The Deathless "Hula Hoop" Fad

A hula hoop is a toy hoop that is twirled around the waist, limbs or neck. The modern hula hoop was invented in 1958 by Arthur K. "Spud" Melin and Richard Knerr, but children and adults around the world have played with hoops, twirling, rolling and throwing them throughout history. Hula hoops for children generally measure approximately 71 centimetres (28 in) in diameter, and those for adults around 1.02 metres (40 in). Traditional materials for hoops include willow, rattan (a flexible and strong vine), grapevines and stiff grasses. Today, they are usually made of plastic tubing.

                                                      Girl Twirling a Hula Hoop in 1958
Origin

Native American Hoop Dance is a form of storytelling dance incorporating anywhere from one to thirty hoops as props. These props are used to create both static and dynamic shapes, which represent various animals, symbols, and storytelling elements. The dance is generally performed by a solo dancer with multiple hoops.

Before it was known and recognized as the common colorful plastic toy (sometimes with water or sand inside the actual hoop), the traditional "hula hoop" used to be made of dried up willow, rattan, grapevines, or stiff grasses. Even though they have existed for thousands of years, they are often misunderstood as having been invented in the 1950s.

According to author Charles Panati, there was a "craze" of using wooden and metal hoops in 14th-century England. He reports that doctors treated patients suffering from pain and dislocated backs due to hooping − and heart failure was even attributed to it. Panati also says that the name "hula" came from the Hawaiian dance in the 18th century, due to the similar hip movements.

Modern History

The hula hoop gained international popularity in the late 1950s, when a plastic version was successfully marketed by California's Wham-O toy company. In 1957, Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin, starting with the idea of Australian bamboo "exercise hoops", manufactured 1.06-metre (42 in) hoops with Marlex plastic. With giveaways and national marketing and retailing, a fad was started in July 1958; twenty-five million plastic hoops were sold in less than four months, and in two years, sales reached more than 100 million units. Carlon Products Corporation was one of the first manufacturers of the hula hoop. During the 1950s, when the hula hoop craze swept the country, Carlon was producing more than 50,000 hula hoops per day. The hoop was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York, in 1999.

The hula hoop craze swept the world, dying out again in the 1980s, but not in China and Russia, where hula hooping and hoop manipulation were adopted by traditional circuses and rhythmic gymnasts.

Hula Hoop World Records

Duration

The longest verified record for keeping a hula hoop spinning is held by Aaron Hibbs from Columbus, Ohio who kept a hoop spinning for 74 hours and 54 minutes between October 22, through 25, 2009.

Most hula hoops twirled at once

The record for most hula hoops twirled at the same time is 160, by Marawa the amazing.

Hula hoop dancing

On 19 February 2013, 4,483 people swung hula hoops to dance music for seven minutes. They did this without interruption at Thammasat University stadium in Thailand, setting a world record for the most people dancing with hula hoops simultaneously in one place. Guinness World Records was there to confirm the record.

Other records

The largest hoop successfully twirled was 5.04 m (16.5 ft) in diameter, by Ashrita Furman of the United States in September, 2010.

In 2000, Roman Schedler spun a 53-pound tractor tyre for 71 seconds at the 5th Saxonia Record Festival in Bregenz, Austria.

In April 2010, 70 hoopers on Team Hooprama hula hooped the Music City Half-Marathon (21.0975 kilometres (13.1094 mi)) to raise awareness and funds for Hooping for Hope.

In March 2013, the largest hula hoop workout (407 participants) was achieved at Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility in Scotland by North Lanarkshire Leisure and Powerhoop Fitness.

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hula_hoop

Better Flexible Transistors

Team Builds Flexible New Platform
for High-Performance Electronics
By Renee Meiller

Madison, Wisconsin – September 28, 2017 -- A team of University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers has created the most functional flexible transistor in the world — and with it, a fast, simple and inexpensive fabrication process that’s easily scalable to the commercial level.

It’s an advance that could open the door to an increasingly interconnected world, enabling manufacturers to add “smart,” wireless capabilities to any number of large or small products or objects — like wearable sensors and computers for people and animals — that curve, bend, stretch and move.

Transistors are ubiquitous building blocks of modern electronics. The UW–Madison group’s advance is a twist on a two-decade-old industry standard: a BiCMOS (bipolar complementary metal oxide semiconductor) thin-film transistor, which combines two very different technologies — and speed, high current and low power dissipation in the form of heat and wasted energy — all on one surface.

As a result, these “mixed-signal” devices (with both analog and digital capabilities) deliver both brains and brawn and are the chip of choice for many of today’s portable electronic devices, including cellphones.

“The industry standard is very good,” says Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma, the Lynn H. Matthias Professor and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in electrical and computer engineering at UW–Madison. “Now we can do the same things with our transistor — but it can bend.”

Ma is a world leader in high-frequency flexible electronics. He and his collaborators described their advance in the inaugural issue of the journal npj Flexible Electronics, published Sept. 27.

Making traditional BiCMOS flexible electronics is difficult, in part because the process takes several months and requires a multitude of delicate, high-temperature steps. Even a minor variation in temperature at any point could ruin all of the previous steps.

Ma and his collaborators fabricated their flexible electronics on a single-crystal silicon nanomembrane on a single bendable piece of plastic. The secret to their success is their unique process, which eliminates many steps and slashes both the time and cost of fabricating the transistors.

“In industry, they need to finish these in three months,” he says. “We finished it in a week.”

He says his group’s much simpler high-temperature process can scale to industry-level production right away.

“The key is that parameters are important,” he says. “One high-temperature step fixes everything — like glue. Now, we have more powerful mixed-signal tools. Basically, the idea is for flexible electronics to expand with this. The platform is getting bigger.”

http://news.wisc.edu/team-builds-flexible-new-platform-for-high-performance-electronics/

Hints About Earth's Formation

The Volatile Processes that Shaped Earth
Oxford University scientists have shed new
light on how the Earth was first formed.

Oxford, England – September 27, 2017 -- Based on observations of newly-forming stars, scientists know that the solar system began as a disc of dust and gas surrounding the centrally-growing sun. The gas condensed to solids which accumulated into larger rocky bodies like asteroids and mini-planets. Over a period of 100 million years these mini-planets collided with one another and gradually accumulated into the planets we see today, including the Earth.

Although it is widely understood that Earth was formed gradually, from much smaller bodies, many of the processes involved in shaping our growing planet are less clear. In a new study featured on the cover of the latest edition of Nature, researchers from the University of Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences untangle some of these processes, revealing that the mini-planets added to Earth had previously undergone melting and evaporation. They also address another scientific conundrum: the Earth’s depletion in many economically important chemical elements.

It is well known that the Earth is strongly depleted, relative to the solar system as a whole, in those elements which condensed from the early gas disc at temperatures less than 1000°C (for example, lead, zinc, copper, silver, bismuth, and tin). The conventional explanation is that the Earth grew without these volatile elements and small amounts of an asteroidal-type body were added later. This idea cannot, however, explain the “over abundance” of several other elements – notably, indium, which is now used in semiconductor technologies, as well as TV and computer screens.

Postgraduate student Ashley Norris and Bernard Wood, Professor of Mineralogy at Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences, set out to uncover the reasons behind the pattern of depletion of these volatile elements on Earth and for the “overabundance” of indium. They constructed a furnace in which they controlled the temperature and atmosphere to simulate the low oxidation state of the very early Earth and planetesimals. In a particular series of experiments they melted rocks at 1300°C in oxygen-poor conditions and determined how the different volatile elements were evaporated from the molten lava.

During the experiments each of the elements of interest evaporated by different amounts. The lava samples were then rapidly cooled and the patterns of element loss determined by chemical analysis. The analyses revealed that the relative losses (volatilities) measured in the molten lava experiments agree very closely with the pattern of depletion observed in the Earth. In particular, indium volatility agrees exactly with its observed abundance in the Earth - its abundance, turns out not to be an anomaly.

Professor Bernard Wood said: ‘Our experiments indicate that the pattern of volatile element depletion in the Earth was established by reaction between molten rock and an oxygen-poor atmosphere. These reactions may have occurred on the early-formed planetesimals which were accreted to Earth or possibly during the giant impact which formed the moon and which is believed to have caused large-scale melting of our planet.’

Ashley Norris said: ‘Our work shows that interpretation of volatile depletion patterns in the terrestrial planets needs to focus on experimental measurement of element volatilities.’

Having focused their original experiments on 13 key elements, the team are in the process of looking at how other elements, such as chlorine and iodine, behave under the same conditions.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-09-27-volatile-processes-shaped-earth

"Graphic Novel" Explained

A graphic novel is a book made up of comics content. Although the word "novel" normally refers to long fictional works, the term "graphic novel" is applied broadly and includes fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work. It is distinguished from the term "comic book", which is generally used for comics periodicals. 

Will Eisner's A Contract with God (1978). Eisner is often credited with having popularized the term "graphic novel".

Fan historian Richard Kyle coined the term "graphic novel" in an essay in the November 1964 issue of the comics fanzine Capa-Alpha. The term gained popularity in the comics community after the publication of Will Eisner's A Contract with God (1978) and the start of Marvel's Graphic Novel line (1982) and became familiar to the public in the late 1980s after the commercial successes of the first volume of Art Spiegelman's Maus in 1986 and the collected editions of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns in 1986 and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen in 1987. The Book Industry Study Group began using "graphic novel" as a category in book stores in 2001

Definition of Graphic Novel

The term is not strictly defined, though Merriam-Webster's full dictionary definition is "a fictional story that is presented in comic-strip format and published as a book", while its simplest definition is given as "cartoon drawings that tell a story and are published as a book". In the publishing trade, the term extends to material that would not be considered a novel if produced in another medium. Collections of comic books that do not form a continuous story, anthologies or collections of loosely related pieces, and even non-fiction are stocked by libraries and bookstores as "graphic novels" (similar to the manner in which dramatic stories are included in "comic" books).  The term is also sometimes used to distinguish between works created as standalone stories, in contrast to collections or compilations of a story arc from a comic book series published in book form.

In continental Europe, both original book-length stories such as La rivolta dei racchi (1967) by Guido Buzzelli, and collections of comics have been commonly published in hardcover volumes, often called "albums", since the end of the 19th century (including such later Franco-Belgian comics series as The Adventures of Tintin in the 1930s.

History

As the exact definition of the graphic novel is debated, the origins of the form are open to interpretation.

The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck is the oldest recognized American example of comics used to this end. It originated as the 1828 publication Histoire de M. Vieux Bois by Swiss caricaturist Rodolphe Töpffer, and was first published in English translation in 1841 by London's Tilt & Bogue, which used an 1833 Paris pirate edition. The first American edition was published in 1842 by Wilson & Company in New York City using the original printing plates from the 1841 edition. Another early predecessor is Journey to the Gold Diggins by Jeremiah Saddlebags by brothers J. A. D. and D. F. Read, inspired by The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck. In 1894 Caran d'Ache broached the idea of a "drawn novel" in a letter to the newspaper Le Figaro and started work on a 360-page wordless book (never published). In the United States there is a long tradition of reissuing previously published comic strips in book form. In 1897 the Hearst Syndicate published such a collection of The Yellow Kid by Richard Outcault and it quickly became a best seller.

Footnote by the Blog Author

It has to be more than a coincidence that the graphic novel is similar in design and execution to the story board approach to filming a motion picture.  It is also true that major dramatic plays were developed as complete comic books (Hamlet, for example, in 1952) before the term graphic novel was popularized.

Violent Crime Up on Hot Days

Violent Crime Increases During Warmer
Weather, No Matter the Season, Study Finds
By Frank Otto, Drexel University

September 25, 2017 -- Among police officers, there’s a maxim: Being a cop gets a whole lot busier when it’s hot out. Now, a study by a pair of Drexel University researchers appears to back them up.

The research, conducted by Leah Schinasi, PhD, assistant research professor, and Ghassan Hamra, PhD, assistant professor, both of Drexel’s Dornsife School of Public Health, was published in the Journal of Urban Health and used a decade’s worth of crime data in Philadelphia (from 2006 until 2015) to find that rates of violent crime and disorderly conduct increased when daily temperatures are higher.

Overall, crime rates were highest in the warmest months of the year — May through September — and highest on the hottest days.

For example, when the heat index (a metric that uses temperature and humidity to represent human comfort) was 98 degrees, rates of violent crime were 9 percent higher compared to days when the temperature was 57 degrees. When it came to rates of disorderly conduct, they were 7 percent higher on 98-degree days than on 57-degree days.

During the year’s colder months — October through April — the contrast of high versus low rates of crime on more comfortable versus cooler temperature days was more striking. When temperatures reached 70 degrees during that time period, daily rates of violent crime were 16 percent higher, on average, and disorderly conduct rates were 23 percent higher, compared to 43 degree days, the median heat index for that period.

The researchers also looked at deviations of daily temperatures from seasonal averages in trying to determine the effect of anomalies on crime rates. For example, during cool months, days that were 55 degrees warmer than the seasonal average were associated with 7 percent higher rates of disorderly conduct.

“Our findings are reasonable when you think about social behavior,” Schinasi said. “When temperatures are extremely cold or hot, people stay indoors. But as temperatures become more comfortable, more people are outdoors, which presents greater opportunity for crime.”

 

Following that more pleasant weather results in more crime, it could be assumed that cooler days in hot weather months would result in more crime.

But that does not seem to be the case, as crime rates remained fairly static during the hotter-weather months when temperatures dip below the seasonal average.

“I could speculate about the reasons that cooler, more comfortable summer temperatures are not associated with higher rates of crime, but I am honestly not sure,” Schinasi said. “Overall, these results still reflect that higher rates of crime occur when temperatures are warmer. Additional analyses that tease apart these effects will help us to better understand these findings and seasonal trends.”

Schinasi suggested additional research into the locations of crime and the particulars of the areas, like infrastructure and neighborhood characteristics, would divulge more insight. 

Regardless, seeing increases in crime during warmer days is particularly concerning when taking climate change into account. Schinasi and Hamra’s research is potentially a picture of what could happen if (or when) warmer days become the norm.

“It is important to recognize the implications of these climate change effects for public health, including changes in crime rates,” Schinasi said. “Although these results back up police officers’ anecdotal reports about the relationship between temperature and crime, it’s nice to have data to confirm these reports. Our results might help inform local law enforcement about ways to allocate resources during different seasons and with consideration of the local climate.”

http://drexel.edu/now/archive/2017/September/Violent-Crime-Increases-During-Warmer-Weather-No-Matter-the-Season/

Writing a Script

A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter for short), scriptwriter or scenarist is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs, comics or video games, are based.

The Profession

Screenwriting is a freelance profession. No education is required to become a professional screenwriter, just good storytelling abilities and imagination. Screenwriters are not hired employees but contracted freelancers. Most, if not all, screenwriters start their careers writing on speculation (spec) and so write without being hired or paid for it. If such a script is sold, it is called a spec script. What separates a professional screenwriter from an amateur screenwriter is that professional screenwriters are usually represented by a talent agency. Also, professional screenwriters do not often work for free, but amateur screenwriters will often work for free and are considered "writers in training." Spec scripts are usually penned by unknown professional screenwriters and amateur screenwriters.

There are a legion of would-be screenwriters who attempt to enter the film industry, but it often takes years of trial-and-error, failure, and gritty persistence to achieve success. In Writing Screenplays that Sell, Michael Hague writes, "Screenplays have become, for the last half of [the twentieth] century, what the Great American Novel was for the first half. Closet writers who used to dream of the glory of getting into print now dream of seeing their story on the big or small screen."

The Film Industry

Every screenplay and teleplay begins with a thought or idea, and screenwriters use their ideas to write scripts, with the intention of selling them and having them produced. In some cases, the script is based on an existing property, such as a book or person's life story, which is adapted by the screenwriter. The majority of the time, a film project gets initiated by a screenwriter. The initiator of the project gets the exclusive writing assignment. They are referred to as "exclusive" assignments or "pitched" assignments. Screenwriters who often pitch new projects, whether original or an adaptation, often do not have to worry about competing for assignments and are often more successful. When word is put out about a project a film studio, production company, or producer wants done, they are referred to as "open" assignments. Open assignments are more competitive. If screenwriters are competing for an open assignment, more-established writers usually win the assignments. A screenwriter can also be approached and personally offered a writing assignment.

Script Doctoring

Many screenwriters also work as full or part-time script doctors, attempting to better a script to suit the desires of a director or studio. For instance, studio management may have a complaint that the motivations of the characters are unclear or that the dialogue is weak.

Script-doctoring can be quite lucrative, especially for the better-known writers. David Mamet and John Sayles, for instance, fund the movies that they direct themselves, usually from their own screenplays, by writing and doctoring scripts for others. In fact, some writers make very profitable careers out of being the ninth or tenth writer to work on a piece, and they often work on projects that never see exposure to an audience of any size. Many up-and-coming screenwriters also ghostwrite projects and allow more-established screenwriters to take public credit for the project to increase the chances of it getting picked up.

The Development Process

After a screenwriter finishes a project, he or she pairs with an industry-based representative, such as a producer, director, literary agent, entertainment lawyer, or entertainment executive. The partnerships often pitch their project to investors or others in a position to further a project. Once the script is sold, the writer has only the rights that were agreed with the purchaser.

A screenwriter becomes credible by having work that is recognized, which gives the writer the opportunity to earn a higher income. As more films are produced independently (outside the studio system), many up-and-coming screenwriters are turning to pitch fests, screenplay contests, and independent development services to gain access to established and credible independent producers. Many development executives are now working independently to incubate their own pet projects.

Involvement in Production

Screenwriters are rarely involved in the development of a film. Sometimes they come on as advisors, or if they are established, as a producer. Some screenwriters also direct. Although many scripts are sold each year, many do not make it into production because the number of scripts that are purchased every year exceeds the number of professional directors that are working in the film and TV industry. When a screenwriter finishes a project and sells it to a film studio, production company, TV network, or producer, he or she often has to continue networking, mainly with directors or executives, and push to have their projects "chosen" and turned into films or TV shows. If interest in a script begins to fade, a project can [drop] dead.

                                          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenwriter

Winner of the Most Oscars

Walt Disney won or received a total of twenty-six Academy Awards, and holds the record for most Academy Awards in history. He won twenty-two competitive Academy Awards from a total of fifty-nine nominations, and holds the records for most wins and most nominations for an individual in history. Disney won his first competitive Academy Award and received his first Honorary Academy Award at the 5th Academy Awards (1932). He received the Honorary Academy Award for the creation of Mickey Mouse and won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoon) for the film Flowers and Trees. In the seven Academy Award ceremonies that followed (6th–12th), Disney consecutively earned nominations and won in the same category. Disney received three more Honorary Academy Awards, one in 1939 and two in 1942. At the 26th Academy Awards (1954), Disney won the Academy Award in all four categories in which he was nominated. In 1965, Disney earned his sole Best Picture nomination, for the film Mary Poppins. He was posthumously awarded his final Academy Award in 1969.

 

The display case in the lobby of the Walt Disney Family Museum, in San Francisco, displays many of the Academy Awards that Walt Disney won or received. The distinctive, special award which he received for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is at the bottom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Academy_Awards_for_Walt_Disney

Essential Minerals

In the context of nutrition, a mineral is a chemical element required as an essential nutrient by organisms to perform functions necessary for life. Minerals originate in the earth and cannot be made by living organisms. Plants get minerals from soil. Most of the minerals in a human diet come from eating plants and animals or from drinking water. As a group, minerals are one of the four groups of essential nutrients, the others of which are vitamins, essential fatty acids, and essential amino acids.

The five major minerals in the human body are calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and magnesium. All of the remaining elements in a human body are called "trace elements". The trace elements that have a specific biochemical function in the human body are sulfur, iron, chlorine, cobalt, copper, zinc, manganese, molybdenum, iodine and selenium.

Most chemical elements that are ingested by organisms are in the form of simple compounds. Plants absorb dissolved elements in soils, which are subsequently ingested by the herbivores and omnivores that eat them, and the elements move up the food chain. Larger organisms may also consume soil (geophagia) or use mineral resources, such as salt licks, to obtain limited minerals unavailable through other dietary sources.

Bacteria and fungi play an essential role in the weathering of primary elements that results in the release of nutrients for their own nutrition and for the nutrition of other species in the ecological food chain. One element, cobalt, is available for use by animals only after having been processed into complex molecules (e.g., vitamin B12) by bacteria. Minerals are used by animals and microorganisms for the process of mineralizing structures, called "biomineralization", used to construct bones, seashells, eggshells, exoskeletons and mollusc shells.

Essential Chemical Elements for Humans

At least twenty chemical elements are known to be required to support human biochemical processes by serving structural and functional roles as well as electrolytes. However, as many as twenty-nine elements in total (including hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen) are suggested to be used by mammals, as inferred by biochemical and uptake studies. Calcium makes up 920 to 1200 mg of adult body weight, with 99% of it contained in bones and teeth. Phosphorus makes up about 1% of a person's body weight. The other major minerals (potassium, sodium, chlorine, sulfur and magnesium) make up only about 0.85% of the weight of the body. Together these eleven chemical elements (H, C, N, O, Ca, P, K, Na, Cl, S, Mg) make up 99.85% of the body.

Most of the known and suggested mineral nutrients are of relatively low atomic weight, and are reasonably common on land, or, at least, common in the ocean (iodine, sodium).

Elements Considered Possibly Essential but not Confirmed

Many ultratrace elements have been suggested as essential, but such claims have usually not been confirmed. Definitive evidence for efficacy comes from the characterization of a biomolecule containing the element with an identifiable and testable function. One problem with identifying efficacy is that some elements are innocuous at low concentrations and are pervasive (examples: silicon and nickel in solid and dust), so proof of efficacy is lacking because deficiencies are difficult to reproduce. Ultratrace elements of some minerals such as silicon and boron are known to have a role but the exact biochemical nature is unknown, and others such as arsenic and chromium are suspected to have a role in health, but with weaker evidence. Chromium is considered and essential mineral by the U.S. Institute of Medicine but not for the European Food Safety Authority, which makes the decisions for the European Union. Roles for trace minerals include enzyme catalysis, attracting substrate molecules, redox reactions, and structural or regulatory effects on protein binding.

These elements include bromine, arsenic, nickel, fluorine, boron, lithium, strontium, possibly silicon and vanadium and potentially possibly aluminum, germanium, lead, rubidium, and tin.

                                          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_(nutrient)

Footnote by the Blog Author

The text linked above also notes that “tungsten, lanthanum, and cadmium have specialized biochemical uses in certain lower organisms, but these elements appear not to be utilized by humans.”  Silver has antibacterial properties and gold interrupts chemical processes of rheumatoid arthritis.  Silver and gold have the same valence as copper and may be able to substitute for certain functions performed by copper.

Wind River Movie Summary

Wind River is a 2017 American neo-western murder mystery thriller film written and directed by Taylor Sheridan. The film stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracker and an FBI agent, respectively, who try to solve a murder on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Gil Birmingham and Graham Greene also star. It premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and was released on August 4, 2017, by The Weinstein Company.

Plot Summary

It is winter on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent Cory Lambert discovers the body of Natalie Hanson, an 18-year old resident of the reservation. Her corpse is frozen solid, she is without shoes and proper winter attire, and there is a blood stain on her pants at her groin. Rookie FBI special agent Jane Banner arrives to determine whether a murder has been committed, as the federal government has jurisdiction over capital crimes on reservations. Banner is unprepared for conditions, as she needs to borrow clothing from a local resident. Banner is taken by Lambert and Tribal Police Chief Ben to the body and, after surveying the scene, she orders an autopsy.

The next day, the investigative team learns from Natalie's father that the young woman was dating a new boyfriend, but he doesn't know the man's name or whereabouts. They also learn that Natalie's brother Chip is a drug addict and currently residing with the reservation's local dealers, the Littlefeather brothers, in their double-wide trailer.

Natalie's autopsy returns findings of blunt trauma and sexual violence, and confirms Lambert's assumption that the girl had died from exposure, specifically pulmonary hemorrhage caused by rapid inhalation of sub-zero air during her barefooted flight through the snow. However, the medical examiner is unable to definitively conclude in his report that the victim was murdered, therefore preventing Banner from calling in an additional FBI investigative unit. Banner tells Ben that she will remain to assist and she will not provide an update to her supervisor, as she figures she would be directed to cease being involved.

Banner, Lambert, and Ben visit the Littlefeather property in order to question Chip. They have an armed confrontation with Sam Littlefeather that ends with him dead at Banner's hands, and Chip and another dealer taken into custody. Lambert notices a snowmobile track leading away from the property toward the area where Natalie's body was found. He convinces Banner to hold off interrogating the two young men in order to follow the trail before it snows over. Some distance up the mountain, Lambert discovers a second body, this one male, nude, and heavily ravaged by scavenging wildlife. Chip reveals that Natalie's boyfriend is named Matt and that he works on the security staff at a nearby oil drilling site, where he also lives.

Banner visits Lambert's home and tells him that she has learned that the male body is of Matt Rayburn, who worked as security at the nearby oil drilling site. Lambert tells her about the death of his daughter three years before, whose body was discovered in the snow three years ago, following a party at his house. He and his wife had been out of town.

Accompanied by Sheriff Ben and tribal police officers, as well as local county deputies, Banner approaches the drill site. She meets several of Matt's fellow armed security guards, who claim not to have seen Matt since he stormed off a few days ago following an argument with his girlfriend. As her party is led toward the drill crew's sleeping quarters, which she asked to examine, Lambert has retraced the track up to the second corpse. He follows it over a mountain range, where he finds that it leads directly into the drilling camp, where Banner and the deputies have already arrived. Lambert tries to warn Ben by radio.

At the oil rig site, Banner, Ben, and the deputies meet with the oil rig security. Banner says that Natalie filed a complaint that Matt was missing and she is investigating his disappearance. The oil rig security reveal their knowledge of discovery of Natalie's body and say they had learned this by monitoring law enforcement radio channels. But Natalie's identity was never discussed over the radio. Noticing that the oil rig security are starting to surround Banner, Ben, and the deputies, one of the deputies pulls his weapon. The others immediately follow and all parties are locked in an armed standoff. Banner defuses the situation by claiming federal authority over the others. Everyone walks toward the trailer where Matt had been living.

A flashback shows Natalie going to Matt's trailer, and the two cuddling and discussing plans after making love. His security colleagues interrupt, entering the trailer after a night of hard drinking. Pete, a particularly vulgar crew member, taunts them and provokes Matt to violence, and the team members retaliate by beating him and knocking out Natalie. Pete rapes her. Matt recovers consciousness, attacking Pete and the others. They overwhelm him and beat him to death, but the barefoot Natalie escapes the trailer and runs away.

In present time, Banner tries the door to Matt's trailer, finding it locked. Warned by Lambert, Ben shouts at her to get away, but she is hit by a shotgun blast fired by Pete from inside. A firefight breaks out. Banner is shot in the neck, and Ben and the other officers are killed. As Banner is about to be killed by the remaining security team members, Lambert opens fire from a distance, fatally shooting all except Pete, who flees.

Lambert catches Pete on the mountain and knocks him unconscious. When he recovers, Lambert forces him to confess his actions against Natalie and Matt. He offers him the same chance given Natalie, a barefoot escape toward a distant road. Lambert says that Natalie "was a warrior" and made it six miles before she collapsed and died, but predicts that Pete will not last long enough to reach the highway. The camera shows Pete stumbling through the snow only a few yards before collapsing dead into the snow.

Lambert visits Banner, who is recovering in the hospital, and praises her toughness. He visits Martin Hanson, Natalie's father, finding him sitting in his yard with a gun, having painted his face blue for death and contemplating suicide. Martin tells Lambert that Chip had called from the station, the first time they had spoken in a year. He has decided to go on. Lambert tells Martin that the missing oil crew member had died "with a whimper". He and Martin sit together in the frozen yard, sharing in the grief of their daughters' deaths.

A title card states that the FBI does not keep statistics on missing Native American women, whose numbers remain unknown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_River_(film)

Molecular Robot Builds Molecules

Scientists Create World’s First ‘Molecular Robot’ Capable of Building Molecules

University of Manchester, September 20, 2017 -- Scientists at The University of Manchester have created the world’s first ‘molecular robot’ that is capable of performing basic tasks including building other molecules.

The tiny robots, which are a millionth of a millimeter in size, can be programmed to move and build molecular cargo, using a tiny robotic arm.

Each individual robot is capable of manipulating a single molecule and is made up of just 150 carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms. To put that size into context, a billion billion of these robots piled on top of each other would still only be the same size as a single grain of salt.

The robots operate by carrying out chemical reactions in special solutions which can then be controlled and programmed by scientists to perform the basic tasks.

In the future such robots could be used for medical purposes, advanced manufacturing processes and even building molecular factories and assembly lines. The research will be published in Nature today (21^st September).

Professor David Leigh, who led the research at University’s School of Chemistry, explains: ‘All matter is made up of atoms and these are the basic building blocks that form molecules. Our robot is literally a molecular robot constructed of atoms just like you can build a very simple robot out of Lego bricks. The robot then responds to a series of simple commands that are programmed with chemical inputs by a scientist.

‘It is similar to the way robots are used on a car assembly line. Those robots pick up a panel and position it so that it can be riveted in the correct way to build the bodywork of a car. So, just like the robot in the factory, our molecular version can be programmed to position and rivet components in different ways to build different products, just on a much smaller scale at a molecular level.’

The benefit of having machinery that is so small is it massively reduces demand for materials, can accelerate and improve drug discovery, dramatically reduce power requirements and rapidly increase the miniaturization of other products. Therefore, the potential applications for molecular robots are extremely varied and exciting.

Prof Leigh says: ‘Molecular robotics represents the ultimate in the miniaturization of machinery. Our aim is to design and make the smallest machines possible. This is just the start but we anticipate that within 10 to 20 years molecular robots will begin to be used to build molecules and materials on assembly lines in molecular factories.’

Whilst building and operating such tiny machine is extremely complex, the techniques used by the team are based on simple chemical processes.

Prof Leigh added: ‘The robots are assembled and operated using chemistry. This is the science of how atoms and molecules react with each other and how larger molecules are constructed from smaller ones.

‘It is the same sort of process scientists use to make medicines and plastics from simple chemical building blocks. Then, once the nano-robots have been constructed, they are operated by scientists by adding chemical inputs which tell the robots what to do and when, just like a computer program.’

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/scientists-create-worlds-first-molecular-robot-capable-of-building-molecules/

Both Left and Right Deny Science

Science Denial Not Limited to Political Right

University of Illinois at Chicago, September 19, 2017 -- In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, many claims have been made that science denial, particularly as it relates to climate change, is primarily a problem of the political right.

But what happens when scientific conclusions challenge liberals’ attitudes on public policy issues, such as gun control, nuclear power or immigration?

A new study from social psychologists at the University of Illinois at Chicago and published online in Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests people of all political backgrounds can be motivated to participate in science denial.

UIC researchers Anthony Washburn, a graduate student in psychology, and Linda Skitka, professor of psychology, had participants indicate their political orientation, evaluate fabricated scientific results, and, based on the data, decide what the studies concluded.

Once they were informed of the correct interpretations of the data, participants were then asked to rate how much they agreed with, found knowledgeable, and trusted the researchers’ correct interpretation.

“Not only were both sides equally likely to seek out attitude confirming scientific conclusions, both were also willing to work harder and longer when doing so got them to a conclusion that fit with their existing attitudes,” says Washburn, the lead author of the study. “And when the correct interpretation of the results did not confirm participants’ attitudes, they were more likely to view the researchers involved with the study as less trustworthy, less knowledgeable, and disagreed with their conclusions more.”

These effects were constant no matter what issue was under consideration, which included six social issues — immigration, gun control, climate change, health care reform, nuclear power and same sex marriage — and one control issue — skin rash treatment.

Rather than strictly a conservative phenomenon, science denial may be a result of a more basic desire of people wanting to see the world in ways that fit with their personal preferences, political or otherwise, according to the researchers.

The results also shed light on science denial in public discourse, Skitka added.

“Before assuming that one group of people or another are anti-science because they disagree with one scientific conclusion, we should make an effort to consider different motivations that are likely at play, which might have nothing to do with science per se,” she said.

http://today.uic.edu/science-denial-not-limited-to-political-right

Stronger, "Multivalent" Batteries

A Step Towards Better Batteries ‘Beyond Lithium’
A step towards new “beyond lithium” rechargeable batteries with superior performance has been made by researchers at the University of Bath.

September 18, 2017 -- We increasingly rely on rechargeable batteries for a host of essential uses; from mobile phones and electric cars to electrical grid storage. At present this demand is taken up by lithium-ion batteries. As we continue to transition from fossil fuels to low emission energy sources, new battery technologies will be needed for new applications and more efficient energy storage.

One approach to develop batteries that store more energy is to use “multivalent” metals instead of lithium. In lithium-ion batteries, charging and discharging transfers lithium ions inside the battery. For every lithium ion transferred, one electron is also transferred, producing electric current. In multivalent batteries, lithium would be replaced by a different metal that transfers more than one electron per ion. For batteries of equal size, this would give multivalent batteries better energy storage capacity and performance.

The team showed that titanium dioxide can be modified to allow it to be used as an electrode in multivalent batteries, providing a valuable proof of concept in their development.

The scientists, an international team from the University of Bath, France, Germany, Holland, and the USA, deliberately introduced defects in titanium dioxide to form high concentrations of microscopic holes, and showed these can be reversibly occupied by magnesium and aluminium; which carry more than one electron per ion.

The team also describes a new chemical strategy for designing materials that can be used in future multivalent batteries.

The research is published in the journal Nature Materials.

Dr. Benjamin Morgan, from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Bath, said: “Multivalent batteries are a really exciting direction for battery technology, potentially offering higher charge densities and better performance. New battery technologies are going to be more and more important as we wean ourselves off fossil fuels and adopt greener energy sources.

“There are quite a few technical hurdles to overcome, including finding materials that are good electrodes for multivalent ions. We’ve shown a way to modify titanium dioxide to turn it into a multivalent electrode.

“In the long term, this proof of concept is a possible step towards "beyond lithium" batteries with superior performance.”

The paper "Reversible magnesium and aluminium ionsinsertion in cation-deficient anatase TiO2" is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmat4976

            http://www.bath.ac.uk/news/2017/09/18/beyond-lithium-batteries/

Avoid Praising Smart Kids

Kids Praised for Being Smart
Are More Likely to Cheat
By Inga Kiderra, University of California San Diego

September 17, 2017 -- An international team of researchers reports that when children are praised for being smart not only are they quicker to give up in the face of obstacles they are also more likely to be dishonest and cheat. Kids as young as age 3 appear to behave differently when told “You are so smart” vs “You did very well this time.”

The study, published in Psychological Science, is co-authored by Gail Heyman of the University of California San Diego, Kang Lee of the University of Toronto, and Lulu Chen and Li Zhao of Hangzhou Normal University in China.

The research builds on well-known work by Stanford’s Carol Dweck, author of “Mindset,” who has shown that praising a child’s innate ability instead of the child's effort or a specific behavior has the unintended consequence of reducing their motivation to learn and their ability to deal with setbacks.

The present study shows there’s also a moral dimension to different kinds of praise and that it affects children at younger ages than previously known. Even the kindergarten and preschool set seem to be sensitive to subtle differences in praise.

“It’s common and natural to tell children how smart they are,” said co-author Gail Heyman, a development psychologist at UC San Diego. “Even when parents and educators know that it harms kids’ achievement motivation, it’s still easy to do. What our study shows is that the harm can go beyond motivation and extend to the moral domain.  It makes a child more willing to cheat in order to do well.”

For their study the researchers asked 300 children in Eastern China to play a guessing game using number cards. In total, there were 150 3-year-olds and 150 5-year-olds. The children were either praised for being smart or for their performance. A control group got no praise at all. After praising the children and getting them to promise not to cheat, the researcher left the room for a minute in the middle of the game. The kids’ subsequent behavior was monitored by a hidden camera, which recorded who got out of their seat or leaned over to get a peek at the numbers.  

Results suggest that both the 3- and 5-year-olds who’d been praised for being smart were more likely to act dishonestly than the ones praised for how well they did or those who got no praise at all. The results were the same for boys and girls.

In another study, published recently in Developmental Science, the same co-authors show that the consequences are similar even when children are not directly praised for their smarts but are merely told that they have a reputation for being smart.

Why? The researchers believe that praising ability is tied to performance pressure in a way that praising behavior isn’t. When children are praised for being smart or are told that they have reputation for it, said co-author Li Zhao of Hangzhou Normal University, "they feel pressure to perform well in order to live up to others' expectations, even if they need to cheat to do so."

Co-author Kang Lee, of the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, emphasized the take-away for the adults in kids’ lives: “We want to encourage children. We want them to feel good about themselves. But these studies show we must learn to give children the right kinds of praise, such as praising specific behavior. Only in this way will praise have the intended positive outcomes.” 

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/kids-praised-for-being-smart-are-more-likely-to-cheat

Singapore's Unvoted President

The Singaporean presidential election of 2017 was the fifth Singaporean presidential election. It was held to elect the successor of the previous President of Singapore, Tony Tan, whose term expired on 31 August 2017. Following amendments to the Constitution of Singapore, the election was the first to be reserved for a particular racial group under a hiatus-triggered model. The 2017 election was reserved for candidates from the minority Malay community, who had not held the presidential office since 1970.

The close of nominations was on 13 September, and polling would have been held on 23 September if two or more candidates were eligible to stand. In accordance with the strict criteria laid out in the national constitution, the Elections Department declared Halimah Yacob to be the only eligible presidential candidate on 11 September. Halimah was consequently declared president-elect on 13 September, and was inaugurated as the eighth President of Singapore the following day.

Background of Singapore Presidency

The President is the head of state of Singapore. Following the Westminster system, the position is largely ceremonial, but enjoys several reserve powers including withholding presidential assent on supply bills and changing or revoking civil service appointments. The current system of holding elections for the Presidency began with the 1993 election, with the election of Ong Teng Cheong. Before then, the President was selected by Parliament.

There are strict requirements for prospective presidential election candidates, and whether a candidate meets the qualifications or not is decided by the Presidential Elections Committee (PEC), who are given the task of issuing a certificate of eligibility (COE) to prospective candidates.

The Presidency is, by the rules of the Constitution, required to be nonpartisan.

Parliamentary Reforms

In his speech to Parliament on 27 January 2016, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that it was timely to review the eligibility criteria of the Elected Presidency. On 10 February 2016, a Constitutional Commission consisting of nine individuals and chaired by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon was formed. In its report released on 7 September 2016, the Commission recommended the following key changes:

1. The election should be reserved for a racial group if it is not represented for five terms, or 30 years. If there are no eligible candidates from that group, the election would be opened to candidates of all races, and the "reserved election" would be deferred to the next Presidential election.
2. The Council of Presidential Advisers (CPA) should be increased from six to eight members, with two alternate members. The President would have to consult the CPA on all monetary issues related to the financial reserves and all key public service appointments.
3. A qualifying candidate from the private sector should be a senior executive managing a company with at least S$500 million in shareholders' equity. Previously, such a candidate had to be a chairman or CEO of a company with at least S$100 million in paid-up capital.
4. For qualifying candidates from both the public and private sectors, the length of time that the candidate has held office should be doubled to six years.
5. The public sector offices of Accountant-General and Auditor-General should be removed from automatic qualification.
6. An applicant's entire qualifying tenure should fall within a 15-year period preceding Nomination Day.

The government announced in a White Paper published on 15 September 2016 that it has broadly accepted the recommendations, including the first three changes above. The government did not accept the three other proposed changes, preferring to adopt a "cautious" approach given the other concurrent changes to other aspects of eligibility criteria. On 8 November 2016, PM Lee, under the advice from Attorney-General, announced that the 2017 Presidential Election will be reserved for candidates from the Malay community.

The rules for campaigning have also been modified. Rally sites will no longer be designated for the candidates. All candidates are required to apply for police permit on their own to hold a rally. Also, candidates are required to sign a statutory declaration to affirm that they understand the roles of a President. These rules are purportedly made to ensure that the candidates campaign in a "dignified" manner.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singaporean_presidential_election,_2017

Biochemical Cofactors

A cofactor is a non-protein chemical compound or metallic ion that is required for a protein's biological activity to happen. These proteins are commonly enzymes, and cofactors can be considered "helper molecules" that assist in biochemical transformations. The rates at which this happen are characterized by enzyme kinetics.

Cofactors can be subclassified as either inorganic ions or complex organic molecules called coenzymes, the latter of which is mostly derived from vitamins and other organic essential nutrients in small amounts. A coenzyme that is tightly or even covalently bound is termed a prosthetic group. Cosubstrates are transiently bound to the protein and will be released at some point, then get back in. The prosthetic groups, on the other hand, are bound permanently to the protein. Both of them have the same function, which is to facilitate the reaction of enzymes and protein. Additionally, some sources also limit the use of the term "cofactor" to inorganic substances. An inactive enzyme without the cofactor is called an apoenzyme, while the complete enzyme with cofactor is called a holoenzyme.

Some enzymes or enzyme complexes require several cofactors. For example, the multienzyme complex pyruvate dehydrogenase at the junction of glycolysis and the citric acid cycle requires five organic cofactors and one metal ion: loosely bound thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP), covalently bound lipoamide and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), and the cosubstrates nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD⁺) and coenzyme A (CoA), and a metal ion (Mg²⁺).

Organic cofactors are often vitamins or made from vitamins. Many contain the nucleotide adenosine monophosphate (AMP) as part of their structures, such as ATP, coenzyme A, FAD, and NAD⁺. This common structure may reflect a common evolutionary origin as part of ribozymes in an ancient RNA world. It has been suggested that the AMP part of the molecule can be considered to be a kind of "handle" by which the enzyme can "grasp" the coenzyme to switch it between different catalytic centers.

Classification of Cofactors

Cofactors can be divided into two broad groups: organic cofactors, such as flavin or heme, and inorganic cofactors, such as the metal ions Mg²⁺, Cu⁺, Mn²⁺, or iron-sulfur clusters.

Organic cofactors are sometimes further divided into coenzymes and prosthetic groups. The term coenzyme refers specifically to enzymes and, as such, to the functional properties of a protein. On the other hand, "prosthetic group" emphasizes the nature of the binding of a cofactor to a protein (tight or covalent) and, thus, refers to a structural property. Different sources give slightly different definitions of coenzymes, cofactors, and prosthetic groups. Some consider tightly bound organic molecules as prosthetic groups and not as coenzymes, while others define all non-protein organic molecules needed for enzyme activity as coenzymes, and classify those that are tightly bound as coenzyme prosthetic groups. It should be noted that these terms are often used loosely.

A 1979 letter in Trends in Biochemical Sciences noted the confusion in the literature and the essentially arbitrary distinction made between prosthetic groups and coenzymes and proposed the following scheme. Here, cofactors were defined as an additional substance apart from protein and substrate that is required for enzyme activity and a prosthetic group as a substance that undergoes its whole catalytic cycle attached to a single enzyme molecule. However, the author could not arrive at a single all-encompassing definition of a "coenzyme" and proposed that this term be dropped from use in the literature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cofactor_(biochemistry)

Short Robot Documentary

Humans Need Not Apply is a 2014 short Internet documentary film, directed, produced, written, and edited by CGP Grey. The film focuses on the future of the integration of automation into economics, as well as the impact of this integration to the worldwide workforce. It was released online as a YouTube video [link below].

Premise

The film focuses on the topic of robots' rapidly increasing usefulness through human society, discussing how automation will lead to a future where human labour is no longer required. The film's title is a play on Irish need not apply, a phrase said to be used on job postings in the 19th century.

Early on, an analogy is made describing how humans once displaced horses from their jobs (by creating mechanical muscles such as automobiles), dismissing the argument that humans will always find new work, seeing as horses are not nearly as much used now. This analogy finishes by connecting the creation of mechanical minds, or "brain labor", will lead to robots ousting humans out of their occupations. Grey also discusses how economics is the force behind a future based upon automation.  Grey concludes by stating that 45% of the workforce could be replaced by bots, a figure which is inclusive of professional, white-collar, and low-skill occupations, and higher than the 25% unemployment figure of the Great Depression. Grey further states that even creative occupations are not secure, mentioning the included bot-composed music in the background of his video.

Additionally, the viewer is reminded that the short film is not discussing or portraying a future based upon science fiction, using examples such as Baxter, self-driving cars (referred to as autos in the film) and IBM's Watson.

Production and Funding

The film was funded through Subbable, a crowdfunding website. Grey used this website as a means to support his projects, before moving to Subbable's successor Patreon.

Reception

Humans Need Not Apply was covered by several publications, including Business Insider, The Huffington Post, and Forbes. Coverage of the video complimented its presentation, calling the video "well-produced". These publications also praised its premise, calling it "thought-provoking", and "compelling", but also maintaining that the points and topics brought up in the video were "terrifying". Bruce Kasanoff of Forbes commented that the video was "sobering," and "suggests, in a convincing fashion, that many human jobs will disappear over the coming years, because automation will do them faster, better, and cheaper." After a few days of release, the video reached one million views. As of June 2017, Humans Need Not Apply has reached over 8.7 million views.

               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humans_Need_Not_Apply

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The 15 minute video is on YouTube at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU