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☆ HBO says 'Harry Potter' series will 'benefit' from J.K. Rowling's involvement
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-21 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

Two of the biggest Harry Potter fan communities, MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron, denounced Rowling’s views and severed ties with the author’s future projects. On Sept. 10, she posted the U.K. open casting call for the roles of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley to her 14.2 million followers on X. “Every time we sit down to have a fun conversation about Harry Potter, the conversation becomes angry and depressing, and so we end up not publishing,” she says. “There are so many fans who deeply disagree with what Rowling is saying, but still want to engage in the Harry Potter fandom.”Ironically, while Rowling’s actions have undermined many Potter fans’ dedication to her, they also appear to have strengthened those fans’ solidarity with each other. We can love and enjoy that without the author.”The question now is whether HBO can cast the same spell.

Persons: J.K, Rowling, Harry Potter ”, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Eddie Redmayne —, Harry Potter, Francesca Gardiner, Mark Mylod, ”, Casey Bloys, Harry Potter —, “ J.K, Gardiner, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, “, Potter, She’s, It’s, Melissa Anelli, “ Harry, “ It’s, Maggie Smith, Murray, Kat Miller, MuggleNet, Miller, Radcliffe, “ Potter, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, traumatised detransitioners, rebuking John Oliver —, Lumos, Trump, ” Miller, —, Anelli, Tylor Starr, Starr Organizations: Warner Bros, Discovery, ” HBO, J.K, HBO, Potter Locations: “

☆ Planet 9: Inside the search for a hidden planet in our solar system
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-04 | by ( Jacopo Prisco | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +18 min

“It could completely reshape our understanding of the solar system and of other planetary systems, and how we fit into that context. Brown and his colleague, planetary scientist Konstantin Batygin, reported having strong evidence of a hidden planet on the fringes of our solar system. “If you look at these bodies, their lifetimes are tiny compared to the age of the solar system,” Batygin said. “By now, we expected to have found many more of these extreme trans-Neptunian objects,” Sheppard said in an email. Finding a smaller planet would also spark excitement, Rice added, because every solar system planet is immensely useful for extrapolating information about the thousands of comparable exoplanets that researchers are uncovering across the galaxy.

Persons: Mike Brown, Pluto, ”, Brown, Pluto’s, Malena Rice, ” Rice, Konstantin Batygin, Neptune, they’ve, Brown’s, “, we’re, Scott Sheppard, Chadwick Trujillo, Trujillo, ” Brown, Batygin, ” Batygin, Patryk Sofia Lykawka, ” Lykawka, Lykawka, Rice, Hur, Renu Malhotra, Malhotra, Sheppard, ” Sheppard, ” Malhotra, she’s, “ It’s, Sigurd Naess, ” Naess, Vera C, Rubin, That’s Organizations: CNN, Caltech, NASA, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Research, International Astronomical, ESA, Yale University, Getty, California Institute of Technology, Planet Nine, Carnegie Institution for Science, Northern Arizona University, Sheppard, Kindai University, Rice of Yale University, University of Arizona, Survey Telescope, Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, US National Science Foundation, Stanford University, Rubin, Rubin Observatory, Nine Locations: Pasadena , California, AFP, Washington ,, Japan, Neptune, Hawaii, Chile, Norway

☆ Russia's showing NATO its hand in the air war over Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-13 | by ( Sinéad Baker | Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +21 min

Experts told Business Insider the Ukraine war has underscored how some elements of modern air combat are radically changing. And in fights like Desert Storm and the Iraq War, the West established air superiority by taking out its opponent's air defenses. The Russian air force can't meet Western air forces air to air in a major attack without being "shot to pieces," Bronk said. "Nobody really wants an air war with Russia," said John Baum, a Mitchell Institute expert and retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel. "It is not a highly desirable thing, I think, from either side, to want to have this air war."

Persons: It's, Justin Bronk, hasn't, DIMITAR DILKOFF, Bronk, Andrew Curtis, Mark Cancian, Guy Snodgrass, Hoshang, Giorgio Di Mizio, David Allvin, it's, James Hecker, NATO hadn't, " Hecker, that's, Maxim Shemetov, Fabian Hinz, Riivo Valge, Mattias Eken, They're, Paula Bronstein, Anthony Sweeney, US Army Cancian, REUTERS Lockheed Martin, Timothy Wright, disaggregation, Schmuelgen Jarmo Lindberg, Evelyn Hockstein Valge, John Baum Organizations: Kyiv, NATO, Business, Royal United Services Institute, Western, Getty, US Air Force, Storm, Marine, Center for Strategic, International Studies, Russian Defense Ministry Press, AP Russia, AP, Hudson Institute nonresident, International Institute for Strategic Studies, REUTERS, RAND Corp, Patriots, US Army, West, Patriot, Ukraine, REUTERS Lockheed, Finnish Defense Forces, Eurofighter Typhoons, Mitchell Institute Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Russian, AFP, Iraq, Europe, West, Afghanistan, Baltic, Western Europe, Estonian, Finnish, Finland, Washington

☆ I'm a professional declutterer. Here are 5 things from your bathroom you need to throw out.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-28 | by ( Julia Williamson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

As a professional decluttrer, here are five things I recommend you purge today. As for throwing things away, don't worry about waste; keeping something but not using it is the same as consigning it to the trash. AdvertisementSo much 'other' stuff ends up in the bathroomMany things find their way into the bathroom that are only tangentially connected to hygiene. Items like candles, toys, lint rollers, irons — all kinds of things find their way into the bathroom and refuse to leave. If you don't actually use it in the bathroom, there might be a better place to store it.

Persons: you've, bobby Organizations: Service, Business

☆ A new mantra for AI models: 'good enough' is good enough
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

In particular, it beat OpenAI's GPT 3.5, a model that was released two years earlier, an eternity in AI years. This new, leaner model will cost users only 35 cents per million tokens, compared with $7 per million for the Gemini 1.5 Pro model. But it remains to be seen if state-of-the-art is actually a good business model. said the founder and CEO of one seed-stage startup that's training new AI models, "but then, you know, as businesses, what you also want to do is what is good enough." As AI models get bigger and gobble up more money and computing resources, there are often diminishing returns in terms of performance.

Persons: —, Databricks, Ali Ghodsi, Ghodsi, Claude, it'll, Morgan Stanley, Martin Kon, Kon, OpenAI Organizations: Service, Business, Companies, Google, Gemini, Microsoft, Apple

☆ I got offers from Microsoft, Meta, and Google. Here's why I chose Google.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-27 | by ( Ana Altchek | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A recent tech grad received offers from Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Meta initially offered $210,700 in total compensation, but Google offered other appealing benefits. Right as I was about to accept my offer from Meta, Google let me know that they found a match for me. I would have chosen Google either wayIf Google didn't increase its total compensation offer, I would've had a really tough decision to make. Before college and working in tech, Google was a name that stood out to me.

Persons: —, FANG, Meta, would've Organizations: Google, Microsoft, Meta, Service, Facebook, Netflix

☆ Walter Massey, a Physicist With a Higher Calling
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-19 | by ( Katrina Miller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The day before Walter Massey turned 30, in 1968, the Rev. Dr. Massey, then a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, watched the funeral on television, in tears, from his apartment in Chicago. At the time, Dr. Massey was a rising star in the study of theoretical condensed matter, how liquids and solids behave. But Dr. Massey was also a Black man born and raised in the Jim Crow South. Dr. Massey thrust himself into supporting Black students at a time when colleges around the country were adjusting to court-ordered integration.

Persons: Walter Massey, Martin Luther King Jr, Massey, Lev Landau, Jim Crow, “, ”, “ I’d, King’s Organizations: National Laboratory, National Society of Black Physicists Locations: Memphis, Chicago, America, Argonne, I’d

☆ For Ytasha Womack, the Afrofuture Is Now
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-16 | by ( Katrina Miller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

And as with many things Afrofuturistic, Ytasha Womack’s fingerprints are all over it. (In 2023, Ms. Womack published “Black Panther: A Cultural Exploration,” Marvel’s reference book examining the films’ influences.) Afrofuturism is a way of thinking about the future, with alternate realities based on perspectives of the African diaspora. People have used imagination to transform their circumstances, to move from one reality to another. And so to claim your imagination — to embrace it — can be a way of elevating your consciousness.

Persons: Womack, “, Octavia Butler, Nyota Uhura, Janelle Monáe, Henrietta, “ Niyah Organizations: Adler, Carnegie Hall’s, National Museum of, Star, New York Times Locations: Chicago

☆ Opinion: What the AT&T outage reveals
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-23 | by ( Opinion Bob Kolasky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —The news Thursday morning of the AT&T service outage — affecting tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of customers — was yet another reminder of the importance of critical infrastructure resilience. By a few minutes after 3 pm ET, about 11 hours after customers’ initial reports of the outage, AT&T said it had restored service to all affected customers. For communications, it can be conceptualized in two different ways: What is the scope and scale of the service outage and what are the cascading consequences of the outage? In a connected world, a widespread communications outage can have a contagion effect. Infrastructure outage incidents can’t be addressed by stove-piping information.

Persons: Bob Kolasky, —, it’s Organizations: Infrastructure Security, Risk Management, CNN, Bob Kolasky Department of Homeland, Federal Communications Commission, White, Communications, AT, Rogers Communications, Chinese Communist Party, Telecommunications, Carnegie Endowment, International Peace Locations: Exiger, Canada, France, Paris, Puerto Rico, Southeast, Gulf

☆ Something in the universe is spewing surprising amounts of high-energy radiation, and astronomers don't know what or why
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The astronomers were mapping space's background glow of gamma rays, the brightest and most energetic type of light on the electromagnetic spectrum. They were surprised to find way more gamma rays coming from one part of the sky than anywhere else. AdvertisementAn artist's concept shows the entire sky in gamma rays, with the plane of our galaxy across the middle. Magenta circles indicate the area where astronomers found more high-energy gamma rays than average. Some unknown object or process out there in the universe may be producing both the gamma rays and the UHECRs.

Persons: —, Alexander Kashlinsky, NASA's, Swift, Cruz deWilde Kashlinsky, it's, Kashlinsky, Fernando Atrio, UHECRs, they're Organizations: Service, NASA, Business, University of Maryland, American Astronomical Society, NASA's Goddard Space, Fermi, Planck, ESA, University of Salamanca, JPL, Caltech Locations: New Orleans, UHECRs, Spain

☆ Tel Aviv bourse says no unusual trading ahead of Oct 7 Hamas attack
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-05 | by ( Steven Scheer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

JERUSALEM, Dec 5 (Reuters) - The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange said on Tuesday that a report by U.S. researchers suggesting there were investors in Israel who may have profited from prior knowledge of Hamas' Oct. 7 attack was inaccurate and its publication irresponsible. "There was nothing unusual in short positions in the stock exchange in the two months before the attack." "The ISA's examinations found, inter-alia, that the average short balances for shares traded on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange declined during the period preceding October 7th," the regulator said in a statement. Their report said "short interest in the MSCI Israel Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) suddenly, and significantly, spiked" on Oct. 2, based on data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). He also said the short position in Leumi was taken by an unidentified Israeli bank known to the TASE.

Persons: Robert Jackson Jr, Joshua Mitts, Yaniv Pagot, Pagot, Mitts, Steven Scheer, Mark Potter, Leslie Adler Organizations: Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, U.S, New York University, Columbia University, Hamas, Reuters, Israel Securities Authority, Tel, Aviv Stock Exchange, ISA, Leumi, MSCI Israel, Fund, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Thomson Locations: Israel, Leumi, Israel's, agorot, MSCI

CNN —The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to a team of scientists who created a ground-breaking technique using lasers to understand the extremely rapid movements of electrons, which were previously thought impossible to follow. “An attosecond is to one second as one second is to the age of the universe,” the committee explained. Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier shared this year's physics prize. Rapid movements blur together, making extremely short events impossible to observe. Electrons’ movements in atoms and molecules are so rapid that they are measured in attoseconds.

Persons: Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, Anne L’Huillier “, “, Bob Rosner, ”, Rosner, Anne L'Huillier, Max Planck, ” L’Huillier, Hans Ellegren, L’Huillier, Olle Eriksson, —, Michael Moloney, ” Moloney Organizations: CNN, American Physical Society, University of Chicago, Ohio State University, Max, Quantum Optics, National Academy of Sciences, Lund University, Max Planck, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Uppsala University, American Institute of Physics Locations: Stockholm, Sweden, Germany

☆ Climate tech startups Treefera, ReSeed, Vaulted Deep, and Skyqraft raised a combined $18.6 million this month. Check out the pitch decks they used to raise the funds.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-25 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Early-stage climate tech startups Treefera, ReSeed, Vaulted Deep, and Skyqraft have raised a collective $18.6 million in fresh funds this month. It can monitor tree health, carbon sequestration, and the likelihood of a forest fire or drought, which may put the project at risk, in "near-time." Check out the 21-slide redacted pitch deck they used to raise the funds below:ReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedReSeedCarbon sequestration company Vaulted Deep raised $8 millionVaulted Deep, a Texas-based carbon removal and sequestration company, raised an $8 million seed round from Chris Sacca's Lowercarbon Capital. Vaulted Deep already has two injection sites, where waste is injected deep into the Earth. Check out the 11-slide pitch deck below:Vaulted DeepVaulted DeepVaulted DeepVaulted DeepVaulted DeepVaulted DeepVaulted DeepVaulted DeepVaulted DeepVaulted DeepVaulted DeepSkyqraft raised $3.8 million to monitor energy infrastructureSkyqraft, a Stockholm-based startup hoping to improve the resilience of energy infrastructure, also secured $3.8 million earlier this month.

Persons: Morgan, Jonathan Horn, Caroline Grey, Greg Lavender, ReSeed, Baratunde Thurston, Chris Sacca's, Advantek, Louise Gauffin, Gauffin Organizations: Global, Concept Ventures, Twin Path Ventures, Ventures, Thorn Partners, Earthshot Ventures, E.ON, Subvenio, Neptunia Invest Locations: London, New York, The Pennsylvania, Texas, Stockholm

☆ Naomi Klein Explores Her Own and Your Doppelgänger - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Naomi Klein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

I sometimes wondered what I had done to deserve my doppelgänger woes. Doppelgängers, which combine the German words for doppel (double) with gänger (goer), are often regarded as warnings, or omens. In an attempt to better understand the warnings carried by my doppelgänger experience, I spent many evenings immersing myself in the rich repertory of doppelgänger films. Until the underground doppelgängers get tired of the arrangement and wreak havoc. Postulating that doppelgängers were tools to express sublimated desires and terrors, it was written in 1914, just as the First World War began.

Persons: Jordan Peele’s, “, ”, Otto Rank, Sigmund Freud, Postulating, Harry Tucker Jr Locations: Austrian

☆ Britain to host world's first AI safety summit at home of World War II codebreakers
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Bletchley Park is the home of the World War Two Codebreakers, who in 1941 helped break the secret code used by the German government to direct ground-to-air operations on the Eastern front. The U.K. government will host the world's first artificial intelligence safety summit in Bletchley Park, the home of the codebreakers who cracked the code that ended World War II. The renowned Bletchley Park building was the home of the World War II Codebreakers, who in 1941 helped break the secret Enigma Code used by the German government to direct ground-to-air operations on the Eastern front. The U.K. tech sector has been flagging of late, following drops in venture capital investment. The U.S. is by far the world leader when it comes to AI, with massive firms ploughing resources into the technology.

Persons: —, Rishi Sunak, OpenAI, Bard, Alan Turing, Turing, Sunak, Bejiing Organizations: Microsoft, Google, Baidu Locations: Bletchley, Bletchley Park, Britain, China, The U.S, EU

☆ A theoretical physicist says AI is just a ‘glorified tape recorder’ and people’s fears about it are overblown
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-14 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A theoretical physicist shut down the fears around AI saying it's just a "glorified tape recorder." Michio Kaku said chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT can't even distinguish true from false. An AI godfather also said that fears about AI threatening humanity are "preposterously ridiculous." A theoretical physicist shut down the hype around the dangers of AI saying chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT are just "glorified tape recorders." Yann LeCun, dubbed an AI "godfather" and Meta's chief AI scientist, shared similar sentiments with Kaku saying that fears about AI posing a threat to humanity are "preposterously ridiculous."

Persons: it's, Michio Kaku, CNN's Fareed Zakaria, Google Bard, Elon Musk, Yann LeCun, LeCun Organizations: City College of New, CUNY, Center, Google, BBC Locations: City College of New York, Paris

☆ Long after Oppenheimer, the US is still paying benefits to people who were exposed to radiation from nuclear tests
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( Jake Epstein | Chris Panella | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Decades after Oppenheimer, the US still pays benefits to people exposed to nuclear radiation. Civilians who contracted cancer or other diseases due to nuclear testing also receive benefits. Long after the creation and testing of that first nuclear weapon and the many more tests that followed, Washington is still paying benefits to veterans and civilians exposed to radiation from nuclear bomb tests and cleanups. It was over 40 years after the first nuclear test, codenamed "Trinity," before the risks and dangers were officially recognized. Jeff T. Green/Getty ImagesCurrent VA benefits related to nuclear radiation exposure include cleanups at the Marshall Islands and Palomares, Spain, from a 1966 US Air Force plutonium accident.

Persons: Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan's, Robert Oppenheimer, Bill Clinton's, Eileen Welsome's, Markey, Ken Brownell, Francis Lincoln Grahlfs, Brownell, Jeff T Organizations: Manhattan, Service, Los Alamos Laboratory, Trinity, Universal Pictures, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MPI, Manhattan Project, Marshall, Air Force, McMurdo, Manhattan Project's Trinity Locations: Marshall, Wall, Silicon, Nazi Germany, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Washington, Japan, Nevada, Hanford, Palomares, Spain, McMurdo Antarctica, Ukraine

☆ Peculiar dead white dwarf star has two faces
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-24 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Astronomers have made a first-of-its-kind discovery — a white dwarf star with two completely different faces. White dwarfs are burnt remains of dead stars. The newly discovered white dwarf has two sides, one made of hydrogen and the other made of helium. Researchers have nicknamed the star Janus, for the Roman god of transition, which has two faces. “We might have possibly caught one such white dwarf in the act.”As the white dwarf cools over time, the heavier and lighter materials may mix together.

Persons: Janus, ”, Ilaria Caiazzo, Caiazzo, Neil Gehrels, ” Caiazzo, “, K, Miller, James Fuller Organizations: CNN —, California Institute of Technology, Observatory, Gran, Canarias, Keck, Caltech Locations: Canary, Maunakea, Hawaii

☆ Who’s Who in ‘Oppenheimer’: A Guide to the Real People and Events
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-21 | by ( Christopher Kuo | More About Christopher Kuo | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The premise of “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s biopic, is straightforward: tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist known as the “father of the atomic bomb.” But, as with the director’s other movies, the execution is far from simple. Here’s a guide to help you keep track of the real-life characters and events of the movie. J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy)The American theoretical physicist (played by Cillian Murphy) spearheaded the development of the atomic bomb through the Manhattan Project. Born in New York City in 1904, Oppenheimer spent his undergraduate years at Harvard before moving to Cambridge, England, for graduate work in physics. After receiving his doctorate in physics at a German university, Oppenheimer accepted professorships at the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology, helping to pioneer work in an American school of theoretical physics.

Persons: “ Oppenheimer, ” Christopher Nolan’s, J, Robert Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer, Patrick Blackett Organizations: Manhattan, Harvard, University of California, California Institute of Technology Locations: American, New York City, Cambridge, England, Berkeley

☆ State treason trial of Russian physicist begins in St. Petersburg
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

June 1 (Reuters) - The criminal trial of a prominent Russian physicist accused of state treason opened in St Petersburg on Thursday amid tight secrecy and concerns over the health of the elderly defendant. The case, marked as "top secret", is closed to the media and public, the St Petersburg court has said. Maslov was a professor and researcher at the Khristianovich Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, one of Russia's top scientific centres. Soon afterwards, Maslov was sent to Lefortovo prison in Moscow, a former KGB interrogation site, before being transferred to St. Petersburg to stand trial. Russia's parliament voted in April to increase the maximum penalty for treason to life imprisonment from 20 years.

Persons: Anatoly Maslov, Maslov, Lucy Papachristou, Gareth Jones Organizations: Kremlin, Reuters, Khristianovich, of Theoretical, Mechanics, Thomson Locations: Russian, St Petersburg, Siberian, Novosibirsk, Petersburg, Maslov, Moscow, St, hypersonics, China

☆ Factbox: Who are the three Russian scientists accused of state treason?
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Lucy Papachristou | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

May 18 (Reuters) - Three Russian scientists who have worked on hypersonic missile technology face "very serious accusations" of state treason, the Kremlin says. Maslov was detained early in the morning of June 28 last year in Novosibirsk, according to an interview that his sons Nikolai and Alexei gave to local media. He declined to tell them anything about the possible reasons for his arrest, and they learned from his lawyer that he was being charged with state treason. Kommersant newspaper reported that Maslov was accused of divulging state secrets related to hypersonics, but provided no further details. Born in Siberia, he studied in the aircraft engineering department at Novosibirsk State Technical University.

☆ Russian scientists criticize arrest of hypersonic researchers in open letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Katharina Krebs | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —The arrest of three Russian scientists on suspicion of treason has been criticized by members of a Russian scientific institute, who warn the move has created a chilling effect in the community. The three Russian scientists, Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev, were detained by the country’s security services in the past year, according to the open letter published this week by members of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM). The letter appealed to Russian authorities to “protect Russian aerodynamic science,” and warned that staffers not understand how to “do their job” for fear of being accused. In these circumstances, it’s simply impossible for our institute to work,” the letter also said. On Tuesday, TASS also reported Zvegintsev, ITAM’s chief researcher, had been placed under house arrest, citing a statement published by the court.

☆ 3 scientists behind Putin's 'unstoppable' missiles were jailed for treason. Russian researchers say they are now living in fear.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Three Russian scientists involved in missile development have been arrested, according to reports. The scientists are accused of treason, a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison. The missiles they helped create are among the most prized weapons in the Russian military's arsenal. The arrest of Shiplyuk, director of the institute's Siberian branch, was reported by Russian state media last August, and Maslov, its chief researcher, last July. They say younger scientists are being deterred by the arrests from pursuing similar research.

In 2012, Maslov and Shiplyuk presented the results of an experiment on hypersonic missile design at a seminar in Tours, France. In 2016, all three were among the authors of a book chapter entitled "Hypersonic Short-Duration Facilities for Aerodynamic Research at ITAM, Russia". The cases showed that "any article or report can lead to accusations of high treason", the open letter said. It said such cases were having a chilling effect on young Russian scientists. Asked about the letter, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said: "We have indeed seen this appeal, but Russian special services are working on this.

☆ Wall Street aces its real-life stress test
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( John Foley | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

One flaw in this plan is that the Federal Reserve, which designs the stress test, has tended to assume that when bad times come, interest rates would fall, not rise. Because their clients also fear sudden shifts in interest rates, they call on fixed-income securities desks to help offlay the risk. One clear outcome of higher interest rates is that banks are lending less, and more carefully. Reuters Graphics Reuters GraphicsFollow @johnsfoley on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSLarge U.S. banks reported their first-quarter earnings between April 14 and April 19. Both said that trading revenue had declined from first quarter 2022, but it was substantially higher than the last three months of the year.

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