The legendary Tour de France began Saturday, two months later than usual, and a day after France recorded its sharpest single-day coronavirus caseload since late March.The crowds, usually packing the start of the Tour de France, are absent this year. Just 100 spectators were allowed for the early afternoon kickoff at the Promenade des Anglais in Nice —where masks are now required for all outdoor spaces. That’s just a taste of how the virus this year is upending the 3,500-kilometer race, which crosses mountains, vineyards and villages of France. Team riders will be tested regularly for COVID-19 — and wear masks when not competing. Spectators take pictures of the pack during the first stage of the Tour de France cycling race in France, Aug. 29, 2020.The big question is whether the Tour will end as planned three weeks from now at the Champs Elyees in Paris, or be forced to cut off early. There are other reasons why the world’s greatest bike race is very different this year. Sixty-nine-year-old Francois Juillard, former head coach for the French track and field team, remembers following the Tour when he was young. The caravan came first, then the riders—who made difficult climbs seem easy. He says it was pretty spectacular. That festive atmosphere — with candies showered at kids and tens of thousands of fans lining the roads — will be largely absent when the Tour passes Juillard’s home in central France. National coronavirus measures limit crowds to no more than 5,000. The pack rides during the first stage of the Tour de France cycling race, Aug. 29, 2020.And with the French back at work, Juillard says, the Tour will be a lot more virtual — experienced by many fans via TV instead of in real life. Eric Bouvat, longtime doctor for Tour team AG2R La Mondiale, says it’s unclear how that will affect the race. Part of the exceptional performances of Tour riders comes from the stimulation from those cheering crowds, he says, and it’s unclear whether they’ll find other ways to compensate. So, like many other things during this time of the corornavirus, the 107th Tour de France will break new ground — possibly marking the beginning, and not the end, of a new normal.
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Day: August 29, 2020
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s neuroscience startup Neuralink on Friday unveiled a pig named Gertrude that has had a coin-sized computer chip in her brain for two months, showing off an early step toward the goal of curing human diseases with the same type of implant.Co-founded by Tesla Inc and SpaceX CEO Musk in 2016, San Francisco Bay Area-based Neuralink aims to implant wireless brain-computer interfaces that include thousands of electrodes in the most complex human organ to help cure neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s, dementia and spinal cord injuries and ultimately fuse humankind with artificial intelligence.”An implantable device can actually solve these problems,” Musk said on a webcast Friday, mentioning ailments such as memory loss, hearing loss, depression and insomnia.Musk did not provide a timeline for those treatments, appearing to retreat from earlier statements that human trials would begin by the end of this year. Neuralink’s first clinical trials with a small number of human patients would be aimed at treating paralysis or paraplegia, the company’s head surgeon, Dr. Matthew MacDougall, said.Neuroscientists unaffiliated with the company said the presentation indicated that Neuralink had made great strides but cautioned that longer studies were needed.Musk presented what he described as the “three little pigs demo.” Gertrude, the pig with a Neuralink implant in the part of the brain that controls the snout, required some coaxing by Musk to appear on camera, but eventually began eating off of a stool and sniffing straw, triggering spikes on a graph tracking the animal’s neural activity.Musk said the company had three pigs with two implants each, and also revealed a pig that previously had an implant. They were “healthy, happy and indistinguishable from a normal pig,” Musk said. He said the company predicted a pig’s limb movement during a treadmill run at “high accuracy” using implant data.Musk described Neuralink’s chip, which is roughly 23 millimeters in diameter, as “a Fitbit in your skull with tiny wires.””I could have a Neuralink right now and you wouldn’t know,” Musk said. “Maybe I do.”One comment from a webcast viewer described the animals as “Cypork.”Graeme Moffat, a University of Toronto neuroscience research fellow, said Neuralink’s advancements were “order of magnitude leaps” beyond current science thanks to the novel chip’s size, portability, power management and wireless capabilities.Stanford University neuroscientist Sergey Stavisky said the company had made substantial and impressive progress since an initial demonstration of an earlier chip in July 2019.”Going from that to the fully implanted system in several pigs they showed is impressive and, I think, really highlights the strengths of having a large multidisciplinary team focused on this problem,” Stavisky said.Some researchers said longer studies would be required to determine the longevity of the device.Neuralink’s chip could also improve the understanding of neurological diseases by reading brain waves, one of the company’s scientists said during the presentation.Recruiting, not fundraisingMusk said the focus of Friday’s event was recruiting, not fundraising. Musk has a history of bringing together diverse experts to drastically accelerate the development of innovations previously limited to academic labs, including rocket, hyperloop and electrical vehicle technologies through companies such as Tesla and SpaceX.Neuralink has received $158 million in funding, $100 million of which came from Musk, and employs about 100 people.Musk, who frequently warns about the risks of artificial intelligence, said the implant’s most important achievement beyond medical applications would be “some kind of AI symbiosis where you have an AI extension of yourself.”Small devices that electronically stimulate nerves and brain areas to treat hearing loss and Parkinson’s disease have been implanted in humans for decades. Brain implant trials have also been conducted with a small number of people who have lost control of bodily functions due to spiral cord injuries or neurological conditions like strokes.Startups such as Kernel, Paradromics and NeuroPace also are trying to exploit advancements in material, wireless and signaling technology to create devices similar to Neuralink. In addition, medical device giant Medtronic PLC produces brain implants to treat Parkinson’s disease, essential tremors and epilepsy.
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Chadwick Boseman, the star of the ground-breaking superhero movie “Black Panther,” has died from colon cancer, his publicist told AFP on Friday.Boseman, who was in his 40s, had not publicly discussed his condition — which was first diagnosed in 2016 — and continued to work on major Hollywood films.”It was the honor of his career to bring King T’Challa to life in Black Panther,” said a statement posted to Boseman’s social media accounts.”He died in his home, with his wife and family by his side.”Boseman became the first black superhero to get his own standalone film in the record-breaking Marvel franchise with 2018’s “Black Panther.”The movie, set in the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda, was adored by critics and audiences, becoming the first comic book film to be nominated for best picture at the Oscars and grossing over $1 billion worldwide.Earlier in his career, Boseman played black icons Jackie Robinson in “42” and James Brown in “Get on Up.”He recently appeared in Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” and was set to appear in a sequel to “Black Panther” due in 2022.”A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all” and filmed projects “during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy,” the family’s statement said.
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