Volkswagen vows to end animal testing after latest diesel scandal

Humans were exposed to the toxic fumes in experiments requested by a group funded by German carmakers, according to media reports. The shocking revelation came after tests on monkeys became public over the weekend.

Reports by German newspapers Stuttgarter Zeitung and Süddeutsche Zeitung said humans had been exposed to a gas found in diesel fumes during an experiment "sometime between 2012 and 2015" requested by a group funded by German carmakers.

The tests were requested by the European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector (EUGT) — a now defunct organization founded by German carmakers Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW.

The experiments focused on "short-term nitrogen dioxide inhalation by healthy people," according to the newspapers. An Aachen-based university hospital then examined 25 people after they inhaled varying amounts of the gas over several hours.

The experiments were reported on after recent revelations of an experiment where — in equally controversial tests — monkeys were made to inhale the toxic gas.

Reacting to the accusations, Volkswagen said in a statement "we are convinced that the scientific methods chosen at the time were wrong."

Daimler said Sunday it was "shocked by the extent of those studies and the way there were carried out."

"We strongly condemn the tests," the company said, adding that it had had no say in the testing method and the measures taken by the EUGT were "against Daimler's values and ethical principles."

The Stuttgart-based carmaker said it had launched an investigation into the tests on monkeys and humans which it considered "superfluous and repulsive."

German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said later on Monday she was "horrified" by the news.

"What is known so far is disgusting," she said, adding that the auto industry and the scientific community must explain their role. "The fact that an entire industry has apparently tried to conceal brazen and dubious methods of scientific research makes it even more monstrous."

Donald Trump offered gold toilet at a Museum

New York's Guggenheim museum has turned down a request from President Donald Trump to borrow Van Gogh's work for the White House - instead offering him a gold toilet, media reports say.

The museum apologised for not being able to furnish the White House with Van Gogh's Landscape With Snow, the Washington Post says.

But the Guggenheim suggested a "solid, 18-karat toilet" could be offered as an alternative.

The White House has made no comment.

Solid gold toilet to open to public

According to the Washington Post, museum curator Nancy Spector responded to the White House request last September.

"I am sorry... to inform you that we are unable to participate in this loan since the painting is part of the museum's Thannhauser Collection, which is prohibited from travel except for the rarest of occasions," she wrote in an email.

The 1888 Van Gogh painting, the email added, would be exhibited at the museum's sister institution with the permission of the owners.

However, the curator added that the gold toilet created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was available to the White House "for a long-term loan".

"It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all the instructions for its installation and care," Ms Spector added.

The fully functional exhibit - titled America - is seen as a pointed satire on excessive wealth in the US.

Ex-USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar to be sentenced to 40 to 175 years

Disgraced long-time USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison for molesting young female gymnasts, following days of wrenching testimony from about 160 of his victims, including Olympic medalists.

One is a brave former gymnast who talked to a newspaper about abuse she endured from the disgraced doctor. Reporters at The Indianapolis Star, who broke the story, brought more horror stories to light. With the help of a detective and prosecutor, survivors confronted their abuser in a Michigan courtroom.

On Wednesday, a judge wrote the final chapter. Nassar will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The former osteopathic sports physician with USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University had pleaded guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ingham County, Michigan, and has admitted to sexually assaulting and abusing young girls under the guise of providing medical treatment.

Here are the stories of those who served justice to Nassar.

Rachael Denhollander

Former gymnast Rachael Denhollander is credited with helping to shine the light on Nassar's abuse.

Denhollander told The Indianapolis Star of Nassar's abuse in a September 2016 story. She was the last of more than 150 women and girls to confront Nassar in court during his sentencing hearing.

"Larry is a hardened and determined sexual predator. I know this first-hand. At age 15, when I suffered from chronic back pain, Larry sexually assaulted me repeatedly under the guise of medical treatment for nearly a year," Denhollander said.

"He did this with my own mother in the room, carefully and perfectly obstructing her view so she would not know what he was doing," she said.

"Larry's the most dangerous type of abuser. One who is capable of manipulating his victims through coldly calculated grooming methodologies, presenting the most wholesome, caring external persona as a deliberate means to ensure a steady stream of children to assault," Denhollander said.

The other survivors

Survivors shared their stories in court, fighting back tears, recalling the horrors. Kyle Stephens. Emma Ann Miller. Olympian Aly Raisman. More than 150 others.

Raisman looked directly at Nassar in court as she lambasted him last week.

"Larry, you do realize now that we, this group of women you so heartlessly abused over such a long period of time, are now a force, and you are nothing," she said.

The 15-year-old Miller, one of Nassar's youngest victims -- and possibly his most recent -- declared: "I'm possibly the last child he will ever assault."

"Long after the 'Olympic gymnasts' doctor' fades into a trivia fact known only by us or a Jeopardy contestant, the word 'Nassar' will permanently be associated with child sexual abuse," the teenager said.

Stephens was the first survivor to step to the podium during the seven days of victim impact statements as part of Nassar's plea deal.

"You used my body for six years for your own sexual gratification. That is unforgivable. I've told counselors your name in hopes that they would report you. I have reported you to child protective services twice. I gave a testament to get your medical license revoked," Stephens said.

"Perhaps you have figured it out by now, but little girls don't stay little forever. They grow into strong women who return to destroy your world," Stephens said.

Nassar didn't look at her.

Virginity pills and surgery: Fake hymen industry

Many people believe that it is important for women to be virgins on their wedding day. Even so, many women do have sex before marriage. As a result, a real industry has grown up around hymen reconstruction and “virginity pills.” More and more ads for these kind of products and services are popping up on Iranian social media.

For many years, women have been turning to surgery to mask the fact that they’ve had sex before marriage. The surgical procedure involves closing up, sometimes almost completely, the vaginal opening so that the woman will bleed when she has intercourse with her new husband. This bleeding is supposedly proof of the young woman’s purity, as most will assume that the bleeding comes from the tearing of her hymen.

A woman’s hymen, however, doesn’t necessarily tear the first time she has sex and, even if it does, it might not bleed. Secondly, a hymen can be torn outside of sex. But the myth that a woman must bleed during her first experience of vaginal penetration is widely believed in Iran and around the world. The result is that these operations have been common in Iran since the 1970s (as well as in many other countries, including France.)

A pill that releases red liquid

Starting in the 1990s, another option appeared for women wanting to fake their virginity: pills that are supposed to make it seem as if a woman has an intact hymen. The price of these pills vary widely, but most seem to work in the same way. About an hour before having sex, the woman is supposed to put a pill in her vagina. When the pill becomes damp, its exterior softens. During penetration, the exterior breaks and releases a red liquid, which is supposed to trick the husband.

In recent years, more and more ads for these pills have been popping up on both Telegram, an encrypted instant messaging service that is extremely popular in Iran, and Instagram, which is also widely used.

Women can order these pills to whichever postal address they want in just a few clicks. The ads promise to deliver the pills in plain packaging so as not to arouse suspicion. The price usually varies between about 30,000 and 350,000 tomans (equivalent to between 6 and 70 euros).

Most of the pills on the market are made by four different brands: Noval, Beauty Virgin, Butterfly and Robert. However, online searches in both Persian and English don’t produce any results for legitimate pharmaceutical companies. If you search “Beauty Virgin”, for example, you get information about a line of cosmetics made by the Chinese company Realmus, but they don’t make “virginity pills.” Noval Cosmetics is apparently based in Singapore, but it’s not clear if this is the same company that produces the pills that have become so popular in Iran.

The France 24 Observers team tried long and hard to find an Iranian woman who had used one of these pills without success – it is a taboo topic, after all. So it is hard to know what kind of pill these companies are actually selling, if they work and if they pose health risks for users.

Vaginal pills that simulate bleeding have been manufactured and sold since the 90s in Japan, India, China and in the United Kingdom, but none of these brands seem to be on the Iranian market.

However, if the large number of ads for these products on Iranian social media is any indicator, these pills do seem to be popular. According to a 2014 study conducted by the research unit of the Iranian parliament, 74.3% of Iranian high school students (both male and female) have had sexual relations (though “sexual relations” is not defined in the study and it isn’t clear if that means penetration or not). In 2015, Iranian local media reported that it had contacted a company selling these pills. The company claimed to receive about 100 calls a day and to ship 15 packages a day to customers.

“Men want to discover sex with their girlfriends but also want the women they marry to be virgins”

For a small part of the population – the most privileged – it no longer matters if women are virgins or not when they are married. But for a large number of Iranians, even if having a boyfriend or girlfriend before marriage is starting to become normal, it’s still very important for women to be virgins when they are married.

In summation, even if lifestyles are changing, gender roles in society are still in place. Men want to discover sex with their girlfriends, but they want the women they marry to be virgins on their wedding day. That leaves many women with little choice but to resort to a fake hymen.”

5 Secrets to Becoming More Successful

How can you be more productive in your own day-to-day activities
and work life?.

Here are five most important tips.

Find a State of Being

“Your frame of mind can often be ‘I gotta go out there and do it.’ It’s always the numbers, the numbers, the numbers. Before you can even get to that, what are your disciplines that gets you up every day? So it’s a state of being. It’s how you maximize your 24 hours a day that every one of us has. Why would you be more successful if we all have the exact same 24 hours? What are our methods that we’re accomplishing that? That all starts with your mind.”

Go on the Offense, Avoid Defense

“I notice that a lot of people [in the book] who get up in the morning, they won’t touch their emails. They look at all the emails coming in as doing what everybody else wants. That’s their defense. Instead, they won’t answer them or they will put them in different areas. Instead, they will send out stuff — that’s their offense. They just want to send things out.”

Find Alone Time

“People don’t realize, they need time alone. We’re so connected. There’s no place where we can talk to ourselves and find out what we want to do. We get up in the morning and there’s a million emails, the family is running around. You get on your transportation going to work, the world is blowing up. And you get to work, you’re dealing with everybody there and social media. You’re not taking time for yourself at all. What I notice is a lot of people find the time, daily, to [be alone]. You end up being on the hamster wheel when you do that.”

Seek Disconnect

“I also need to look at more places to find disconnect [from technology]. You can never get enough of it. It’s like a team. If a team is playing whatever type of sport and you don’t have time to warm up and you don’t have a half time, when the hell do you have time to go over strategy? You’re just playing all day.”

Live Life Like a Kung Fu Master

“A kung fu master could be the ultimate at 40 years old, and you think he doesn’t need to learn any more moves. But a kung fu master needs to learn a different set of moves at 70, when his muscle retention and reflexes aren’t the same. To still be a master, he has to find other things to do to replace what is gone. And so I think [work] is a constant learning curve.”

8 more ways you can use Dropbox for your next film

Two years ago, we ran down eight ways filmmakers can use Dropbox. Now, with the 2018 Sundance Film Festival days away, here are eight more ways Dropbox can help you take your movie from the initial idea to a big screen production.

1. Collaborate on early ideas

Dropbox Paper is designed for exploring early ideas—together. Use Paper to create story boards for your movie, where you can easily drag and drop photos, paste links to embed video, and invite your production team to contribute in real time. The Paper mobile app makes adding new ideas a snap, and comments in the margins make notes feel like conversations.

2. Share film proposals in style

Throughout the filmmaking process, you’ll often need a quick, polished way to share files, whether you’re trying to secure financing or getting feedback on casting and locations. Dropbox Showcase lets you present everything in a single, professionally branded page. Organize your files visually, then drag and drop them in the perfect arrangement, so your recipients will always see your files with the right context, in the right order. Best of all, recipients can simply preview files without having to commit to a full download.

3. Easily manage your dailies

If you’re reviewing lots of dailies, your local storage can quickly fill up. With Dropbox Smart Sync, however, you can right-click on any file to store it online-only, while still seeing the file right from your desktop. It’s a great way to keep space on your computer, even if you’re trying to work your way through dozens of clips.

4. Keep the whole crew in sync

With a team folder, you can keep all your productions files in one place and up to date, whether you’re in the studio or on the road. And because the files are all synced in Dropbox, you don’t have to worry about outdated versions. Plus, you can assign edit or read-only access to each collaborator, so the right people have the right permissions.

5. Access files even if you’re offline and on location

Pull up the Dropbox app to mark files you’ll want available offline. Then when you’re on location, you can easily pull up clips and key docs—even if you’re filming miles away from Wi-Fi.

6. Integrate with your favorite film software and tools

To make the creation process as smooth as possible, Dropbox integrates with some of the most popular tools in the film business. Connect Dropbox to Vimeo to automatically upload videos from a designated folder. Sync Final Draft Writer to Dropbox so you can see the latest version of your script at all times, even when jumping between your desktop and iPad.

7. Share clips and previews securely

When your movie is nearing completion, you want to be able to share previews—without worrying about leaks. Dropbox lets you send both password-protected and expiring links, so you can keep close control of your work. If you lose a device with sensitive information, you can also use remote wipe to keep the data safe.

8. Keep tabs on who’s seen what

When you’re waiting for feedback on a script or film proposal, it’s easy to feel left in the dark. But with Dropbox viewer info, you don’t have to wonder if the recipient saw your work. Track who has—or hasn’t—seen your files, skip the follow-up email, and jump straight to, “What did you think?” What’s more, collaborators can view file activity to see how a project has evolved—even if they’re jumping in at a later date.

Whether you’re just getting started on a new cinematic project—or editing your film in post—Dropbox has the tools to help you stay in your creative flow.

Google, Facebook Target Paris as a Center for AI Expansion

Paris is gaining ground as a European hub for artificial intelligence research as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. pledge to hire staff and invest in labs, after their top executives met with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Google said it will create an AI lab dedicated to fundamental research on themes like automatic learning, language and a computer’s ability to see, with the aim of applying findings to fields from health to the environment. The end-goal is to grow this group to a size similar to Google’s existing team of 120 engineers who do applied research in Paris, working on developments for Chrome and YouTube, a company spokeswoman said.

Facebook, which already has an artificial intelligence lab in Paris, said it will double the team there to 100 people by 2022 and spend 10 million euros ($12.2 million) on items including hardware equipment. Both announcements came as part of a broader series of promises by these companies to increase budgets in France, with Google and Facebook also separately vowing to train citizens on digital tools.

“France has all the assets to succeed. It has top engineers, great
entrepreneurs, one of the best education systems in the world, great infrastructure, and successful global companies,” Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post. He reaffirmed a broader hiring target to reach 1,000 employees at Google’s headquarters in the French capital, from 700 today.

Pichai and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg are guests of Macron’s on Monday, among 140 top executives from a variety of industries. In Versailles, company chiefs were invited to attend presentations by ministers, as well as private meetings and dinner with the president -- a full-fledged investor roadshow meant to convince CEOs to invest more in France, as they prepare to head to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum.

SAP SE CEO Bill McDermott is also on the guest list. Europe’s biggest software company said it will invest 2 billion euros over five years in France on research and development, as well as backing and acquiring startups.

SAP also announced Monday it’s buying a French company called Recast.AI that specializes in artificial intelligence. Recast.AI, which develops conversational chatbots, will be part of SAP’s efforts to add voice recognition to its products.

Macron’s strategy to woo investors and bring more funds to the French ecosystem dates back before his days as president, and tech has always been at the core of it. When he was still economy minister two years ago, Macron used the grandeur of Versailles to try and convince technology-focused venture-capitalists, including Andreessen Horowitz and Accel Partners, that France is a good place for their money.

The French president has also expressed the goal of establishing France and Europe as leaders in global artificial intelligence innovation, to rival the U.S. and China. France is waiting for a report by member of Parliament, Cedric Villani, expected soon, before it unveils a national strategy on AI.

Still, Macron has toughened his stance on technology companies in recent months on issues like taxes. He brought it up with Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook during a meeting at the French presidential palace in September.

Taxation of tech companies will be part of talks in Versailles Monday, but they’re not the reason for Macron’s meetings with Pichai, Sandberg and others, according to an official at the president’s office.

The dinner will be held at the Gallery of Great Battles in the Versailles Palace, where Macron hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin last year. Catering will include meals imagined by Michelin-starred chef Alain Ducasse.

Potential male birth control pill developed from arrow poison

Women have many options for oral contraceptives that are safe, effective and reversible, but despite decades of research, men have none.

Now, scientists report a rat study in ACS’ Journal of Medicinal Chemistry that shows they finally have a good lead for a male birth control pill. It’s based on ouabain, a plant extract that African warriors and hunters traditionally used as a heart-stopping poison on their arrows.

Two types of African plants make ouabain. Mammals also produce it in their bodies, though at lower levels that are thought to help control blood pressure; doctors sometimes prescribe small doses of the compound to treat heart attack patients.

Ouabain disrupts the passage of sodium and calcium ions through the membrane protein Na,K-ATPases, which are are found in cell membranes and are made up of protein subunits. Some subunits are found in cardiac tissue, but one type of subunit called ?4 is found only in sperm cells. This protein is known to be critical in fertility — at least in male mice. Ouabain binds strongly to ?4, but it also binds to other Na,K-ATPase subunits, albeit less tightly.

Prior clinical studies have shown that ouabain curbs fertility in men. However, ouabain itself isn’t an option as a contraceptive because of the risk of heart damage. So Gunda Georg, Gustavo Blanco and colleagues set out to design ouabain analogs that are far more likely to bind to the ?4 protein in sperm than to subunits found in heart tissue.

By removing a sugar group from ouabain and also replacing its lactone group with a triazole group, the researchers created a derivative that is particularly good at zeroing in on ?4 in sperm cells in rats. Once bound, it interferes with the cells’ ability to swim, which is essential to its role in fertilizing an egg, the scientists showed.

The compound had no toxicity in rats. The researchers say that the contraceptive effect should be reversible because ?4 is only found on mature sperm cells. That means sperm cells produced after stopping treatment with the ouabain derivative shouldn’t be affected.

Here Is What Can Happen If You Hold In A Sneeze

Ah, Ah, Ah. Have you ever tried to hold in the "choo" portion of a sneeze? Maybe instead of a "choo", it came out like a "bzzzzt", a "ffffrrtttt", or an "uffff."  Well, "choo" on this recent BMJ Case report, which showed the damage that suppressing a sneeze can do.

Drs. Wanding Yang, Raguwinder S. Sahota, and Sudip Das from the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust in the United Kingdom described how an otherwise healthy 34-year-old man pinched his nose and held his mouth closed when about to sneeze. That's a bit like making your throat into a balloon about to be filled with a big rush of air. Next he felt a pop, developed swelling in his neck, and began experiencing pain whenever he swallowed. His voice also changed, which usually doesn't happen for someone about two decades past puberty.

Turns out he tore his pharynx, which is the passageway that connects the mouth and nasal cavity to the esophagus. He stayed in the hospital for about a week, which allowed the tear to heal to the point where he could eat food and drink beverages without it leaking out of his pharynx. When he was discharged from the hospital, his doctors told him to stop pinching his nose when he sneezes.


Of course, anything that becomes a case report tends to be rare. (Note: becoming a medical case report should never be a goal of yours.) This man probably used the technique to stiffle his sneezes for years. Just because you try to suppress your sneezes doesn't mean you will necessarily hurt yourself.

However, a sneeze is your body's natural mechanism to clear irritants from your nose and sinuses. When some foreign particles trigger the sensors in those areas, involuntary convulsions in your airways then result and expel air at speeds of about 35 to 40 miles per hour, according to a Discovery Channel Mythbusters experiment, which not nearly as fast as the 100 miles per hour cited by WebMD. At the same time, the sensors trigger cilia (little hairs that line your airways) to swing back and forth, passing mucus and other gunk up and out of your airways.

Thus, sneezing plays another role besides producing a jetstream of air through your airways and mouth. As described by Christine Dell'Amore for National Geographic News, a sneeze will also reset or essentially hit "Control-Alt-Delete" for your sensor and cilia system. Therefore, when you try to hold in a sneeze you are just not being yourself. And as many self-help books will say, try to be yourself.

But what about the social and health consequences of sneezing on others? In general, you want to spread good cheer not phlegm, spit, viruses, and bacteria. After all, this Discover Channel segment shows how dirty the things that come out of Natasha's mouth are (when she sneezes that is):Yuck. Someone sneezing right into your face is probably not on your bucket list. If spraying gunk on others is not what you'd like to be known for, then what should you do if you shouldn't try to suppress or hold in the sneeze? Dr. Richard Besser set up the following experiment for ABC News to test various options:

How Diversity Makes Us Smarter

The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. Supreme Court justices disagree on the virtues of diversity and the means for achieving it. Corporations spend billions of dollars to attract and manage diversity both internally and externally, yet they still face discrimination lawsuits, and the leadership ranks of the business world remain predominantly white and male.

It is reasonable to ask what good diversity does us. Diversity of expertise confers benefits that are obvious—you would not think of building a new car without engineers, designers and quality-control experts—but what about social diversity? What good comes from diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation? Research has shown that social diversity in a group can cause discomfort, rougher interactions, a lack of trust, greater perceived interpersonal conflict, lower communication, less cohesion, more concern about disrespect, and other problems. So what is the upside?

The fact is that if you want to build teams or organizations capable of innovating, you need diversity. Diversity enhances creativity. It encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, leading to better decision making and problem solving. Diversity can improve the bottom line of companies and lead to unfettered discoveries and breakthrough innovations. Even simply being exposed to diversity can change the way you think. This is not just wishful thinking: it is the conclusion I draw from decades of research from organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers.

INFORMATION AND INNOVATION

The key to understanding the positive influence of diversity is the concept of informational diversity. When people are brought together to solve problems in groups, they bring different information, opinions and perspectives. This makes obvious sense when we talk about diversity of disciplinary backgrounds—think again of the interdisciplinary team building a car. The same logic applies to social diversity. People who are different from one another in race, gender and other dimensions bring unique information and experiences to bear on the task at hand. A male and a female engineer might have perspectives as different from one another as an engineer and a physicist—and that is a good thing.

Research on large, innovative organizations has shown repeatedly that this is the case. For example, business professors Cristian Deszö of the University of Maryland and David Ross of Columbia University studied the effect of gender diversity on the top firms in Standard & Poor's Composite 1500 list, a group designed to reflect the overall U.S. equity market. First, they examined the size and gender composition of firms' top management teams from 1992 through 2006. Then they looked at the financial performance of the firms. In their words, they found that, on average, “female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value.” They also measured the firms' “innovation intensity” through the ratio of research and development expenses to assets. They found that companies that prioritized innovation saw greater financial gains when women were part of the top leadership ranks.

Racial diversity can deliver the same kinds of benefits. In a study conducted in 2003, Orlando Richard, a professor of management at the University of Texas at Dallas, and his colleagues surveyed executives at 177 national banks in the U.S., then put together a database comparing financial performance, racial diversity and the emphasis the bank presidents put on innovation. For innovation-focused banks, increases in racial diversity were clearly related to enhanced financial performance.

Evidence for the benefits of diversity can be found well beyond the U.S. In August 2012 a team of researchers at the Credit Suisse Research Institute issued a report in which they examined 2,360 companies globally from 2005 to 2011, looking for a relationship between gender diversity on corporate management boards and financial performance. Sure enough, the researchers found that companies with one or more women on the board delivered higher average returns on equity, lower gearing (that is, net debt to equity) and better average growth.

HOW DIVERSITY PROVOKES THOUGHT

Large data-set studies have an obvious limitation: they only show that diversity is correlated with better performance, not that it causes better performance. Research on racial diversity in small groups, however, makes it possible to draw some causal conclusions. Again, the findings are clear: for groups that value innovation and new ideas, diversity helps.

In 2006 Margaret Neale of Stanford University, Gregory Northcraft of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and I set out to examine the impact of racial diversity on small decision-making groups in an experiment where sharing information was a requirement for success. Our subjects were undergraduate students taking business courses at the University of Illinois. We put together three-person groups—some consisting of all white members, others with two whites and one nonwhite member—and had them perform a murder mystery exercise. 

We made sure that all group members shared a common set of information, but we also gave each member important clues that only he or she knew. To find out who committed the murder, the group members would have to share all the information they collectively possessed during discussion. The groups with racial diversity significantly outperformed the groups with no racial diversity. Being with similar others leads us to think we all hold the same information and share the same perspective. This perspective, which stopped the all-white groups from effectively processing the information, is what hinders creativity and innovation.

Other researchers have found similar results. In 2004 Anthony Lising Antonio, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, collaborated with five colleagues from the University of California, Los Angeles, and other institutions to examine the influence of racial and opinion composition in small group discussions. More than 350 students from three universities participated in the study. Group members were asked to discuss a prevailing social issue (either child labor practices or the death penalty) for 15 minutes. The researchers wrote dissenting opinions and had both black and white members deliver them to their groups. When a black person presented a dissenting perspective to a group of whites, the perspective was perceived as more novel and led to broader thinking and consideration of alternatives than when a white person introduced that same dissenting perspective. The lesson: when we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from someone who looks like us.

This effect is not limited to race. For example, last year professors of management Denise Lewin Loyd of the University of Illinois, Cynthia Wang of Oklahoma State University, Robert B. Lount, Jr., of Ohio State University and I asked 186 people whether they identified as a Democrat or a Republican, then had them read a murder mystery and decide who they thought committed the crime. Next, we asked the subjects to prepare for a meeting with another group member by writing an essay communicating their perspective. More important, in all cases, we told the participants that their partner disagreed with their opinion but that they would need to come to an agreement with the other person. Everyone was told to prepare to convince their meeting partner to come around to their side; half of the subjects, however, were told to prepare to make their case to a member of the opposing political party, and half were told to make their case to a member of their own party.

The result: Democrats who were told that a fellow Democrat disagreed with them prepared less well for the discussion than Democrats who were told that a Republican disagreed with them. Republicans showed the same pattern. When disagreement comes from a socially different person, we are prompted to work harder. Diversity jolts us into cognitive action in ways that homogeneity simply does not.

For this reason, diversity appears to lead to higher-quality scientific research. This year Richard Freeman, an economics professor at Harvard University and director of the Science and Engineering Workforce Project at the National Bureau of Economic Research, along with Wei Huang, a Harvard economics Ph.D. candidate, examined the ethnic identity of the authors of 1.5 million scientific papers written between 1985 and 2008 using Thomson Reuters's Web of Science, a comprehensive database of published research. They found that papers written by diverse groups receive more citations and have higher impact factors than papers written by people from the same ethnic group. Moreover, they found that stronger papers were associated with a greater number of author addresses; geographical diversity, and a larger number of references, is a reflection of more intellectual diversity.

THE POWER OF ANTICIPATION

Diversity is not only about bringing different perspectives to the table. Simply adding social diversity to a group makes people believe that differences of perspective might exist among them and that belief makes people change their behavior.

Members of a homogeneous group rest somewhat assured that they will agree with one another; that they will understand one another's perspectives and beliefs; that they will be able to easily come to a consensus. But when members of a group notice that they are socially different from one another, they change their expectations. They anticipate differences of opinion and perspective. They assume they will need to work harder to come to a consensus. This logic helps to explain both the upside and the downside of social diversity: people work harder in diverse environments both cognitively and socially. They might not like it, but the hard work can lead to better outcomes.

In a 2006 study of jury decision making, social psychologist Samuel Sommers of Tufts University found that racially diverse groups exchanged a wider range of information during deliberation about a sexual assault case than all-white groups did. In collaboration with judges and jury administrators in a Michigan courtroom, Sommers conducted mock jury trials with a group of real selected jurors. Although the participants knew the mock jury was a court-sponsored experiment, they did not know that the true purpose of the research was to study the impact of racial diversity on jury decision making.

Sommers composed the six-person juries with either all white jurors or four white and two black jurors. As you might expect, the diverse juries were better at considering case facts, made fewer errors recalling relevant information and displayed a greater openness to discussing the role of race in the case. These improvements did not necessarily happen because the black jurors brought new information to the group—they happened because white jurors changed their behavior in the presence of the black jurors. In the presence of diversity, they were more diligent and open-minded.

GROUP EXERCISE

Consider the following scenario: You are writing up a section of a paper for presentation at an upcoming conference. You are anticipating some disagreement and potential difficulty communicating because your collaborator is American and you are Chinese. Because of one social distinction, you may focus on other differences between yourself and that person, such as her or his culture, upbringing and experiences—differences that you would not expect from another Chinese collaborator. How do you prepare for the meeting? In all likelihood, you will work harder on explaining your rationale and anticipating alternatives than you would have otherwise.

This is how diversity works: by promoting hard work and creativity; by encouraging the consideration of alternatives even before any interpersonal interaction takes place. The pain associated with diversity can be thought of as the pain of exercise. You have to push yourself to grow your muscles. The pain, as the old saw goes, produces the gain. In just the same way, we need diversity—in teams, organizations and society as a whole—if we are to change, grow and innovate.

Suicide blast in Baghdad kills at least 16, wounds 65

At least 16 people were killed and 65 wounded in a twin suicide bombing in central Baghdad on Monday, the Iraqi interior ministry said.

According to reports in local media, the twin suicide bombings took place inside central Baghdad's Tayaran Square.

Tayaran is a major intersection in eastern Baghdad between Sadr city and al-Jumariyah bridge over the Euphrates.

No group has claimed responsibility for these attacks.

Today's bombings marked the first time this year that Baghdad has been targeted by suicide bombers.

Several social media users posted video and images, showing smoke rising from the spot.

The toll could rise as more bodies were being recovered from the site at Aviation Square, the ministry said in a statement.

Ford $11 billion investment, 40 electrified vehicles by 2022

Ford Motor Co (F.N) will significantly increase its planned investments in electric vehicles to $11 billion by 2022 and have 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles in its model lineup, Chairman Bill Ford said on Sunday at the Detroit auto show.

The investment figure is sharply higher than a previously announced target of $4.5 billion by 2020, Ford executives said, and includes the costs of developing dedicated electric vehicle architectures. Ford’s engineering, research and development expenses for 2016, the last full year available, were $7.3 billion, up from $6.7 billion in 2015.

Ford Chief Executive Jim Hackett told investors in October the automaker would slash $14 billion in costs over the next five years and shift capital investment away from sedans and internal combustion engines to develop more trucks and electric and hybrid cars.

Of the 40 electrified vehicles Ford plans for its global lineup by 2022, 16 will be fully electric and the rest will be plug-in hybrids, executives said.

“We’re all in on this and we’re taking our mainstream vehicles, our most iconic vehicles, and we’re electrifying them,” Ford told reporters. “If we want to be successful with electrification, we have to do it with vehicles that are already popular.”

General Motors Co (GM.N), Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) have already outlined aggressive plans to expand their electric vehicle offerings and target consumers who want luxury, performance and an SUV body style - or all three attributes in the same vehicle.

Mainstream auto makers are reacting in part to pressure from regulators in China, Europe and California to slash carbon emissions from fossil fuels. They also are under pressure from

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O)’s success in creating electric sedans and SUVs that inspire would-be owners to line up outside showrooms and flood the company with orders.

GM said last year it would add 20 new battery electric and fuel cell vehicles to its global lineup by 2023, financed by robust profits from traditional internal combustion engine vehicles in the United States and China.

GM Chief Executive Mary Barra has promised investors the Detroit automaker will make money selling electric cars by 2021.

Volkswagen said in November it would spend $40 billion on electric cars, autonomous driving and new mobility services by the end of 2022 – significantly more than when it announced two months earlier it would invest more than 20 billion euros on electric and self-driving cars through 2030.

Toyota is racing to commercialize a breakthrough battery technology during the first half of the 2020s with the potential to cut the cost of making electric cars.

Ford’s additional investments in electric vehicles contrasted with many of the vehicle launches at the Detroit show which featured trucks and SUVs. On Sunday evening, Daimler AG (DAIGn.DE) unveiled its new G-class SUV, a bulky off roader, in an abandoned movie theater in downtown Detroit once used as a set for the movie “8 Mile.”

Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche hinted to Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger during an exchange on stage next to the G-class that Daimler would someday have an electric version of the vehicle.

SUVs figured in Ford’s electric vehicle presentation. The automaker’s president of global markets, Jim Farley, said on Sunday that Ford would bring a high-performance electric utility vehicle to market by 2020. The company will begin production of a hybrid version of its popular F-150 truck at a plant in Dearborn, Michigan, in 2020.

“What we learned from this first cycle of electrification is people want really nice products,” Farley said.

'THINK BIG’

Ford’s shift to the electric vehicle strategy has been more than six months in the making after Hackett replaced former Chief Executive Mark Fields in May.

The plan was finalized in recent months after an extensive review, a person familiar with the process said. In October, Ford disclosed it had formed a team to accelerate global development of electric vehicles, whose mission is to “think big” and “make quicker decisions.”

Some of the electric vehicles will be produced with Ford’s JV in China aimed at the Chinese market. One aim of Ford’s “Team Edison” is to identify and develop electric-vehicle partnerships with other companies, including suppliers, in some markets, according to Sherif Marakby, vice president of autonomous vehicles and electrification.

China, India, France and the United Kingdom all have announced plans to phase out vehicles powered by combustion engines and fossil fuels between 2030 and 2040.

Reporting by Nick Carey and Joseph White; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Detroit; Editing by Peter Cooney and Muralikumar Anantharaman

NASA TO BUILD A MAGNETIC SHIELD AROUND MARS

NASA’s Planetary Science Division (PSD) hosted a community workshop at their headquarters in Washington, DC. Known as the “Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop“, this event ran from February 27th to March 1st, and saw scientists and researchers from all over the world descend on the capitol to attend panel discussions, presentations, and talks about the future of space exploration.

One of the more intriguing presentations took place on Wednesday, March 1st, where the exploration of Mars by human astronauts was discussed. In the course of the talk, which was titled “A Future Mars Environment for Science and Exploration“, Director Jim Green discussed how deploying a magnetic shield could enhance Mars’ atmosphere and facilitate crewed missions there in the future.

The current scientific consensus is that, like Earth, Mars once had a magnetic field that protected its atmosphere. Roughly 4.2 billion years ago, this planet’s magnetic field suddenly disappeared, which caused Mars’ atmosphere to slowly be lost to space. Over the course of the next 500 million years, Mars went from being a warmer, wetter environment to the cold, uninhabitable place we know today.

This theory has been confirmed in recent years by orbiters like the ESA’s Mars Express and NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN Mission (MAVEN), which have been studying the Martian atmosphere since 2004 and 2014, respectively. In addition to determining that solar wind was responsible for depleting Mars’ atmosphere, these probes have also been measuring the rate at which it is still being lost today.
Without this atmosphere, Mars will continue to be a cold, dry place where life cannot flourish. In addition to that, future crewed mission – which NASA hopes to mount by the 2030s – will also have to deal with some severe hazards. Foremost among these will be exposure to radiation and the danger of asphyxiation, which will pose an even greater danger to colonists (should any attempts at colonization be made).

In answer to this challenge, Dr. Jim Green – the Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division – and a panel of researchers presented an ambitious idea. In essence, they suggested that by positioning a magnetic dipole shield at the Mars L1 Lagrange Point, an artificial magnetosphere could be formed that would encompass the entire planet, thus shielding it from solar wind and radiation.

Naturally, Green and his colleagues acknowledged that the idea might sounds a bit “fanciful”. However, they were quick to emphasize how new research into miniature magnetospheres (for the sake of protecting crews and spacecraft) supports this concept:

“This new research is coming about due to the application of full plasma physics codes and laboratory experiments. In the future it is quite possible that an inflatable structure(s) can generate a magnetic dipole field at a level of perhaps 1 or 2 Tesla (or 10,000 to 20,000 Gauss) as an active shield against the solar wind.”

In addition, the positioning of this magnetic shield would ensure that the two regions where most of Mars’ atmosphere is lost would be shielded. In the course of the presentation, Green and the panel indicated that these the major escape channels are located, “over the northern polar cap involving higher energy ionospheric material, and 2) in the equatorial zone involving a seasonal low energy component with as much as 0.1 kg/s escape of oxygen ions.”

To test this idea, the research team – which included scientists from Ames Research Center, the Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Colorado, Princeton University, and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory – conducted a series of simulations using their proposed artificial magnetosphere. These were run at the Coordinated Community Modeling Center (CCMC), which specializes in space weather research, to see what the net effect would be.

NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPLORATION

What they found was that a dipole field positioned at Mars L1 Lagrange Point would be able to counteract solar wind, such that Mars’ atmosphere would achieve a new balance. At present, atmospheric loss on Mars is balanced to some degree by volcanic out-passing from Mars interior and crust. This contributes to a surface atmosphere that is about 6 mbar in air pressure (less than 1% that at sea level on Earth).

As a result, Mars atmosphere would naturally thicken over time, which lead to many new possibilities for human exploration and colonization. According to Green and his colleagues, these would include an average increase of about 4 °C (~7 °F), which would be enough to melt the carbon dioxide ice in the northern polar ice cap. This would trigger a greenhouse effect, warming the atmosphere further and causing the water ice in the polar caps to melt.

By their calculations, Green and his colleagues estimated that this could lead to 1/7th of Mars’ oceans – the ones that covered it billions of years ago – to be restored. If this is beginning to sound a bit like a lecture on how to terraform Mars, it is probably because these same ideas have been raised by people who advocating that very thing. But in the meantime, these changes would facilitate human exploration between now and mid-century.

“A greatly enhanced Martian atmosphere, in both pressure and temperature, that would be enough to allow significant surface liquid water would also have a number of benefits for science and human exploration in the 2040s and beyond,” said Green. “Much like Earth, an enhanced atmosphere would: allow larger landed mass of equipment to the surface, shield against most cosmic and solar particle radiation, extend the ability for oxygen extraction, and provide “open air” greenhouses to exist for plant production, just to name a few.”

These conditions, said Green and his colleagues, would also allow for human explorers to study the planet in much greater detail. It would also help them to determine the habitability of the planet, since many of the signs that pointed towards it being habitable in the past (i.e. liquid water) would slowly seep back into the landscape. And if this could be achieved within the space of few decades, it would certainly help pave the way for colonization.

In the meantime, Green and his colleagues plan to review the results of these simulations so they can produce a more accurate assessment of how long these projected changes would take. It also might not hurt to conduct some cost-assessments of this magnetic shield. While it might seem like something out of science fiction, it doesn’t hurt to crunch the numbers!

Source: Universe Today

South Korea planned ban on cryptocurrency market not yet finalized

South Korea said on Monday that its plans to ban virtual coin exchanges had not yet been finalized as government agencies were still in talks to decide how to regulate the market.

“The plan to ban cryptocurrency exchanges, recently mentioned by the nation’s justice minister, is one measure in talks to curb speculative investments, which the government will carry on with enough discussion for before finalizing the decision,” an official at the Office for Government Policy Coordination told a news conference.

On Jan. 11, Justice Minister Park Sang-ki said the government was preparing a bill to ban trading of the virtual currency on domestic exchanges.

How to Fix A Relationship That’s Falling Apart

Getting into a relationship is easy. Sustaining it for a long time isn’t. A relationship needs to be nurtured for it to grow and stand the test of time. 

As time progress, a lot of people do not feel the need to look after their relationship or are just too busy to do so. As a result, even before they realise cracks begin to show in their relationship. 

They notice some signs of what is going to happen but they ignore them. They tend to overlook these signs and think that things will get normal in some time. Two individuals, who share a relationship, need to take care of it and make sure that things do not go haywire.

If they do not give it enough time it will fall apart never to be repaired. If you have the slightest of inklings that your relationship is falling apart, then you must take charge of the situation and carry out some damage control measures.

Start Talking

If both of you have stopped talking to each other for some time, then it is time you start interacting again. 

The prolonged period of silence must have created some awkwardness between the two of you but you have to break the ice and make things seem normal again. Even if it is your partner who has committed a mistake, you must act mature and start talking to them again. 

Somebody has to take the initiative. Your partner could be feeling guilty because of their mistake and finding it difficult to talk to you. You should go ahead and start a conversation with them.

Make sacrifices

After you get into a relationship, you have to let go of a few things which are dear to you. You might love your huge collection of books but your partner might be of the opinion that it is taking up a lot of space in your home. 

It is not easy to make sacrifices and give up on things which are close to your heart.  But, this is something you must condition yourself before you get into a relationship. Sacrifices and compromises are part and parcel of relationships and you must get used to them. If something is very dear to you, you have to convince your partner to let you keep it. 

If not, you have to let go of it. Sacrifices must happen from both sides. If only one person makes compromises and tries to adjust himself/herself according to the other person, it will create an imbalance.

Forgive and forget

We make mistakes all the time and sometimes, through these mistakes we end up hurting our loved ones. The fact is that, no matter how hard we try, we will keep committing mistakes throughout our lives. 

You must be gracious enough to forgive your partner for a mistake committed by them. Keeping grudges with your partner will have an adverse effect on your relationship. 

Forgiving your partner is not enough. There is no point in forgiving them when you keep thinking about that episode again and again. If you are the one who has committed a mistake, you must apologise immediately. Even if it has been a while since you committed the mistake, it is never too late to apologise. 

Even if you think that your partner will not forgive you, you should try to convince them and make them believe that you will not commit that mistake ever again.

Compatibility

If you are having compatibility issues with your partner, you must sort them out. Two people cannot be similar to each other. 

Yes, there could be a few similarities but overall, they are born to have two different personalities with different perspectives. You need to bridge these differences if you are looking for a peaceful existence with your partner. Sometimes, these differences add colour to your relationship. 

You can get to learn so much from each other and discover a lot about life from each other’s eyes. Differences could be troublesome too and that is when you have to be mature enough to deal with them. Compatibility is a very integral part of a relationship. Both of you should be on the same page at every juncture. 

Even if you have a difference of opinion with your partner, you must put it across in a polite way without getting aggressive.

Understand each other

A couple should share a good level of understanding between them. 

To understand your partner, you must have a tolerant attitude and be patient towards them.  If you react to things while trying to understand them , you will never be able to understand your partner. You should always listen to them when they talk to you and respond to them appropriately. 

There would be times when your partner will express themselves verbally. You need to develop the ability to read their mind and be receptive towards their thoughts. A proper understanding will develop between you two people when you will be sensitive to each other’s emotions. 

It takes a long time for a relationship to grow but it does not take long for it to fall apart. It is imperative that you take immediate action when you see your relationship breaking into pieces at first place. You must repair the damage done before it is too late.

South Korea plans to ban cryptocurrency trading

The South Korean government on Thursday said it plans to ban cryptocurrency trading, sending bitcoin prices plummeting and throwing the virtual coin market into turmoil as the nation's police and tax authorities raided local exchanges on alleged tax evasion.

The clampdown in South Korea, a crucial source of global demand for cryptocurrency, came as policymaker around the world struggled to regulate an asset whose value has skyrocketed over the last year.

Justice minister Park Sang-ki said the government is preparing a bill to ban trading of the virtual currency on domestic exchanges.

"There are great concerns regarding virtual currencies and justice ministry is basically preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading through exchanges," said Park at a press conference, according to the ministry's press office.

A press official said the proposed ban on cryptocurrency trading was announced after "enough discussion" with other government agencies including the nation's finance ministry and financial regulators.

Once a bill is drafted, legislation for an outright ban of virtual coin trading will require a majority vote of the total 297 members of the National Assembly, a process that could take months or even years.

The government's tough stance triggered a selloff of the cyrptocurrency on both local and offshore exchanges.

The local price of bitcoin plunged as much as 21 percent in midday trade to 18.3 million won ($17,064.53) after the minister's comments. It still trades at around a 30 percent premium compared to other countries.

Bitcoin BTC=BTSP was down more than 10 percent on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp at $13,199, after earlier dropping as low as $13,120, its weakest since Jan. 2.

South Korea’s cryptocurrency-related shares were also hammered. Vidente (121800.KQ) and Omnitel (057680.KQ), which are stakeholders of Bithumb, skidded by the daily trading limit of 30 percent each.

Park Nok-sun, a cryptocurrency analyst at NH Investment & Securities, said the herd behavior in South Korea's virtual coin market has raised concerns.

Indeed, bitcoin BTC=BTSP's 1,500 percent surge last year has stoked huge demand for cryptocurency in South Korea, drawing college students to housewives and sparking worries of a gambling addiction.

"Virtual coins trade at a hefty premium in South Korea, and that is herd behavior showing how strong demand is here," Park said. "Some officials are pushing for stronger and stronger regulations because they only see more (investors) jumping in, not out."

There are more than a dozen cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea, according to Korea Blockchain Industry Association.

The proliferation of the virtual currency and the accompanying trading frenzy have raised eyebrows among regulators globally, though many central banks have refrained from supervising cryptocurrencies themselves.

The news on South Korea's proposed ban came as authorities tightened their grip on some of the cryptocurrency exchanges.

The nation's largest cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinone and Bithumb were raided by police and tax agencies this week for alleged tax evasion. The raids follow moves by the finance ministry to identify ways to tax the market that has become as big as the nation's small-cap Kosdaq index in terms of daily trading volume.

Some investors appeared to have taken preemptive action.

"I have already cashed most of mine (virtual coins) as I was aware that something was coming up in a couple of days,” said Eoh Kyung-hoon, a 23-year old investor.

Bitcoin sank on Monday after website CoinMarketCap removed prices from South Korean exchanges, because coins were trading at a premium of about 30 percent in Asia's fourth largest economy. That created confusion and triggered a broad selloff among investors.

An official at Coinone told Reuters that a few officials from the National Tax Service raided the company's office this week.

"Local police also have been investigating our company since last year, they think what we do is gambling," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said and added that Coinone was cooperating with the investigation.

Bithumb, the second largest virtual currency operator in South Korea, was also raided by the tax authorities on Wednesday.

"We were asked by the tax officials to disclose paperwork and things yesterday," an official at Bithumb said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The nation's tax office and police declined to confirm whether they raided the local exchanges.

South Korean financial authorities had previously said they are inspecting six local banks that offer virtual currency accounts to institutions, amid concerns the increasing use of such assets could lead to a surge in crime.

China launches remote sensing satellites SuperView

China launched a pair of 0.5-meter high-resolution remote sensing satellites Tuesday from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province.

The satellites, SuperView-1 03/04, blasted off at 11:24 a.m. Beijing time on the back of a Long March 2D rocket, according to the center.

The mission aims to promote the country's commercial use of high-resolution remote sensing satellites.

The satellites, which are able to provide commercial images at 0.5-meter resolution, are expected to offer remote sensing data to customers worldwide and provide services to land and resource surveys, mapping, environmental monitoring, finance and insurance as well as the Internet industry.

The satellites were developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

It is the second launch of the corporation's commercial remote sensing satellites, followed by the launching of SuperView-1 01/02 in December 2016. 

GM races to build a formula for profitable electric cars

General Motors Co Chief Executive Mary Barra has made a bold promise to investors that the Detroit automaker will make money selling electric cars by 2021.

What Barra has not explained in detail is how GM intends to do what, so far, no major automaker has done.

The answer is a big bet on combining proprietary battery technology, a low-cost, flexible vehicle design and high-volume production mainly in China, according to six current and former GM and supplier executives and six industry experts interviewed by Reuters.

If GM can meet Barra's ambitious profitability target, then it will house two different businesses by the mid-2020s: A traditional focus in North America on trucks, sport utility vehicles and cars fueled with petroleum, and a global electric car company centered in China, branching into pay-per-use services such as robotaxis.

Barra's promise to turn a profit is a bold claim in a market segment that has been driven more by government policy than consumer demand, and where Tesla Inc - the world’s largest electric-vehicle manufacturer - is burning through more than $1 billion in cash each quarter selling premium-priced vehicles.

Barra and GM have invested heavily in the electrification strategy, and worked during the past year to persuade investors that GM can compete with Tesla by building on the success of the automaker's latest electric vehicle, the Chevrolet Bolt EV, and cutting costs along the way.

A key element of the plan, according to two people familiar with the company’s strategy, is slashing the amount of cobalt in GM's new EMC 1.0 battery system. The price of cobalt – the single most costly ingredient in current lithium-ion battery cells - has soared in the past two years in expectation of a surge in demand from automakers. Cobalt prices hit a record high this month on the London Metal Exchange.

GM's new battery design increases the amount of nickel, which enables batteries to store and produce more energy.

GM engineers are also working on other design and technological advances, according to executives and company patent filings, including more efficient packaging of batteries in vehicles and improved systems for managing energy flow and cooling the battery cells.

Without providing details, GM has said it expects these changes to cut the cost of battery cells by more than 30 percent, from $145 per kilowatt-hour to less than $100 by 2021.

Battery experts said the full cost of a GM battery pack, such as the one used now in the Bolt EV, is $10,000-$12,000, or nearly one-third of the car’s $36,000 sticker price.

By 2021, however, that price could drop to $6,000, according to consultant Jon Bereisa, a former GM engineering director who helped develop the Chevrolet Volt hybrid and spearheaded much of the automaker's early lithium-ion battery development.

With improvements in battery chemistry and packaging, Bereisa said, the next-generation Bolt “could deliver a 45-percent increase in range for about the same (battery) pack cost, or the same range at 45 percent less pack cost.”

Pam Fletcher, vice president in charge of GM's global electric vehicle programs, and other GM executives would not comment on specifics of the new battery system, which is slated to be introduced in 2020-2021.

To be sure, electric vehicles account for only a small fraction of global auto sales. Like other manufacturers, GM is banking not only on reducing its own costs and improving vehicle performance, but also on increased demand driven by higher government-mandated electric vehicle quotas in China that are intended to help reduce pollution and the country's dependence on petroleum.

In addition to improving battery and vehicle design and performance, GM is working with Chinese partner SAIC to reduce the cost of assembling electric cars. Sources said GM and SAIC are designing dedicated electric vehicle factories in China that are far smaller, less complex and more efficient than a conventional car plant.

BARRA'S BOLD CLAIM

GM has more capital for electric vehicle development because of Barra's decisions to sell money-losing European operations, exit other unprofitable markets and invest in a new generation of highly profitable, petroleum-fueled large pickup trucks, launching later in 2018.

The automaker now has more than 1,700 engineers, designers and researchers working on batteries and electric vehicles, many of them at the GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, where the company opened a dedicated battery research center in 2009, a week after it filed for bankruptcy reorganization.

Automotive experts say GM's battery and EV group is one of the largest in the world, rivaled only by Toyota Motor Corp in Japan and Daimler AG in Germany.

Toyota has patented more battery technology in recent years than GM, although its focus has been mainly the Prius family of hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles, rather than on pure battery-powered cars like GM's Bolt EV.

GM was issued 661 U.S. patents on battery technology from 2010 through 2015, the latest that such data is available from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, trailing only Toyota's 762 battery patents among global automakers.

For a graphic, click tmsnrt.rs/2CHPWnx

In addition to the battery work, GM engineers are developing a new dedicated “plug and play” structure for its next-generation electric vehicles that is flexible and modular, meaning it will be able to accommodate battery systems of different sizes, as well as hydrogen fuel cells, one of the sources said.

In an interview, Mark Reuss, head of global product development, said GM's strategy to reduce battery cost is not tied to a single improvement such as a change in battery chemistry, but rather a series of continuous enhancements in battery technology and packaging.

“There are no silver bullets here,” Reuss said. GM also has not solved all the problems required to achieve its goal, he said. "It's called 'product development' for a reason," he said.

The most recent developments and enhancements in battery technology have not been made public, according to GM's Fletcher.

ADVERTISEMENT

“There’s a lot of stuff that we choose not to patent because we don’t want to make it visible” before the new technology goes into production, Fletcher told Reuters.

LESSONS OF BOLT

GM's patent history since 2010 shows a focus on improvements in battery technology, packaging and processing, some of them designed to help boost the battery’s energy and extend vehicle range between charges, according to company filings.

GM jointly developed its current battery know-how with Korea’s LG Group, which makes batteries and electronic components for the Bolt. Introduced in October 2016, Bolt was the first mass-produced electric vehicle to go more than 200 miles between charges, and sell at a sticker price of under $40,000. GM sold 23,297 Bolts in 2017.

Tesla reported producing just 1,770 of its $35,000 Model 3 sedans in 2017, well short of the company's original targets.

The launch of the Bolt and its warm reception by reviewers, customers and investors was a watershed event for Barra and GM's top management.

“It was a ‘holy shit’ moment that made us rethink what might be possible,” said one GM insider

How to make money with Bitcoin – What is Bitcoin and how this currency work?

This is a Guide on how to make money with Bitcoin and its operations. Bitcoin digital currency created in 2009 by an anonymous alias Satoshi Nakamot. This currency transactions are made without any intermediary or, therefore, does not need any transaction fee or personal data.

Bitcoins are increasingly accepted by many traders: you can buy hosting services, pizzas or even manicures with this currency.

How does Bitcoin work?

As a new user, you can start using Bitcoin without understanding the technical details.Once you have installed a portfolio Bitcoin on your computer or mobile phone, you will generate your first Bitcoin address and you can create new ones whenever you need. You can give your address to your friends so that you can pay and vice versa. In fact, using Bitcoin is quite comparable to exchange emails, except that the Bitcoin addresses should be used only once.

To store your Bitcoin is necessary to have “bitcoin wallet with LocalBitcoin“ which is software that must be installed according to a unique algorithm.

It can be installed on Windows, Linux, Android , Blackberry, Mac … (except iPhone), but there are also web servers online (watch pirates!)

Block chains are recorded in a book of general and public accounting share in the Bitcoin network as a whole. All committed transactions are included in the block chain. Thus, in the portfolios Bitcoin balances are established and it is actually possible to verify that new transactions transfer the Bitcoins corresponding property of the payer. The integrity and the chronological order of the chain blocks are supplied by cryptographic means.

A transaction is a transfer of value between Bitcoin portfolios included in the block chain.The Bitcoin wallets keep a secret private key information call or seed, and is used to sign transactions, providing a mathematical proof that comes owner of each portfolio.

How can you get Bitcoins?

The Bitcoin can be obtained in several ways:

– Through mining
– As payment for goods or services.
– By purchasing them in an exchange of Bitcoin.
– Exchanging them with someone

Mining is a distributed consensus system that is used to confirm pending transactions,including chain blocks.

a chronological order in the chain blocks is imposed, protects net neutrality and allows different computers to agree on the status of the system.

Confirmation pending transactions should be included in a block cryptographic very strict rules that will be verified by the network must match. These rules prevent modification of a previous block, since invalidate the rest of successive sequences.

Thus, no individual can control what is included in the block chain or replace parts to cancel their own expenses.

But how can you make money with Bitcoin?

If you do not want to use as currency Bitcoins, you can redeem them for cash. For this there are only 2 requirements:

1. Get Bitcoins
2. Sell them

There are many platforms that are dedicated to the sale of this coin (taking advantage of its volatility). On these platforms you can buy and sell your Bitcoins.

To sell your Bitcoins, simply find these sites, create an account and trade your Bitcoins to expected market price or the price at which you want to sell.

Why do People Reveal their Emotions to People who don’t Know Them and People whom they don’t Know on Social Media?

There are several human emotions which every individual witness from time to time. A new trend to reveal emotions on social media platforms have developed with changing times.

No matter what we don’t want to miss a chance to reveal our emotions on such platforms. What strikes our  team attention is what makes us eager to share our emotions to people who we don’t know and to the people who don’t know us.

We say this because there are many people whom we add to our respective accounts without knowing much about them. We add them because they are mere a known face to us. Still we get eager to reveal our emotions to them. Have you ever wondered Why?

What do you understand by the term emotion? Emotion can be defined as a strong feeling deriving from ones circumstances, moods and relationships with others. There are different kinds of emotions which every individual experience at some point of time. The different kinds of emotions are Happiness, Sadness, Anger Disgust, Fear and Trust.

These emotions govern our behavior and determine our actions. There were times when we used to express our feelings or emotions only to the people we know and to those whom we interact on one to one to basis. Our emotions were confined to those persons only who were concerned about us in true sense.

But with the changing times we find one to one human interactions are lost completely. All we get to see today is that technology have forced us to confine ourselves within the four walls of the House.

Technology has given rise to less human interactions on one to one basis. Instead what we have adopted is to reveal our emotions on various social media platforms. Our life has become so ‘Public’ these days that we wait for something to happen so that we can express our emotions on all the social media platforms we are active on. The word ‘Privacy’ has lost its meaning and does not exist in any sense in our lives.

What we really don’t understand is that what makes us so eager to reveal our personal emotions to the hundreds or thousands of people we follow on these known social media platforms.

The answer to this question can be both negative and positive. The positive aspect behind this can be seen as it helps us reach out to the larger audience at a time and we can easily express our views with them. Yes, what we really need to work on is to resist expressing our Personal Emotions and Personal Feelings.

We understand that there are circumstances when you can’t resist sharing the things with your friends and family on social media. But you need to know there are many people who you consider a known face and is not at all concerned for such information from your end. So, why we should make our emotions public to such people.

This is because these are the ones who just mock and enjoy such things rather being concerned for your emotions. Thus, there is no need to reveal our emotions to one and all.