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Category: economics – Page 98

“The furin cleavage site consists of four amino acids PRRA, which are encoded by 12 inserted nucleotides in the S gene. A characteristic feature of this site is an arginine doublet. This insertion could have occurred by random insertion mutation, recombination or by laboratory insertion. The researchers say the possibility of random insertion is too low to explain the origin of this motif. Surprisingly, the CGGCGG codons encoding the two arginines of the doublet in SARS-CoV-2 are not found in any of the furin sites in other viral proteins expressed by a wide range of viruses. Even within the SARS-CoV-2, where arginine is encoded by six codons, only a minority of arginine residues are encoded by the CGG codon. Again, only two of the 42 arginines in the SARS-CoV-2 spike are encoded by this codon — and these are in the PRRA motif. For recombination to occur, there must be a donor, from another furin site and probably from another virus. In the absence of a known virus containing this arginine doublet encoded by the CGGCGG codons, the researchers discount the recombination theory as the mechanism underlying the emergence of PRRA in SARS-CoV-2.”

The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has largely defied attempts to contain its spread by non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). With the massive loss of life and economic damage, the only way out, in the absence of specific antiviral therapeutics, has been the development of vaccines to achieve population immunity.

A new study on the Preprints server discusses the origin of the furin cleavage site on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which is responsible for the virus’s relatively high infectivity compared to relatives in the betacoronavirus subgenus.

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By 2050, the number of adults over the age of 65 globally will double, reaching a staggering 1.6 billion, with the largest growth in the developing world. This growth will be one of the greatest social, economic, and political transformations of our time, that will impact existing healthcare, government and social systems, that today are largely not inclusive of the ageing population or built to the scale needed to support it.

But we can begin to make investments in our support systems (enabled and scaled by technology) that encompass a coordinated response from governments, society, academia, and the private sector.

A precursor to investing in innovative solutions will be to acknowledge the needs of older adults and identify their caregiving challenges. These are the issues that will inform the solutions agenda.

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TOWARDS a METAMATERIALLY-BASED ANALOGUE SENSOR FOR TELESCOPE EYEPIECES jeremy batterson.

(NB: Those familiar with photography or telescopy can skip over the “elements of a system,” since they will already know this.)

In many telescopic applications, what is desired is not a more magnified image, but a brighter image. Some astronomical objects, such as the Andromeda galaxy or famous nebulae like M42 are very large in apparent size, but very faint. If the human eye could see the Andromeda galaxy, it would appear four times wider than the Moon. The great Orion nebula M42 is twice the apparent diameter of the Moon.

Astrophotographers have an advantage over visual astronomers in that their digital sensors can be wider than the human pupil, and thus can accommodate larger exit pupils for brighter images.

The common three-factor determination of brightness of a photograph (aperture, ISO, and shutter speed) should actually be five-factor, including what is often left out since it had already been inherently designed into a system: magnification and exit pupil. The common factors are.

Elements of a system: 1 )Aperture. As aperture increases, the light gain of a system increases by the square of increased aperture, so a 2-inch diameter entrance pupil aperture has four times gain over a 1-inch diameter entrance pupil and so on.

Continue reading “Navy engineer devises new way to enhance night vision for ground forces” | >

Advocates contend central bank digital currencies can make cross-border transactions easier, promote financial inclusion and provide payment system stability. There are also privacy and surveillance risks with government-issued digital currencies. And in times of economic uncertainty, people may be more likely to pull their funds from commercial banks, accelerating a bank run.

Intense interest in cryptocurrencies and the Covid-19 pandemic have sparked debate among central banks on whether they should issue digital currencies of their own.

China has been in the lead in developing its own digital currency. It’s been working on the initiative since 2014. Chinese central bank officials have already conducted massive trials in major cities including Shenzhen, Chengdu and Hangzhou.

“China’s experiment is very large scale,” said J. Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “When the world arrives in Beijing next winter for the Winter Olympics, they are going to be using the new digital renminbi to shop and to stay in hotels and to buy meals in restaurants. The world is going to see a functioning [central bank digital currency] very soon, within the coming year.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — After getting $500 per month for two years without rules on how to spend it, 125 people in California paid off debt, got full-time jobs and had “statistically significant improvements” in emotional health, according to a study released Wednesday.

The program was the nation’s highest-profile experiment in decades of universal basic income, an idea that was revived as a major part of Andrew Yang’s 2020 campaign for president.

The idea is to bring people out of poverty with a guaranteed monthly income. Supporters say it gives people needed financial security to find good jobs and avoid debt. But critics have argued free money would eliminate the incentive to work, creating a society dependent on the state.

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The money committed to companies and projects in this area increased to $13.8 billion, more than 4.5 times that invested in 2019, according to the Artificial Intelligence Index, an annual report produced under the auspices of Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI).

Those are a few of the insights from this year’s AI Index report, which shows adoption of the pandemic did nothing to dent adoption of the technology.

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National Academies study says fusion can help decarbonize US energy, calls for public-private approach to pilot plant operation by 2035–40.

Electricity generated by fusion power plants could play an important role in decarbonizing the U.S. energy sector by mid-century, says a new consensus study report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which also lays out for the first time a set of technical, economic, and regulatory standards and a timeline for a U.S. fusion pilot plant that would begin producing energy in the 2035–40 time frame.

To achieve this key step toward commercialization, the report calls for an aggressive public-private effort to produce by 2028 a pilot plant design that can, when built, accommodate any of the developmental approaches seeking to realize fusion’s potential as a safe, carbon-free, on-demand energy source.

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Whoever manages it first, we are on the cusp of a new age sparked by fusion giving more than it gets (producing more energy than it uses), then miniaturization for practical use and mass manufacture. That would essentially mean that we have access to an infinite, cheap, safe, and clean energy source. No more coal. No more nuclear waste. Massively less global warming. Even better, given the fact that the world runs on an energy economy built around energy scarcity, we will essentially become a post-scarcity civilization. And THAT my friends is a permanent, impossible to overstate game changer. For EVERYTHING and EVERYONE — FOREVER.

But first, scientists need to see if it’s ready.

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