66% Give or Take

The Anthropocene is alive and well but the primates who live in it, not so much ...

Our fellow primates are in trouble.

In a study of unprecedented scope, a team of 31 primatologists has analyzed every known species of primate to judge how they are faring. The news for man’s closest animal relatives is not good.

Three-quarters of primate species are in decline, the researchers found, and about 60 percent are now threatened with extinction. From gorillas to gibbons, primates are in significantly worse shape now than in recent decades because of the devastation from agriculture, hunting and mining.

“I think we’re going to get quite a number of extinctions within next 50 years if things go on the way they are,” said Anthony B. Rylands, a senior research scientist at Conservation International and a co-author of the new study, which was published in Science Advances.

“It’s a landmark paper,” said Anne D. Yoder, the director of the Duke Lemur Center, who was not involved in the study. “It’s alarming without being alarmist.”

Something to consider without question.

Other Earths

Superbugs "R" Us

This pink variant on slime is not referring to Ghostbusters II but rather is of Klebsiella pneumoniae (a) bacteria ... commonly found in the human gastrointestinal tract, and are often the cause of hospital acquired, or nosocomial infections involving the urinary and pulmonary systems. Photo by CDC that can become a superbug, resistant to all antibiotics, if given a chance, something that happened to a woman who died in Reno after visiting India where she was treated for a broken bone.

Public health officials from Nevada are reporting on a case of a woman who died in Reno in September from an incurable infection. 

Testing showed the superbug that had spread throughout her system could fend off 26 different antibiotics.

“It was tested against everything that’s available in the United States … and was not effective,” said Dr. Alexander Kallen, a medical officer in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of health care quality promotion.

This is where it gets scary. Click - Evolution in Real Time to see BRT's take on superbugs.

Antibiotics are failing us on a catastrophic scale. Once a magic bullet against infectious diseases, they’ve grown increasingly impotent as bacteria have evolved resistance. An estimated 700,000 people die each year from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and within a few decades, that toll may rise to several million.

We live in interesting times.

47%

47%, no, not Mitt's Romney's gaffe in 2012 but rather the percentage of people predicted to be out of work 25 years hence, thanks to robotics, AI and nanotech. To whit ...

The Trump campaign ran on bringing jobs back to American shores, although mechanization has been the biggest reason for manufacturing jobs’ disappearance. Similar losses have led to populist movements in several other countries. But instead of a pro-job growth future, economists across the board predict further losses as AI, robotics, and other technologies continue to be ushered in. What is up for debate is how quickly this is likely to occur.

Now, an expert at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania is ringing the alarm bells. According to Art Bilger, venture capitalist and board member at the business school, all the developed nations on earth will see job loss rates of up to 47% within the next 25 years, according to a recent Oxford study. “No government is prepared,” The Economist reports. These include blue and white collar jobs. So far, the loss has been restricted to the blue collar variety, particularly in manufacturing.

It gets better ...

Accountants, doctors, lawyers, teachers, bureaucrats, and financial analysts beware: your jobs are not safe. According to The Economist, computers will be able to analyze and compare reams of data to make financial decisions or medical ones. There will be less of a chance of fraud or misdiagnosis, and the process will be more efficient. Not only are these folks in trouble, such a trend is likely to freeze salaries for those who remain employed, while income gaps only increase in size. You can imagine what this will do to politics and social stability.

BRT talk about this transition regarding medical back in 2013 ago in a piece titled Heathcare, Days of Future Past. Not a bad guesstimate I must say.

By Moonlight

By Moonlight, a set of pix taken on two cold but beautiful nights. :)

The Wolf Moon rules. 

Billionaire Univerity

Talk to any successful person in business and they will tell you that developing a strong network is half of the battle. As far as schools go, Harvard is the perfect example of the “network effect” at work.

To date, a total of 35 of the richest 500 people in the world have emerged from the storied halls of Harvard. In fact, more billionaires have graduated from Harvard than all of those hailing from Saudi Arabia and Spain combined.

Interesting factoid for sure.

The Donald writ Large

A very good friend of mine turned me onto this amazing Japanese, over the top commercial depicting how the Donald views himself. Outrageously outrageous.

Of all the apocalyptic visions of a Donald Trump presidency, this bizzaro propaganda, in the style of a Japanese commercial, is hands down the greatest (with regard to what it's making America... again). Today, self-described "MAKER OF VIDEOS/ MUSIC/ MEMES/ DREAMS," Mike Diva dropped this explosion of seapunk, ~new aesthetic~, and over-the-top kawaii devotion to the Donald, and, simply put, we're not sure how long all the other Trump memes, #drumpf included, will last.

Thanks Doug, I needed this. :)

Foldscope

The Foldscope, a $1.00 microscope that's changing science and medical all over the world as we speak is akin to the amazing whirlygig/paperfuge approach for doing blood analysis on the cheap.

Creativity, like money, never sleeps. - Robert E. :)

DeepMind dreams

A pix by yours truly.

A pix by DeepMind

DeepMind's take on wildlife. 

This is where it gets kinda weird. :)

High Beams

Combining LEDs with lasers to illuminate the road is a really good idea as the precision in terms of how light can be intelligently applied is pretty astounding given what Audi has done with headlights and how they can be transformed into something very cool while being safe, something the US Government seems not to understand in any way, shape or fashion.

AUDI FRESH OFF MAKING some bold promises about self-driving cars and setting a US sales record, Audi built on a very good 2017 this week by lighting things up at the Detroit auto show. As in, it showed off a new headlight technology.

Too bad the “Matrix Laser” system, which debuted as part of Audi’s Q8 concept SUV and does everything from highlighting pedestrians to auto-dimming for the sake on oncoming cars, isn’t welcome in the US.

This tech is Audi’s latest push the reinvent the way drivers see the world around them, and its future-heavy name is actually accurate. “Each headlight uses a single laser as the light source, but the beam is broken into a million distinct pixels by the diodes,” says Volker Kaese, Audi’s director of innovation. A small mirror continuously aims the beam to different sections of the matrix to adjust its projection—wide or narrow, high or low, and anywhere in between.

The Utopia of Rules strikes yet again.

Cars sold in the US must obey a rulebook that spans more than a thousand pages and gets very details. One rule: You need separate light sources for high and low beams. (Conventional laser headlights are permitted here, usually supplemented with LEDs for the alternate beam.)

“The United States has very low receptiveness to new lighting technology,” says IHS Markit analyst Christian Müller. “It will permit some things—daytime running lights, directional lighting in turns—but not make them mandatory. And if there isn’t a proven life-safety benefit for a new innovation it’s very hard to change the regulations to even permit things like matrix laser lights.”

Looks pretty cool without question.

Addendum: Mercedes Benz is doing some cool stuff with high beams as well.