Published Friday, May 22, 2020 5:29PM EDTLast Updated Friday, May 22, 2020 8:24PM EDT
TORONTO — Mayor John Tory has laid out in the starkest terms so far what it would mean if the higher levels of government don’t come to the table with significant help for Toronto and Canada’s other financially devastated cities.
In a news conference Friday, the mayor laid out a bleak picture of a city that would have fewer subway lines, less frequent transit service, hundreds fewer police officers and less help for the city’s most vulnerable residents.
“I believe it is important for everyone, especially Toronto residents and residents of the GTA who rely on Toronto and stable local finances in their own cities, to know how terrible and devastating these cuts would be – like nothing we’ve ever seen if the other governments don’t decide to step forward and invest in the well-being of our cities,” Tory said.
DOD Awards $138 Million Contract, Enabling Prefilled Syringes for Future COVID-19 Vaccine
MAY 12, 2020
Statement attributed to Lt. Col. Mike Andrews, Department of Defense spokesman:
“Today the Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announce a $138 million contract with ApiJect Systems America for “Project Jumpstart” and “RAPID USA,” which together will dramatically expand U.S. production capability for domestically manufactured, medical-grade injection devices starting by October 2020.
VR and AR devices at 1/100 the cost and 1/10,000 the thickness in the works
Date:
May 20, 2020
Source:
Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH)
Summary:
Mechanical and chemical engineers have developed moldable nanomaterials and a printing technology using metamaterials, which allows for the commercialization of inexpensive and thin VR and AR devices.
Zombies or enemies flashing right before your eyes and the dizzying feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff using virtual reality and augmented reality (AR and VR) are no longer exclusive to the games or media industries. Those technologies allow us to conduct virtual conferences, share presentations and videos, and communicate in real time in the virtual space. But because of the high cost and bulkiness of VR and AR devices, the virtual world is not within easy reach.
Recently, a South Korean research team developed moldable nanomaterials and a printing technology using metamaterials, allowing the commercialization of inexpensive and thin VR and AR devices.
Nanotechnology has enabled the development of innovative technologies and productsfor several industrial sectors. Their unique physicochemical and size-dependentproperties make the engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) superior for devising solutionsfor various research and development sectors, which are otherwise unachievableby their bulk forms. However, the remarkable advantages mediated by ENMs andtheir applications have also raised concerns regarding their possible toxicologicalimpacts on human health. The actual issue stems from the absence of systematicdata on ENM exposure-mediated health hazards. In this direction, a comprehensiveexploration on the health-related consequences, especially with respect to endocrinedisruption-related metabolic disorders, is largely lacking. The reasons for the rapidincrease in diabetes and obesity in the modern world remain largely unclear, andepidemiological studies indicate that the increased presence of endocrine disruptingchemicals (EDCs) in the environment may influence the incidence of metabolicdiseases. Functional similarities, such as mimicking natural hormonal actions, havebeen observed between the endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and ENMs,which supports the view that different types of NMs may be capable of alteringthe physiological activity of the endocrine system. Disruption of the endocrinesystem leads to hormonal imbalance, which may influence the development andpathogenesis of metabolic disorders, particularly type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).Evidence from many in vitro, in vivo and epidemiological studies, suggests thatENMs generally exert deleterious effects on the molecular/hormonal pathways and theorgan systems involved in the pathogenesis of T2DM. However, the available datafrom several such studies are not congruent, especially because of discrepanciesin study design, and therefore need to be carefully examined before drawingmeaningful inferences. In this review, we discuss the outcomes of ENM exposure incorrelation with the development of T2DM. In particular, the review focuses on thefollowing sub-topics: (1) an overview of the sources of human exposure to NMs, (2)
systems involved in the uptake of ENMs into human body, (3) endocrine disruptingengineered nanomaterials (EDENMs) and mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of T2DM, (4) evidence of the role of EDENMs in the pathogenesis of T2DM from in vitro, in vivo and epidemiological studies, and (5) conclusions and perspectives.
Read full article here or: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2018.00704/full
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has announced plans to create a “hate crime” unit in order to track Michigan residents who disagree with the official government ideology, the Detroit News reports. The term “hate crime unit” is misleading, because the group’s purpose will not be solely to prosecute hate crimes, but also to create a database of people who do not submit to globohomo ideology.
New Zealand Police has recruited an unusual new officer to the force: an AI cop called Ella.
Ella is a life-like virtual assistant that uses real-time animation to emulate face-to-face interaction in an empathetic way.
Its first day of work will be next Monday, when Ella will be stationed in the lobby of the force’s national headquarters in Wellington. Its chief duties there will be welcoming visitors to the building, telling staff that they’ve arrived, and directing them to collect their passes. It can also talk to visitors about certain issues, such as the force’s non-emergency number and police vetting procedures.
Angela Tino, Alfredo Ambrosone, Valentina Marchesano, and Claudia Tortiglione
9.1Introduction
The dramatic expansion of nanotechnology and the widespread use of nanomate-rials in multitude fields, spanning from industrial food to manufacturing to elec-tronics, has prompted the need to investigate potential toxic effects due tounintentional release or contamination of the environment through powder/waterwaste-streams [1–4].
Moreover, the power of nano-based devices in biomedicalresearch and clinical practices for diagnosis and therapy also dictate adequate tox-icological evaluation, so that this technology can be used in a responsible andsustainable manner and with minimal risks for human health [5,6].A comprehensive toxicological evaluation of a single nanomaterial shouldinclude both the environmental impact and the effect on human health, whilethe evidence cumulated to date is snapshots of single interactions between ananomaterial and a definite target, that is, a cell line, a small animal or in a few cases of a few systems. Studies addressing ecotoxicological impact of nanomate-rials are generally not related to those addressing cytotoxicity of the same mate-rial on human cell lines, taking separately different aspects of a likely similarinteraction. The nanotoxicology research community needs not only standard-ized protocols for measuring biological response in vitro and in vivo, but also adatabase repository to collect large datasets from screening against different bio-systems, obtained by different laboratories [7]. From the analysis and compari-son of such results it would be possible to map network interactions and draw conclusions.
