naturalnews--2019-12-04--The ten most dangerous threats to humanity that must be defeated for us to live as free, conscious b

The ten most dangerous threats to humanity that must be defeated for us to live as free, conscious beings - part one

(Natural News) It is a natural tendency of human beings to focus on the emergencies at your feet today rather than the far more profound threats to existence that take time to materialize. Almost everything you might encounter in day-to-day media reports is talking about inconsequential matters compared to the big picture explained here. Trump or no Trump, human civilization is on a collision course with extermination from two vectors: Self-extermination and outside-of-our-control apocalyptic demise. Yet almost nothing is being done to halt humanities spiraling suicide march, even when the outcome is clearly disastrous.  If humanity continues on its current path, we will give rise to phenomena that will decisively end us as the dominant, intelligent species on planet Earth. Yet there are almost no voices of dissent against these accelerating pursuits, as the fear of being left behind in the global race for technological “achievement” (or political power, or profits, etc.) overrides any sense of informed caution.  In this two-part article series, I share ten of the most dangerous threats to humanity that must be defeated (or overcome) for us to live as free, conscious beings in a sustainable world.  Our planet’s electrical grid can be taken out at any moment, without warning, from a sufficiently powerful solar flare. Such solar flares are produced by the sun at regular intervals and catapulted into the cosmos. Fortunately, very few of them strike planet Earth for the simple reason that Earth is a very tiny target from the point of view of the sun. (The solar system models you see in textbooks and TV documentaries universally distort scales to make it appear the Earth is much closer to the sun than is the case.)  Sponsored: NEW Biostructured Silver First Aid Gel created by the Health Ranger combines three types of silver (ionic silver, colloidal silver, biostructured silver) with seven potent botanicals (rosemary, oregano, cinnamon and more) to create a breakthrough first aid silver gel. Over 50 ppm silver, verified via ICP-MS lab analysis. Made from 100% Texas rain water and 70% solar power. Zero chemical preservatives, fragrances or emulsifiers. See full details here.  Asteroid impacts, although extremely rare, can be catastrophic when they occur. At least one mass extinction of planet Earth, according to mainstream scientists, occurred because our planet was struck by an asteroid roughly 65 million years ago, near the Yucatan Peninsula, wiping out the dinosaurs.  Despite these risks, there is no serious effort to “ruggedize” Earth’s power grid infrastructure against the EMP effects of solar flares. There’s also no sufficient effort under way to monitor the skies for objects that may strike the Earth at high velocity. Our planet is swirling through a cosmic shooting gallery, and earthlings are flying blind, foolishly hoping nothing catastrophic will occur. That approach is incredibly shortsighted, if not suicidal.  It is the cosmic equivalent of participating in a street parade that marches through a field laces with land mines. Sooner or later, your luck streak ends badly.  The genetic engineering of humans produces self-replicating “genetic pollution” with unknown consequences, some of which may be catastrophic to the fertility or viability of the human species as a whole. Yet China, in particular, is aggressively pursuing genetic engineering of humans in the hopes of creating “super soldiers” — biological humanoid weapons that can fight for the interests of the communist party. This most likely means fighting against the interests of free humans, by the way.  China’s genetic experiments have already gone horribly wrong. According to a report from The Guardian, a recent effort to genetically engineer human babies resulted in “unintended mutations.” These mutations can, of course, be passed on to future generations, contaminating the human gene pool with the pollution of failed mad science experiments. As The Guardian reports, “Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui ignored ethical and scientific norms in creating the twins Lula and Nana, whose birth in late 2018 sent shockwaves through the scientific world.”  Even worse, the core philosophy of secrecy and dishonesty that now pervades the communist Chinese culture has already resulted in these researchers trying to hide the name and location of this genetically mutated baby. As The Guardian reports, “The authors also appeared to have taken steps to make it hard to find the family, like leaving the names of the fertility doctors off the paper, and including a false date of birth. He claimed November 2018 while multiple reports have indicated it was October 2018.”  Even if the goal is merely to genetically engineer “organ farm” humanoids to serve as organ harvesting vessels for the lucrative transplant industry, the moral and ethical implications of engineering, cloning and growing fields of human organ harvesting farms populated by conscious beings should demand a global halt to this research. Remember, China is a nation where human beings imprison bears and siphon biological chemicals from their gall bladders on a daily basis in order to sell this lucrative “medicine” to willing buyers. In China, there is no moral boundary that prevents the mass torture of other living beings for personal profit. When a nation that has no moral grounding also pursues genetic engineering technology without limits, the result is sure to be horrific beyond imagination.  Sadly, China is currently leading the world in genetic engineering research on humans. And this is a nation that places zero value on human beings. What could possibly go wrong?  By its very nature, communism deprives conscious, self-aware human beings of the dignity and freedom that makes us human. The rise of communism (and socialism, which is “communism light”) threatens to unleash the fall of humanity, for communism rests on the idea that the power of the few must be protected and expanded at the expense of the many.  Where it achieves its desired goal of absolute dominance over the minds of men (and women), communism unleashes the destruction of free will, the demise of freedom of thought, the suppression of the freedom to engage in contracts and commerce, the destruction of the freedom of religion and the eradication of logic and reason. This is all by design, since an individual’s ability to think for himself is incompatible with the authoritarian aims of communism which dictate to all subjects the things they must believe, how they must speak and what concepts must be erased from their consciousness (such as dissent against the state).  The rise of China’s economy over the last three decades has misled many people into thinking that a hybrid model of communism and “free market” principles can achieve tremendous success in our world, yet those who fall for such beliefs are not yet aware of the three irreconcilable factors that will bring communist China to its knees. (By the way, China considers itself to be a socialist nation, not communist. This underscores the undeniable fact that socialism and communism are just two slightly different flavors of the same anti-human tyranny.)  1 – China has made a deal with the devil by trading production output for extreme, long-term domestic pollution consisting of heavy metals, extreme air pollution and the mass pollution of waterways and soils that feed their own people. The result will be seven generations of birth defects, mental retardation and neuropsychiatric illness that will ravage the nation for a century or more.  2 – Runaway debt, leveraged by greed – China is already bailing out banks nearly every week, and the debt-to-GDP ratio of the nation as a whole has reached alarming levels that threaten its entire economic foundation. Because communism operates from a command-and-control central economic authority, the deeply rooted resource allocation mistakes that lead to economic collapse have no chance of being rooted out or corrected through rational investment choices by a broad base of retail participants. Rather, critical fractures that threaten the viability of the entire economic system will be officially denied and covered up by the central authorities until the problem becomes so large that it can no longer be hidden from the masses… at which point it will be too late to solve. Remember: Capital markets cannot function efficiently without the free will of participants who are acting on transparent information. Once you take away free will and begin to dictate the demanded behavior of participants, you create catastrophic distortions that lead to eventual collapse. And part of the long-term viability of free market systems depends on “predator” investors feeding on bad resource allocation ideas by dismantling corporations which pursue bad ideas (and therefore misallocate resources).  3 – Connected people want to be free – The Hong Kong phenomenon demonstrates the fact that as technology gives rise to the instant connections among individuals who share common interests, those people sooner or later discover they’d rather be free than enslaved. It is a natural tendency of conscious, self-aware individuals to prefer autonomy over tyranny. Authoritarian societies can only remain sustainable when they isolate people from each other, which China is attempting to do through Google search manipulation technologies, censorship, facial recognition tracking, social scoring systems, etc., but despite all the layers of techno-fascism, a Chinese farmer innately seeks the same level of personal freedom as a Texas farmer. It is the natural desire of conscious beings to seek freedom and reject authoritarian limits on their ability to think, speak or act. The rise of the internet and its properties of rapid interconnections among individuals has created a vector for free-thinking people to connect and act in unison against the tyranny of the state. This is just as true in China as it is in Brazil, Venezuela, the United Kingdom or France, for that matter.  In summary, humanity must declare war on communism and eliminate it from planet Earth, for if communism is allowed to rise, it will ultimately lead to the destruction of humanity itself. Communism embodies an anti-human agenda, simply put.  A free society cannot function in a sustainable way if its participants are not allowed to express freedom of speech… which stems from the freedom to think. Yet today, we live under an unprecedented form of digital tyranny, where un-elected techno-fascists grant themselves the monopoly power to decide which concepts are allowed to be publicly expressed. Anything they don’t want to see debated or mentioned is simply labeled “hate speech” and removed from the web via dominant gatekeepers like Google, Facebook and Twitter.  A new effort is under way to tighten the censorship grid by proclaiming that the internet shouldn’t be used to “divide” people. Only voices that “unite” people are to be allowed to use the internet under a new agreement authored by Tim Berners-Lee, who has launched what he calls a “Magna Carta for the web.” The description of this new agreement reveals the bizarre distortions that underpin its fascist tenants, however. As explained by The Guardian, this “Magna Carta for the web” will, “protect people’s rights online from threats such as fake news, prejudice and hate.”  Hopefully, you already see the distortions in that very line. There is no such thing as a “right” to be protected from “hate,” for example, especially given that “hate” is defined as anything the Left doesn’t want to read or see. Yet it is through these perverse distortions that censorship is being re-packaged as freedom, and the crushing of dissenting voices is being marketed as “protection from hate.”  As George Orwell once wrote, war is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.  This has practically become the mantra of the digital tyrants as we approach 2020. Censorship is freedom. Silencing the opposition is diversity. Destroying freedom of expression is progress. We are now living under the Orwellian nightmare that was once mocked as impossible to imagine. Yet it is here, and it has a name: “Contract for the web.”  Under this new “Contract for the web,” all voices of dissent will be silenced. Only voices which are obedient to the ever-changing whims of the tolerati will be allowed to engage in the “freedom” of expression. Censorship will be justified as a way to protect the freedom of speech by invoking the absurd idea that freedom excludes the ideas of those with dissenting views.  For humanity to survive with anything resembling real freedom, the digital tyranny that now threatens human civilization must be defeated and dismantled. The internet must be set free to carry all voices, no matter how fringe, or offensive or non-conformist. The minority of the individual must be protected from the bullying of the online mob, and that means the proper role of government in regulating the tech giants is to restrict censorship of minority views and thereby initiate a new online civil rights movement that makes it a crime for corporations to silence people due to the color of their speech.  #5) The mass chemical contamination of the food supply  The mass chemical contamination of the human food supply has sharply increased since World War II, after which synthetic pesticides and herbicides were deployed on a truly alarming scale in order to achieve higher crop yield efficiencies. The obvious problem with these toxic synthetic chemicals such as organophosphates is two-fold:  1) Their chemical toxicity is not specific to the insects they target. These chemicals are also toxic to humans.  2) Once applied to food crops, the chemicals persist in both the environment and the resulting food products that are consumed by humans and ranch animals. The result is the bioaccumulation of toxic, synthetic chemicals, many of which have direct and severe neurological toxicity in nearly all life forms.  In effect, we are eating ourselves to death because we are consuming foods which are laced with pesticides and herbicides (such as glyphosate and atrazine). The use of these agricultural chemicals continues to increase, to the point where the very existence of pollinators is now severely threatened by just one class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids.  When the pollinators collapse, approximately one-third of the food supply consumed by humans ceases to exist (this includes almonds, by the way, which require pollinators to produce nuts).  The continued consumption of these toxic chemicals results in transgenerational effects, meaning the toxicity continues to interfere with human biology (infertility, neurotoxicity, etc.) across multiple generations. Even if we were to halt all pesticide use today, the human race will be subject to the lingering effects of a toxic food supply for at least four generations.  Since there is no economic penalty for farmers to add these toxic chemicals to their crops, their use has become so widespread that even many certified organic food products are now contaminated with glyphosate and other chemicals (I see this directly in the mass spec testing at my food science lab, where we routinely test foods for glyphosate and heavy metals).  And because pesticides are invisible to the human eye, consumers have no practical way to choose pesticide-free foods at the grocery store, meaning there is no economic penalty for farmers to saturate their crops with these toxic chemicals. In fact, there is an economic incentive to do so, since killing the most pests by over-spraying crops with pesticides can, in many cases, product higher crop yields (although resulting in a more dangerous level of pesticides for consumers). This is why strawberries, for example, are so heavily sprayed with various pesticide chemicals that eating non-organic strawberries is a form of slow suicide.  No mammals on the planet deliberately poison their own foods before feeding them to their children… except humans, of course. It is a slow suicide mission that can only end badly. If humanity does not figure out a way to stop poisoning its own foods — and feeding this poison to its children — we will witness the collapse of sustainable human health and fertility, followed by the collapse of human populations on a near-global scale.  Perhaps that is the plan, come to think of it.  This analysis continues in Part Two, posting tomorrow. (Link will be updated here once part two goes live.)  How to get more analysis from this author:  – Listen to my podcasts and watch my videos at the H.R. Report channel on Brighteon.com, the free speech alternative to YouTube.  – Watch my once-a-week interviews with Alan Keyes at the IAMtv channel on Brighteon.com.  – Subscribe to the Natural News email newsletter for daily updates of breaking stories and analysis.


npr--2019-06-30--Former NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz Restores Mission Control in Houston

Gene Kranz may be the most famous flight director in NASA's history. He directed the actual landing portion of the first mission to put men on the moon, Apollo 11, and led Mission Control in saving the crew of Apollo 13 after an oxygen tank exploded on the way to the lunar surface.  Now Kranz, 85, has completed another undertaking: the reopening of Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.  The room where Kranz directed some of NASA's most historic missions, heralding U.S. exploration of space, was decommissioned in 1992. Since then, it had become a stop on guided tours of the space center, but fallen into disrepair. Kranz has led a $5 million dollar, multi-year effort to restore Mission Control in time for the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing on July 20.  "I walked into that room last Monday for the first time when it was fully operational, and it was dynamite. I literally wept," Kranz said in an interview with NPR. "The emotional surge at that moment was incredible. I walked down on the floor, and when we did the ribbon cutting the last two days, believe it or not, I could hear the people talking in that room from 50 years ago. I could hear the controllers talking."  The room also brought back memories for Kranz of a shared sense of purpose.  "That group of people united in pursuit of a cause, and basically the result was greater than the sum of the parts. There was a chemistry that was formed," Kranz said.  Sandra Tetley, Johnson Space Center's historic preservation officer, worked with contractors to meticulously recreate the room, interviewing former flight controllers and collecting old photos. They scoured websites like eBay to find items from the Apollo era — such as cups, ashtrays and a coffee pot to fill the room.  "We even identified which was original paint, and which was not original paint, so we could make sure the original paint was left," Tetley said. "We hand-stamped all of the ceiling tiles so that the whole patterns would match."  Kranz, who was played by the actor Ed Harris in the 1995 movie Apollo 13, said the room's significance extends beyond historical items and artifacts. "[The room] also has a meaning related to the American psyche, that what America will dare, America will do," he said.  Kranz said he wants his early space missions to challenge America's youth to study science, engineering and technology, and for the restored room to provide inspiration for teachers and students.  "There's an awful lot of future out there, and what you got to do, is you go to out and grab it, wrestle it to the ground, accept the challenges, and then decide," Kranz said. "You've got the skills. You've got the knowledge. You've got the love, and you're capable of moving forward and making a great life for yourself."  Those were life lessons Kranz says he learned in Mission Control.


pbs--2019-05-20--How Trump has already changed migrant worker programs

President Donald Trump [called last week](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/whats-in-trumps-immigration- proposal) for prioritizing immigrants coming to the United States for skills- based reasons rather than family ties, a proposal that would shift the values anchoring the nation’s immigration policy and have significant economic ramifications.  Congress seems unlikely to act on the president’s newest plan, which critics argue does not dramatically reshape the legal immigration landscape. But on its own the Trump administration has made a number of changes over the past two years to the nation’s guest worker program — changes that will resonate throughout the U.S. economy.  Government officials are rejecting more high-skilled foreign workers applying for visas and cracking down on immigrants who [overstay their visas.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/22/donald-trump- orders-crackdown-foreigners-overstay-visas/3544008002/) At the same time, federal agencies are granting more visas for low-skilled workers in the farming and hospitality sectors.  Immigrants who use guest worker programs represent a relatively small share of the overall labor force, and that was the case even before the Trump administration began making changes to those programs. But guest workers can boost or slow economic growth depending on how many are allowed into the U.S., so the policies around these visas are a critical part of the broader economy.  ## H-1B visas  H-1B visas are given out to fill high-skilled, in-demand jobs in the U.S. Most of the jobs are in the science, engineering and technology sectors. Applicants must have highly specialized knowledge or a bachelor’s degree to qualify for the visas. The U.S. has a quota of 85,000 H-1B visas to be issued each year, but it also gives out tens of thousands of H-1B visas for workers at higher education institutions and government research organizations, which are exempt from the quota.  H-1B visa holders account for a small share of all jobs in the U.S., but make up a larger share — by some estimates as much as 13 percent — of all tech jobs.  During the Trump administration the denial rate for H-1B visas has more than doubled. The federal agency that oversees the process has also been cracking down on companies it perceives to be abusing the program.  In 2017, 13 percent of H-1B petitions for new employment were denied. That number rose to 24 percent in 2018 and 32 percent in the first quarter of 2019, according to U.S. Customs and Immigration Services [data that was analyzed](https://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/H-1B-Denial-Rates-Past- and-Present.NFAP-Policy-Brief.April-2019.pdf) by the nonprofit National Foundation for American Policy.  ![Employees of Tata Consultancy Services \(TCS\) work inside the company headquarters in Mumbai March 14, 2013.  the Trump administration has cracked down on services firms like TCS that sponsor a large number of H-1B visas. Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters](https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2019/05/2016-10 -10T120000Z_1930202029_S1BEUGBYZSAA_RTRMADP_3_TATACONSULTANCY-RESULTS- 1024x697.jpg)  Employees of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) work inside the company headquarters in Mumbai March 14, 2013. the Trump administration has cracked down on services firms like TCS that sponsor a large number of H-1B visas. Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters  Most of those denials were handed down to companies specializing in IT services that hire H-1B workers and contract them out to other companies. IT services firms have borne the brunt of the scrutiny over H-1B visas in recent years because they tend to pay lower wages, despite the federal requirement that companies [pay H-1B workers](https://www.apnews.com/afs:Content:873580003) the same salary as an American in the position.  The government’s approval rate for H-1B visas for those companies dropped from 94 percent in 2016 to 58 percent last year. The rate dropped 6 percent in the same period for non-IT support companies as well, according to the Migration Policy Institute, which analyzed the data.  “It appears the administration has been very smart and targeted about their increased scrutiny,” said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute.  ### What that means for the economy  Guest worker programs — and their effect on the economy — have long been controversial. Companies applying for visas must promise not to displace American workers, but there have been instances when businesses laid off workers and [replaced them](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/are-u-s-jobs- vulnerable-to-workers-with-h-1b-visas/) with H-1B visa holders.  Opponents of H-1B visas also say they suppress wages for Americans workers. Proponents argue they help fill jobs that American workers won’t take and, in turn, boost the nation’s economy.  Both could be true. Studies have shown companies sometimes pay H-1B visa holders less than American workers, even though the government prohibits it. At the same time, because H-1B visa holders often work in the tech and IT sectors, they are more likely to spur innovation, create more jobs, increase productivity and, in turn, [boost wages](http://giovanniperi.ucdavis.edu/uploads/5/6/8/2/56826033/stem- workers.pdf) over the long-term.  “We know that high-skilled immigrants create jobs and are a net benefit to the economy,” said Hanna Siegel, the managing director for the research organization the New American Economy.  Even though most of the scrutiny of H-1B visas has been on IT services firms, other companies are still getting caught in the crossfire.  [Difficulty getting visas approved](https://apnews.com/af878855969c4b48bc8b083b91c67018) in what is already a highly competitive process could discourage small businesses, such as startups, to sponsor H-1B visa applicants. IT services firms, however, rely so heavily on H-1B visas that they are well-versed in the application process and are less likely to be discouraged by hurdles put in their way. As a result, economists warn IT firms could end up cornering even more of the market– exactly what the Trump administration appears trying to fight.  If the process becomes too burdensome, it could also drive the highest-skilled workers to immigrate to other countries instead of the U.S.  ## H-2A visas  2018 marked a new record for H-2A visas, which are used for seasonal farm workers. More than 240,000 H-2A visas were given out last year, representing a 21 percent increase from the year before and more than double [the number allotted](https://www.epi.org/blog/h-2a-farm-guestworker-program-expanding- rapidly/) just four years ago.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture also recently launched a streamlined process for H-2A visas.  ### What that means for the economy  Farmers have been complaining for years of a labor shortage, and it’s expected to get worse.  The work is temporary and is mostly manual labor, which deters some American workers and increases the need for foreign workers.  Farmers have been complaining for years of a labor shortage, and it’s expected to get worse.  In 2017, [91 percent of the visas](https://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=2063) were issued to Mexicans. But [a USDA report](https://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/pub- details/?pubid=90831) released last fall found that, due to the growing urbanization of Mexico, there are also fewer laborers from rural Mexico who are willing to take these jobs. Meanwhile, the number of unauthorized immigrants already in the U.S., who used to take these kinds of jobs because they had few other options, has dropped in recent years, the report said.  The report advocated for expanding the H-2A visa program but said expansion would not solve the shortage. Instead, it encouraged a move away from labor- intensive crops and emphasized the need for more investment in technology that could replace manual labor.  ## H-2B visas  This year Homeland Security is issuing 30,000 more H-2B visas, which go to low-skilled, seasonal or temporary workers outside of the agricultural industry. About 40 percent of H-2B jobs are in landscaping and groundskeeping. Others work in the forestry, hotel, construction, restaurant and seafood industries.  Each year, Congress authorizes an additional number of H-2B visas beyond the 66,000 annual quota. Homeland Security can then decide how many extra visas to give out.  Last year, it issued 15,000 more visas than the quota. This year, it has doubled that number to 30,000.  ![Mexican workers, on the U.S. H2B visa program for seasonal guest workers, process crabs at the A.E. Phillips and Son Inc. crab picking house on Hooper's Island in Fishing Creek, Maryland, on August 26, 2015.  Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters](https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2019/05/2015-10 -13T000000Z_1513031398_GF10000243010_RTRMADP_3_USA-ENVIRONMENT-CRAB- 1024x683.jpg)  Mexican workers, on the U.S. H2B visa program for seasonal guest workers, process crabs at the A.E. Phillips and Son Inc. crab picking house on Hooper’s Island in Fishing Creek, Maryland, on August 26, 2015. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters  It’s unclear why the administration has chosen to issue more of these visas, but some economists said it can likely be attributed to lobbying efforts and support from key lawmakers such as Senators Susan Collins and Angus King of Maine, a state that relies heavily on seasonal migrant workers for the seafood and summer tourism industries.  Despite Trump’s broader policies aimed at limiting immigration, communities that rely on H-2A visas has managed to “get some wins,” Siegel said.  ### What that means for the economy  The increased number of H-2B visas could help companies avoid the crunch they saw last year. In Maryland, for example, the Washington Post reported that about a third of the state’s [crab picking jobs](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/08/17/feature/trump- changed-a-seasonal-worker-program-now-marylands-crab-houses-are-losing- business/?utm_term=.947cc4bc4745) were unfilled along the Eastern Shore last summer. As a result, crab companies could not meet customer demand and lost profit.  Even though the visa caps are being expanded, the number of visas available are still relatively small compared to the demand for workers in the U.S. As the average household income in the U.S. rises, there will be more disposable income, and more demand for hotels, restaurants and construction — the kinds of services H-2B visa holders supply.  That could create a “bottleneck” in the U.S. economy, UC Davis economist Giovanni Peri said, and cost a few percentage points in economic growth over several years.  _Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that the U.S. gives out additional H-1B visas beyond its quota to workers at higher education institutions and research organizations. It also incorrectly stated that H-1B visas accounted for about .05 percent of the labor market. In fact the share is larger, but estimates vary._


prepareforchange--2019-12-06--NASA Accidentally Shows Evidence of Large-Scale Weather Manipulation In Satellite Photos

Hurricane Matthew and its successor Irma have turned weather into a dominant theme in the forefront of the public’s mind.  From extreme flooding to widespread debris damage, people have witnessed the incredible power of mother nature — but is there something else at work here?  Long have rumors circulated that the U.S. government is engaged in a decades-long geoengineering effort — and why not? The ability to control the weather could be the ultimate tool for good—or for destruction.  Whether its chemtrails or weather manipulators like HAARP, the link between covert government operations and the effects these can have on weather can’t just be discarded as conspiracy theory.  And now, NASA’s own satellite images have revealed what’s being referred to as “shocking proof of climate engineering.”  See for yourself:  Near the East Coast of Australia  The above image, along with those to follow, shows what Dane Wigington, writing for Wakeup-World, describes as “many variances of radio frequency cloud impacts”:  “South of Spain in the Alboran Sea”  According to Dane, Africa’s coastal regions are a hotbed for geoengineering efforts despite being referred to in the mainstream media as just the result of “dust” in the air.  “Right now, much of the Gulf of Mexico and parts of the Caribbean have slightly warmer than normal ocean temperatures which would normally aid in tropical development. “But there is so much dust and dry air in the atmosphere that storms are getting choked off before they even get started.”  Some have theorized that geoengineering technology can — and is already being used to — manipulate larger storm systems such as hurricanes.  In fact, such allegations have already been directed at Hurricane Matthew, suggesting that the “ripples” in the photo of the storm below show “waves” consistent with powerful “radio frequency/microwave transmissions and atmospheric aerosols.”  Even if this is all true, and even if it’s executed with good intentions, what are the unintended consequences of playing god with the weather?  After over 65 years of climate “intervention”, very real damage has been done to the Earth’s life support systems (along with countless other forms of anthropogenic destruction to the biosphere).  In this photo below, Dane describes how radio frequency transmissions can affect cloud formations “by the spraying of toxic electrically conductive heavy metals”:  In this next photo, Dane points out that they formed near a HAARP Station, which generated the unique looking cloud patterns:  Must-read: NASA Satellite Images Prove Hurricanes Are Man-Made, And More Are Coming


rt--2019-10-20--US Army to test ‘mystery materials’ owned by Blink-182 frontman’s UFO group at government facilities

US Army to test ‘mystery materials’ owned by Blink-182 frontman’s UFO group at government facilities – report

New information on the deal between To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSA) and the US Army shows that the army wants to verify the UFO research group’s claims about unexplained alloys and “technology innovations.”  The eye-catching partnership between the group, owned by former Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge, and the army made headlines in recent days as many wondered what form the collaboration would take.  The group has claimed to be in possession of a range of mysterious metal alloys that are said to be beyond current engineering technology. Now documents, relating to the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), released by the War Zone website, reportedly show that the army wants to attempt to verify TTSA’s claims.  “To the Stars Academy of Arts and Science is a company with material and technology innovations that offer capability advancements for army ground vehicles,” the documents reportedly read.  “These technology innovations have been acquired, designed, and produced by the Collaborator [TTSA], leveraging advancements in metamaterials and quantum physics to push performance gains.”  The agreement goes on to say that the government wants to “assess, test, and characterize” the material at government facilities to compare them with known commodities and to understand what would be required to reproduce the advancements.  “If the government can verify material solutions claims by the collaborator, then significant advancements can be made in the capabilities of army ground vehicle platforms in terms of security, force protection and weight reduction," it adds.  The documents also reveal that the agreement will run out in September, 2023, but whether the general public will get to hear how it works out was not divulged.  Like this story? Share it with a friend!


skynewspolitics--2019-11-19--Can the Greens achieve their radical goals on housing?

Can the Greens achieve their radical goals on housing?  Can the Greens achieve their radical goals on housing?  The Green Party has been decades ahead of its political rivals in warning of a climate crisis and in this election, the consensus appears to have caught up with them.  The Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats share their analysis that there is a climate emergency and Theresa May committed the Conservatives to "leading the world in tackling climate change".  But when it comes to tackling the problem the Greens remain decades ahead, two decades in fact.  The party's election manifesto commits the UK to becoming carbon neutral by 2030, a full 20 years ahead of the current government target of 2050.  Delivering such a fundamental change in a carbon-reliant economy in little more than a decade is hugely ambitious but the Greens maintain it is possible with public will and sufficient investment.  They propose 10 key pieces of legislation to deliver a "Green New Deal" backed by £1trn over 10 years, covering areas including energy, transport, industry and so on.  One key policy plank is housing and comes with specific targets to transform the energy efficiency of the nation's homes.  It matters because heating and lighting for homes contributes 14% of the UK's carbon emissions.  That's more than double the 6% arising from energy we use in our homes to cook, boil the kettle, recharge smartphones and so on.  The Greens' proposal is to create 100,000 new council homes built to the highest standards of energy efficiency every year for a decade, at a cost of £10.6bn.  They also plan to retrofit insulation and green energy into one million more existing homes and premises annually, at an estimated cost of £24.6m.  Meeting these targets would require a vast increase in the quantity of council house building and domestic engineering.  Annual council house construction has been in steep decline for nearly 30 years, falling from almost 60,000 in the mid-1990s to just 7,000 additional new or acquired council homes last year.  Increasing that rate to 100,000 a year is a huge ask.  And just 7,000 were built in England last year  Upgrading existing housing to the highest energy efficiency standards may be an even bigger challenge, however.  Britain's homes are hugely energy inefficient, in part because of their age.  Judged against the energy performance register introduced as part of home information packs, less than one percent have the highest A or B rating.  And the Greens are proposing new builds and retro-fits meet an even higher standard, known as a Passivhaus, of which there are just 1,000 in the UK in total.  "To do this would be unprecedented," said Luke Murphy of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a think-tank.  "The current government has committed to upgrading 2.5 million homes for those in fuel poverty just to energy rating C, which isn't the highest rating, and they're on schedule to deliver that by 2091 rather than 2030, so this is extremely challenging, it's very ambitious."  Perhaps the major question is whether the construction industry has the skills or capacity to deliver, even if the money is there to pay for it.  Rick Hartwig, built environment lead for the Institution of Engineering and Technology, says the figures are realistic, but it could take a decade for the industry be ready to build at such a rate, about the same time the Green's carbon neutral target is due to be delivered.  "£24.6bn is more than enough to kick-start the industry to deliver deep retrofit.  "Current spending on energy measures is £640m per year on low performance single measures such as replacing the boiler or fitting new and improved windows and doors.  "We have called for the adoption of deep retrofit to reduce carbon generation of buildings to zero.  "This would be achieved by adding insulation to walls and roofs, adding PV panels, new windows and improved ventilation system.  "But it is difficult to see how the industry could move to high-performance net-zero measures at £24.6bn a year.  "That might take 10 years in itself to achieve."  Campaign Check scrutinises election claims made by political parties, examining if they are true or false, and the context. Sky News is working with Full Fact - the leading independent fact-checking charity.  The Brexit Election on Sky News - the fastest results and in-depth analysis on mobile, TV and radio. • See the exit poll at 10pm • Find out what happens next in All Out Politics special from 9am with Adam Boulton


sottnet--2019-12-29--First chip-to-chip quantum teleportation achieved could lead to breakthroughs in super computing

The development of technologies which can process information based on the laws of quantum physics are predicted to have profound impacts on modern society.For example, quantum computers may hold the key to solving problems that are too complex for today's most powerful supercomputers, and a quantum internet could ultimately protect the worlds information from malicious attacks.However,Scientists from the University of Bristol, in collaboration with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU),These chips. This demonstration could enable a significant boost in the ability to produce more complex quantum circuits that are required in quantum computing and communications.Their work, published in the journal Nature Physics, hosts a range of quantum demonstrations.In one of the breakthrough experiments, researchers at the University of Bristol's Quantum Engineering Technology Labs (QET Labs) Quantum teleportation offers quantum state transfer of a quantum particle from one place to another by utilising entanglement. Teleportation is not only useful for quantum communication but is a fundamental building-block of optical quantum computing. Establishing an entangled communication link between two chips in the lab however has proven to be highly challenging.Bristol Co-author Dan Llewellyn said:."Another co-author, Dr Imad Faruque , also from Bristol, added: "Based on our previous result of on-chip high quality single-photon sources, we have built an even more complex circuit containing four sources.The results showed extremely high-fidelity quantum teleportation of 91 percent. In addition, the researchers were able to demonstrate some other important functionality of their designs, such as entanglement swapping (required for quantum repeaters and quantum networks) and four-photon GHZ states (required in quantum computing and the quantum internet).According to co-author Dr Yunhong Ding, from DTU, low loss, high stability, and excellent controllability are extremely important for integrated quantum photonics. He said: "This experiment wasbased on high-quality fabrication at the DTU."Lead author, Dr Jianwei Wang, now at Peking University, said: "In the future, a single Si-chip integration of quantum photonic devices and classical electronic controls will open the door for fully chip-based CMOS-compatible quantum communication and information processing networks."


sputnik--2019-03-13--Prof China Investors Welcomed as Long as They Dont Run Counter to Italian Govt

Prof: China Investors Welcomed as Long as They Don’t Run Counter to Italian Govt

Italian-Chinese economic relations are continuing to develop. In recent days, Costa Venezia, which is the first Italian ship created specifically for the Chinese market, has been launched.  Italy is ready to sign a memorandum to join the Silk Road and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s next visit to the country, scheduled for late March, could mark a turning point in relations between the two countries. However, the United States isn’t happy about this; they consider the Belt and Road Initiative to be a threat to American world hegemony.  Renzo Cavalieri: Economic relations mean many things: first of all, in the strict sense, economic relations mean to sell and buy. For Italy, China is a major trading partner and an outlet market for a whole series of products, not just those related to fashion and design, but also those in the fields of engineering and technology. China is also an important market where many Italian companies can purchase goods.  Then there’re some other economic relations between the two countries, such as reciprocal investments. Italian companies investing in China have an interest in participating in the economic growth of the Asian country. For Chinese companies, our country is a strategic outlet that has access to some other European markets.  Sputnik: We know that the Chinese invest a lot in Italy, but there are risks and dangers to it. What do you think about this?  Renzo Cavalieri: The positive aspect of Chinese investments in Italy is that they are long-term investments; that is, a Chinese investor is not trying to acquire new technologies to be able to take home, but is investing in Italy for a long-term presence in Europe.  Renzo Cavalieri: Italy is an open country with an open market, and this is its advantage. So investors, as long as they respect the rules and don’t run counter to the interests of the Italian government, don’t pose any risk to the country’s economy.  But it’s a different story when we speak of very specific industries. Let’s say the country’s strategic interests, which can be military, energy, communications and so on: in this case, I believe it is not necessary to ban the investment, but there should be some minimal level that cannot be exceeded. This concerns not only Chinese investments, but any other investment as well.  Sputnik: Is there any risk that by buying Italian companies and signing important contracts with Italy, China can appropriate Italian know-how?  Renzo Cavalieri: It’s not a risk, it’s a certainty! Once China buys an Italian company that has certain technologies, these technologies are acquired by the Chinese. It’s necessary to understand that such a development is not absolutely negative; maybe this way some Italian entrepreneur will be able to collect money and develop new technology.  Sputnik: Why, in your opinion, is the United States against Italy’s participation in the Belt and Road project?  Renzo Cavalieri: There is undoubtedly a competition between the United States and China with regard to zones of influence. The United States is afraid that Italy is the weakest link in the European system and in particular the G7. The Americans are concerned that Italy could become a Chinese Trojan horse allowing them to enter the system.  I believe that Italy could benefit from that. Italy is already part of the Belt and Road Initiative, for example the Silk Road Fund, which is set up specifically for investments along the New Silk Road, is already investing in Italy. It’s also true that the stronger the ties with China are, then the stronger is the need for China to follow global rules.  Chinese companies, banks, and the government all operate in a unitary way; while in Italy there is separation of powers where some very small companies often have no contact with the government. This is what could be dangerous for Italy, because we are talking here about a very large and unified system against a small and divided one. So, obviously, there are risks here.  Sputnik: What role could Italy play in the Belt and Road Project?  Analyst on Huawei Case: US Seems to Realize that China is Getting Ahead of Game Renzo Cavalieri: Italy can now play a dual role. On the one hand, it can appear as a founding country of the European Union with certain traditions and values; but on the other hand, it can show that it is open to a new world that is more multipolar, and where China plays a fundamental role.  The danger is that Europe doesn’t have a unified attitude on these issues. Having joined in this project, Italy would be able to move in the right direction — but on its own, that is, without its allies, namely France and Germany, which aren’t ready for such steps. But the fact that Italy is open for cooperation with such countries, like China, is, certainly, a positive thing.  Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Renzo Cavalieri and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.


sputnik--2019-11-26--Russian Scientists Create New Types of Cold-Resistant Steel

The development of the new technology started in the spring of 2019; it was successfully tested this fall. The work has been carried out by the Russian State Scientific Center – Central Research and Development Institute for Mechanical Engineering Technology (Tsniitmash), which is part of the Atomenergomash holding, and the Russian Ural Steel company.  The creation of domestic technologies for the production, storage, and transport of LNG is one of the priority goals set by Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Cold-resistant nickel alloy steels are widely used across the world for the manufacture of various equipment, tanks, and containers for LNG projects.


thedailymirror--2019-02-25--15 weird and wonderful bursaries that could get you into university for free

Tuition fees aren't cheap - and coupled with rising living costs, many young people today are graduating more than £30,000 in debt.  And while you don't have to repay a penny until you're earning £25,000, when you do, you'll also be battling bills, rent, transport costs and the fight to get on the property ladder.  But there might be a way out. Dozens of universities are offering scholarships and bursaries to help those desperate to study - for a reduced rate or even free.  According to The Scholarship Hub, UK students are potentially missing out on over £150 million in unclaimed scholarships each year.  These schemes vary from teaching to engineering degrees, but cast the net wider, and you've much more to play with.  "The number of scholarships, grants and bursaries are rising each year, yet the vast majority of students aren't even aware of them," explains The Scholarship Hub founder Karen Kennard.  "Around 60% of students don’t even apply for scholarships, believing that they aren't eligible, yet we know that organisations are often struggling to find applicants.  "There are many different scholarships available, that offer mentoring and work placements as well as cash, and they're not just for disadvantaged students or linked to particular universities and subjects. Students should be checking what they might be eligible for so they don’t miss out."  We've highlighted 17 scholarships and bursaries you could apply for below.  If you've an exceptional circumstance, are below the age of 26 and are a vegetarian (or vegan), you may qualify for a one off award of up to £500.  It's provided for by the Vegetarian Charity and aimed at all vegetarians in need of financial support.  The grant is designed for those in hardship - not those anticipating it. This means you can apply at any point during your course.  Cyber security scholarships worth £4,000 a year are offered to aspiring students each year by GCHQ.  It's open to students with three A-levels at grade B or above and have an offer to study, or are currently in their first year of a STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering or Maths) degree, at a UK university.  The course also offers paid cyber security work experience to kick start your career.  You can find out more about it, online, here.  Budding singers could be eligible for up to £3,620 a year if they study at Exeter University (or plan to), thanks to the Exeter Cathedral Choral Scholarship Programme.  There are 6-8 choral scholars in the church's choir, with a similar number of Lay Vicars and 20 boy or girl choristers. If you fit the bill, you may be able to get money off your course fees.  The scholarships are normally tenable for three years, though it may be extended for an extra year in certain circumstances or for postgraduates. Over three years it works out at as much as £10,860.  The Royal Television Society (RTS) is offering 20 bursaries to students studying Television Production and Broadcast Journalism, plus an additional five technology bursaries to help encourage people to consider careers in this field.  The bursaries are aimed at students in less affluent circumstances with the goal of helping to widen participation and skills in media and its related industries.  Bursary recipients will receive £1,000 a year, as well as affiliate membership of the Hospital Club and full membership of the RTS.  They will also receive mentoring opportunities from RTS partners including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky. You can apply online, here.  The Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust offers bursaries of up to £3,000 a year to UK students who are the children, spouse, widow or widower of a Commercial Traveller, chemist or grocer and are in need of financial support.  The most that you can apply for is £3,000 a year. You can use the grant for any costs connected with going to university, including tuition fees, accommodation, living expenses, and equipment to help you study.  Applicants can apply for a new bursary for each year at university (max 3 years). Application deadlines are 1 March and 1 November. To be considered, it must be your first undergraduate degree.  The Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS) is a Sport England funded partnership between talented athletes, education institutions and national governing bodies of sport.  TASS helps athletes in education – aged 16-plus – to get the very best from their sporting and academic careers without having to choose between the two.  It currently supports around 600 athletes in 32 Sport England sports. These promising athletes have been identified as performing at the top of the Sport England Talent Pathway.  It operates during the academic year from September 1st – August 31st - find out more, here.  If you're a top golfer with an impressive guideline handicap of +1 (for men) and +3 (for women), or have recently been offered a place in a national squad, you may be able to claim a Royal & Ancient Golf Scholarship of up to £5,000 at one of 17 universities.  This includes Birmingham, Durham, Exeter, Bournemouth, Hartpury, Northumbria, St Andrews, Ulster, Loughborough, NUI Maynooth, Stirling, Central Lancashire, strathclyde and University of the Highlands and Islands. Countries abroad include the University of Malaga in Spain and Halmstaad in Sweden.  To apply, you'll have to send your application form off between 20 August and 12 October.  If you're a musician looking to further your skills at university, you may be able to apply for the Drake Calleja Trust scholarship worth up to £9,000.  Lucky applicants will have their fees, instrument purchases, masterclasses, recordings, concerts and other related activities all paid for.  It covers those studying at music college or conservatoires in the UK at undergraduate, postgraduate or research level (musical theatre and jazz students are not eligible).  Applicants must be of an outstanding standard and be able to clearly demonstrate that they are in need of funding.  Students studying subjects through the medium of Welsh can apply for up to £1,500 through The Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol Scholarship - which, if successful, will be paid out at £500 a year.  The Coleg award 150 undergraduate scholarships each year - find out more here.  If you're from a Black Asian or Minority Ethnic Background, are aged between 14 and 21, are attending school or university full time in the UK and are academically gifted, you could apply for the Miranda Brawn Diversity Leadership Scholarship.  Winners will receive a one-off £1,000 plus mentoring and work experience. Recipients of the Scholarship will be chosen annually based on their exemplary academic performance and demonstrable interest in diversity.  Find out more, here.  A more traditional approach, outstanding students with a minimum of three grade As at A2 level or equivalent (144 UCAS points from three units) could be eligible for a Vice Chancellor's Scholarship at Liverpool John Moores University for up to £10,000 a year.  It's a life changing sum of money but to be considered for it, your first university choice must be Liverpool John Moores.  You must also be able to demonstrate going the extra mile, through citizenship, sport, performing arts or similar.  The deadline for applications is 28 June.  Liverpool John Moores also offers a free Sports Scholarship Scheme for talented sportsmen and sportswomen.  The university prides itself as one of the leading initiatives in this field, and says those successful will get first rate support to help them fulfil both their sporting and their academic potential.  In the past, the university has helped Olympic and Commonwealth champions with all students being given a mentor for the duration of their study.  Considered applicants may be competing in a recognised BUSA, World University Games, Commonwealth games or Olympic Games sport.  Junior or Senior International standard athletes from all sports are also encouraged to apply, as are athletes competing at elite club level.  All applications must be received before 12 May in the year in which you intend to start your degree.  Each year, the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) offers new students the chance to apply for a £1,000-a-year scholarship to see them through a three year degree.  It's for those who are about to embark on an IET accredited degree programme. Winners will also receive professional development support and networking opportunities while on the course.  Find out more, here.  The University of Portsmouth, in partnership with the Unite Foundation, offers a number of accommodation scholarships to care leavers and young people who are estranged from their parents.  Students can apply for a UNITE scholarship once they have confirmed the University of Portsmouth as their first choice institution on their UCAS application.  These scholarships are offered in addition to the Care Leavers' and Standalone bursaries.  The scholarship offers a free place in halls of residence for three years of study. To qualify you must be under 25, have a household income of less than £25,000, be a care leaver or estranged from your parents and about to commence your first undergraduate course.  You can find out more on this scholarship here.  These bursaries worth £6,000 are offered to students studying a foreign language degree who apply for and are accepted as an Intelligence Analyst (Linguists).  You will have the promise of a job on graduation plus a bursary for two years while you study.  As an RAF Intelligence Analyst (Linguist), you will interpret foreign language transmissions using state-of-the-art surveillance systems, providing vital intelligence to support military forces deployed around the world.  Find out more here.


theguardianuk--2019-06-19--Female academics are too scarce So were banning job applications from men Frank Baaijens

Female academics are too scarce. So we’re banning job applications from men | Frank Baaijens

Engineering has a huge impact on society. To responsibly advance science and technology, a university should be a balanced reflection of society. As a top engineering university we believe that diversity and inclusiveness is crucial for the quality of our teaching and research. More than that, we believe we can turn a fully representative academic workforce into a unique strength. This is why, from 1 July, all our job vacancies will be exclusively open to female candidates for the first six months after they are advertised.  This is certainly a radical step, as the international [headlines about our move](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jun/18/top-engineering- university-to-open-jobs-exclusively-to-women) attest. But we felt it was a necessary step as the more subtle measures we tried over the past 10 years were to no avail. The targets we set for female recruitment and the missionary work of our chief diversity officers were certainly useful in making our staff and community aware of [inequalities](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/13/workplace-gender- discrimination-remains-rife-survey-finds) and their own biases. As a result, at least two women are now on every selection panel. And yet, the gender imbalance persists with only 16% of our full professors being female – one of the lowest percentages in the Netherlands, and indeed in Europe.  What has become clear is that during the recruitment and selection processes, all of us – males and females alike – have an [unconscious bias](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/dec/02/unconscious-bias-what- is-it-and-can-it-be-eliminated) that means we gravitate towards male candidates. This makes it harder for women to start and develop their academic careers. To address this unfair situation, we had to take affirmative action, even at the risk of upsetting some male candidates for jobs. The aim currently is to raise female representation to at least 20% by 2020 and eventually to over 30% in the next decade.  As a university devoted to engineering and technology we thrive on innovation to create the unimaginable, such as [3D-printed housing](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jun/06/netherlands-to- build-worlds-first-habitable-3d-printed-houses) and living heart valves, and this means it is essential to embrace diverse teams. There is overwhelming evidence that they are more creative and productive. Including different perspectives leads to better solutions. We simply need to tap the intellectual power of all genders.  A university that is fully representative of society calls for an inclusive academic community. But the change we are embarking on will also have a favourable impact on the quality of our teaching and the varied perspectives that our students encounter. In recent years we have successfully attracted more female students, but now we need a culture change to enhance this further. More female staff will attract even more female students. More female professors will serve as role models and epitomise the values of the university.  Again, this is not only a matter of fairness. In the Netherlands, as in many other European countries, there is a shortage of [engineers](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat- news/-/EDN-20190211-1). We simply can’t afford to exclude half the intellectual potential of our populations. Besides, engineering is a discipline that is all about brainpower, regardless of gender.  The laws of the European Union allow us to favour women, given suitable competences, if they are seriously underrepresented. Smaller initiatives at universities in Delft and Groningen, which have been challenged in court, have shown that this is possible.  Diversity, of course, goes beyond gender. As a leading university we seek to recruit academic staff worldwide and have been more successful in doing so than in overcoming the gender gap. Some 40% of our young academic staff come from overseas. Having tried many different ways of attracting female staff and failing, it is time for tough measures. May many other universities follow our lead.  • Frank Baaijens is rector of Eindhoven University of Technology, the [Netherlands](https://www.theguardian.com/world/netherlands)


theguardianuk--2019-12-08--UN climate talks failing to address urgency of crisis, says top scientist

Urgent UN talks on tackling the climate emergency are still not addressing the true scale of the crisis, one of the world’s leading climate scientists has warned, as high-ranking ministers from governments around the world began to arrive in Madrid for the final days of negotiations.  Talks are focusing on some of the rules for implementing the 2015 Paris agreement, but the overriding issue of how fast the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions has received little official attention.  “We are at risk of getting so bogged down in incremental technicalities at these negotiations that we forget to see the forest for the trees,” said Johan Rockström, joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “There is a risk of disappointment in the UN process because of the inability to recognise that there is an emergency.”  In the next few days, environment and finance ministers from more than 190 governments will begin the “high-level segment” of the UN talks, which began on 2 December, and will finish on Friday. Over the weekend, negotiators produced the latest draft of a key text on carbon markets, which still does not have the consensus needed to pass.  The stately pace of negotiations was in stark contrast with the scenes outside the conference in Madrid, where on Friday evening more than 500,000 people marched through the Spanish capital led by the Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg. Protests continued through the weekend, with Extinction Rebellion and groups from across the world. On Monday, Thunberg and other youth activists will hold meetings with officials inside the conference.  Rockström said the UN conference must grapple urgently with reversing emissions of greenhouse gases, which are still on the rise despite repeated scientific warnings over three decades and multiple resolutions by governments to tackle the problem.  “We must bend the curve next year,” he told the Guardian, citing stark warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Next year is the year of truth. The year when we must move decisively to an economy that really starts to reduce investments in fossil fuels.”  Even the coal-fired power plants currently planned or in construction are enough to produce double the amount of carbon that can safely be put in the atmosphere for the next century, Rockström said.  The situation was so dire that governments should be starting to consider geoengineering technology, he said. Such projects could use a combination of natural and artificial means, from seeding clouds to erecting reflectors in space.  “Geoengineering has to be assessed, maybe even piloted already in case we need to deploy it,” he said. “It makes me very nervous. That is really playing with biological processes that might kick back in very unexpected ways. But I don’t think we should rule anything out – an emergency is an emergency.”  As the UN conference enters its final stages, the role of the UK is likely to come under much greater scrutiny. Britain will play host to next year’s conference at which world leaders must pledge much greater cuts in emissions than have yet been made, if the 2015 Paris accord is to succeed.  Claire O’Neill, the former Tory climate minister designated to lead next year’s conference, is in Madrid but cannot make official announcements because of the “purdah” rules surrounding political announcements in the run-up to the general election.  However, the UK’s plans were rated as “insufficient” in a key independent analysis called the Climate Action Tracker. Despite the government’s eye-catching commitment last summer to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 – one of the first major economies to make such a pledge – few measures are in place to keep pace with the target.  “There has been a dearth of new significant climate policies in recent years which, if left unaddressed, will leave the UK missing its medium and long-term targets,” concluded the analysis of global emissions-cutting plans.  That would damage the host nation’s credibility at next year’s crucial talks in Glasgow, campaigners said.  Dr Bill Hare, a climate scientist and the chief executive of Climate Analytics, which carried out the study, said it was clear which of the two biggest parties had the better plans on the issue before this week’s general election.  “While both major political parties have proposed further climate action, the Conservatives have not put sufficient proposals on the table to close this gap, whereas [our analysis shows] the Labour’s £250bn could easily close that gap and push on towards a 1.5C pathway,” Hare said.


theindependent--2019-02-14--What is turbulence and can it cause your plane to crash

What is turbulence and can it cause your plane to crash?

After a Delta Air Lines flight nosedived twice due to extreme turbulence, we look at what causes it – and whether it can ever bring down an aircraft.  Turbulence is caused by eddies of “rough air” – a bit like waves becoming choppy at sea.  There are three main reasons they occur: thermal (warm air rises through cooler air); mechanical (a mountain or manmade structure disrupts air flow); and shear (on the border of two pockets of air moving in different directions).  This makes the aircraft rise and fall and rock from side to side.  It’s completely normal. And although it can feel scary, modern aircraft are designed to withstand a huge amount of turbulence.  Pilots often know when they’re going to hit turbulence from weather and radar reports. They radio air traffic control and pilots flying a similar route when they come across choppy air, and respond by alerting passengers and slowing the plane down to “turbulence penetration speed”, which reduces the chance of damage to the aircraft and gives a smoother ride.  Yes – but there are far fewer turbulence related incidents than you might think. According to data from America’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the number of injuries has averaged 33 per year over the last 16 years – in 2017 there were just 17. Considering 2.6 million passengers fly in and out of US airports every day – 959 million a year – the odds of being injured by turbulence are pretty low.  Do as pilots do – always wear your seat belt. Whenever you return from the toilet and sit back in your seat, strap in. Turbulence injuries are often caused because people aren’t wearing their belt.  The FAA offers the following tips for staying safe:  “The short answer is yes,” senior aviation consultant Adrian Young tells The Independent – but it’s unlikely.  Weather at high altitude (storms and clear air turbulence), microbursts at ground level and wake turbulence caused by other aircraft can all be included under the term “turbulance” according to Young.  “The first is rare as the cause of a crash in transport aircraft. There are a couple of examples from the 1960s,” he says.  “Microbursts cause fewer accidents now than they did in the 1990s. See the American accident at Little Rock in 1999 (an MD-82, flight AA1420). Better extreme weather detection systems exist and flight techniques have been improved.  “Wake turbulence affects smaller aeroplanes more than large ones. One accident comes to mind; American 587 at New York in 2001.”  Modern-day engineering and technology reduce the risk dramatically – satellites and advanced meteorology technologies give pilots extremely accurate forecasts of areas of expected turbulence.  Utimately, “it’s rare and the industry has worked over the years to reduce the risk,” says Young.


theindependent--2019-12-20--Car review: Skoda Superb – a whole lot of car for your cash

So my friend remarked as they settled into the vast rear compartment of Skoda’s flagship saloon/near-limousine.  Not a new story that, for those who follow the car trade. Yet, but even now, even after a quarter of a century or so since Volkswagen Group took on the task of rebuilding this venerable Czech marque, people still seem a bit surprised to get into a Skoda and find that it isn’t some sort of Soviet-era gulag.  Which it certainly is not. The Superb – not by any means an ironic name, and I mean that in a non-ironic way – has actually been around since 2001, and quickly garnered a reputation for being solid, reliable and comfortable transportation. it often finds a role as a minicab, which says something about its usefulness, but the Superb deserves better.  It looked like a scaled-up Octavia, and shared some underpinnings with the well-respected VW Passat. Its successor followed much the same approach, and was favourably compared with the Bentley Continental Flying Spur, an aristocratic cousin of the Skoda in the VW Group family tree.  The secret of its success, as my friend discovered, is the high quality of the interior materials – leather, soft plastics, matt plastics – and the elongated rear section, which endows the model with ample legroom and more than ample luggage space. As an unconventionally big five-foot hatch it is also eminently practical; we used to have lots of cars in this configuration such as the SD1 Rover, Saab 900, Renault 25 and Audi Avant, but they’ve long since faded away in favour of the old “exec saloon” school three-box shape.  With this, the third generation Superb – now with some cosmetic tweaks and extra kit to freshen up its appeal – is once again the recipe as before. If you’re a proper car spotter you’ll notice the revised styling for the front, and the new style for the badging on the boot – the name S K O D A spread out across the back, each letter no doubt lovingly applied by an artisan in the factory in Kvasiny, Czech Republic. It’s a thing that car makers do when they’d like to give their model a bit of a “premium” feel – you’ll see it on contemporary Volvos and Fords too.  In the Superb’s case, the effort is mostly justified. I could only find one small fault, which is that one edge of the nice big digital screen didn’t quite fit flush with the rest of the dash, a quite noticeable gap (and plainly not meant to be there as it was all nicely lined up on the other side). Erm, but that was about it for obvious flaws. They’ve fitted the latest with an adaptive cruise control system, so it will brake if you get too close to the car in front when cruising, and speed up again automatically; but the controls are still in one of those little pods behind the steering wheel, which are a bit fiddly to get at.  I appreciated the car’s softly sprung suspension. It gives it a lolling sort of ride as it tackles poor British roads, and at times it feels a bit like you’re piloting a boat. It’s not made for chucking around, but it’s a perfectly stable and secure handler, and the diesel engine (petrols also available) and modern DSG gearbox (which can pre-select the next gear you’re likely to choose) make for a good pairing.  Most of all, the Superb is still excellent value for money, and Skoda have not got too far ahead of themselves in their pricing strategy.  The Superb’s only real rival, I would say, is the rarely glimpsed but also excellent Kia Stinger, an even more stylish machine, and, in a slightly different bracket, the Volvo S60 saloon.  As one boss of Audi (another arm of the VW empire) unwisely remarked a while back, you get almost everything you get in an Audi – especially the underlying engineering and technology – but at a hefty discount. This is basically a budget Bentley, and will give you 40mpg in diesel form: Quite the offer, that.


theintercept--2019-10-19--Bill McKibben on How Climate Crises and New Technologies Will Change What It Means to Be Human

race approaching its demise? The question itself may sound hyperbolic — or like a throwback to the rapture and apocalypse. Yet there is reason to believe that such fears are no longer so overblown. The threat of climate change is forcing millions around the world to realistically confront a future in which their lives, at a minimum, look radically worse than they are today. At the same time, emerging technologies of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence are giving a small, technocratic elite the power to radically alter homo sapiens to the point where the species no longer resembles itself. Whether through ecological collapse or technological change, human beings are fast approaching a dangerous precipice.  McKibben spoke to The Intercept about the book. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Can you explain what you mean by the “human game”? I was looking for a phrase to describe the totality of everything that we do as human beings. You could also term it as human civilization, or the human project. But “game” seems like a more appropriate term. Not because it’s trivial, but because, like any other game, it doesn’t really have a goal outside of itself. The only goal is to continue to play, and hopefully play well. Playing the human game well might be described as living with dignity and ensuring that others can live with dignity as well. There are very serious threats now facing the human game. Basic questions of human survival and identity are being realistically called into question. It’s become clear that climate change is dramatically shrinking the size of the board on which the game is played. At the same time, some emerging technologies threaten the idea that human beings as a species will even be around to play in the future. Could you briefly run down the implications of climate change for the future of human civilization, as we presently understand it? Climate change is by far the biggest thing that humans have ever managed to do on this planet. It has altered the chemistry of the atmosphere in fundamental ways, raised the temperature of the planet over 1 degree Celsius, melted half the summer ice in the Arctic, and made the oceans 30 percent more acidic. We are seeing uncontrollable forest fires around the world, along with record levels of drought and flooding. In some places, average daily temperatures are already becoming too hot for human beings to even work during the daylight. People are making plans to leave major cities and low-lying coastal areas, where their ancestors have lived for thousands of years. Even in rich countries like the United States, critical infrastructure is being strained. We saw this recently with the shutdown of electrical power in much of California due to wildfire risk. This is what we’ve done at merely 1 degree Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels. It is already becoming difficult to live in large parts of the planet. On our current trajectory, we are headed for 3 or 4 degrees of warming. At that level, we simply won’t have a civilization like we do now. Since the major culprit in climate change remains the fossil fuel industry, what practical steps can be taken to get their activities under control? And given that they also share a planet with everyone else, what exactly is their plan for a future of climate dystopia? We have already made efforts at divestment and halting the construction of pipelines, but the next crucial area is finance: focusing on the banks and asset managers that give them the money to do what they do. It has become very clear that the only goal of the fossil fuel industry is to protect their business model at all costs, even at the cost of the planet. Major oil companies like Exxon knew about the connection between carbon emissions and climate change in the 1980s. They knew and believed in what was coming. Instead of rationally adjusting their behavior to avoid it, they invested millions in lobbying and disinformation to ensure that the world wouldn’t do anything to make them change or stop their activities.  To the extent that any fossil fuel company thinks about the long run at all — and it’s not clear that any still do — they know that their days are numbered. Renewable energy costs are plummeting, and what the industry is fighting for now is to just keep themselves going for a few more decades. Their goal is to ensure that we’re still burning a lot of oil and gas in 10 or 20 years, rather than trying to get off the stuff as fast as possible. The other major threat that you identify is posed by technologies like genetic engineering. Can you explain the threat that they pose to human identity and purpose? Just as we had long taken for granted the stability of the planet, we have likewise taken for granted the stability of the human species. There are technologies now emerging that call into question very fundamental assumption about what it means to be a human being. Take, for example, genetic engineering technologies like CRISPR. These are already now coming into effect, as we saw recently in China, where a pair of twins were reportedly born after having their genes modified in embryo. I don’t see any problem with using gene editing to help existing people with existing diseases. That is very different, however, from genetically engineering embryos with specialized modifications.  Let’s say for example that an expectant couple decides to engineer their new child to have a certain hormonal balance aimed at improving their mood. That child may reach adolescence one day and find themselves feeling very happy without any particular explanation why. Are they falling in love? Or is it just their genetic engineering specs kicking in? Human beings could soon be designed with a whole range of new specs that modifies their thoughts, feelings, and abilities. I think that such a prospect — not far-fetched at all today — will be a devastating attack on the most vital things about being human. It will call into question basic ideas of who we are and how we think about ourselves. There is also the implication of accelerating technological change in genetic engineering technology. After modifying their first child, those same parents may come back five years later to the clinic to make changes to their second child. In the meantime, the technology has marched on, and you can now get a whole new series of upgrades and tweaks. What does that mean for the first child? It makes them the iPhone 6: obsolete. That’s a very new idea for human beings. One of the standard features of technology is obsolescence. A situation where you are rapidly making people themselves obsolete seems wrongheaded to me.  There also seems to be a question of economic inequality here, in the sense that people with more resources will be the ones with the access to these genetic enhancements. As things stand, these technologies will take the economic inequality presently in existence and encode it in our genes. This is so obviously going to happen if we continue down this path that no one bothers to argue otherwise. Lee Silver, a professor at Princeton University who is one of the leading proponents of genetic modification, has already said that in the future we will have two unequal classes of human beings: “GenRich” and “naturals.” He and many others have already begun taking such a future as granted. Do you think that artificial intelligence poses a similar threat to human beings? Many of the first generation of people who studied AI came away deeply afraid of its potential implications. There is a fear that smart robots and programming codes may get out of hand and end up posing a threat to human beings. Those fears may or may not be real. At the end of the day, they worry me less than the more fundamental assault on human meaning and purpose posed by these technologies. They can easily eliminate most of the choices and activities that have given us our basic sense of identity as human beings. What should be the priority of social movements seeking to defend “the human game” at the moment? And do we have cause for optimism? Climate change is such an immediate and overpowering issue that it should be the focus of our attention right now, because it could make everything else moot. I’ve gotten to watch the rise of the climate movement over many years and it gives me cause for some optimism. We’ve recently seen massive climate strikes around the world. The Democratic Party in the United States is becoming energized on this issue. These are good signs. Whether they come in time or not, we don’t know. But the advent of human genetic engineering is not getting the attention it deserves at the present. The profound implications of CRISPR and other rapidly evolving technologies are things that we should give much more attention. From a strategic perspective, it would be good to get a resistance going sooner than later. As we have seen with fossil fuels, once there is a huge, powerful industry behind something, it becomes much more difficult to control. It seems like at core there is an ideological issue underlying all of these threats that are presently facing human beings. It’s instructive that a lot of the fantasies underlying the most extreme manifestations of genetic engineering and AI come from people in Silicon Valley who share a libertarian mindset. They are essentially hip versions of the Koch brothers. They share an ethos with the fossil fuel industry that says no one should ever question decisions made by the powerful and that no one should ever get in the way of business and technological innovation. Meanwhile, the public is being told — and has been told for a long time — that they’re nothing but individuals and nothing but consumers. That goes against everything we know about human nature. Human beings are happy when they’re part of working communities, not when they’re out on their own as individuals trying to take over the universe. That’s what all these battles are in some sense about: building human solidarity against a hyper-individualist elite. We need to find out once again how to make decisions as a society, rather than have a small group of super-wealthy people privately making them for us.


theirishtimes--2019-02-11--Irelands pay gap between men and women in RD highest in Europe

Ireland’s pay gap between men and women in R&D highest in Europe

The pay gap between women and men working in scientific research and development positions in Ireland is the largest in the European Union, with women earning on average 30 per cent less than men, research has found.  The European Commission on Monday released She Figures 2018, which presents key indicators on progress made towards gender equality in research and innovation, to mark the 20th anniversary of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.  The research found that in 2014, Ireland topped the list as the EU country with the largest pay gap between men and women in scientific R&D positions, falling only behind Turkey, which was included in the research as a candidate country for the EU with a gap of more than 35 per cent.  The EU average pay gap between women and men in these positions in 2014 was 17 per cent.  While the number of women at European universities now outnumbers men, the She Figures 2018 report shows women are still a minority in top academic positions.  It reveals less than 24 per cent of senior scientific posts were held by women in 2016, a slight increase on the 22 per cent of senior positions held by women in 2013. Only one in five heads of higher education institutions across Europe are women.  The average number of female PhD graduates across the EU is now 47.9 per cent, almost on par with the number of male graduates, with the number of women PhD graduates is increasing by an average of 2.3 per cent per year compared to an increase of 1.4 per cent among men.  In Ireland, 21 per cent of women hold senior academic jobs while 36 per cent of scientific research positions are held by women. However, internationally the number of women who hold research positions has barely risen since 2012, with female researchers making up a third of the entire cohort.  The report cautions that while gender balance exists among research positions in the humanities and the arts, the number of women researching the fields of engineering and technology is significantly lower. Women are overrepresented in the fields of research in medical and health sciences, it notes.  The report warns of an “extremely low” number of women among patent inventors and that for each inventorship made by a woman in the EU, there are 10 inventorships made by men. These figures have not changed much since 2010 and while signs of progress can be seen, the pace remains slow, says the report. Arguments have been made that this low number of patents by female applicants is because most applications come from scientific fields where men predominate, it adds.  Commenting on the report’s findings, Carlos Moedas, European commissioner for research, science and innovation, warned that if the pace of change continues at the current speed, women working in science would have to wait until 2149 before the gender pay gap is closed.  Mr Moedas underlined the need for a “serious discussion” around the use of quotas in universities and institutes while calling for an end to the practice of considering career breaks as “career breakers”. He also called for unconscious bias towards women in science to be brought out into the open.


theirishtimes--2019-03-18--School subjects strongly influence whether girls study Stem at college

Fewer girls than boys are choosing to study Stem subjects in college due to the choices they make at Leaving Cert level, new research has shown.  The Understanding Gender Differences in STEM study, published by the UCD centre for economic research, reveals that the subjects female students choose to study during the Leaving Cert cycle strongly influence whether or not they will go on to study courses in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) at third level.  Even two years before college entry, students are making decisions that impact whether or not they go on to study Stem, said the authors of the report.  They are calling on the Government to intervene at an earlier stage in encouraging women to pursue careers in engineering and technology.  The research was carried out using data from the Central Admissions Office (CAO) and included all students aged 16-20 who did their Leaving Cert and applied for degree courses between 2015 and 207.  At Leaving Cert level, boys were found to be three times more likely to study physics and applied maths, while girls were more likely to study chemistry and biology.  Less than 5 per cent of girls studied more practical subjects such as engineering, building construction, design graphics and technology. These divides also existed across mixed-gender schools, suggesting that the availability of certain subjects does not play a strong role in whether or not students study Stem at college.  The study warns of a significant gender difference in CAO applications for Stem courses at third level, with more than 40 per cent of boys applying for Stem courses compared to about 19 per cent of girls.  This large gap appears to be driven by boys opting for engineering and technology, with girls slightly more likely to choose science and mathematics.  While there was no gap found in science, the report notes a “substantial” gender gap in engineering and technology courses at third level. It found that students’ overall academic achievement at Leaving Cert played a “negligible role” in whether or not they go on to study Stem subjects.  Gender gaps were found to be smaller among high-achieving students and for students who go to school in more affluent areas.  The report notes that while subject choices explain most of the gender gap in engineering, they do not explain the gender gap in technology, “suggesting different policies may be required to tackle the gender gap in technology than in engineering”.  The gender gap becomes much smaller once nursing is included as one of the Stem subjects.  Women were more than twice as likely than men to list courses in education on their CAO forms, and more than four times as likely to list health/welfare courses.  In order to reduce the Stem gender gap at third level, the study recommends that interventions are made when students are choosing their Leaving Cert subjects rather than two years later when they are deciding what to study at college.  A spokeswoman for the Department of Education said the promotion of increased participation of all students, with a particular focus on female students, in Stem subjects was a “key priority”.  She underlined that the number of female third-level entrants studying engineering, manufacturing and construction rose by 4 per cent between 2016-2018.  A recent report from the department also found the gender gap at third level was “heavily influenced” by subject choices, and as a result a review of career guidance will shortly be submitted.  “The purpose of the review is to ensure that we are providing high quality, relevant career guidance information to students from post-primary level up to further and higher education,” said the spokeswoman.  She said the department was also “scoping out potential means” of improving the range of Stem subjects offered by post-primary schools and planning to undertake research on the key influencers on subject and career choice.


anonnews--2019-03-13--Jeff Goldblum Has Epic Response to Scientists Plan to Recreate Dinosaurs

Many experts predict that we are just a few years away from being able to recreate dinosaur species in a lab. Similar experiments are already being conducted, it is just a matter of scaling up the processes and technology at this point.  Researchers at Harvard and Yale have been working to inject the genes of a woolly mammoth into elephants in order to recreate a living breathing wooly mammoth, which has been extinct for centuries. The scientists used CRISPR technology to recreate the genes of the extinct animal.  George Church, one of the researchers on the team, told the Sunday Times that they can now successfully complete the procedure and transfer the DNA>  “We prioritized genes associated with cold resistance including hairiness, ear size, subcutaneous fat and, especially, hemoglobin (the protein that carries oxygen around the body). We now have functioning elephant cells with mammoth DNA in them,” he said.  In a 2016 interview, Paleontologist Dr. Jack Horner predicted that scientists would have the ability to genetically engineer living dinosaurs within five years. Horner was actually the real-life inspiration for the Jurassic Park series who advised Stephen Spielberg during the filming of the movies.  Horner said that dinosaurs could be created by genetically engineering animals that are alive on earth today, meaning that actual dinosaur DNA would not be required for the project.  “Of course, birds are dinosaurs, so we just need to fix them, so they look a little more like a dinosaur. Dinosaurs had long tails, arms, and hands – and through evolution, they’ve lost their tails, and their arms and hands have turned into wings. Additionally, their whole snout has changed from the velociraptor-look to the bird-like beak morphology,” Horner said in an interview with People.  Horner explained how genetic engineering could be used to create a dinosaur.  “Basically, what we do is we go into an embryo that’s just beginning to form, and use some genetic markers to sort of identify when certain genes turn on and when they turn off, and by determining when certain genes turn on, we can sort of figure out how a tail begins to develop. And we want to fix that gene, so it doesn’t stop the tail from growing. We can make a bird with teeth, and we can change its mouth. And actually, the wings and hands are not as difficult. We’re pretty sure we can do that soon,” Horner said.  It is unclear how much progress has been made in the past few years, but if Horner’s predictions are correct, a real-life Jurassic Park could be just around the corner.  This week, Jurassic Park star Jeff Goldblum has responded to the premise of recreating dinosaurs by quoting himself from the movie.  Goldblum’s Tweet has now received over 308,000 likes, 87,000 retweets and 4,600 comments, and has obviously resonated with people.  Goldblum’s character from Jurassic Park, Ian Malcolm is skeptical of the scientists who are in his eyes attempting to play God, and it seems like he feels the same way in real life. Goldblum has a good point, both in the movie and in real life.  Recreating dinosaurs is not something that will just be harmful or dangerous for humans, but it will also have a massive impact on the ecosystem and wildlife everywhere. Introducing massive predators to the environment could massively disrupt the food chain in a way that can’t be predicted. Dinosaurs evolved for their own time, and they fit in there, they did not evolve for this time, and they would not fit in here.  Human beings have gained such incredible capabilities with technology, but they have not yet learned when it is actually appropriate to wield the power that comes along with this technology. This is exactly what Goldblum’s character meant when he said, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”  This question can be asked not just for recreating scientists, but with most of the weapons of war of and environmental destruction that are created by the world’s militaries and corporations. This is especially true with genetically modified organisms, food, insect and animal. Until humans learn to responsibly use their technological power, they will continue to make messes for ourselves and the other creatures on the planet.


thesun--2019-04-21--Incredible 2MILLION electric hypercar faster than a F-16 fighter with a top speed of 217mph unvei

Incredible £2MILLION electric hypercar ‘faster than a F-16 fighter’ with a top speed of 217mph unveiled

A £2 million all-electric hypercar “faster than a F-16 fighter” that can reach 217mph with no emissions has been unveiled in New York.  The Pininfarina Battista can reach 60mph quicker than a F1 car and can hit an astounding 180mph quicker than a F-16 fighter jet.  A prototype of the hypercar was showcased last month but it was unveiled at an event in the Jarvis Centre for the New York International Auto Show.  Battista, who created the car, said it would be “the world’s first luxury electric hyper GT.”  They also dubbed it “the most powerful road-legal car ever designed and built in Italy.”  But the luxury car maker will only make 150 cars with 50 heading to the US and another 50 heading to Europe and Asia.  Battista expect motorists to get their hands on the car as early as 2020.  They said: “Faster than a current Formula 1 race car in its 0-to-62mph sub-two second sprint, and with 1,900hp to hand, Battista will combine extreme engineering and technology in a zero emissions package.  “The Battista will be the most powerful car ever designed and built in Italy when it arrives in 2020 and will deliver a level of performance that is unachievable today in any road-legal sports car featuring internal combustion engine technology.  We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.