07/11/2023 | UPONSOFT

Svitolina Thinks of Family, Ukraine as She Beats No. 1 at Wimbledon

By Uponent | 07/11/2023 | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

The last time Elina Svitolina was a Grand Slam semifinalist — twice, actually, in 2019 — she was pursuing the usual trappings of success in professional sports: trophies, money, fame, etc.

Now Svitolina plays for more important reasons. For her daughter, Skaï, who was born in October. For her country, Ukraine, where a war that began with Russia’s invasion in February 2022 continues.

And Svitolina firmly believes that those factors affect the way she swings a racket and the way she handles important moments on a tennis court. Enough so that she is one of the last four women remaining at Wimbledon after adding to her series of surprising victories over major champions with a 7-5, 6-7 (5), 6-2 victory against No. 1-ranked Iga Swiatek on Tuesday.

“War made me stronger and also made me mentally stronger. Mentally, I don’t take difficult situations as, like, a disaster, you know? There are worse things in life. I’m just more calmer,” said Svitolina, 28, who once was ranked as high No. 3 and now is No. 76 after taking time off to start a family with her husband, tennis player Gael Monfils.

She returned to the tour three months ago.

“Also, because I just started to play again, I have different pressures,” Svitolina said after kneeling and covering her face with her hands, when Swiatek missed one last forehand at Centre Court. “Of course, I want to win. I have this motivation, like huge motivation, to come back to the top. But I think having a child — and war — made me a different person. I look at the things a bit differently.”

She received a wild-card entry from the All England Club to get into the field and now will face another unseeded player, 42nd-ranked Marketa Vondrousova, for a berth in Saturday’s final.

Vondrousova, the 2019 French Open runner-up, beat fourth-seeded Jessica Pegula.

Swiatek, who was coming off claiming her fourth Grand Slam title at the French Open last month, felt the change in the way Svitolina smacked balls over the Centre Court net. That included a stretch where Svitolina won 20 of 22 points during a stretch that spanned the end of the first set and start of the second.

“She played with more freedom and more guts. Sometimes, she really just let go of her hand,” Swiatek said, pantomiming a forehand, “and she played really, really fast.”

Svitolina certainly did not expect to still be around this deep into the fortnight. She originally wasn’t even planning to get back in action after giving birth until around now. But she and Monfils started working out together on January 2, and Svitolina’s progress was substantial enough that she altered her timeline.

Svitolina’s phone has been inundated by messages of support from her native country, and she’s seen videos of kids there following her matches.

“This really makes my heart melt, seeing this,” she said. “Just happy I could bring a little happiness to the people of Ukraine.”
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Scientists Want to Mark New Epoch of Human Impact on Earth in Canadian Lake

By Uponsci | 07/11/2023 | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

Humanity has etched its way into Earth’s geology, atmosphere and biology with such strength and permanence that a team of scientists figures we have shifted into a new geologic epoch — one of our own creation. It’s called the Anthropocene.

A geologic task force recommends marking this new epoch’s start in the deep, pristine Crawford Lake outside Toronto, Canada, with a “golden spike.” The start of the human epoch is sometime around 1950 to 1954. The specific date will be determined soon, probably by levels of plutonium in new measurements from the bottom of the lake.

“It’s quite clear that the scale of change has intensified unbelievably and that has to be human impact,” said University of Leicester geologist Colin Waters, who chaired the Anthropocene Working Group, which is making the recommendation. “It’s no longer just influencing Earth’s sphere, it’s actually controlling.”

The burning of coal, oil and gas that’s changing Earth’s climate and atmosphere, nuclear bomb detonations spotted in soil around the globe, plastics and nitrogen from fertilizers added on land, and dramatic changes to species that make up the rest of the Earth characterize the new epoch, scientists said.

The idea of the Anthropocene was proposed at a science conference more than 20 years ago by the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen. Teams of scientists have debated the issue for decades.

A special committee was set up to examine whether the designation was needed, when it would start and where a golden spike would be placed to commemorate the start. Such spikes commemorate new geologic time periods across the Earth.

Distinct and multiple signals starting around 1950 in Crawford Lake show that “the effects of humans overwhelm the Earth system,” said Francine McCarthy, a committee member who specializes in that site as an Earth sciences professor at Brock University in Canada.

Because Crawford Lake is 24 meters (79 feet) deep but just under 2,400 square meters (25,800 square feet) in area, the layers on the lake bottom are pristine, showing what’s in the air and on Earth each year, scientists said.

“The remarkably preserved annual record of deposition in Crawford Lake is truly amazing,” said U.S. National Academies of Sciences President Marcia McNutt, who is not part of the committee. “It is just as important to the beginning of an era dominated by one category of Earth species as it is to mark the end.”

The Anthropocene — derived from the Greek terms for “human” and “new” — shows the power and the hubris of humankind, several scientists told The Associated Press.

“The hubris is in imagining that we are in control,” former U.S. White House science adviser John Holdren, who was not part of the working group of scientists and disagrees with its proposed start date, suggesting it should be much earlier. “The reality is that our power to transform the environment has far exceeded our understanding of the consequences and our capacity to change course.”

Jurgen Renn, who directs the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and was not part of the study group, said humans also “need that power, our knowledge, our technologies, but also our capacities of making better societies” to lessen and adapt to the worst consequences of our actions.

This puts the power of humans in a somewhat similar class with the meteorite that crashed into Earth 66 million years ago killing off dinosaurs, starting the Cenozoic Era and what is sometimes called the age of mammals. But that meteorite started a whole new era, and scientists are now proposing humans started a new epoch, which is a much smaller geologic time period.

Geologists measure time in eons, eras, periods, epochs and ages. They propose we have moved from the Holocene Epoch, which started about 11,700 years ago at the end of an ice age, to the Anthropocene Epoch.

It also starts a new age. It’s named Crawfordian, after the lake chosen as the starting point, and ends the Meghalayan Age that started 4,200 years ago, Waters said.

The proposal needs to be approved by three different groups of geologists and will ultimately need to be signed off at during a major conference next year.

The reason geologists didn’t make it a bigger time period change is that the current Quaternary Period is based on permanent ice on Earth’s poles, which still exists. But in a few hundred years, if climate change continues and those disappear, it may be time to change that, Waters said.

“If you know your Greek tragedies, you know power, hubris and tragedy go hand in hand,” said Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes, a working group member. “If we don’t address the harmful aspects of human activities, most obviously disruptive climate change, we are headed for tragedy.”
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‘Meta Loses More:’ Zuckerberg Takes Threads Fight to EU

By Uponsil | 07/11/2023 | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

U.S. tech titan Mark Zuckerberg has plunged into a high-stakes game of brinkmanship with the European Union by withholding his new Threads app from users in Europe, but analysts say he will struggle to win the fight.

Threads, billed as the killer of Twitter, a platform that has tumbled into chaos under the leadership of mercurial tycoon Elon Musk, has added more than 100 million users in its first week in app stores.

But Zuckerberg’s firm Meta said it could not be released in Europe because of “regulatory uncertainty” around the Digital Markets Act, an antitrust regulation that will not come into force until next year.

“The reason they gave made me laugh,” said Diego Naranjo, head of policy at campaign group European Digital Rights.

“The regulation is not uncertain, it’s very certain, it’s just that Meta doesn’t like it.”

His theory is that Meta will give Threads to the rest of the world and Europeans will become so vexed at missing out that they will pressure the EU to water down the DMA.

Naranjo, for one, thinks the ploy will fail.

But either way, the rest of the big tech platforms will be glued to their screens as this fight could shape the future regulatory landscape in Europe for all of them.

‘Fatal’ blow

Meta and the rest are already regularly in trouble with EU regulators over their data gathering and retention policies.

They struggle to keep to the terms of Europe’s mammoth five-year-old data privacy regulation (GDPR).

When the DMA was announced, their reaction was muted as it seemed to be about business and competition, a simpler topic for them though not without pitfalls.

The DMA bans the biggest tech firms from favoring their own platforms, particularly problematic for the latest launch as Threads and Instagram accounts are linked.

But the DMA’s Article 5.2 contained a bombshell: the firms will be banned from transferring user data across platforms unless they get consent.

Berin Szoka, president of the pro-business U.S. think tank TechFreedom, said the DMA’s rules would require Meta to ask for the consent of someone’s Instagram contacts before their data could be transferred to Threads.

“In practice, this could prove fatal to Threads’ rollout,” he said, as the network effect would be dead on arrival.

“I don’t really see a good way out here for Meta.”

Naranjo has little sympathy for Meta, saying the European embargo was just a “political push” by the firm against the EU.

“We will see who loses more,” he said. “My guess is that Meta will lose more from not having 450 million potential customers on their network.”

‘Question of time’

The European Consumer Group (BEUC) said the Threads issue showed the DMA doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

“The DMA does not stand in the way of new products or innovation,” said the group’s competition specialist Vanessa Turner.

“It creates an environment for innovation from more competitors and at the same time protects consumers.”

Meta has left the door open for a Threads launch in Europe and few expect it to maintain its embargo indefinitely.

European law expert Alexandre de Streel said big tech firms would probably be hammering out compliance issues with the EU over the coming months.

“I think it’s more a question of time to understand the scope of the legislation and have a dialogue with the commission,” he said.

But Szoka suggested the EU might be about to get a dose of unintended consequences.

“It would be particularly sad if DMA shields Twitter from competition,” he said.

Meta, he argued, had committed to making Threads compatible with its competitors, adding: “That’s something Twitter has only talked about.”
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Olympic Champion Caster Semenya Wins Appeal Against Testosterone Rules at Human Rights Court

By Uponent | 07/11/2023 | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

Double Olympic champion runner Caster Semenya won an appeal against track and field’s testosterone rules on Tuesday when the European Court of Human Rights ruled she was discriminated against and there were “serious questions” about the rules’ validity.

World Athletics, which enforces the regulations, said in reaction to the decision that its rules would remain in place, however, meaning there would not be an immediate return to top-level competition for the South African runner.

Semenya’s case at the rights court was against the government of Switzerland, and not World Athletics itself, although the decision was still a major moment in throwing doubt on the future of the rules.

Semenya was legally identified as female at birth and has identified as female her entire life, but regulations introduced by track and field’s governing body in 2019 forced her to artificially suppress her natural testosterone to be allowed to compete in women’s competitions.

World Athletics says she has one of a number of conditions known as differences in sex development, which results in a natural testosterone level in the typical male range and which gives her an unfair advantage in women’s competitions.

Semenya has been challenging the testosterone rules in the courts for years, but had previously lost an appeal at sport’s highest court in 2019 and a second challenge against the rules at Switzerland’s supreme court in 2020. That second rejection of her appeal was the reason why the Swiss government was the respondent in the European Court of Human Rights case.

The Strasbourg-based rights court ruled in Semenya’s favor by a 4-3 majority of judges on the complaint of discrimination and noted she was denied an “effective remedy” against that discrimination through the two previous cases she lost at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Swiss supreme court.

Tuesday’s ruling was in many ways a criticism of the 2019 decision by CAS. The sports court kept in place the rules that require Semenya and others with so-called differences in sex development conditions, or DSDs, to take birth control pills, or have hormone-blocking injections, or undergo surgery to be allowed to run at top competitions such as the Olympics and world championships.

The rules were initially enforced in certain events but were expanded and made stricter by World Athletics this year. Athletes such as Semenya were forced to lower their testosterone further if they wanted to run in any race.

The decision by the Switzerland-based CAS that rejected Semenya’s first appeal had not properly considered important factors such as the side effects of the hormone treatment, the difficulties for athletes to remain in compliance of the rules, and the lack of evidence that their high natural testosterone actually gave them an advantage, the European rights court said.

An unfair advantage is the core reason why World Athletics introduced the rules in the first place.

The European rights court also found Semenya’s second legal appeal against the rules at the Swiss supreme court should have led to “a thorough institutional and procedural review” of the rules, but that did not happen when that court also ruled against Semenya.

The government of Switzerland was ordered to pay Semenya 60,000 euros ($66,000) in respect of costs and expenses by the European rights court.

Ultimately, the rules have sidelined Semenya since 2019 as she has refused to artificially suppress her natural hormone levels in order to run, and the European rights court noted the “high personal stakes” for Semenya in how the regulations interrupted her career and affected her “profession.”

Tuesday’s decision could force CAS and ultimately World Athletics to re-examine the regulations, although the path and timeline to a possible rollback of the rules is unclear.

In a statement, World Athletics said: “We remain of the view that the DSD regulations are a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of protecting fair competition in the female category as the Court of Arbitration for Sport and Swiss Federal Tribunal both found, after a detailed and expert assessment of the evidence.”

The 32-year-old Semenya is aiming to run at next year’s Olympics in Paris. She was the 2012 and 2016 Olympic champion in the 800 meters but did not defend her title at the Tokyo Olympics because of the regulations.
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Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ms. Lauryn Hill to Headline Global Citizen Festival to Fight Inequality

By Uponent | 07/11/2023 | No Comments | Business, Entertainment

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ms. Lauryn Hill and Megan Thee Stallion will headline this year’s Global Citizen Festival as the anti-poverty nonprofit looks to focus attention on increasing inequality for girls and young women around the world.

Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans said the Sept. 23 event at New York’s Central Park will be the centerpiece of his group’s campaign to encourage supporters, especially those in Gen Z, to take action on gender inequality, climate change and other issues.

Studies show that half of Gen Z “feel disillusioned and powerless to make a positive impact,” Evans told The Associated Press in an interview. “As long as you and I have been alive, there was almost this sense of positive momentum in the world that almost felt like the eradication of extreme poverty could be inevitable,” he said. “But the data suggests the world is now getting worse.”

According to the United Nations Population Fund, 257 million women around the world want to avoid pregnancy, but don’t have access to modern contraceptives. The fund’s partnership to provide reproductive health services is currently underfunded by $100 million.

Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations fund that helps ensure nearly 20 million children in crisis continue learning, needs $670 million for its work.

The Global Citizen Festival, which will also include performances from K-pop sensation Stray Kids and singer-songwriter Conan Gray, provides free tickets to the event in exchange for fans taking actions on the group’s app and website that support these goals.

This year, that may mean asking Canada, Norway and Japan to donate more to the United Nations Population Fund. It may mean pushing companies to join the United Nations Race to Zero to set targets for reducing their carbon emissions. Or urging the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Australia to provide more funding to vulnerable countries to adapt to climate change.

Global Citizen’s use of supporters to convince political, business and philanthropic leaders to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems is designed to appeal to younger generations, Evans said.

“These are pillars of what we know Gen Z cares about, but often they feel powerless because the data isn’t on their side,” Evans said. “We’re talking to Gen Z in a way that they know their actions can have a scalable impact.”

Singer Angelique Kidjo, who was recently named to this year’s Great Immigrants list by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, said that her Batonga Foundation found that supporting girls and young women ends up strengthening entire villages in her native Benin and throughout Africa.

“Helping women in a community is like starting a rolling stone that never stops rolling,” said Kidjo, adding that it was the women who kept their villages safe during the COVID-19 pandemic by making masks and soap for hand-washing, as well as enforcing social distancing.

Not only will Hill and Megan Thee Stallion provide examples of female empowerment with their performances, but Evans hopes they will encourage their fans to take action during the event, which will be streamed on numerous digital platforms.

“For many decades, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have occupied that space where music and activism meet,” said Evans, adding that the band’s classic “Under the Bridge” was the first song he learned to play on guitar. “We couldn’t be happier with this lineup.”
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India to Take Second Shot at Moon Landing

By Uponsci | 07/11/2023 | No Comments | Business, Science, Silicon Valley

India will launch a mission to the moon later this week hoping to become the fourth country to land a craft on the lunar surface.

So far only three countries — the United States, Russia and China — have achieved what is called a “soft landing” on the moon in which vehicles touch down without damage.

The mission marks the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) second attempt to land a rover on the moon — a previous effort nearly four years ago failed.

The spacecraft called Chandrayaan-3, which means moon vehicle in Sanskrit, is scheduled to be launched Friday afternoon (2:35 p.m. Indian time) It is equipped with a lander and a robotic rover that are expected to land on the moon on August 23 or August 24 to map the lunar surface for about two weeks.

“The date is decided based on when the sunrise is on the moon; it will depend on the calculations, but if it gets delayed, then we will have to keep the landing for the next month in September,” ISRO director S. Somanath said.

He said the main objective is to demonstrate “a safe and soft landing.”

India aims to land its rover on the South Pole of the moon, a previously unexplored part that lies in near darkness. It will study the topography of this region.

“There is expectation that the southern parts of the moon have a lot of mineral deposits and helium-3. There is also the possibility of water deposits there,” Ajey Lele, a space consultant with the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi told VOA.

Through such studies of the moon’s topography, India’s upcoming space flight to the moon “has the potential to contribute to scientific understanding that will underpin a variety of future lunar missions, including those by other actors,” Tomas Hrozensky at the European Space Policy Institute told VOA in emailed comments.

India’s moon mission in 2019 had successfully deployed a lunar orbiter, but the lander crashed during the final moments of its descent to the lunar surface — a setback to its main goal.

Aiming for ‘soft’ landing

Lele says there is optimism about Chandrayaan-3 achieving a “soft” landing. “The glitches that led to the failure of the previous mission have been fixed. Basically, they have made the lander system more sturdy, so it can withstand any impact.”

The latest space project is part of India’s ambitions to showcase its homegrown technological capabilities in space and be seen as a leading space-faring nation.

“After a quantum rise in our space expertise, India can no longer wait to be left behind in the march to the moon,” India’s space minister, Jitendra Singh, said Sunday.

India’s space program has notched several milestones. Its first mission to the moon in 2008 helped confirm the presence of water. In 2013, it put a satellite in orbit around Mars. Its space agency is also preparing for its most ambitious space mission yet — a human spaceflight next year.

Delivering on “an ambitious and technologically challenging vision serves a profound benefit for perception of the government’s capability both within and outside of the country,” according to Hrozensky.

US, India teaming up

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in exploring the moon as scientists seek to determine whether it will be possible to mine the moon for minerals and other resources that are shrinking on earth.

Outer space is one of the areas in which India and the U.S. decided to deepen collaboration during Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington last month. U.S. President Joe Biden said that the two countries are joining hands to send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station next year.

India has also signed on to the Artemis Accords, an American-led international partnership for space cooperation that, among other objectives, aims to send humans to the Moon by 2025 after a gap of five decades.
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