Science

jeff-bezos-says-what-we’re-all-thinking:-“blue-origin-needs-to-be-much-faster”

Jeff Bezos says what we’re all thinking: “Blue Origin needs to be much faster”

blue origin, Jeff Bezos, Science, Space / /

Orbit, finally? —

“We’re going to become the world’s most decisive company across any industry.”

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Jeff Bezos holding aviation glasses up to his face.

Enlarge / Jeff Bezos, shortly after he rode on New Shepard to space.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos gives very few interviews, but he recently sat down with the computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman for a two-hour interview about Amazon, Blue Origin, his business practices, and more.

The discussion meanders somewhat, but there are some interesting tidbits about spaceflight, especially when the conversation turns to Blue Origin. This is the space company Bezos founded more than 23 years ago. He has invested an extraordinary amount of money into Blue Origin—likely somewhere between $10 billion and $20 billion—and it truly is a passion project.

But the inescapable truth about Blue Origin is that to date, it has been a disappointment in terms of execution. At present, Blue Origin employs approximately 11,000 people, about the same total as SpaceX. However, Blue Origin has launched zero rockets this year, whereas SpaceX has launched nearly 100, as well as building and launching thousands of satellites.

During the interview, Bezos candidly acknowledged this. “Blue Origin needs to be much faster, and it’s one of the reasons that I left my role as the CEO of Amazon a couple of years ago,” he said. “I wanted to come in, and Blue Origin needs me right now. Adding some energy, some sense of urgency. We need to move much faster. And we’re going to.”

Becoming a decisive company

How is Blue Origin going to speed up?

“We’re going to become the world’s most decisive company across any industry,” he said. “We’re going to get really good at taking appropriate technology risks, making those decisions quickly. You know, being bold on those things. And having the right culture that supports that. You need people to be ambitious, technically ambitious. If there are five ways to do something, we’ll study them, but let’s go through them very quickly and make a decision. We can always change our mind.”

When discussing Blue Origin, it’s almost impossible not to compare the company to SpaceX, which also has a prominent billionaire founder, Elon Musk. Bezos’ comments about being decisive are striking because that is one of the secrets to SpaceX’s success. During technical meetings, Musk will make a decision and accept the responsibility for that decision when it comes to key questions. Then, without hesitation, the company moves down that path until it finds success or realizes it has followed the wrong path and course-corrects.

The key is to make a decision, try something, and move on. Decisiveness is the antithesis of how many corporations make decisions, with multiple layers of middle management, or government agencies and their endless committees and meetings.

Bezos recently got rid of Bob Smith, who had served as Blue Origin’s CEO for half a decade. Smith’s tenure was marked by tentativeness. Now that Bezos has hired Dave Limp, a former Amazon executive to run Blue Origin, this move toward decisiveness could help Blue Origin move faster.

The company may finally be on the cusp of tangible results. During the interview, Bezos said he was optimistic about finally reaching orbit. The company’s large New Glenn rocket is nearing readiness, and Bezos did not seek to dampen expectations. “I’m very optimistic that the first launch of new Glenn will be in 2024,” he said. This echoes comments Ars reported on from another Blue Origin official, Lars Hoffman, earlier this week.

What does he think about Musk?

Bezos said a lot of the company’s focus has been not just on getting the first New Glenn rocket ready at Blue Origin’s factory in Florida but on building up the capacity to fly two dozen a year. “Rate manufacturing is at least as difficult as designing the vehicle in the first place,” he said.

This includes building two dozen upper stages—each of which is powered by two BE-3U engines—a year because second-stage reuse is not in the company’s immediate plans.

“We’re going to work on manufacturing that second stage to make it as inexpensive as possible,” Bezos said. “There are two paths for a second stage: make it reusable or work really hard to make it inexpensive so you can afford to expend it. And that trade is actually not obvious which one is better.” In his remarks, Bezos did not reference the company’s experiments with an experimental reusable upper stage called Project Jarvis.

Bezos also took the high road when asked about Musk, who has puerilely suggested before that Bezos “couldn’t get it up” because Blue Origin lacked an orbital rocket.

“Well, I don’t really know Elon very well,” Bezos said. “I know his public persona. But I also know you can’t know anyone by their public persona. It’s impossible. I mean, you may think you do, but I guarantee you don’t. In terms of judging him by the results, he must be a very capable leader. There’s no way you could have Tesla and SpaceX without being a capable leader. It’s impossible.”

Jeff Bezos says what we’re all thinking: “Blue Origin needs to be much faster” Read More »

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What happens in a crow’s brain when it uses tools? 

Behavioral science, Biology, birds, Crows, neurobiology, Science, tool use / /

This is your brain on tools —

Researchers trace the areas of the brain that are active when birds are using tools.

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Three crows on the streets in the foreground with traffic and city lights blurry in the background.

Enlarge / Sure, they can use tools, but do they know where the nearest subway stop is?

“A thirsty crow wanted water from a pitcher, so he filled it with pebbles to raise the water level to drink,” summarizes a famous Aesop Fable. While this tale is thousands of years old, animal behaviorists still use this challenge to study corvids (which include crows, ravens, jays, and magpies) and their use of tools. In a recent Nature Communications study, researchers from a collaboration of universities across Washington, Florida, and Utah used radioactive tracers within the brains of several American crows to see which parts of their brains were active when they used stones to obtain food from the bottom of a water-filled tube.

Their results indicate that the motor learning and tactile control centers were activated in the brains of the more proficient crows, while the sensory and higher-order processing centers lit up in the brains of less proficient crows. These results suggest that competence with tools is linked to certain memories and muscle control, which the researchers claimed is similar to a ski jumper visualizing the course before jumping.

The researchers also found that out of their avian test subjects, female crows were especially proficient at tool usage, succeeding in the challenge quickly. “[A] follow-up question is whether female crows actually have more need for creative thinking relative to male crows,” elaborates Loma Pendergraft, the study’s first author and a graduate student at the University of Washington, who wants to understand if the caregiving and less dominant role of female crows gives them a higher capacity for tool use.

While only two species of crow (the New Caledonian crow and the Hawaiian crow) inherently use twigs and sticks as foraging tools, this study also suggests that other crow species, like the American crow, have the neural flexibility to learn to use tools.

A less invasive look at bird brains

Due to their unique behaviors, complex social structures, and reported intelligence, crows have fascinated animal behavioralists for decades. Scientists can study crows’ brains in real time by using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), a radioactive tracer, which the researchers injected into the crows’ brains. They then use positron emission tomography (PET) scans to see which brain areas are activated during different tasks.

“FDG-PET is a method we use to remotely examine activity throughout the entire brain without needing to do any surgeries or implants,” explained Pendergraft. “It’s like [a functional] MRI.” The FDG-PET method is non-invasive, as the crows aren’t required to sit still, which minimizes the stress the crows feel during the experiment.  In the Nature Communications study, Pendergraft and his team ensured the crows were anesthetized before scanning them.

FDG is also used in various medical imaging techniques, such as diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease or screening for cancerous tissue. “Basically, the body treats it as glucose, a substance needed for cells to stay alive,” Pendergraft added. “If a body part is working harder than normal, it’s going to need extra glucose to power the additional activity. This means we can measure relative FDG concentrations within the brain as a proxy for relative brain activity.”

What happens in a crow’s brain when it uses tools?  Read More »

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Humana also using AI tool with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit claims

AI, claim denial, coverage, health, humana, insurance, insurance coverage, medicare, medicare advantage, nH Predict, nursing home, post-acute care, Science, unitedhealth / /

AI denials —

The AI model, nH Predict, is the focus of another lawsuit against UnitedHealth.

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Signage is displayed outside the Humana Inc. office building in Louisville, Kentucky, US, in 2016.

Enlarge / Signage is displayed outside the Humana Inc. office building in Louisville, Kentucky, US, in 2016.

Humana, one the nation’s largest health insurance providers, is allegedly using an artificial intelligence model with a 90 percent error rate to override doctors’ medical judgment and wrongfully deny care to elderly people on the company’s Medicare Advantage plans.

According to a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Humana’s use of the AI model constitutes a “fraudulent scheme” that leaves elderly beneficiaries with either overwhelming medical debt or without needed care that is covered by their plans. Meanwhile, the insurance behemoth reaps a “financial windfall.”

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in western Kentucky, is led by two people who had a Humana Medicare Advantage Plan policy and said they were wrongfully denied needed and covered care, harming their health and finances. The suit seeks class-action status for an unknown number of other beneficiaries nationwide who may be in similar situations. Humana provides Medicare Advantage plans for 5.1 million people in the US.

It is the second lawsuit aimed at an insurer’s use of the AI tool nH Predict, which was developed by NaviHealth to forecast how long patients will need care after a medical injury, illness, or event. In November, the estates of two deceased individuals brought a suit against UnitedHealth—the largest health insurance company in the US—for also allegedly using nH Predict to wrongfully deny care.

Humana did not respond to Ars’ request for comment for this story. United Health previously said that “the lawsuit has no merit, and we will defend ourselves vigorously.”

AI model

In both cases, the plaintiffs claim that the insurers use the flawed model to pinpoint the exact date to blindly and illegally cut off payments for post-acute care that is covered under Medicare plans—such as stays in skilled nursing facilities and inpatient rehabilitation centers. The AI-powered model comes up with those dates by comparing a patient’s diagnosis, age, living situation, and physical function to similar patients in a database of 6 million patients. In turn, the model spits out a prediction for the patient’s medical needs, length of stay, and discharge date.

But, the plaintiffs argue that the model fails to account for the entirety of each patient’s circumstances, their doctors’ recommendations, and the patient’s actual conditions. And they claim the predictions are draconian and inflexible. For example, under Medicare Advantage plans, patients who have a three-day hospital stay are typically entitled to up to 100 days of covered care in a nursing home. But with nH Predict in use, patients rarely stay in a nursing home for more than 14 days before claim denials begin.

Though few people appeal coverage denials generally, of those who have appealed the AI-based denials, over 90 percent have gotten the denial reversed, the lawsuits say.

Still, the insurers continue to use the model and NaviHealth employees are instructed to hew closely to the AI-based predictions, keeping lengths of post-acute care to within 1 percent of the days estimated by nH Predict. NaviHealth employees who fail to do so face discipline and firing. ” Humana banks on the patients’ impaired conditions, lack of knowledge, and lack of resources to appeal the wrongful AI-powered decisions,” the lawsuit filed Tuesday claims.

Plaintiff’s cases

One of the plaintiffs in Tuesday’s suit is JoAnne Barrows of Minnesota. On November 23, 2021, Barrows, then 86, was admitted to a hospital after falling at home and fracturing her leg. Doctors put her leg in a cast and issued an order not to put any weight on it for six weeks. On November 26, she was moved to a rehabilitation center for her six-week recovery. But, after just two weeks, Humana’s coverage denials began. Barrows and her family appealed the denials, but Humana denied the appeals, declaring that Barrows was fit to return to her home despite being bedridden and using a catheter.

Her family had no choice but to pay out-of-pocket. They tried moving her to a less expensive facility, but she received substandard care there, and her health declined further. Due to the poor quality of care, the family decided to move her home on December 22, even though she was still unable to use her injured leg, go the bathroom on her own, and still had a catheter.

The other plaintiff is Susan Hagood of North Carolina. On September 10, 2022, Hagood was admitted to a hospital with a urinary tract infection, sepsis, and a spinal infection. She stayed in the hospital until October 26, when she was transferred to a skilled nursing facility. Upon her transfer, she had eleven discharging diagnoses, including sepsis, acute kidney failure, kidney stones, nausea and vomiting, a urinary tract infection, swelling in her spine, and a spinal abscess. In the nursing facility, she was in extreme pain and on the maximum allowable dose of the painkiller oxycodone. She also developed pneumonia.

On November 28, she returned to the hospital for an appointment, at which point her blood pressure spiked, and she was sent to the emergency room. There, doctors found that her condition had considerably worsened.

Meanwhile, a day earlier, on November 27, Humana determined that it would deny coverage of part of her stay at the skilled nursing facility, refusing to pay from November 14 to November 28. Humana said Hagood no longer needed the level of care the facility provided and that she should be discharged home. The family paid $24,000 out-of-pocket for her care, and to date, Hagood remains in a skilled nursing facility.

Overall, the patients claim that Humana and UnitedHealth are aware that nH Predict is “highly inaccurate” but use it anyway to avoid paying for covered care and make more profit. The denials are “systematic, illegal, malicious, and oppressive.”

The lawsuit against Humana alleges breach of contract, unfair dealing, unjust enrichment, and bad faith insurance violations in many states. It seeks damages for financial losses and emotional distress, disgorgement and/or restitution, and to have Humana barred from using the AI-based model to deny claims.

Humana also using AI tool with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit claims Read More »

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Every homeopathic eye drop should be pulled off the market, FDA says

eye drops, fda, health, homeopathic, infection, Science, Vision / /

don’t risk it —

Eye drops are uniquely risky because the eye is an immune-privileged site.

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Young man applying eye drops.

This year has been marked by many terrifying things, but perhaps the most surprising of the 2023 horrors was … eye drops.

The seemingly innocuous teeny squeeze bottle made for alarming headlines numerous times during our current revolution around the sun, with lengthy lists of recalls, startling factory inspections, and ghastly reports of people developing near-untreatable bacterial infections, losing their eyes and vision, and dying.

Recapping this unexpected threat to health, the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday released an advisory titled “What You Should Know about Eye Drops” in hopes of keeping the dangers of this year from leaking into the next. Among the notable points from the regulator was this stark pronouncement: No one should ever use any homeopathic ophthalmic products, and every single such product should be pulled off the market.

The point is unexpected, given that none of the high-profile infections and recalls this year involved homeopathic products. But, it should be welcomed by any advocates of evidence-based medicine.

Homeopathy is an 18th century pseudoscience that produces bogus remedies that work no better than a placebo and, if prepared improperly, can be toxic, even deadly. The practice relies on two false principles: the  “law of similars,” aka “like cures like,” meaning a substance that causes a specific symptom in a healthy person can treat conditions and diseases that involve that same symptom, and the “law of infinitesimals,” which states that diluting the substance renders it more potent. As such, homeopathic products begin with toxic substances that are then extremely diluted—often into oblivion—in a ritualistic procedure. Some homeopaths hold that water molecules can have “memory.”

Clear risks

In the US, these products are marketed as legitimate treatments and sold alongside evidence-based treatments (though consumer advocates are trying to change that). The reason this is allowed for now is because of a regulatory quirk: Based on the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, homeopathic products are generally considered exempt from pre-market FDA safety and efficacy reviews as long as the active ingredient in the product is included in the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia, a list of substances approved by homeopaths.

In recent years, the FDA and the Federal Trade Commission have cracked down on homeopathic products, though. And it seems from today’s advisory that the FDA is not holding back on homeopathic products for the eyes. The regulator notes that any products meant for the eye “pose a heightened risk of harm” because the eyes are an immune-privileged site in the body. That is, innate immune responses are restrained in the eye to prevent damaging inflammation, which could threaten vision. “Any drug used in the eyes must be sterile to reduce the risk of infection,” the FDA said.

But whether or not homeopathic eye drops are labeled as sterile doesn’t seem to matter to the FDA. The regulator cautions: “Do not use ophthalmic products that: Are labeled as homeopathic, as these products should not be marketed.” Their lack of pre-market safety and efficacy reviews appears to be enough to warrant avoidance.

The FDA also cautions consumers not to use any over-the-counter eye drop product that claims to treat glaucoma, cataracts, retinopathy, or macular degeneration because there are simply no actual over-the-actual treatments for these conditions. If a non-prescription product claims this, you can assume it’s bogus and avoid it. Consumers should also avoid anything that includes Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM), which is illegally sold in the US, and anything with silver sulfate or argentum because these can permanently change the white color of your eyes.

Every homeopathic eye drop should be pulled off the market, FDA says Read More »

cvs,-rite-aid,-walgreens-hand-out-medical-records-to-cops-without-warrants

CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens hand out medical records to cops without warrants

Amazon, cops, cvs, health, health privacy, HHS, HIPAA, law enforcement, Medical records, pharmacy, Policy, prescription drugs, rite aid, Science, Walgreens, warrant / /

prescription for privacy —

Lawmakers want HHS to revise health privacy law to require warrants.

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CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens hand out medical records to cops without warrants

All of the big pharmacy chains in the US hand over sensitive medical records to law enforcement without a warrant—and some will do so without even running the requests by a legal professional, according to a congressional investigation.

The revelation raises grave medical privacy concerns, particularly in a post-Dobbs era in which many states are working to criminalize reproductive health care. Even if people in states with restrictive laws cross state lines for care, pharmacists in massive chains, such as CVS, can access records across borders.

Lawmakers noted the pharmacies’ policies for releasing medical records in a letter dated Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra. The letter—signed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.)—said their investigation pulled information from briefings with eight big prescription drug suppliers.

They include the seven largest pharmacy chains in the country: CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Cigna, Optum Rx, Walmart Stores, Inc., The Kroger Company, and Rite Aid Corporation. The lawmakers also spoke with Amazon Pharmacy.

All eight of the pharmacies said they do not require law enforcement to have a warrant prior to sharing private and sensitive medical records, which can include the prescription drugs a person used or uses and their medical conditions. Instead, all the pharmacies hand over such information with nothing more than a subpoena, which can be issued by government agencies and does not require review or approval by a judge.

Three pharmacies—CVS Health, The Kroger Company, and Rite Aid Corporation—told lawmakers they didn’t even require their pharmacy staff to consult legal professionals before responding to law enforcement requests at pharmacy counters. According to the lawmakers, CVS, Kroger, and Rite Aid said that “their pharmacy staff face extreme pressure to immediately respond to law enforcement demands and, as such, the companies instruct their staff to process those requests in store.”

The rest of the pharmacies—Amazon, Cigna, Optum Rx, Walmart, and Walgreens Boots Alliance—at least require that law enforcement requests be reviewed by legal professionals before pharmacists respond. But, only Amazon said it had a policy of notifying customers of law enforcement demands for pharmacy records unless there were legal prohibitions to doing so, such as a gag order.

HIPAA and transparency

The lawmakers note that the pharmacies aren’t violating regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The pharmacies pointed to language in HIPAA regulations that allow health care providers, including pharmacists, to provide medical records if required by law, with subpoenas being a sufficient legal process for such a request. However, the lawmakers note that the HHS has discretion in determining the legal standard here—that is, it has the power to strengthen the regulation to require a warrant, which the lawmakers say it should do.

“We urge HHS to consider further strengthening its HIPAA regulations to more closely align them with Americans’ reasonable expectations of privacy and Constitutional principles,” the three lawmakers wrote.

They also pushed for pharmacies to do better, encouraging them to follow the lead of tech companies. “Pharmacies can and should insist on a warrant, and invite law enforcement agencies that insist on demanding patient medical records with solely a subpoena to go to court to enforce that demand. The requirement for a warrant is exactly the approach taken by tech companies to protect customer privacy.” The trio noted that Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have since 2010 required law enforcement to have a warrant to obtain customers’ emails.

Also noting tech companies’ lead, the lawmakers encouraged pharmacies to publish annual transparency reports. In the course of the investigation, only CVS Health said it planned to do so.

“Americans deserve to have their private medical information protected at the pharmacy counter and a full picture of pharmacies’ privacy practices, so they can make informed choices about where to get their prescriptions filled,” the lawmakers wrote.

For now, HIPAA regulations grant patients the right to know who is accessing their health records. But, to do so, patients have to specifically request that information—and almost no one does that. “Last year, CVS Health, the largest pharmacy in the nation by total prescription revenue, only received a single-digit number of such consumer requests,” the lawmakers noted.

“The average American is likely unaware that this is even a problem,” the lawmakers said.

CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens hand out medical records to cops without warrants Read More »

after-15-months-blue-origin’s-new-shepard-spacecraft-will-finally-fly-again

After 15 months Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft will finally fly again

blue origin, new shepard, Science, Space / /

Blue is back —

Taking some science and some postcards for a ride.

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Photos from New Shepard launch day.

Enlarge / Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch system consists of a booster and a capsule.

Blue Origin is finally returning to flight.

On Tuesday the company announced, via the social media site X, that its New Shepard spacecraft would launch no earlier than next Monday.

“We’re targeting a launch window that opens on Dec. 18 for our next New Shepard payload mission,” the company stated. “#NS24 will carry 33 science and research payloads as well as 38,000 @clubforfuture postcards to space.”

The uncrewed New Shepard 24 test flight will refly the science payloads that were aboard the New Shepard 23 flight, which experienced an engine nozzle failure at 1 minute and 4 seconds following liftoff in September 2022. The capsule’s emergency escape system performed as intended, rapidly pulling the spacecraft away from the disintegrating rocket and allowing Blue Origin to recover the payloads flown for NASA and other customers.

Blue Origin finished its accident analysis this spring and implemented a fix to the problem, including design changes to the BE-3 engine combustion chamber. In May, the company said it planned to return to flight “soon.” Then, in September, the Federal Aviation Administration closed its mishap investigation.

The company originally targeted an uncrewed return-to-flight mission in early October; however, two sources told Ars that the additional two-month delay was caused by an issue with certifying an engine part intended for flight.

A new rocket?

Blue Origin has not specified which rocket and spacecraft will be flying next week from its launch site in West Texas, near the town of Van Horn. The company’s first New Shepard rocket, Booster 1, was lost during an April 2015 flight. Booster 2 was retired in October 2016 after performing a successful test of the launch escape system on its fifth and final flight. Booster 3, which was lost during the NS-23 mission in September, was the company’s oldest operational rocket, making its debut in December 2017.

The company has used its newest rocket, Booster 4, exclusively for human launches on New Shepard. This rocket has some modifications from Booster 3 to qualify it as a human-rated rocket. The company has also built a fifth booster that may be making next Monday’s flight.

Tuesday’s announcement came amid a tidal wave of changes in leadership at Blue Origin this month, with several high-profile retirements and the arrival of its new chief executive, who has come to the company from Amazon, Dave Limp. He replaced Bob Smith, who had an uneven tenure as leader of Blue Origin. As Ars reported last month, Limp is likely evaluating the long-term prospects of New Shepard, which remains far from breaking even financially.

The company may pivot toward its larger projects, including the New Glenn rocket and lunar lander for the Artemis program, which have a greater chance of raising significant revenue. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has funded Blue Origin out of his pocket, providing as much as $2 billion a year in operating expenses.

However, given the announcement of New Shepard’s return to flight, it’s clear that Blue Origin isn’t moving entirely away from New Shepard just yet.

After 15 months Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft will finally fly again Read More »

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AI companion robot helps some seniors fight loneliness, but others hate it

Aging, AI, companion robot, depression, ElliQ, health, loneliness, new york, Science / /

AI buddy —

There’s limited evidence for health benefits so far; early work suggests no one-size-fits-all.

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ElliQ, an AI companion robot from Intuition Robotics.

Enlarge / ElliQ, an AI companion robot from Intuition Robotics.

Some seniors in New York are successfully combating their loneliness with an AI-powered companion robot named ElliQ—while others called the “proactive” device a nag and joked about taking an ax to it.

The home assistant robot, made by Israel-based Intuition Robotics, is offered to New York seniors through a special program through the state’s Office for the Aging (NYSOFA). Over the past year, NYSOFA has partnered with Intuition Robotics to bring ElliQ to over 800 seniors struggling with loneliness. In a report last week, officials said they had given out hundreds and had only 150 available devices.

ElliQ includes a tablet and a two-piece lamp-like robot with a head that lights up and rotates to face a speaker. Marketed as powered by “Cognitive AI technology,” it proactively engages in conversations with users, giving them reminders and prompts, such as asking them how they’re doing, telling them it’s time to check their blood pressure or take their medicine, and asking if they want to have a video call with family. Speaking with a female voice, the robot is designed to hold human-like conversations, engage in small talk, express empathy, and share humor. It can provide learning and wellness programs, such as audiobooks and relaxation exercises.

Interest in using social robots, such as ElliQ, for elder care has been growing for years, but the field still lacks solid evidence that the devices can significantly improve health, well-being, and depression. Systemic reviews in 2018 found the technology had potential, but studies lacked statistical significance and rigorous design.

The program in New York adds to the buzz but doesn’t offer the high-quality study design that could yield definitive answers. In August, the state released a report on an unspecified number of ElliQ users, which indicated that the device was helpful. Specifically, 59 percent of users reported the device was “very helpful” at reducing loneliness, while 37 percent reported it was “helpful” and only 4 percent reported it as “unhelpful.” Engagement with the device declined over time, with users initially interacting with ElliQ an average of 62 times a day in the first 15 days of use, which fell to 21 times a day between 60 and 90 days and 33 times a day after 180.

Mixed feelings

“We had high hopes for the efficacy of ElliQ, but the results that we’re seeing are truly exceeding our expectations,” Greg Olsen, director of the New York State Office for the Aging, said in a statement at the time of the report’s release. “The data speaks for itself, and the stories that we’re hearing from case managers and clients around the state have been nothing short of unbelievable.”

But other recent data on the potential for companion robots to reduce loneliness has indicated that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. There are a lot of factors that can influence how individuals perceive such a device. A 2021 qualitative study evaluated the responses from 16 seniors who were asked for feedback on three types of robot companions, including ElliQ. The results were mixed for the proactive robot. While some felt the occasional chattiness of ElliQ would be comforting during an otherwise solitary day, others felt it was intrusive and “nagging.” Some felt the device’s tone was “rude.”

“I don’t know whether that would drive me mental if it kept interrupting me and telling me what to do … I might want to get an ax and cut it up,” one study participant said.

How welcoming a person might be to an assertive AI-assistant like ElliQ may link with a person’s general preferences regarding human company, the authors suggested. Those who value their space and autonomy may be less open to such as device compared with more gregarious seniors.

While some participants said ElliQ’s reminders could be useful, others expressed a deep concern that an overreliance on technology for everyday tasks—like paying bills, taking medications, or turning lights off—could hasten the decline of cognitive and physical abilities. Study participants also raised concerns regarding the inauthenticity of a relationship with a nonhuman, a loss of dignity, and a lack of control. Some disliked that ElliQ couldn’t be fully controlled by the user and was so assertive, which some perceived as pushy. Some worried about feeling embarrassed about being seen interacting with a robot companion. A 2022 study also explored the issue of stigma, with participants expressing that the use of such devices could reinforce stereotypes of aging, including isolation and dependency.

While researchers continue to explore the potential use and design of AI-powered companion robots, anecdotes from New York’s program suggest the tools are clearly helpful for some. One New Yorker named Priscilla told CBS News she found ElliQ helpful.

“She keeps me company. I get depressed real easy. She’s always there. I don’t care what time of day, if I just need somebody to talk to me,” Priscilla said. “I think I said that’s the biggest thing, to hear another voice when you’re lonely.”

AI companion robot helps some seniors fight loneliness, but others hate it Read More »

opec-members-keep-climate-accords-from-acknowledging-reality

OPEC members keep climate accords from acknowledging reality

carbon emissions, climate change, COP28, fossil fuels, paris agreement, Policy, Science, UN / /

Avoiding the truth —

COP28 agreement draft no longer includes calls to phase out fossil fuels.

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Image of a person standing in front of a doorway with

Enlarge / Saudi Arabia’s presence at COP28 has reportedly been used to limit progress on fossil fuel cutbacks.

Oil-producing countries are apparently succeeding in their attempts to eliminate language from an international climate agreement that calls for countries to phase out the use of fossil fuels. Draft forms of the agreement had included text that called upon the countries that are part of the Paris Agreement to work toward “an orderly and just phase out of fossil fuels.” Reports now indicate that this text has gone missing from the latest versions of the draft.

The agreement is being negotiated at the United Nations’ COP28 climate change conference, taking place in the United Arab Emirates. The COP, or Conference of the Parties, meetings are annual events that attempt to bring together UN members to discuss ways to deal with climate change. They were central to the negotiations that brought about the Paris Agreement, which calls for participants to develop plans that should bring the world to net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.

Initial plans submitted by countries would lower the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but not by nearly enough to reach net zero. However, the agreement included mechanisms by which countries would continue to evaluate their progress and submit more stringent goals. So, additional COP meetings have included what’s termed a “stocktake” to evaluate where countries stand, and statements are issued to encourage and direct future actions.

The language of that statement needs to be agreed upon by every party and is invariably contentious. This year’s statement has been especially difficult, as early drafts (such as this one) included the potential to call for parties to stop using fossil fuels, along with a separate, vague alternative:

Option 1: An orderly and just phase out of fossil fuels;

Option 2: Accelerating efforts toward phasing out unabated fossil fuels and to rapidly reducing their use so as to achieve net zero CO2 in energy systems by or around mid-century;

Option 3: No text.

The “unabated” language in the alternative is widely interpreted as referring to abatement via the use of large-scale carbon capture to offset the emissions from continued fossil fuel use.

While we know that carbon capture can work, it has not been tried at large scales, much less on anything close to the scales needed to offset continued fossil fuel use. Critical details like the capacity and stability of different storage options haven’t been worked out, nor has the very tricky question of who will be paying to operate all the infrastructure that would be required for it to work.

As a result, carbon capture is not generally considered a viable option for offsetting anything more than a few difficult-to-decarbonize use cases, such as international shipping. Which why most countries and NGOs are supporting the UN’s secretary-general, who promoted the alternate language calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels.

Most, but not all. One notable NGO, OPEC, directly called on its members to reject any language that targeted fossil fuels. And a prominent OPEC member, Saudia Arabia, appears to have been trying to block any deals that would include that language, in part by bogging down all negotiations at COP28. Matters weren’t helped when a video surfaced that showed the conference’s host, Sultan Al Jaber, saying that there was “no science” behind calls to phase out fossil fuels, although he quickly disavowed that position.

The loss of Option 1 from the latest drafts is a sign that oil-producing nations have succeeded. Which in turn indicates that they have no intention of slowing production even as indications of continued warming and its consequences have grown ever more dramatic. It will also provide cover for many other countries that may be looking for excuses to act.

That said, the same draft includes several actions that do not have any alternative language and call for countries to take significant actions:

  • Triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.
  • Double the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements.
  • Immediately stop issuing permits for coal plants that do not include carbon capture and rapidly phase out any existing plants of this sort.
  • Rapidly phase in zero-emissions vehicles.
  • Eliminate fossil fuel subsidies.

Negotiations are ongoing, and that draft is nearly a week old, but it may indicate that some positive things could be accomplished while everyone is distracted by arguments over the phase-out of fossil fuels.

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ULA chief says Vulcan rocket will slip to 2024 after ground system issues

rockets, Science, Space, ula, Uncategorized, vulcan / /

ULA delay —

The Colorado-based launch company will end 2023 with just three launches.

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ULA's Vulcan rocket rolls to the launch pad for testing.

Enlarge / ULA’s Vulcan rocket rolls to the launch pad for testing.

United Launch Alliance

United Launch Alliance will not see the debut of its next-generation Vulcan rocket in 2023, as previously planned.

The launch company’s chief executive, Tory Bruno, announced the delay on the social media site X on Sunday. United Launch Alliance had been working toward a debut flight of the lift booster on Christmas Eve, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Bruno made the announcement after the company attempted to complete a fueling test of the entire rocket, known as a wet dress rehearsal.

“Vehicle performed well,” Bruno wrote. “Ground system had a couple of (routine) issues, (being corrected). Ran the timeline long so we didn’t quite finish. I’d like a FULL WDR before our first flight, so XMAS eve is likely out. Next Peregrine window is 8 Jan.”

Peregrine is the rocket’s primary payload, a lunar lander built by Astrobotic that is intended to deliver scientific experiments for NASA and other payloads the Moon. It has specific launch windows in order to reach the Moon and attempt a landing during ideal lighting conditions.

From the information contained in Bruno’s comment, it appears as though the work to correct the ground systems to fuel Vulcan—the first stage propellant is methane, which United Launch Alliance has not worked with before—will take long enough that it will preclude another fueling test ahead of the rocket’s late December launch window. Thus, the next launch attempt will likely occur no earlier than January 8.

A light cadence

It has been a slow year for United Launch Alliance, which dominated the US launch industry a decade ago. The company is going to launch just three rockets this calendar year: the classified NROL-68 mission on a Delta IV Heavy rocket in June, the “Silentbarker” mission for the National Reconnaissance Office on an Atlas V in September, and two Project Kuiper satellites for Amazon on an Atlas V in October.

That is the company’s lowest total number of launches since its founding in 2006, when the rocket businesses of Lockheed Martin and Boeing were merged.

Part of the reason for the low total is that United Launch Alliance is undergoing a transition from its historical fleet of Delta and Atlas rockets to Vulcan, which is intended to be more price competitive with other commercial offerings, such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. There will be a lot of demand for Vulcan once it starts flying regulary.

However, another factor is that the lower cost and equally reliable Falcon rockets have taken commercial and government launch business away from United Launch Alliance. SpaceX has steadily ascended over the last decade as United Launch Alliance has struggled to compete.

Whereas Bruno’s company launched just three rockets in 2023, on a handful of occasions SpaceX has launched three rockets in three days during this calendar year. SpaceX is likely to end the year with between 95 and 100 total launches.

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Why scientists are making transparent wood

Science, syndication, transparent displays / /

a potential sustainable material —

The material is being exploited for smartphone screens, insulated windows, and more.

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a transparent piece of wood on top of a green leaf

Enlarge / See-through wood has a number of interesting properties that researchers hope to exploit.

Thirty years ago, a botanist in Germany had a simple wish: to see the inner workings of woody plants without dissecting them. By bleaching away the pigments in plant cells, Siegfried Fink managed to create transparent wood, and he published his technique in a niche wood technology journal. The 1992 paper remained the last word on see-through wood for more than a decade, until a researcher named Lars Berglund stumbled across it.

Berglund was inspired by Fink’s discovery, but not for botanical reasons. The materials scientist, who works at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, specializes in polymer composites and was interested in creating a more robust alternative to transparent plastic. And he wasn’t the only one interested in wood’s virtues. Across the ocean, researchers at the University of Maryland were busy on a related goal: harnessing the strength of wood for nontraditional purposes.

Now, after years of experiments, the research of these groups is starting to bear fruit. Transparent wood could soon find uses in super-strong screens for smartphones; in soft, glowing light fixtures; and even as structural features, such as color-changing windows.

“I truly believe this material has a promising future,” says Qiliang Fu, a wood nanotechnologist at Nanjing Forestry University in China who worked in Berglund’s lab as a graduate student.

Wood is made up of countless little vertical channels, like a tight bundle of straws bound together with glue. These tube-shaped cells transport water and nutrients throughout a tree, and when the tree is harvested and the moisture evaporates, pockets of air are left behind. To create see-through wood, scientists first need to modify or get rid of the glue, called lignin, that holds the cell bundles together and provides trunks and branches with most of their earthy brown hues. After bleaching lignin’s color away or otherwise removing it, a milky-white skeleton of hollow cells remains.

This skeleton is still opaque, because the cell walls bend light to a different degree than the air in the cell pockets does—a value called a refractive index. Filling the air pockets with a substance like epoxy resin that bends light to a similar degree to the cell walls renders the wood transparent.

The material the scientists worked with is thin—typically less than a millimeter to around a centimeter thick. But the cells create a sturdy honeycomb structure, and the tiny wood fibers are stronger than the best carbon fibers, says materials scientist Liangbing Hu, who leads the research group working on transparent wood at the University of Maryland in College Park. And with the resin added, transparent wood outperforms plastic and glass: In tests measuring how easily materials fracture or break under pressure, transparent wood came out around three times stronger than transparent plastics like Plexiglass and about 10 times tougher than glass.

“The results are amazing, that a piece of wood can be as strong as glass,” says Hu, who highlighted the features of transparent wood in the 2023 Annual Review of Materials Research.

The process also works with thicker wood but the view through that substance is hazier because it scatters more light. In their original studies from 2016, Hu and Berglund both found that millimeter-thin sheets of the resin-filled wood skeletons let through 80 to 90 percent of light. As the thickness gets closer to a centimeter, light transmittance drops: Berglund’s group reported that 3.7-millimeter-thick wood—roughly two pennies thick—transmitted only 40 percent of light.

The slim profile and strength of the material means it could be a great alternative to products made from thin, easily shattered cuts of plastic or glass, such as display screens. The French company Woodoo, for example, uses a similar lignin-removing process in its wood screens, but leaves a bit of lignin to create a different color aesthetic. The company is tailoring its recyclable, touch-sensitive digital displays for products, including car dashboards and advertising billboards.

But most research has centered on transparent wood as an architectural feature, with windows a particularly promising use, says Prodyut Dhar, a biochemical engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi. Transparent wood is a far better insulator than glass, so it could help buildings retain heat or keep it out. Hu and colleagues have also used polyvinyl alcohol, or PVA—a polymer used in glue and food packaging—to infiltrate the wood skeletons, making transparent wood that conducts heat at a rate five times lower than that of glass, the team reported in 2019 in Advanced Functional Materials.

Why scientists are making transparent wood Read More »

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Worm’s rear end develops its own head, wanders off to mate

Biology, developmental biology, Science, worms / /

Butt what? —

The butt even grows its own eyes, antennae, and brain.

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Three images of worm-like organisms.

Enlarge / From left to right, the head of an actual worm, and the stolon of a male and female.

Some do it horizontally, some do it vertically, some do it sexually, and some asexually. Then there are some organisms that would rather grow a butt that develops into an autonomous appendage equipped with its own antennae, eyes, and brain. This appendage will detach from the main body and swim away, carrying gonads that will merge with those from other disembodied rear ends and give rise to a new generation.

Wait, what in the science fiction B-movie alien star system is this thing?

Megasyllis nipponica really exists on Earth. Otherwise known as the Japanese green syllid worm, it reproduces by a process known as stolonization, which sounds like the brainchild of a sci-fi horror genius but evolved in some annelid (segmented) worms to give future generations the best chance at survival. What was still a mystery (until now) was exactly how that bizarre appendage, or stolon, could form its own head in the middle of the worm’s body. Turns out this is a wonder of gene regulation.

Butt how?

Led by evolutionary biologist and professor Toru Miura of the University of Tokyo, a team of scientists discovered the genetic mechanism behind the formation of the stolon. It starts with Hox genes. These are a set of genes that help determine which segments of an embryo will become the head, thorax, abdomen, and so on. In annelid worms like M. nipponica, different Hox genes regulate the segments that make up the worm’s entire body.

Miura and his colleagues were expecting the activity of Hox genes to be different in the anterior and posterior of a worm. They found out that it is actually not the Hox genes that control the stolon’s segments but gonad development that alters their identity. “These findings suggest that during stolonization, gonad development induces the head formation of a stolon, without up-regulation of anterior Hox genes,” the team said in a study recently published in Scientific Reports.

The anterior part, or stock, of M. nipponica is neither male nor female. The worm has organs called gonad primordia on the underside of its posterior end. When the primordia start maturing into oocytes or testes, head-formation genes (different from the Hox genes), which are also responsible for forming a head in other creatures, become active in the middle of the stock body.

This is when the stolon starts to develop a head. Its head grows a cluster of nerve cells that serve as a brain, along with a central nervous system that extends throughout its body. The stolon’s own eyes, antennae, and swimming bristles also emerge.

Left behind

Before a stolon can take off on its own, it has to develop enough to be fully capable of swimming autonomously and finding its way to another stolon of the opposite sex. The fully developed stolon appears like an alien being attached to the rest of the worm’s body. Besides its own nervous system and something comparable to a brain, it also has two pairs of bulging eyes, two pairs of antennae, and its own digestive tube. Those eyes are enlarged for a reason, as the gonad will often need to navigate in murky waters.

The antennae of the stolon can sense the environment around them, but the researchers suggest that they have a more important function—picking up on pheromones released by the opposite sex. The stolon still isn’t an exact duplication of the stock. It doesn’t have some of the worm’s most sophisticated features, such as a digestive tube with several specialized regions, probably because its purpose is exclusively to spawn. It dies off soon after.

So what could have made stolonization evolve in the first place? Further research needs to be done, but for now, it is thought that this strange capability might have shown up in some annelid worms when genes that develop the head shifted further down the body, but why this shifting of genes evolved to begin with is still unknown.

The worm also regenerates stolons at a high rate, which may also give it the best chance at propagating its species. Hold onto your butts.

Scientific Reports, 2023.  DOI:  10.1038/s41598-023-46358-8

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Marbled paper, frosty fireworks among 2023 Gallery of Fluid Motion winners

fluid dynamics, gallery of fluid motion, Physics, Science, science and art / /
Harvard University graduate student Yue Sun won a Milton Van Dyke Award for her video on the hydrodynamics of marbled paper.

Enlarge / Harvard University graduate student Yue Sun won a Milton Van Dyke Award for her video on the hydrodynamics of marbled paper.

Y. Sun/Harvard University et al.

Marbled paper is an art form that dates back at least to the 17th century, when European travelers to the Middle East brought back samples and bound them into albums. Its visually striking patterns arise from the complex hydrodynamics of paint interacting with water, inspiring a winning video entry in this year’s Gallery of Fluid Motion.

The American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics sponsors the gallery each year as part of its annual meeting, featuring videos and posters submitted by scientists from all over the world. The objective is to highlight “the captivating science and often breathtaking beauty of fluid motion” and to “celebrate and appreciate the remarkable fluid dynamics phenomena unveiled by researchers and physicists.”

The three videos featured here are the winners of the Milton Van Dyke Awards, which also included three winning posters. There were three additional general video winners—on the atomization of impinging jets, the emergent collective motion of condensate droplets, and the swimming motion of a robotic eel—as well as three poster winners. You can view all the 2023 entries (winning and otherwise) here.

The hydrodynamics of marbling art

Harvard University graduate student Yue Sun was fascinated by the process and the resulting patterns of making marbled paper, particularly the randomness. “You don’t really know what you’re going to end up with until you have it printed,” she told Physics Magazine.

Although there are several different methods for marbling paper, the most common involves filling a shallow tray with water, then painstakingly applying different ink or paint colors to the water’s surface with an ink brush to cover the surface with concentric circles. Adding surfactants makes the colors float so that they can be stirred—perhaps with a very fine human hair—or fanned out by blowing on the circles of ink or paint with a straw. The final step is to lay paper on top to capture the colorful floating patterns. (Body marbling relies on a similar process, except the floating patterns are transferred onto a person’s skin.)

Sun was curious about the hydrodynamics at play and explored two key questions in the simulations for the video. Why does the paint or ink float despite being denser than the liquid bath? And why don’t the colors mix together to create new colors when agitated or stirred? The answer to the former is basically “surface tension,” while the latter does not occur because the bath is too viscous, so the diffusion of the paint or ink colors across color boundaries happens too slowly for mixing. Sun hopes to further improve her simulations of marbling in hopes of reverse-engineering some of her favorite patterns to determine which tools and movements were used to create them.

Marbled paper, frosty fireworks among 2023 Gallery of Fluid Motion winners Read More »