in a car Lang meets, Gregg Turkington as a Baskin-Robbins manager who reluctantly fires Lang, Abby Ryder Fortson as Lang's daughter Cassie, Judy Greer as Lang's ex-wife Maggie who is reluctant to let Lang back into their daughter's life, Wood Harris as a police detective named Gale, Tip "T.I." Harris and David Dastmalchian as a couple of Luis' friends who help Lang and Pym out for the film's climax, and Martin Donovan in a superb performance as former S.H.I.E.L.D. executive Mitchell Carson whom Cross wants to make a deal with.
Bobby Cannavale is terrific as Maggie's new boyfriend Paxton who is also a police detective that isn't very trustful towards Lang as he later tries to find him after Lang escaped from jail. Michael Pena is great as Luis as a former criminal who has a lot of connections as he tries to help Lang out while later being part of a scheme to help Lang and Pym stop Cross as he is also the most hilarious character in the film. Corey Stoll is excellent as Darren Cross as Pym's former protégé who created a formula similar to what Dr. Pym has created as he plans to make it into something bigger as it's a role filled with some dark, comical humor and a sense of bravado. Evangeline Lilly is amazing as Hope Van Dyne as Dr. Pym's estranged daughter who works for Cross as a spy for her father as she also deals with the fact that her father is hiding some things from her as it relates to her mother.
Michael Douglas is phenomenal as Dr. Hank Pym as the creator of a shrinking formula that he would use to be the original Ant-Man as he copes with the dangers of what happens when his formula is into the wrong hands while he deals with his own regrets as it's a role filled with a lot of weight as well as some humor. Finally, there's Paul Rudd in a marvelous performance as Scott Lang as a notorious thief who is trying to start over and do right for his daughter only to be forced back into crime where he meets Dr. Pym and get his chance at redemption where Rudd definitely exudes the idea of being a hero while also providing some funny banter along the way to make Lang more engaging as a person as it's one of his finest roles to date.
Ant-Man is a remarkable film from Peyton Reed that features amazing performances from Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, and Michael Pena. Not only is it a fun action-adventure film but also a compelling one as it relates to the themes of redemption and wanting to do the right thing in a world that is often very complicated. Even as it is told in an entertaining fashion without deviating too much from the story. In the end, Ant-Man is an excellent film from Peyton Reed.
Peyton Reed Films: (The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes (1995 film)) - (The Love Bug (1997 film)) - (Bring It On) - (Down with Love) - (The Break-Up) - (Yes Man)
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Infinity Saga: Phase One Films: Iron Man - The Incredible Hulk - Iron Man 2 - Thor - Captain America: The First Avenger - The Avengers
Marvel Phase Two Films: Iron Man 3 - Thor: The Dark World - Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Guardians of the Galaxy - The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Marvel Phase Three Films: Captain America: Civil War - Doctor Strange - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - Spider-Man: Homecoming - Thor: Ragnarok - Black Panther - Avengers: Infinity War - Ant-Man & the Wasp - Captain Marvel - Avengers: Endgame - Captain Marvel - Spider-Man: Far from Home
Post-Infinity Saga: Phase Four: Black Widow (2021 film) - Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – Eternals – Spider-Man: No Way Home – (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) – (Thor: Love and Thunder) – (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) - (The Marvels) – (Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania) – (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) – (Fantastic Four)
Related: MCU is Cinema: Pt. 1 - Pt. 2 - Pt. 3 – Pt. 4 – (Part 5) – (Part 6) – (Part 7) - The MCU: 10 Reasons Why It Rules the World
Labels: adam mckay, bobby cannavale, corey stoll, edgar wright, evangeline lilly, hayley atwell, joe cornish, judy greer, martin donovan, marvel cinematic universe, michael douglas, michael pena, paul rudd, peyton reed
This is the only comic book movie I've enjoyed in like 2 years or more. Always love Paul Rudd and Michael Pena.
Glad you enjoyed this one. It was just so much fun to watch. I am very pleasantly surprised with Paul Rudd, here. You are so right about Michael Pena having the funniest moments with the stories he tells. And yes, that visual effects team was brilliant.
@assholeswatchingmovies.com-Really? I guess it was because it was funny.
@Wendell-While I still would've preferred in what Edgar Wright might've done with the film. I still enjoyed this as I had fun watching it. Most of all, Michael Pena as I would put him in that rare class of actors who are those who just, can't suck. He's that fucking good and I could watch him tell stories about anything. He was so funny.
Brittani Burnham said...
I'm glad you liked it. I enjoyed it so much more than I was expecting to.
@Brittani-It was a surprise for me as well. Mostly because of Paul Rudd and Michael Pena. I'm waiting for the Ant-Man/Hulk bro-mance movie w/ Luis being funny third.
ruth said...
I wasn't anticipating this at all but ended up enjoying it. Rudd was good in the role and Michael Pena is always so fun to watch!
@ruth-Yeah, I had low expectations about it as well as I was more interested in what Edgar Wright would've done. Yet, I had fun watching this. I just hope Pena is in the sequel. He is $$$$$$
s. said...
So glad you liked it! This was much less overcrowded than other Marvel flicks, kinda low key even and I just adored Douglas' work, nearly nominated him last year
@Sati-Thanks. It was fun and I enjoyed seeing Michael Douglas in the film as he brought in some gravitas while also being very funny. I'm definitely excited for the sequel and hope he has some funny moments with Michael Pena.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
The Karate Kid, Part II
2016 Cannes Film Festival Marathon Announcement
From the Life of the Marionettes
Torment (1944 film)
2016 Blind Spot Series: The Killer (1989 film)
Ginger & Rosa
25 Essential Videos by Spike Jonze
Cape Fear (1991 film)
The White Sheik
Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Mauric...
Les enfants terribles
10 Cent Pistol
Le silence de la mer
The Auteurs #53: Terry Zwigoff
Stray Dog


text:
Ed Sheeran will accompany James Corden on 'Carpool Karaoke' this year
Cayla Masters January 10, 2017, 4:53 pm
After a 12-month hiatus that felt more like an eternity, Ed Sheeran is back and ready to fulfill a busy schedule. On Monday evening, the 24-year-old revealed to Capital FM that he has a lot planned for 2017, including a spot in James Corden's passenger's seat.
"There's so many things I'm not allowed to talk about. On Friday I literally had my manager sit me down and be like, 'Don't talk about this, don't talk about this' so I'm really dodging," Sheeran spilled.
"I've been in touch with James Corden about this for three years because he wanted me to do the first one [Carpool Karaoke] and I just wasn't around and I can confirm that at some point this year I will be doing a carpool karaoke."
The mastermind behind "Thinking Out Loud" wants his appearance on the popular segment to be different than the rest, admitting that he would feel a bit awkward singing to his own song.
"I think I will just want to put on some Biggie… Well I want to put on something really, like really awkward and dirty, like Biggie's song 'Big Booty' and just hear James Corden sing along to that," he shared.
Leave it to Sheeran to exceed our expectations. Last Friday, he dropped not just one, but two new songs. "Shape of You" and "Castle on the Hill" have been completely dominating the charts since their long-awaited release. Both are a sneak peak of what to expect from Sheeran's upcoming album, Divide.
Although this is the first time we have heard new music from the singer-songwriter since 2015, he is also up for a Grammy next month with credentials on Justin Bieber's smash hit "Love Yourself." The track is in the running for Song of the Year. Sheeran is rumored to be performing at the award show as well.
Are you excited about Ed's return? Let us know, @CelebMix!
Niall Horan & Anne-Marie Unveils 'Everywhere' For BBC Children In Need
Ed Sheeran releases highly anticipated new album '='
JLS to perform at the National Television Awards 2021
INTERVIEW: Maisie Peters on her debut album 'You Signed Up For This'
Ed Sheeran Announces Fourth Studio Album, '='


Ocean Studios | Are you ready?
Presented as a Ted-talk style business 'pitch' of a fictional tech-conglomerate named Ocean Global that is building its first island in Plymouth Sound, the performance confronts us with a privatised world where governments compete for 'seatizens' by becoming 'service providers' in a floating world whose only organising principle is free market and competition.
Drawing on a range of existing libertarian proposals for the new floating 'city-states' or 'seasteads' that promise techno-social freedom on the ocean (imagined as the ultimate 'terra nullius') the performance explores how narratives of 'freedom' promulgate crypto-fascist tendencies and neoreactionary imaginaries, from the tech industry of Silicon Valley into our everyday.
Supported by the Arts Council England Project Grant, 2018-2019 and RIO.
Margareta Kern is a visual artist working in photography, film, performance, drawing and installation. Current projects deal with the politics of making visible new systems of power and violence emerging from a techno-military-corporate complex.
Kern is currently an artist-in-residence at Birkbeck School of Law and a lecturer at Falmouth University. She holds BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College and MA in Visual Anthropology, UCL.
Her works have been shown extensively including at the Tate Modern, Photographers Gallery, Whitstable Biennale, Rivington Place, Photomonth Krakow, Cultural Centre Belgrade and many others.
Originally from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kern migrated to the UK in 1992 at the outbreak of war. She currently lives in Cornwall.


text:
Hassan Shehata (arab. حسن شحاتة, ur. 19 czerwca 1949) – egipski trener i piłkarz.

Kariera piłkarska
Shehata przez 13 lat występował w Zamaleku Kair. W barwach klubu ze stolicy strzelił 88 bramek w lidze (dwukrotny król strzelców ligi), 22 w Pucharze Egiptu i 22 w Afrykańskiej Lidze Mistrzów. Przez 3 lata reprezentował także kuwejcki Kazma Sporting Club.

W reprezentacji Egiptu występował przez 8 lat. Zagrał w 2 turniejach PNA: Egipt 1974 (3. miejsce) i Nigeria 1980 (4. miejsce). Grał w eliminacjach do turnieju w roku 1978, lecz Egipt nie przebrnął kwalifikacji. We wszystkich 3 rozgrywkach zdobył 10 bramek.

Kariera trenerska
Debiut na ławce trenerskiej zaliczył w młodzieżowej drużynie Zamaleku. Wygrał z tym klubem młodzieżową ligę. Na kolejny sukces musiał czekać do sezonu 1996/1997. Wprowadził wtedy do I ligi klub Menia. Rok później to samo uczynił z Sharqeya. W roku 2000 powtórzył wyczyn z Suez. W 2001 roku objął młodzieżową kadrę narodową. Wygrał z nią Puchar Narodów Afryki i zagrał w ćwierćfinale młodzieżowych Mistrzostw Świata. Potem z Al-Mokawloon wszedł do I ligi, zdobył Puchar i Superpuchar Egiptu. Od 4 lat pracuje z kadrą narodową. Wygrał z nią Puchar Narodów Afryki 2006, Puchar Narodów Afryki 2008 i Puchar Narodów Afryki 2010. 6 czerwca 2011 zrezygnował z posady trenera reprezentacji Egiptu. Na początku 2012 roku został trenerem Zamalek SC.

Sukcesy

Jako piłkarz
 Mistrz Egiptu z Zamalekiem 1977/1978
 3 Puchary Egiptu z Zamalekiem 1974/75,1976/77,1978/79

Indywidualnie
 Dwukrotny król strzelców ligi 1976/77 i 1979/80
 3 w rankingu Najlepszy Piłkarz Afryki 1974 (według France Football)
 Najlepszy Piłkarz Azji 1970
 Najlepszy Piłkarz PNA 1974
 Najlepszy Piłkarz Egiptu 1976
 Zasługi Dla Egipskiego Sportu 1980

Jako trener
Egipt
 Puchar Narodów Afryki 2010 – 1. miejsce
 Puchar Narodów Afryki 2008 – 1. miejsce
 Puchar Narodów Afryki 2006 – 1. miejsce
 Młodzieżowy Puchar Narodów Afryki 2003 – 1. miejsce
 Kwalifikacja i awans do 1/4 młodzieżowych Mistrzostw Świata 2003

Mekawleen
 Puchar Egiptu 2003/2004
 Superpuchar Egiptu 2003/2004

Inne
 Awans do I ligi z Menia, Sharqeya i Suez

Linki zewnętrzne
 Statystyki Hassana Shehaty

Reprezentanci Egiptu w piłce nożnej
Egipscy trenerzy piłkarscy
Piłkarze Zamaleku SC
Piłkarze Kazma SC
Uczestnicy Pucharu Narodów Afryki 1974
Uczestnicy Pucharu Narodów Afryki 1976
Uczestnicy Pucharu Narodów Afryki 1978
Uczestnicy Pucharu Narodów Afryki 1980
Selekcjonerzy reprezentacji Egiptu w piłce nożnej mężczyzn
Trenerzy piłkarzy Zamalek SC
Urodzeni w 1949

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Leverage our influencers' creativity to style your items and advocate for your brand with their loyal audiences. Generate diverse, engaging content that you'll have full digital rights to.
Generate high-quality photos and videos for social ads, email campaigns, on-site integrations and native social media feeds. Cohley content recently drove a 91% increase in return on ad spend for one prominent fashion brand and decreased the CPA for another by 44%.


text:
Home Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. News
A Tennessee Planned Parenthood clinic that was previously targeted by a gunman has been destroyed in a fire
Yelena Dzhanova
A demonstrator stands outside the Planned Parenthood Reproductive Health Services Center in St. Louis, Missouri, May 30, 2019, the last location in the state performing abortions. - A US court weighed the fate of the last abortion clinic in Missouri on May 30, with the state hours away from becoming the first in 45 years to no longer offer the procedure amid a nationwide push to curtail access to abortion.
Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
A devastating fire resulted in the "total loss" of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Officials are investigating the cause of the fire, and they have not yet ruled out arson.
In January last year, a gunman opened fire at the glass of the building's exterior.
A devastating fire on New Year's Eve took out a Planned Parenthood clinic in Tennessee, resulting in a "total loss," fire officials said.
The fire broke out early on December 31 in Knoxville, Tennessee and the cause of the blaze has not been determined, according to a statement released by the city's fire department.
"On arrival companies found a large single story commercial building fully involved with fire through the roof," the statement says. "Crews initially attacked the fire defensively from the exterior. Currently the fire is under control and should be declared out shortly. The building was being renovated at the time of the fire. The building is a total loss. The fire is currently under investigation. Further information will be released as the investigation continues."
At the time of the fire, the clinic had been closed due to renovations, NBC affiliate WBIR reported. There were no injuries, the fire department said.
The department is investigating causes, including the possibility of arson.
"Right now we don't have a cause and we don't have a lot of information pointing in the direction of arson," Assistant Chief Mark Wilbanks told the Daily Beast.
If the cause is determined to be arson, it will be at least the second time that the Knoxville Planned Parenthood clinic has come under attack within the span of one year. In January last year, a gunman opened fire, shooting rounds of a shotgun into the glass of the building's exterior. There was nobody inside at the time of the shooting.
The damage from the fire was so extensive that fire officials are predicting that it will be difficult to determine a cause.
When fire officials arrived at the scene, they had to use a lot of water to douse the fire and get the situation under control, Wilbanks told the Daily Beast.
"We used our ladder trucks to use a lot of water to put the fire out, which unfortunately makes it harder to dig into the evidence," he said. "Ideally, you'd go in there with backhoes and dig it out, but we're going to have to use hand shovels."
News of the fire comes as abortion-rights groups continue to push back against a series of restrictive reproductive rights laws and the fear that Roe v. Wade might be overturned in the Supreme Court.
More: Planned Parenthood Tennessee Reproductive Rights


JOHANNESBURG, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Nedbank shares fell by more than 4 percent on Tuesday after a South African newspaper report that Nigeria's accountancy regulator had begun a probe into its West African associate Ecobank.
Nedbank, which is one of South Africa's four largest lenders, holds a 21 percent stake in Ecobank and its relationship with the Togo-based lender was just starting to pay off after years of disappointment.
Mfundo Nkhuhlu, Nedbank's chief operating officer, said in a statement that neither the South African lender, nor the board of Ecobank's Nigeria-listed holding company Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) were aware of any probe. Ecobank did not respond to requests for comment.
"Consequently, it has not arisen that there is any need to notify the JSE and shareholders," Nkhuhlu said, referring to Johannesburg's stock exchange.
Reuters was unable to confirm the existence of a probe by The Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria, which South Africa's Sunday Times said related to allegations by a former Ecobank executive that it inflated its accounts by applying incorrect exchange rates.
When contacted by phone, the council said it did not discuss its investigations and would not immediately comment.
A probe into its associate would make Nedbank the latest South African company to take a hit from the actions of regulators in Nigeria, where telecoms firm MTN is facing the prospect of handing over billions of dollars in taxes over allegations it breached foreign exchange rules.
"I think it's going to be a theme going forward ... Nigeria's a tough market to do business in, you are always clashing with the authorities," Greg Davies, equities trader at South Africa's Cratos Capital told Reuters.
A slide in commodity prices and unfavourable currency swings had already left Ecobank struggling in Nigeria, its second largest market by assets, driving it to a $131.3 million loss before tax in 2016.
It said it returned to profitability one year later, citing an easing of both factors throughout 2017, and has been a boost to Nedbank's earnings so far this year.
Nedbank shares had regained some ground by 1333 GMT, when they were down 2.6 percent to 258 rand. ETI's shares were flat at market close.


Corresponding to every chapter of the Leifer textbook, Study Guide for Introduction to Maternity and Pediatric Nursing, 8th Edition is a rich resource that enhances student comprehension and application of the material. With a variety of learning activities, critical thinking exercises, case studies, and review questions, this study guide reinforces understanding of essential maternity and pediatric nursing concepts and skills that students need to pass the NCLEX-PN® and succeed in their nursing careers.
Case Studies and Applying Knowledge activities provide additional opportunities for you to apply learned information to clinical care.
Thinking Critically activities require you to apply what you've learned in the textbook to new situations and draw conclusions based on that knowledge.
Learning activities include matching, labeling, and completion exercises to help you learn basic concepts of maternity and pediatric nursing.


text:
Trade slowed in fourth quarter, WTO says; auto tariffs, Brexit are 2019 risks
By Tom Miles
GENEVA (Reuters) - World trade shrank by 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018 and is likely to grow by 2.6 percent this year, slower than 3.0 percent growth in 2018 and below a previous forecast of 3.7 percent, the World Trade Organization said on Tuesday.
World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Roberto Azevedo attends a news conference on the annual global trade forecast at the WTO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
In its annual forecast, the WTO said trade had been weighed down by new tariffs and retaliatory measures, weaker economic growth, volatility in financial markets and tighter monetary conditions in developed countries. It forecast in September that 2018 growth would be 3.9 percent, down from 4.6 percent in 2017.
WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo told a news conference that the lower forecast was no surprise, given the trade tensions between the United States and China.
WTO chief economist Robert Koopman said worse may be to come, with an even bigger impact if U.S. President Donald Trump goes ahead with a plan to impose high tariffs on global imports of cars later this year.
"U.S.-China trade is about 3 percent of global trade. Automobile trade globally is about 8 percent of global trade. So you can imagine that the impact of automobile tariffs is going to be bigger than the impact of the U.S.-China trade conflict.
"I think it's pretty clear that any automobile tariff would likely have bigger knock-on effects through the global economy than what we see from the U.S.-China conflict."
The WTO did not make a specific prediction about the impact of Brexit, but Koopman said in the worst case it would help push global trade growth down to the bottom end of the WTO's forecast range in 2019, 1.3 to 4.0 percent.
"The UK's own analysis suggests that 'no deal' or 'hard Brexit' would shave 7.6 percent off British GDP. That would be a big number. It would force our numbers down to that lower part of our range," Koopman said.
"If we end up in the fall with a revision, my guess is the likelihood of a revision is that it's downward, based on any number of factors from Brexit to no resolution in the U.S.-China trade conflict, and other trade conflicts going on."
Although the volume of global trade grew only slowly in 2018, the dollar value rose 10 percent to $19.48 trillion, partly because oil prices rose 20 percent, the WTO said.
The value of commercial services trade grew by 8 percent to $5.80 trillion in 2018, driven by strong import growth in Asia.
Goods trade volumes are expected to grow more strongly in developing economies this year, with 3.4 percent growth in exports compared with 2.1 percent in developed economies.
Reporting by Tom Miles, editing by Larry King


A top alternative for limo service in Bergen County NJ or the rest of the local North NJ area for all your needs is Advanced Car Service, whether you have an appointment in the local area or you need to catch a flight. During the past ten years, we have worked hard to earn this status and we continue to earn the trust of our friends and neighbors in Bergen County NJ. As a locally-owned business, we only hire the best drivers living in the area, so they know the fastest route to your destination here or in New York City. Our goal as a top car service in Bergen County NJ is to make sure that you reach your destination in a timely fashion and in comfort.
Schoolteachers, youth group leaders, and church activity directors rely up on Advanced Car Service if they require a bus rental in Bergen County NJ. When you need a safe excursion for your group in the New York metro area, our fleet of 10 and 13 passenger vans with advanced safety features can get the job done. Our good-natured drivers don't merely get your group to and from your destination quickly and safely, but they'll also keep everyone entertained. When you have a formal affair, we offer a limo service and luxury vans to get the job done. Call Advanced Car Service today to make a reservation if you need a party bus or are looking for a bus rental in Saddle Brook NJ.
Gas powered engines have an impact on the environment, and as a chauffeur car service in Bergen County NJ this concerns us. We attempt to lessen negative effects on the environment, and in this spirit have a large number of hybrid vehicles in our taxi fleet. Furthermore, our drivers make the most of the newest technology to stay keep from congested traffic areas. This means that we can get you to where you need to go without wasting gas unnecessarily. These are still more reasons why we are a leading chauffeur transportation in Bergen County NJ.
There is certainly an advantage to using a locally-owned taxi service in Bergen County NJ. Our drivers know the local area well, as well as New York City, and will get you to where you've got to go utilizing the shortest route possible. This makes sure your fare will be low, besides saving you time. Our friendly drivers are ready to drive you wherever you need to go. All you've got to do is call our 24 hour dispatch service to have a taxi cab sent to you. Our knowledgeable and courteous drivers, affordable rates, and availability are several of the reasons Advanced Car Service is such a trusted taxi service in Saddle Brook NJ.
Our services as a party bus in Bergen County NJ are great for all occasions, whether you want to party with friends in the city or you have a teenager going to prom. We've got choices for SUVs, specialty vehicles, and a luxury van service, so all you need to do is enjoy the trip and allow our chauffeurs to do the rest. For events which are more formal, our limousine service in Bergen County NJ is a great choice.
One of the advantages of utilizing a locally owned car service for your business travel needs in Bergen County NJ is that our drivers know a variety of alternative routes to most places in the metropolitan New York area. This means neither you nor your business associates will face the inconvenience of losing precious time sitting in traffic. Instead, our taxi cab driver will avoid the congestion using an alternative route, which is an extremely important consideration in regards to make arrangements for VIP airport transportation service or booking a limo service in Saddle Brook NJ. Additionally, if you are ever intending to celebrate a job well done with your sales team, hiring a party bus rental is an excellent way to ensure everybody stays safe and enjoys themselves. For corporate transportation in Saddle Brook NJ that you can depend on, Advanced Car Service is the best way to go.
When you want corporate transportation in Bergen County NJ, it is crucial to hire a car service you can depend on. When it comes to business travel and airport transportation, lots of clients have relied on Advanced Car Service to get them to their destination. If you need to impress new clients or our-of-town business associates, you can count on Advanced Car Service for dependable airport service in Saddle Brook NJ or the rest of the North NJ area. We also provide the most competitive rates if you are in need of a limousine service in Bergen County NJ or the rest of the Northern NJ area to make travel plans for executives. Call us at (201) 768-7900, 24 hours a day or seven days a week, or visit us online to check out our rates or make bookings.


Students who wish to train for the ministry in the Reformed Churches in SA must contact the Registrar of the Theological School at ami.dutoit@nwu.ac.za or 018-285 2351.
Students who wish to train for the ministry in the Reformed Churches in SA must complete the BDiv , MDiv and Final Year quilification(will still be announced in time).
The minimum duration of the study period for this qualification is four years full time. The maximum period is six years, provided that students may apply for an extension of the period in accordance with General Academic Rules A.1.14 & A.1.17.
According to the Academic Rules of the University the admission requirements for all formal academic qualifications offered by the University are set out in the Admission Policy as approved by Senate and Council. This means that all school-end certificates have to be endorsed to indicate that the minimum statutory requirements for obtaining admission to B-degree studies at a university in the RSA have been met. The Faculty nevertheless reserves the right to apply further screening, the results of which will be used to consider the applications of candidates for admission.
c) Be able to communicate information in terms of a written research report, utilising advanced academic discourses, based on the interrogation of multiple sources, the capability to solve problems, and independently and with integrity manage and apply well developed processes of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
The duration of the study is one year full time.
a) An Honours BTh or equivalent qualification.
b) Before the start of the study, students must apply for selection on the prescribed form to the Programme Leader MDiv.
d) register for MTh or MA.


How do you plan your perfect holidays?
For a lot of people, the perfect holiday demands the perfect conditions. It's a rare thing that only happens if you're particularly lucky, just like winning the lottery. As a result, their holiday planning might suffer from lack of preparation. As simplistic as it might sound, anything could happen during your holiday.
It's your ability to prepare for most common eventualities that guarantees the best travel memories. In short, before you can escape everyday routine and enjoy a well-deserved break, you need to sit down at your desk, grab a sheet of paper and a pen, and get your to-do list ready.
Here's the ultimate travel planning list to make sure that you can always have the best holiday ever, wherever and whenever you choose to go.
So, you've decided you wanted more adventures in your life. You're ready to explore a new country for the summer. Traveling is an exciting opportunity that can dramatically shift your perspective on life and help you to grow your personal skills. But as amazing as travel can be, it's a world of opportunities.
There are so many places that one wants to see in the world that it's difficult to decide where to start. In fact, wanting to travel without knowing where to is a common phenomenon, similar to the writer's bloc. You just need inspiration. And just like any writer would do to conquer the blank page, you need to break the process down into small and manageable pieces to better choose a destination.
Starting with the basic, namely how much time you've got. A weekend getaway and a 2-week trip are very different things. So use the time to define the distance you can safely cover without ruining your holiday. Traveling with friends, solo, or your sweetheart will also help you choose the best destination. Additionally, the weather and the type of experience you want will help to exclude locations that are not suited to your needs. And finally, your budget is an essential clue!
Once you've selected a destination, you can start your administrative planning. Indeed, traveling, especially traveling abroad, requires additional preparation, both in terms of transport and foreign authorization. If you're traveling to Europe from the US or Great Britain, you're in luck as the EU doesn't need American citizens to apply for a visa when entering the Schengen zone. However, this is only valid is your trip will last less than 90 days. All you will need is a passport, and you are free to enter the territory.
If you intend to spend more than 90 days in Europe, you will need to apply for a visa. For this, you will have to disclose your flight itinerary for a visa, which is a list of the flights you intend to book. Be careful not to book them before your application has been accepted, though! You can find similar visa applications for other countries in the world. More often than not, authorities make it easy for tourists to obtain a visa, assuming you provide all the necessary documents. But it's a long process so you'd better start early!
While everyone can use Google Maps to find their way abroad and discover the best local restaurants and monuments, there's no denying that nothing can replace a travel book. Indeed, the Internet is not flawless… and there are plenty of useful details that you wouldn't spot online.
For a start, you can be sure to have everything at hand, from map to recommendations, as well as a fantastic source of advice to make the most of all local amenities. But also, your guidebook is the ideal planning tool, letting you know in advance when and where all the must see and must try are, and also how to get to them so that you can schedule your days accordingly.
These guidebooks have been designed by people who have not only visited your destination but also tried its restaurants, hotels and contacted the local authorities to get all the emergencies services sorted out for you. In short, it's like taking an expert with you.
What about the local currency?
When you're traveling abroad, it can be easy to get carried away and spend more than you should without even knowing it. Indeed, you need to keep an eye on your budget when you're on holiday. For instance, it's always a good idea to check currency conversions before you leave.
While you may not want to travel with a lot of cash in your wallet, changing a small amount to cover for emergency cash expenses after your arrival, such as a late night cab, can help you to cut costs down at the local ATM. If you prefer to pay by card, you need to be careful, as not all credit cards are accepted around the world.
Far-flung places in Eastern Europe don't take credit cards.
American Express, for example, can be an issue in small shops and towns, while a visa card causes fewer issues. And finally, you might need to download a cross-currency app that lets you find out exactly how much you're spending every day. Not that you want to deprive yourself, but there's nothing worse than overspending and coming back home to new debts.
If you're a cabin bag kind of traveler, you're certainly aware of the 100ml regulation. A lot of travelers wait until the last minute to prepare their travel-size toiletry bag. In reality, you should start as early as possible, as you will need to source small-size products for your beauty routine.
What are your essentials? You can find excellent kits in your favorite beauty shops. Net-A-Porter has devised a skin cleansing kit that is perfect for all skincare on holiday, and it comes in its own plastic bag so that you don't need to add anything! For long journeys, you might want to pack an emergency comfort bag with earplugs – while you might get some on the plane, there are not always quality products – a handy tooth kit, and an eye mask, so that you can have a quiet night.
Do you know where most people fail when it comes to planning their holiday? Packing! Indeed, not everybody knows how to pack efficiently. Saving space is an art that is difficult to master, even though it's necessary for the comfort of your journey. After all, nobody likes to carry heavy luggage!
So start by choosing the right bag for your travel. Here's a hint: Avoid heavy bags as airline companies apply weight restrictions. Packing light requires sacrifices, so unless you're traveling for business, you need to pack what you'd wear on an average day.
More regular travelers choose to pack for a week only, regardless of the duration of their trip. They then look out for laundry solutions, which are available in all resorts, hotels, and towns around the world. Last, but not least, remember to wear the bulkier items and to pack the lighter and less-space demanding ones.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that English will get you anywhere. It doesn't. While you will always find someone who understands you in popular destinations and large towns, once you wander off the beaten track, it will be extremely difficult to meet people who speak English.
That's where phrase books are essential! You don't need to learn a foreign language each time you want to visit a new country, but knowing the basics such as "hello", "thank you" and how to ask for direction can be a huge help. More people are happy to help tourists, so don't let language be a communication barrier. With a phrase book, you can get by in most situations.
When you're on holiday, you want to make sure that you can bring images of the landscapes and scenes around you. If you're not a keen photographer, your smartphone can take quality pictures that are sure enough to record beautiful moments in memory.
If you're a photo geek, you can bring your camera with you, assuming that you take good care of it. Leaving your camera unattended might lead to theft, so don't be one of those tourists who put the camera on the restaurant table before going to the bathroom, for instance! Why do you need to pack a tool to take pictures? Because it would be foolish to let your memories disappear once you're back home.
Unless you're trying to make a living abroad, you shouldn't bring your laptop on holiday with you. You can do most things on a smartphone. A laptop means that you might be tempted to check your emails and potentially do some work in the evening. Remember: It's your holiday. It's the time you take off work to recharge your batteries. So leave work where it belongs, which is at the office!
So, hopefully, you're now ready to plan your perfect holiday. What else would you do to make sure you're ready to face any eventuality?


text:
SPIE Europe
Women In Optics
Women in Optics Planner
Women in Optics Spotlight Series
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Videos
Women in Optics Survey
SPIE Family Care Grants
Diversity Programming at SPIE
Export Information
SPIE IDL Logo
IDL Optics Outreach Games
SPIE IDL Resources
SPIE IDL Social Media
SPIE IDL Posters
SPIE IDL Lessons and Worksheets
SPIE IDL Photo Contest
SPIE IDL Student Member Video Contest
International Year of Light
IYL Activity Grants
SPIE IYL Photo Contest
SPIE IYL Materials + Resources
Award Listing
Awards Nomination Criteria
Awards Nomination Form
Attend Awards Banquet
SPIE Logos and Name
Event Logos
Branch Logos
Individual Journal Subscriptions
Institutional Journal Subscriptions
Neurophotonics Research Updates
Books By Technology
Tutorial Texts
Monographs & Handbooks
Milestone Series
Conference Content Management+Publication Services
Reprint and Re-Use Permission
Career-Focused Events
SPIE Career Lab
Career Skills and Learning
SPIE-Hillenkamp Fellowship
Support the Fellowship
Form a Student Chapter
Application, Requirements, and Criteria
Named SPIE Scholarships
Michael Kidger Scholarship
Nick Cobb Memorial Scholarship
The Yaver Scholarship
Student Conference Support
SPIE Member-Only Content
Corportate Member Directory
Complete List of SPIE Fellows
Fellows Nomination Criteria
Fellows Nomination Form
Complete List of SPIE Senior Members
Senior Member Nomination Form
Early Career Professionals
BACUS Technical Group
BACUS Individual Membership
BACUS Corporate Membership
About BACUS
BACUS Scholarship
Global Salary Report Hub
SPIE Job Fairs
Asia-Pacific Clusters
The Australian Optical Society
Korean Association for Photonics Industry Development
Optics Valley of China
Optics and Photonics Society of Singapore
Canadian Clusters
CIPC / Photons Canada
Ontario Photonics Technology Industry Cluster (OPTIC)
Ottawa Photonics Cluster
Optonique: Pôle d'excellence en optique photonique du Québec
European Clusters
Comité National d'Optique et de Photonique
Bayern Photonics e.V.
Fotónica21
France Clusters
Hanse Photonik
Optec-Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.
Optence e.V.
OpTech-Net e.V.; Duisburg
OptecNet Deutschland e.V.
OptoNet e.V.; Jena
PhotonAIX e.V.
Photonic BW
Photonic Net
Photonics Bretagne
PhotonicsNL
Photonics Finland
PhotonicSweden
POPsud / OPTITEC
Photonics Scotland
SECPhO
SPECTARIS – German Hightech Industry Association
Swissphotonics.net
USA Clusters
Arkansas Photonics Industry Alliance
Arizona Technology Council
Carolinas Photonics Consortium
Colorado Photonics Industry Association
Florida Photonics Cluster
Michigan Photonics Cluster
Montana Photonics Industry Alliance
New Mexico Optics Industry Association (NMOIA)
New York Photonics Industry Association
Rochester Regional Photonics Cluster, Inc.
Clustering Resources
How do industry clusters start?
Hamamatsu Workshop Series
Quantum Primer Series
Instructional Webinars
Community College Programs
Technician Scholarships
Training Program Resources
ABET Program Evaluators
Team Chair Competency Model
Commissioners and Delegates
Program Criteria
Contact SPIE Education
Photonics Focus
What, exactly, is a photon?
With new experiments and technologies, physicists have shown they can control individual photons with unprecedented precision. But the enigmatic elementary particle still hides its true colors.
By Sophia Chen
The photon might be the most familiar of elementary particles. Traveling at the speed of light, the particles bombard us daily from the sun, moon, and stars. For more than a century, scientists and engineers have harnessed them in aggregate to illuminate our cities and now, our screens.
Researchers today can control photons with more finesse than ever before. At the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Maryland, physicist Paulina Kuo creates and manipulates photons individually. By illuminating custom-designed crystals with laser light in her lab, Kuo produces twin photons, which she can further separate into single photons. Directing them toward certain materials, which absorb the particle to produce photons of different colors, she can effectively change the color of a photon while preserving the information encoded in it.
For example, she designed a crystal to double the frequency of an input photon, enabling conversion between red and infrared light. "You can fuse two photons together, or split one photon into two," she says. "Or even higher order processes. You can fuse three photons into one, or split one photon into three." Complementing these techniques, she uses state-of-the-art single-photon detectors, made of superconducting wires that become nonsuperconducting when they absorb a single photon. These types of detectors deliver highly accurate counts, detecting photons with up to 99 percent efficiency.
This single-photon technology will form the backbone of a future quantum internet, a proposed global network of devices for transmitting data encoded in single photons and other quantum particles. This data would be represented in a particle's quantum properties, such as a photon's polarization. Unlike classical data, which can only be represented as 0 or 1, so-called quantum information takes on values that are weighted combinations of 0 and 1, which enables new, potentially more powerful computational algorithms and new encryption protocols.
Engineering challenges abound for the quantum internet, such as problems with signal loss, says Kuo. But researchers—and their governments—have laid ambitious plans. In 2016, the European Union began a 1-billion euro quantum technologies initiative. This August, the US established five quantum research centers for accelerating quantum technology development with up to $625 million promised over the next five years. Physicist Pan Jian-Wei, who spearheaded the 2016 launch of a $100 million Chinese quantum technology satellite and its subsequent projects, has described a goal of building a global quantum internet by 2030.
Many experts have dubbed the current era of single-photon technology as the "second quantum revolution," a paradigm shift where scientists not only understand the counterintuitive principles of quantum mechanics—entanglement, superposition, and wave-particle duality—but can exploit them in technologies. The photon is no longer merely an object of study, but a tool.
So what, then, is a photon? Kuo gives a circular response. "A photon is the click registered by a single-photon resolving detector," she says.
Vaguer words than Kuo's have been used to describe the photon. It's a wave and a particle of light, or it's a quantization of the electromagnetic field. Or, "Shut up and calculate," a phrase familiar to anyone who has puzzled over quantum mechanics.
"You can get into trouble if you give the photon too much reality," says physicist Alan Migdall of NIST.
"People have been arguing about it for 100 plus years," says physicist Aephraim Steinberg of the University of Toronto. "I don't think we've come to a consensus."
Physicists began arguing about the photon as soon as they discovered it. The very scientists who conceived of the particles were skeptical that they fundamentally existed in nature. To explain otherwise confounding experimental data regarding the relationship of an object's temperature to its emitted radiation, in 1900 the German physicist Max Planck proposed that radiation comes in discrete quantities, or quanta. The concept of the photon was born. But Planck didn't comprehend the profundity of his idea. He later described his breakthrough as "an act of desperation"—an unsubstantiated trick to make the math work out.
Albert Einstein, too, resisted implications of the photon theory that he helped to develop. He was particularly bothered by entanglement, the idea that two particles can have intertwined fates, even when they are separated far apart from each other. The theory implied, for example, that if you measured the polarization of one photon in an entangled pair, you would instantly also know the polarization of the other, even if the two particles have been separated to opposite ends of the solar system. Entanglement suggested that objects can influence each other from arbitrarily far away, known as nonlocality, which Einstein derided as "spooky action at a distance." Preferring a reality where objects must be in proximity to exert influence on each other, he believed that quantum mechanics theory was incomplete. "It certainly gave Einstein indigestion," says Migdall.
For decades, arguments over the photon were largely relegated to the realm of thought experiments, as it was technologically impossible to test these ideas. Recently, the debate has trickled into the physics community more broadly, as single-photon sources and detectors become better and more widely accessible, according to Steinberg. "We can do these experiments instead of just imagining them, like Schrödinger's cat," he says.
For example, physicists have all but confirmed the existence of entanglement. Decades of experiments, known as tests of Bell's inequality, now strongly indicate that Einstein was wrong—and that our universe is nonlocal.
These tests are based on an experimental framework devised by the UK physicist John Stewart Bell in 1964. In theoretical work, Bell showed that if you repeat measurements on purportedly entangled particles, the statistics could reveal whether the photons truly influence each other nonlocally, or if an unknown mechanism—known generically as a "local hidden variable"—creates the illusion of action at a distance. In practice, the tests have largely involved splitting up pairs of entangled photons along two different paths to measure their polarizations at two different detectors.
Physicists have been performing Bell tests since the 1970s, with all published experiments indicating photons can spookily act from a distance, as physicist David Kaiser of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology explains. However, despite unanimous results, these early experiments were inconclusive: Technology shortfalls meant their experiments suffered from three potential design limitations, or loopholes.
The first loophole, known as the locality loophole, arises from the two polarization detectors being too close together. Theoretically, it was possible that one detector could have relayed a signal to the other detector right before the entangled photons are emitted, influencing the outcome of the measurement locally.
The second loophole, called the fair sampling loophole, resulted from poor-quality single-photon detectors. Experts argued that the detectors could have caught a biased subset of the photons, skewing the statistics. The desire to close this loophole, says Migdall, has driven the development of better single-photon detectors, the same now used routinely in quantum technologies.
The third loophole, the freedom-of-choice loophole, is related to the settings of the polarization detector. To get truly unbiased statistics on a large number of polarization measurements, the orientation of the polarization detector must be randomly reset for each measurement. It is difficult to guarantee randomness, with researchers painstakingly resetting the detectors by hand in early experiments.
Recent experiments have closed all three loopholes, albeit not simultaneously in one test, according to Kaiser. In 2015, a team led by physicist Ronald Hanson at the Delft University of Technology performed a Bell test that closed the fair sampling and locality loopholes for the first time, albeit using entangled electrons rather than photons.
Publishing in 2018, a team of scientists at the Institute of Photonics Sciences in Spain charged 100,000 volunteers to play a video game to generate random numbers, which the scientists used to set their Bell test detectors to constrain the freedom-of-choice loophole.
Kaiser worked on another experiment published in 2018, dubbed the "Cosmic Bell Test," which closed the locality loophole and tightly constrained the freedom-of-choice loophole by setting their polarization detector orientation using a random number generator based on the frequency of light emitted from two stars 600 and 1,900 light years away, respectively.
The results strongly support the nonlocality of entanglement. "The indigestion that Einstein had with quantum mechanics—if he were around today, you would tell him that he would just have to deal with it," says Migdall.
Physicist Alexandra Landsman of The Ohio State University describes the photon as "a quantum of energy," which aligns closely with physicists' original conceptions of the particle. In a 1905 paper, Einstein described light as discrete packets of energy proportional to its frequency to explain the so-called photoelectric effect. Scientists had observed that materials absorb light to eject electrons, but only when the frequency of the light is shorter than some threshold value. Einstein's explanation, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921, helped to kickstart the development of quantum theory.
New laser technology has enabled researchers to revisit the photoelectric effect in more detail. Attosecond lasers, invented in 2001, deliver pulses of light less than a quadrillionth of a second long that allow physicists to observe quantum-scale action like a camera with record shutter speed. In particular, physicists are using ultrafast lasers to time the photoelectric effect: once a photon impinges upon an atom or molecule, how long does it take the electron to be ejected? "People in the past assumed that this process happens instantaneously," says Landsman. "There was no way to address this question experimentally."
In 2010, a team led by physicist Ferenc Krausz, then at Vienna University of Technology, performed an experiment showing that electron ejection from an atom takes time. While they didn't measure the absolute time, they could discern that it took about 20 attoseconds longer for an electron to leave from the 2p orbital versus the 2s orbital of a neon atom. Subsequent experiments by other groups have timed the electron emission in molecules such as water and nitrous oxide.
Landsman, a theorist, is working to understand why electrons leave certain molecules faster than others. Some molecules, for example, confine the electron to a space such that the electron forms a standing wave. This condition, known as shape resonance, temporarily traps the electron, slowing down its escape. Ultimately, Landsman wants to elucidate all the factors that delay atoms and molecules from releasing the electron to zero in on how long the photon and electron encounter each other. "These experiments give us more insight as to how a photon interacts with an electron," she says.
Zlatko Minev, however, does not think that a photon is a quantum of energy. Minev, a physicist at IBM, researches how to build a quantum computer. In this new technological context, he says, photons seem to manifest differently.
Minev runs experiments on circuits made of superconducting wires that can be used as qubits, which are building blocks of quantum computers. These circuits are designed to absorb a single photon of a specified energy, where the absorption of a photon can represent the 1 state in a quantum computer. Once the qubit absorbs one photon, its response changes, so that it will no longer absorb photons of that energy.
The conventional idea of a photon as a "quantum of energy" doesn't fit these circuits, says Minev, who refers to the systems as quantum nonlinear oscillators. "You could ask, what does it mean to have two photons in my oscillator? Is it two units of energy?" he says. "In this case, it's not, because each extra photon in the oscillator actually has a different amount of energy. The energy doesn't define the photon in this case."
So how does he describe the photon? "I'm not sure I can give you a one-sentence answer," says Minev. "I'm currently reevaluating my own understanding." Currently, he thinks the photon is a "quantum of action," where "action" refers to an abstract quantity describing the allowed behavior of his system.
As physicists reevaluate the basics, these new experiments illuminate the connection between fundamental science and applications. Kuo's quantum internet technology shares ancestry with the hardware used in Bell tests of entanglement. Minev's studies of his nonlinear oscillator help him develop methods to correct errors in quantum computers. Landsman's research on the photoelectric effect in molecules can reveal clues about its electronic properties, which could eventually provide scientists a new avenue for designing materials with desired specifications. Migdall says that researchers use Bell tests to verify randomness in new models of random number generators that exploit entangled particles.
Still, the true nature of the photon eludes physicists. "All the fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no closer to the answer to the question: What are light quanta?" Einstein wrote in a 1951 letter. "Of course today every rascal thinks he knows the answer, but he is deluding himself."
He may have been wrong about entanglement, but seven more decades of collective brooding later, the sentiment still holds.
Sophia Chen contributes to WIRED, Science, and Physics Girl. She is a freelance writer based in Columbus, Ohio.
Enjoy this article?
Get similar news in your inbox
Get more stories from SPIE
TAGS: Photonics Focus, Quantum
Guillermo Tearney on microsystems for disease diagnosis
Tailoring 'hollow' hydrogen molecule generation with two-color, bicircularly polarized laser pulses
Publications, Technology
Towards better dental cavity diagnosis with nondestructive infrared imaging
mobile site designed by WompMobile
menu search cross chevron-up


text:
POLITICAL CRISIS IN BOLIVIA
Maduro blames Washington for bankrolling Bolivian coup d'etat
On November 10, Morales announced his resignation
CARACAS, November 12. /TASS/. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the United States of having masterminded a coup d'etat in Bolivia.
"We have condemned the coup d'etat against [Bolivian President] Evo Morales that has been coordinated and bankrolled from the White House," said Maduro during his address in Caracas broadcast on national television on Tuesday.
The Venezuelan leader noted that the US has been behind all coups in the region over the past century. "Do you want to fight? We are ready to fight for peace, motherland and sovereignty," he said.
Evo Morales says he is leaving Bolivia for Mexico
On November 10, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced his resignation, branding the recent developments as a coup d'etat. He stepped down following the demands of the country's armed forces, opposition and trade unions. On the same day, Mexico's authorities declared readiness to grant him political asylum.
Bolivia's presidential election was held on October 20. The country's Supreme Electoral Court declared that incumbent President Evo Morales won the first round. His main rival, former president Carlos Mesa, said that he did not recognize Morales' victory. After the results of the election were announced, protests and strikes erupted across the South American country. Morales declared a state of emergency and accused the opposition of attempting to stage a coup.
Alberto Fernandez said that many infrastructure projects, including hydropower plants and nuclear power plants, were waiting for this agreement because they required foreign financing