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New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/watch-japans-nec-shows-flying-car-hovering-steadily-for-minute/

Watch: Japan’s NEC reveals ‘flying automobile’ hovering steadily for minute

ABIKO, Japan (AP) — Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp. on Monday confirmed a “flying car,” a big drone-like machine with 4 propellers that hovered steadily for a couple of minute.

The take a look at flight reaching 3 meters (10 ft) excessive was held in a big cage, as a security precaution, at an NEC facility in a Tokyo suburb. The preparations such because the repeated checks on the machine and warnings to reporters to put on helmets took up extra time than the 2 transient demonstrations.

The Japanese authorities is behind flying automobiles, with the objective of getting individuals zipping round in them by the 2030s.

Among the government-backed endeavors is a big take a look at course for flying automobiles that’s in-built an space devastated by the 2011 tsunami, quake and nuclear disasters in Fukushima in northeastern Japan. Mie, a prefecture in central Japan that’s incessantly used as a resort space by Hollywood celebrities, additionally hopes to make use of flying automobiles to attach its varied islands.

Similar tasks are popping up round world, akin to Uber Air of the U.S.

A flying automobile by Japanese startup Cartivator crashed rapidly in a 2017 demonstration. Cartivator Chief Executive Tomohiro Fukuzawa, who was at Monday’s demonstration, stated their machines have been additionally flying longer currently.

NEC is among the many greater than 80 sponsor corporations for Cartivator’s flying automobile, which additionally embrace Toyota Motor Corp. group corporations and online game firm Bandai Namco Holdings.

The objective is to ship a seamless transition from driving to flight just like the world of “Back to the Future,” though big hurdles stay akin to battery life, the necessity for laws and security considerations.

NEC officers stated their flying automobile was designed for unmanned flights for deliveries however utilized the corporate’s know-how in its different operations akin to house journey and cybersecurity.

Often referred to as EVtol, for “electric vertical takeoff and landing” plane, a flying automobile is outlined as an plane that’s electrical, or hybrid electrical, with driverless capabilities, that may land and takeoff vertically.

All of the flying automobile ideas, that are like drones sufficiently big to carry people, promise to be higher than helicopters. Helicopters are costly to keep up, noisy to fly and require educated pilots. Flying automobiles are also being touted as helpful for catastrophe reduction.

U.S. ride-sharing and transportation community Uber is planning demonstrator flights in 2020 and industrial operations in 2023, and has chosen Dallas, Los Angeles and Melbourne as the primary cities to supply what it calls Uber Air flights.

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/el-paso-massacre-puts-freshman-rep-escobar-in-consoler-role/

El Paso massacre puts freshman Rep. Escobar in consoler role

WASHINGTON (AP) — The document landed in Rep. Veronica Escobar’s email just hours after a gunman murdered 22 people in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart. It was a best-practices guide of sorts to a grim duty, titled “Shooting tragedy: Dealing with a crisis.”

Updated by members of Congress and their staffs and quietly passed around Capitol Hill for years, the how-to guidance was shared over the weekend with Escobar, a freshman Democrat and the latest member of a group of lawmakers charged with leading after mass shootings in their districts.

But as Escobar is learning, no guide to the logistics of crisis management is preparation enough for the sights and sounds of this specific kind of mayhem in one’s hometown. On Monday, two days after the massacre, Escobar’s voice wavered as she recounted the story of a man who got a phone call from his wife, one of the Walmart victims. She had been shot in the legs and could not find their daughter. Both survived, Escobar said.

“The one detail I keep hearing over and over again is: He did not see them as people,” she said of the shooter during a telephone interview. “They were not human beings to him.”

The shooting adds a new and more seasoned chapter to Escobar’s story. The 49-year-old mother of two and wife of an immigration judge spent two decades in local government before coming to Washington this year as part of the history-making class of Democratic freshmen. She’s the first Latina to represent her district and has been tapped by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as an authority on the painful debate over border security.

“She has earned the respect of all as a person who listens to other people, and to whom other people listen,” Pelosi told The Associated Press. “She brings extraordinary compassion and conviction to her work on behalf of El Pasoans, and the entire Congress has been moved by the grace and courage with which she is bringing healing to families torn apart by the horrific act of gun violence in her community and is fighting to finally, fully end this epidemic in America.”

The typically upbeat Escobar is a third-generation American who grew up on a dairy farm in El Paso, a major industrial city that was the jeans-making capital of the world in the 1970s and ’80s. She returned after graduate school at New York University to a hometown gutted by the North American Free Trade Agreement as many of those jobs moved across the border. Escobar was elected as a county commissioner in 2006 and a county judge four years later.

By then, a recovery had started when the drug war took off in neighboring Juarez, Mexico, and thousands of people moved across the border to El Paso. The city’s economy began recovering even faster than the rest of the country after the Great Recession. El Paso is now a largely Latino city of about 700,000 people. The weekend rampage claimed more lives than the number of murders in El Paso just two years ago.

Escobar resigned her post as county judge in 2017 to run for the seat held by Beto O’Rourke when he left to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. One bump on her journey came when some primary opponents complained that her husband, immigration judge Michael Pleters, had been appointed by President Donald Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and was charged with upholding the administration’s policies.

Escobar won the six-way primary with 61 percent of the vote, and the general election with nearly 67 percent.

Her heady ascent to the House came with the most diverse class of new members in history and she swiftly made a name for herself as a poised questioner of Trump administration officials on the Judiciary Committee. She favors an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s conduct, a decision she said she came to after reading special counsel Robert Mueller’s account of potential presidential obstruction of justice.

Long before then, Escobar took on Trump for his immigration policy and his denigration of Mexicans as rapists. In June 2018, she and O’Rourke led protests against Trump’s family separation policy.

And when Trump in his State of the Union address falsely attributed El Paso’s designation as a safe city to its border fencing, Escobar, seated on the House floor, looked exasperated and openly scoffed.

Now, she says she won’t attend Trump’s visit to the city on Wednesday unless she had “the opportunity to talk directly to him.”

What would she say? She sees a connection between the way the gunman saw his victims in Walmart and the language Trump uses to talk about immigrants as an infestation and an invasion.

She said she would tell the president: “I need you to acknowledge that you’ve dehumanized people who are good and equal to all of us. And you need to rehumanize everyone.”

For now, Escobar is spending the August break as a public consoler. She’ll be attending vigils, funeral services and making media appearances in the mold of other members of Congress before her, as aides take care of the details.

Rep. Elaine Luria, a fellow Democratic freshman from Virginia who represents the Virginia Beach area where a shooter on May 31 murdered 12 people, said she reached out to Escobar over the weekend with an offer to help — and a copy of the how-to guide on shepherding traumatized constituents through a tragedy, “updated with our experiences.”

In a series of texts, Luria gave Escobar advice: Get all representatives of all levels of government on-site to take care of the myriad tasks required. In Virginia Beach, a firefighter who spoke Russian helped Luria communicate with a victim whose family was trying to travel from Belarus.

“I told her a lot of it is just being there,” Luria said, recalling her exchange with Escobar. “I felt like my job was to give hugs.”

___

Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

___

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/shooting-shows-challenges-for-fbi-in-probing-domestic-terror/

Shooting shows challenges for FBI in probing domestic terror

WASHINGTON (AP) — Following two mass shootings over the weekend, President Donald Trump called on federal authorities Monday to do a better job identifying violent extremists in the U.S. But that won’t be easy.

Federal investigators looking to prevent acts of domestic terrorism, like the massacre of 22 people at a crowded shopping center in El Paso on Saturday, have fewer tools and legal powers at their disposal than they would if they were up against someone tied to an international organization such as the Islamic State or al-Qaida.

That challenge has revived questions about whether the FBI, which transformed itself after the Sept. 11 attacks to combat international terrorism and acquired broad new surveillance powers, is adequately positioned to confront a white nationalist threat responsible for some of the deadliest acts of violence in the last few years.

“I can go online and say whatever I want, but that doesn’t mean it’s sufficient for the FBI to open an investigation,” said David Gomez, a former FBI counterterrorism supervisor. “You need to combine the free speech with an overt act, and that overt act has to be something criminal in nature.”

The laws, as they exist, “are not designed around the FBI being able to prevent these actions,” Gomez said. “The laws are designed to respond to crimes already committed and then investigate them.”

Confronting domestic terrorism is an urgent issue for law enforcement at a time when white supremacists and like-minded extremists are causing more murders, including a rampage at a Pittsburgh synagogue that killed 11 last October, than Americans inspired by foreign groups. The FBI made about 90 domestic terrorism arrests in the first three quarters of the year and has hundreds of open cases.

Still, Trump said Monday, law enforcement “must do a better job of identifying and acting on early warning signs.”

“I am directing the Department of Justice to work in partnership with local, state and federal agencies, as well as social media companies, to develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike,” the president said.

That’s easier said than done, with part of the challenge arising from how federal law distinguishes between international terrorism and domestic terrorism.

Law enforcement officials conducting international terrorism investigations, for instance, can get a secret surveillance warrant to monitor the communications of a person they think may be the agent of a foreign power or terror group. Similarly, the U.S. criminal code makes it a crime for anyone to lend material support to designated foreign terror organizations, including the Islamic State and al-Qaida, even if the investigation doesn’t involve accusations of violence.

There’s no domestic counterpart to that material support statute, meaning federal prosecutors must rely on hate crimes laws, weapons charges and other approaches that may not carry the terrorism label. Mere membership in, or support for, a white supremacist organization is not illegal. And decades after accusations of surveillance abuses in the era of former Director J. Edgar Hoover, FBI officials consider themselves duty-bound to follow internal guidelines meant to respect free speech.

“Our domestic threat actors, particularly independent actors, are very, very hard to surveil the same way we would surveil a foreign terrorist organization because we’re constitutionally precluded from piercing” protected free speech, said Adam Lee, a former high-ranking FBI official who oversaw hate crimes investigations at the bureau and led the Richmond, Virginia, field office at the time of a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017.

Other obstacles include whether technology companies can adequately flag troublesome behavior in advance, and whether law enforcement can successfully separate out those bent on violence from those who simply mouth off about it.

The perpetrators of extremist attacks often act by themselves without any affiliation to a broader movement or organization, which can thwart efforts to identify them beforehand. To the extent they reveal their plans for violence, it is sometimes only minutes in advance and, even then, often to a narrow audience. An anti-Hispanic screed that authorities increasingly believe was written by the suspect in the El Paso shooting appeared on an online message board about 20 minutes before Saturday’s shooting.

“This is a totally disaggregated movement. There isn’t some type of terrorist cell that you can infiltrate with your agent and discover the big, bad guy behind it,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks violent extremism. “It’s just a more complex ecosystem.”

Beirich said she believes “our entire intelligence framework since 9/11 took its eye off the ball of white supremacy. The threat wasn’t identified as it was accelerating.”

Now, she said, the problem has become apparent to everyone.

____

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/californias-mega-fires-are-now-so-extreme-that-even-the-birds-that-need-wildfires-to-survive-cant-deal-with-them/

California's Mega Fires Are Now So Extreme That Even the Birds That Need Wildfires to Survive Can't Deal with Them

The wildfires which hit northern California have become “too extreme” even for the black-backed woodpecker which thrives in burned out forests, according to scientists.

The bird, which lives in the mountainous areas of the western U.S., favors recently burned trees where it can feast on the larvae of wood-boring beetles that inhabit dead wood.

Fire is a natural part of forest ecology in the western U.S., co-author Andrew Stillman at the University of Connecticut explained to Newsweek. But as megafires—large, severe wildfires spanning at least 10,000 hectares—are increasingly common in the U.S., scientists are trying to understand the ecological impact of these blazes, and predict whether they will become a natural part of forests or have unexpected negative effects on flora and fauna.

Over a period of eight years, researchers at the University of Connecticut, the Institute for Bird Populations and the U.S. Forest Service collected data on 118 nests in the parameters of six large wildfires in the Plumas and Lassen National Forests.

The woodpeckers were found to choose to nest in sites closer to the edges of “high severity” burn patches, where all or nearly all of the trees died in a fire, according to the authors of the study published in the journal The Condor: Ornithological Applications.

The Rim Fire in the Stanislaus National Forest near in California in August 2013. Mike McMillan/Getty

“The finding that the woodpeckers in our study tended to select nest sites closer to the edges of high severity burn patches provides added evidence that pyrodiversity [or having a range in the age, size and severity of burned patches in trees] benefits this species,” said Stillman.

The team thought the megafires might benefit the woodpecker, as the animals are linked with high severity areas where there are a lot of dead trees ready for nesting opportunities, Stillman said.

“However, it seems that the landscapes created by extra large, intense mega-fires are too extreme,” he argued. “Even fire-associated species need variation in habitat and access to both live and dead trees.”

“However, our research also demonstrates that areas which burned at a mix of different severities (considered ‘natural fires’) can have numerous benefits to wildlife,” Stillman said.

As mega-fires become the “new norm” in some western U.S. forests, the team predicts there will be less and less pyrodiversity, and more threats to forest wildlife.

To conduct their study on the “elusive” species, Stillman and colleagues from The Institute for Bird Populations and the U.S. Forest Service, had to overcome a number of challenges.

A black-backed woodpecker visits its nest in a burned tree trunk. Jean Hall

“We drove endless networks of unmaintained roads, battled up steep slopes, and hiked up to 10 miles off-trail each day. In three years of research alone, my crew and I had to change 19 flat tires,” Stillman said.

The researchers acknowledged the study was limited because their work was on 118 nests in one region. Next, the team hopes to look at other regions in the western U.S. and forest fires with different characteristics.

Asked if climate change is partly to blame for the new intensity of the wildfires, Stillman said it is “one of a myriad of factors that are contributing to the concerning trends we see in wildfire size and severity.”

Prolonged droughts, increase in spring and summer temperatures, snow melting earlier, changing rain patterns, and a history of fire suppression contribute to the trend, he added.

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/obama-americans-must-not-let-racist-views-become-normalized/

Obama: Americans must not let racist views become normalized

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Barack Obama said Monday, in his first public statement since a pair of mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, that Americans must “soundly reject language” from any leader who “feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments.”

The statement , which did not mention President Donald Trump directly, also reminded Americans that “we are not helpless” in the face of the nation’s high frequency of mass shootings compared to other countries.

“And until all of us stand up and insist on holding public officials accountable for changing our gun laws, these tragedies will keep happening,” Obama wrote.

A shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday killed 22 people, and a second shooting outside a crowded bar in Dayton, Ohio, early Sunday killed nine people. The suspect in the El Paso massacre posted a racist, anti-immigrant screed shortly before the attack, investigators say. The motive of the Dayton shooter, who died in the attack, isn’t yet clear.

Obama, like many presidents before him, has exerted caution as he avoids pointed criticism of his successor. But his Monday comments left little doubt that his urging to reject the normalization of racism referred to Trump — who has spoken disparagingly about immigrants, calling them rapists and murderers, and has decried an “invasion” at the southern border. Trump has previously tempered his criticism of white supremacy, though he said in scripted remarks to the nation earlier Monday that the nation “must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.” He also said he had directed the FBI to examine steps to identify and address domestic terrorism.

The former president noted that the El Paso shooting followed a trend of “troubled individuals who embrace ideologies and see themselves obligated to act violently to preserve white supremacy.” Obama advised Americans to also denounce the language of “leaders who demonize those who don’t look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human.”

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/us-treasury-department-labels-china-a-currency-manipulator/

US Treasury Department labels China a currency manipulator

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Department labeled China a currency manipulator Monday after Beijing pushed down the value of its yuan in a dramatic escalation of the trade conflict between the world’s two biggest economies.

The decision, which came hours after President Donald Trump accused China of unfairly devaluing its currency, marks a reversal for Treasury: In May, it had declined to sanction China for manipulating its currency.

The U.S. had not put China on the currency blacklist since 1994.

The designation could pave the way for more U.S. sanctions against China.

Earlier Monday, China had allowed its currency to weaken to an 11-year low, a move that gives its exporters a price edge in world markets and eases some of the damage from U.S. tariffs on Chinese products.

Trump had gone on Twitter to denounce China’s move as “currency manipulation.” He added, “This is a major violation which will greatly weaken China over time.”

In a statement, Treasury said it would work with the International Monetary Fund “to eliminate the unfair competitive advantage created by China’s latest actions.”

The move was unexpected.

“This is an extraordinary action of hostility against a major trading partner, with little economic basis and again driven mostly by presidential whims,” said Cornell University economist Eswar Prasad, former head of the China division at the International Monetary Fund. “The timing and apparent logic for Treasury’s designation of China as a currency manipulator reeks of arbitrariness and retaliation, and will inflict further damage on an already wounded relationship between China and the U.S.”

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had accused China of manipulating its currency to gain trade advantages against the United States and had promised to brand China a currency manipulator as soon as he took office.

However, Trump’s Treasury Department, which issues a report on currency manipulation every six months, has issued five reports since Trump took office, the most recent in May, in which Treasury said China did not meet the criteria to be labeled a currency manipulator.

The Treasury announcement, which came late Monday after the U.S. stock market had suffered its worst day this year, provided few details on the reasons for the abrupt change.

The statement did say that China’s explanations for its recent currency moves were implausible and “confirm that the purpose of China’s currency devaluation is to gain unfair competitive advantage in international trade.”

China’s central bank sets the exchange rate each morning and allows the yuan to fluctuate by 2% against the dollar during the day. The central bank can buy or sell currency — or order commercial banks to do so — to dampen price movements.

Because the Chinese government sets the exchange rate, said Joseph Gagnon, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Trump administration views China’s currency policy this way: “Any move is a move they want. Therefore, a move down is a manipulation.”

China’s central bank blamed the yuan’s drop on “trade protectionism” — an apparent reference to Trump’s threat last Thursday to impose tariffs Sept. 1 on the $300 billion in Chinese imports to the United States in addition to the $250 billion he’s already targeted.

For more than a year, the U.S. and China have been locked in a trade war over allegations that Beijing steals trade secrets and pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.

___

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/goldberg-returns-to-take-on-dolph-ziggler-at-summerslam/

Goldberg Returns to Take on Dolph Ziggler at SummerSlam

One scheduled match for this year’s SummerSlam has changed dramatically. WWE Hall of Famer Goldberg returned in the final segment of Monday Night RAW to become Dolph Ziggler’s opponent on Sunday instead of The Miz.

The August 5 episode of Monday Night RAW ended with a segment of Miz TV, which acted as the stage for Miz and Dolph’s contract signing. For weeks, Miz and Dolph have argued on RAW and SmackDown over how Ziggler has become someone who believes the world owes him everything.

Dolph would arrive for the signing, giving his usual speech before signing the contract. Miz states that he looks forward to facing Dolph at Monday Night RAW next week, which confuses Ziggler. Miz tells Dolph he should have read the contract before signing because he’s not his opponent at SummerSlam. Dolph looks at Shawn Michaels, who was present during the segment, thinking it to be him but the “heartbreak kid” tells Ziggler it’s not. That’s when Goldberg’s music hits.

Check out Goldberg’s return to take on Dolph Ziggler below.

Guess what, @HEELZiggler… YOU’RE NEXT!@Goldberg RETURNS to the ring THIS SUNDAY at #SummerSlam! #RAW pic.twitter.com/0lFlEW2M19

— WWE (@WWE) August 6, 2019

WWE

The road to Dolph vs Goldberg began after Ziggler’s loss to Kevin Owens in less than a minute at Extreme Rules. Ziggler would get into a heated confrontation with The Miz on Monday Night RAW about his place in the company, looking to start a fight. The feud between the two long-time rivals would ramp up when Shawn Michaels was a guest a couple of weeks ago on SmackDown Live. During the segment, Ziggler would end up hitting Shawn Michaels with the Sweet Chin Music.

For weeks leading up to that point, and after, Dolph would besmirch the WWE Legends especially Goldberg – who he would bring up each time he spoke. Ziggler’s favorite mention of Goldberg was when he had his match against The Undertaker at Super Showdown in Saudi Arabia, back in June.

In that match, Goldberg would become concussed after spearing his head into the post. This accident would lead to he and Undertaker taking dangerous bumps.

Afterwards, Goldberg would take to Twitter to acknowledge what happened.

Knocked myself out and thought I could finish…. love my fans…..but let u down. Everyone else that found “pleasure†….. hope ur happy

— Bill Goldberg (@Goldberg) June 7, 2019

Goldberg and Dolph’s match is one of eight confirmed bouts at this year’s SummerSlam. It joins Kofi Kingston vs Randy Orton, Seth Rollins vs Brock Lesnar, AJ Styles vs Ricochet, Finn Balor vs The Fiend, Becky Lynch vs Natalya, Charlotte Flair vs Trish Stratus, Bayley vs Ember Moon, and Kevin Owens vs Shane McMahon.

SummerSlam takes place Sunday, August 11 on the WWE Network.

What do you think of Goldberg vs Dolph Ziggler? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/texas-mlb-team-to-investigate-claim-of-harassment-toward-hispanic-families-on-same-day-of-el-paso-massacre/

Texas MLB Team To Investigate Claim of Harassment Toward Hispanic Families on Same Day of El Paso Massacre

The Texas Rangers baseball club announced Monday it will investigate a claim that Hispanic families were harassed at Globe Life Park in Arlington last Saturday, the same day a massacre against Hispanics took place in the Lone Star State.

The Dallas Morning News reported Monday night that the Texas Rangers club was looking into an allegation made by someone at a Saturday game in the ballpark. A Facebook post by Jessica Romero states a man was upset with Hispanic families sitting both in front of him and behind him.

“He made it perfectly clear during the second inning that he is not a fan of Hispanics,” Romero said in her post. “And he just so happened to have a Hispanic family [us] sitting in front of him and another one sitting directly behind him. During the second inning the little boy behind him who looked to be about Nomar’s [her son] age kicked the back of his chair. And for the next three innings I had to hear him complain about all the illegal immigrants that were surrounding him at the game. That he should kick little Speedy Gonzalez all the way back to Mexico for kicking his seat. That Trump needs to hurry and build the wall and send all these illegals back so they won’t be kicking his seat.”

A general view as the Detroit Tigers play the Texas Rangers during the fourth inning at Globe Life Park in Arlington on August 4, 2019 in Arlington, Texas. The Rangers won 9-4. Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

The post had more than 47,000 views at the time of the report.

“We left during the 5th inning,” Romero wrote. “Sadly this is not the first or the last time we will ever experience this kind of racism.”

The Texas Rangers and The Dallas Morning News had both reached out to Romero for further comment, according to longtime Rangers reporter Evan Grant in the report.

“The Rangers are committed to providing all of our guests with a safe and enjoyable experience and we are truly sorry that this family was subjected to this offensive behavior at Saturday’s game,” the Rangers said in a statement. “There is no place at Globe Life Park in Arlington for this type of conduct to occur. After learning of this incident on Sunday, we have reached out to the Romero family and pledge to make their next trip to Globe Life Park a memorable and enjoyable experience.”

The incident happened the same day as a mass shooting casualty in El Paso — some 600 miles away but in the same state. The alleged shooter is from the Dallas-area town of Allen.

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/bill-belichick-received-multiple-shoutouts-including-an-unexpected-one-during-2019-pro-football-hall-of-fame-enshrinement-ceremony/

Bill Belichick received multiple shoutouts, including an unexpected one, during 2019 Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony

Patriots coach Bill Belichick was a popular mention Saturday evening at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. 

Several new inductees acknowledged Belichick during this year’s enshrinement ceremony, shouting out the Super Bowl champion for his impact on their respective careers. 

Some of the appreciation was expected. 

In the first speech of the evening, retired Dallas Cowboys executive Gil Brandt, who was friends with Belichick’s late father Steve, recalled meeting Belichick when he was just 12 years old. 

“He would run routes on the practice field for quarterback Roger Staubach during my scouting visits to Annapolis in the early ’60s,” Brandt said. “How was I to know that little boy that loved football so much would be a six-time Super Bowl champion named Bill Belichick, who finds his name listed among the best to ever coach the game and has been a great friend over the past half-century.”

Later in the night, former Patriots cornerback Ty Law called Belichick “the GOAT” and thanked the 67-year-old for showing him how to be “a true professional.” 

“Thank you for believing in me,” said Law, who played 10 seasons in New England. “Thank you for not trying to change who I was. You gave me the opportunity to try my way first, but you always reminded me if I messed up, we’re going back to do it your way. But the only thing is he didn’t say messed up — I know we’re on TV — he said a couple of other words.” 

It appears Belichick’s impact extended to other players across the league as well. 

Former NFL center Kevin Mawae, too, thanked him for making him a “better player.” 

“I never felt more challenged mentally in a game than when I faced your teams,” Mawae said. “I came to love the puzzle, I figured out your defense in the chess match those games became. I didn’t win all of them; in fact, my teams lost most of them. I think we were 4-13 against you.

“That sucks. That was awful. [I] still hate the Patriots; everyone hates the winners. But holding your defense to zero sacks or having big rushing games came with a great sense of accomplishment.” 

The most surprising — and perhaps unintentional — nod, however, came from former Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed. While listing members of the Ravens organization, Reed seemingly flubbed and referred to former coach Brian Billick as “Coach Belichick.” 

“I would like to thank that organization, [owner] Steve Bisciotti, [former general manager] Ozzie Newsome; Coach Belichick, his staff; Coach [Jim Harbough], his staff,” Reed said. 

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/take-your-pick-roots-of-this-red-sox-debacle-go-deep-wide/

Take your pick: Roots of this Red Sox debacle go deep, wide

COMMENTARY

It is now twice as likely that the New York Mets will make the 2019 playoffs as the Boston Red Sox. Take a look. Baseball Prospectus, same thing. One player, or even one aspect of a club, does not create that reality. That takes a village.

Remember that, as we spend the next weeks and months channeling our younger selves and divvying up the blame pie after a lost season. I’m not so much worried about the relative size of the pieces as making sure everyone gets their rightful slice.

They screwed this thing up, soup to nuts. From John Henry to Trevor Kelley.

“We have a very good team, 1 through 25,” said David Price on Sunday night, hours after his 2 2/3-inning cameo ended with seven straight Yankees reaching base — a walk plus six hits, four for extra bases. “It’s just that some of us haven’t had good seasons to this point.”

So much so, the Sox might literally have been better off Sunday if Price spent another day working on the nursery and Alex Cora gave the ball to Ryan Weber.

Look, baseball is inherently weird, and Kansas City (40-73) comes to Fenway on Monday. They too were just swept in back-to-back series — Toronto and Minnesota, in their case — and have lost 9 of 10. It’s about the softest landing pad a foundering team could ask for.

The Rays, now 6.5 clear of Boston in the second wild-card chase after winning six straight, host the Jays before traveling out west. Who knows what lurks therein? Alex Rodriguez wasn’t wrong on Sunday’s ESPN broadcast when he noted the defending champions have two more months to get right.

That he said it right before Gio Urshela obliterated a Price changeup 437 feet seemed pretty symbolic, though.

“There’s no doubt in my mind these guys can turn it around,” said Cora on Sunday, a long way removed from popping off at the doubters last October.

Or, better yet, that January night at the Boston Baseball Writers dinner. You remember that one, right? In suit and tie, between team president Sam Kennedy and architect Dave Dombrowski:

“Somebody might write this, I don’t care. If you guys thought last year was special, wait till this year.”

That same night at the annual Sox winter celebration, team owner Henry told reporters the same thing I noted the other day he’d said in London: “You look at what your needs are. We do have [financial] constraints; every team has constraints. It’s not necessarily the [luxury tax] that is your constraint.

Buy Tickets

“It’s how much money you’re willing to lose.”

I didn’t notice, and I bet you didn’t either. Title afterglow. Bad on us. Whether a belief in the bullpen led to feelings that adding a reliever wasn’t a need worth the tax, or the other way around, it’s the proverbial Patient Zero of the epidemic that’s wiped out this title defense.

Because that begat replacing the 128 regular-season relief innings, 136 appearances, and 65 high-leverage spots of Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel last season with a “full belief” in Matt Barnes, Ryan Brasier, and whichever of the slew of low-cost options became the next Brasier. (Oh, and when they were ready, Tyler Thornburg and Steven Wright.)

“We’ve got stuff in the bullpen,” Cora said in mid-February. “We’ve got guys who can step up. We’ve got to put them in the best spots possible, and that’s on me.”

It was on the starting rotation, they of the oft-mentioned $88 million in salary obligations and the 1-2-3 in Cy Young voting potential. Plus, that didn’t even include Eduardo Rodriguez, a major breakout candidate. Price, Chris Sale, and Rick Porcello would carry the weight, and the rest would fall into place around them.

“We do believe,” Cora said at camp, “we’re going to do it.”

Porcello has a 7.17 ERA in his last 11 starts, a span which actually includes seven shutout innings at Central-leading Minnesota. (He started July 4-0 despite allowing a .330 batting average against because the Red Sox scored him 56 runs.) On Wednesday, he gave up three home runs.

Sale had a chance to extend a five-game winning streak last Sunday at home, retired seven straight to open the game, then gave up six runs before not finishing the fifth. He had a chance to stop a five-game losing streak on Saturday, got unquestionably squeezed on a potential strike three in the fourth inning, then gave up hits to six of his final seven batters. Sale’s only allowing a .218/.283/.391 line since the start of May, but his walk rate is still up 20 percent for the year and his ERA (4.68) is a run and a quarter higher than in any of his prior eight seasons.

Price has thrown seven innings once, and it was his third start of the year against Baltimore. In 10 of his 21 starts, he’s gone five innings or fewer. In his last four, with the need for big performances growing more desperate, he has a 10.59 ERA than has raised his season number from 3.16 to 4.36, which would be his worst since his first full MLB season in 2009.

“Communication, connection, preparation, and execution,” Cora has preached since he came to Boston. Hard to question the first two, especially from the outside.

Easier to question the third.

Impossible not to question the fourth, if not stare skyward and question whether there are Baseball Gods demanding tribute for Cora’s brashness.

The Red Sox will not catch a Yankees team that relied on Mike Tauchman, Kyle Higashioka, Breyvic Valera, and Mike Ford this weekend. (They went 9 for 27 in the sweep.) They’ll be lucky to catch a Rays team getting collectively paid less than Boston’s rotation, and which has gotten just 101 innings of 4.28 ERA from its Cy Young winner Blake Snell. Two of Cleveland, Minnesota, Oakland … they figure to be watching them all.

They brought the vast majority of the band back from a 119-win season. They had so tranquil a spring, even hive-kicker Dan Shaughnessy couldn’t stir it up. They figured, reasonably, that their talent would keep them afloat early and they could supplement on the fly. They couldn’t have imagined the injuries the Yankees would have to endure. Had we known, the Red Sox would’ve been everybody’s pick again in the AL East.

Instead, they’ll be lucky avoid their fate in 2014, when the defending champs receded 26 wins from the overachieving Boston Strong bunch in 2013. That coming two years after Bobby Valentine’s team won 21 fewer in 2012 than 2011.

Imagine that. The Red Sox franchise could have three 20-win dropoffs in eight seasons, tucked around four division titles and a pair of world championships. Talk about adversity, though Cora’s nowhere near reaching for the white flag.

“We’re going to go home. That Green Monster is going to remind us where we are,” Cora said Sunday night. “There’s no hiding. We know we’re talented and we can do it.”

He knows no other way, not with two seasons of MLB coaching experience and two World Series rings. He’s never been on the staff of a team without transcendent talent.

Which makes that transcendent talent’s rollover this week all the tougher to take. Last 14 out of 15 Sox retired in order in Friday’s loss. Last 15 retired in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader. Last 10 of 11 on Sunday.

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/trump-owes-nearly-500000-to-el-paso-for-maga-rally-says-he-will-visit-city-after-massacre/

Trump Owes Nearly $500,000 to El Paso for MAGA Rally, Says He WIll Visit City After Massacre

President Donald Trump said Saturday after the deadly mass shooting massacre in El Paso, Texas, that he pledged support of the federal government to the west Texas town.

However, that might not include the nearly half million dollars he racked up for a rally in El Paso back during February — including late fees.

According to multiple news outlets in the Lone Star State, the president sill owes the city of El Paso more than $470,000 for transportation and security services for his Make America Great Again (MAGA) campaign on Feb. 11 this year.

Tacked on to that are late fees, which bring the bill to more than $500,000. Here is the list of fees charged to the Trump campaign rally.

“The city staff have followed the process and procedures as it relates to any invoicing that we provide, and we will continue to do so accordingly as per city and state policies,” said Laura Cruz-Acosta, communications director for the city of El Paso.

The city sent the Trump campaign invoices for six months, saying the campaign had an outstanding invoice for city services like police protection, fire department, aviation, buses and the health department, according to KSAT.

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally at the El Paso County Coliseum on February 11, 2019 in El Paso, Texas. Trump continues his campaign for a wall to be built along the border as the Democrats in Congress are asking for other border security measures. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

“We are contacting you regarding the past due invoice(s) listed above,” a letter from the city to Trump’s campaign reads. “We realize this may been an oversight on your part; however, your account with the city of El Paso is extremely past due.

“Your obligation to pay the invoice listed will remain on the City’s books indefinitely until the debt is paid in full. Furthermore, the City may choose to not enter into a contract with an individual that is indebted to the City for more than $100.00.”

El Paso Councilwoman Alexsandra Annello said in June that the half-million dollars puts an extra burden on the city and its tax-paying citizens.

“It shows a lack of concern for the community and the tax paying voters of El Paso,” Annello said. “President Trump has in many ways, over the last year, put a financial burden on this community and has yet to show us the respect we deserve. It is clear that our borderland is not a priority of the president.”

Annello said her city’s resources are already stretched thin, and that payment for resources rendered would greatly help.

“Our resources are really strained right now,” Annello said in the Texas Tribune. “Our police and fire are exhausted, our health department had for three days straight been working with the reunification of families. As you see from the bill, these are the services required for a presidential visit. In addition to financial costs, our community and resources are already strained and do not need this extra burden.”

Considering late fees, the Trump 2020 Campaign now owes nearly $570,000 to the City of El Paso, according to the Texas Tribune.

El Paso says Donald Trump still owes $569,204 for his February rally. https://t.co/K1qjZcSVfN

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) August 5, 2019

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Bulletproof Backpack Sales Soar After Deadly Mass Shootings, But Are They Worth It?

Deadly mass shootings over the weekend have led to a heavy increase in sales for bulletproof backpacks as the start of school nears for most of America’s children.

A Texas company that sells survival gear, including bulletproof backpacks, said its orders skyrocketed over the weekend after the deadly mass shootings occurred in both El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.

Roman Zrazhevskiy of ReadyToGoSurvival.com told the Houston Chronicle that orders over the weekend were more than just unusually high.

“Our baseline is 100 units a month,” Zrazhevskiy said. “We sold 300 units just over the last few days.”

Zrazhevskiy said those who are now purchasing bulletproof backpacks are not necessarily survivalists, but rather everyday ordinary people wanting to add an extra safety measure for their children in the case of a shooting scenario.

“They’re not survivalists at all,” said Zrazhevskiy, who added that most of his orders come from California, Florida and New York. “They are normal upper middle-class, and upper-class professionals.”

Though bulletproof backpacks may seem like one way of safeguarding students, they’re not guaranteed total protection, they might not be allowed in many schools and they are not cheap.

Chief Operating Officer for Amendment II, Rich Brand, shoots a child’s backpack with their Rynohide CNT Shield in it on December 21, 2012 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Their orders for the bulletproof shield have gone up dramatically since the school shooting in Connecticut last week. Photo by George Frey/Getty Images

Should a shooting scenario go down, the backpack could protect approximately 25 percent of the body. Because of mass shootings, many schools around the country only allow clear and see-through backpacks for security purposes, and bulletproof backpacks can cost into the hundreds of dollars. Oh, the backpacks might not have the ballistic testing one might expect.

Bulletproof backpacks can be bought in several places from Academy to Amazon.com, home and office supply stores, and other sports outlets and survivalists retailers.

Kelly Laco, a Justice Department spokeswoman who spoke on behalf of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), says products like bulletproof backpacks might not have gone through the same testing as equipment and armor for law enforcement and military.

“The National Institute of Justice — the research, development and evaluation agency of the Department of Justice — has never tested nor certified ballistic items, such as backpacks, blankets or briefcases, other than body armor for law enforcement,” Laco said. “Marketing that claims NIJ testing or certification for such products is false.”

The description of this “bulletproof backpack” states it is “built with lightweight armor throughout the interior, this backpack can be worn to protect you against bullets coming from behind. You can also take the backpack off and use it to shield your face or head whenever you feel that a greater level of protection is needed.”

Oh, it also has a built-in audio port for hands-free music.

The first of two deadly mass shootings happened Saturday (Aug. 3, 2019) at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, when a gunman identified as Patrick Crusius, 21, opened fire and killed 22 people and injuring more.

A second massacre went down roughly 13 hours later in Dayton, Ohio, when a masked gunman identified as Connor Betts shot and killed nine people during a 30-second span in a popular downtown nightlife area.

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/wwe-monday-night-raw-results-will-seth-rollins-and-brock-lesnar-meet-before-their-summerslam-match/

WWE Monday Night RAW Results: Will Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar Meet Before Their SummerSlam Match?

It’s the final Monday Night RAW before SummerSlam this Sunday, and WWE will look to push current feuds further before the “biggest party of the summer.”

According to the official Monday Night RAW preview, Universal Champion Brock Lesnar will appear on the go-home show. After Lesnar’s beatdown of Seth Rollins last week, it’s unclear whether “The Architect” will also show up on RAW before his rematch with Lesnar on Sunday. Fans can expect Lesnar and his advocate, Paul Heyman, showing up to drop a promo criticizing Rollins’ misplaced confidence. But after the brutal attack on Rollins last week, it’ll be shocking to see Seth return for one last staredown before SummerSlam.

One of the oddest moments from WWE television last week was the forklift accident at the end of SmackDown Live that almost hurt Roman Reigns. While Reigns left unscathed, the WWE Superstar was visibly shaken by the event. Roman was set to announce a challenge for SummerSlam, but his attacker could show up on Monday Night RAW tonight.

Becky Lynch remains the top champion of the RAW Women’s Division and her match against Natalya at SummerSlam has turned into a Submission match. While the two will pit the Sharpshooter against the Dis-Arm-Her, how will the feud escalate heading into Sunday’s bout?

The OC – AJ Styles, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows – hold the RAW Tag Team and US Championships heading into SummerSlam. While Styles will take on Ricochet for the US Title on Sunday, will a team challenge Anderson and Gallows for the RAW tag straps? The duo just won the titles last week, so The Revival, The Usos or both could look to regain the championships.

And finally, the history of the 24/7 Championship got a lot more interesting when Maria Kannellis became the first WWE pregnant champion after pinning her husband, Mike. Now that she’s lauding the 24/7 Championship over the locker room it’ll be interesting to see where this saga goes.

Here’s everything that happened on the August 5 episode of Monday Night RAW.

WWE

MONDAY NIGHT RAW RESULTS

Show starts with a moment of silence for the victims of the El Paso and Dayton attacks over the weekend.

Opening Segment

During the new RAW opening, Samoa Joe gets on the mic and interrupts it. He gets in front of the commentary team and says he’s tired of people saying he’s the one who tried to harm Roman Reigns on SmackDown Live last week.

Joe demands to look at the footage to see if he was anywhere near there. After not seeing anything that can show he’s the one behind it, Samoa Joe says that when Roman Reigns arrives tonight he’s going to get in the ring and wait for an apology. He’s interrupted by Becky Lynch’s music.

#Raw is about to get SHUT DOWN until @SamoaJoe gets the apology he deserves from @WWERomanReigns… pic.twitter.com/YgUajnfNS5

— WWE (@WWE) August 6, 2019

Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair vs Natalya and Trish Stratus

Lynch and Charlotte wins via disqualification

Natalya put Lynch in the Sharpshooter and wouldn’t let go even after Becky got to the ropes, forcing the referee to call for the bell.

Charlotte Flair hit Lynch in the back after Becky tagged herself in. This led to Nattie hitting the Sharpshooter and Flair left the match.

After the bell, Trish Stratus (who didn’t get involved in the match at all) pulled Nattie off of Becky and Natalya pushed Stratus before leaving.

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/j-d-martinez-scratched-with-back-tightness/

J.D. Martinez scratched with back tightness

BOSTON (AP) — Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez has been scratched from Monday night’s lineup due to back tightness.

Boston manager Alex Cora told the media about two hours before the Red Sox were slated to host the Kansas City Royals at Fenway Park.

“It’s been acting up, a little bit tight,” Cora said. “This morning he felt it, got treatment, so we’re going to stay away from him.”

The Red Sox enter the game on an eight-game losing streak, their longest since they dropped eight in a row in July of 2015. Their next longest is 10 straight, done in May of 2014.

The defending World Series champions are also 6 ½ games out of a playoff spot and trail the AL East-leading Yankees by 14 ½ games after getting swept in a four-game series over the weekend against their rivals in New York.

With Martinez, the club’s usual cleanup hitter out, Christian Vázquez was moved into the DH spot and will bat sixth. Andrew Benintendi was slotted fourth in the order.

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/youtube-ceo-addresses-lgbtq-communitys-ongoing-demonetization-concerns/

YouTube CEO addresses LGBTQ community’s ongoing demonetization concerns

Members of YouTube’s LGBTQ community have raised concerns about their videos being demonetized seemingly because they fall under queer categories, but CEO Susan Wojcicki says that’s not the case.

Demonetization and poor recommendation of LGBTQ content are two areas that Wojcicki spoke about at length with popular vlogger Alfie Deyes in a recent interview. Wojcicki said that YouTube does “not automatically demonetize LGBTQ content” and that YouTube’s monetization system, which determines whether a video is appropriate for ads, and its recommendation systems, which promote videos across the platform, operate independently. It’s set up that way to ensure that the “systems are fair,” she said.

“There’s no policies that say ‘If you put certain words in a title that will be demonetized.’” Wojcicki told Deyes. “We work incredibly hard to make sure that when our machines learn something — because a lot of our decisions are made algorithmically — that our machines are fair. There shouldn’t be [any automatic demonetization].”

Questions about the treatment of LGBTQ creators’ videos on the platform have been around for years. Creators like Rowan Ellis, Tyler Oakley, and Stevie Boebi vocalized their concerns and frustrations with YouTube seemingly hiding their videos and demonetizing their content in 2017. Then in June 2018, trans creator Chase Ross accused YouTube of age-gating and demonetizing his videos because he used the term “transgender” in his titles. Just a couple of months later, YouTube found itself in another controversy after anti-LGBTQ ads started appearing on videos from LGBTQ creators.

“There’s no policies that say ‘If you put certain words in a title that will be demonetized.’”

To say that it’s been difficult for the queer YouTube community to believe YouTube has their best interests at heart would be an understatement. Earlier this year, Vox host Carlos Maza called out YouTube for allowing conservative pundit Steven Crowder to remain on YouTube after Crowder made repeated homophobic remarks. Wojcicki, who apologized to the LGBTQ creator community after the incident with Maza, told Deyes “we want to support the LGBTQ community,” adding that “we have specifically created systems and processes to make sure our [machine learning] systems are fair.”

“We have a machine-learning fairness initiative,” Wojcicki said, “to make sure that our algorithms and the ways our machines work are fair. We want to have all different voices expressing different points of views.”

That doesn’t mean everything is working as intended, as Wojcicki acknowledged. Sometimes YouTube’s machine learning tools get things wrong, as the company previously admitted.

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/ap-fact-check-trump-misrepresents-facts-on-chinas-currency/

AP FACT CHECK: Trump misrepresents facts on China’s currency

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the latest chapter of an escalating trade war with China, President Donald Trump is again accusing China of manipulating its currency to gain trade advantages. In doing so, he’s misrepresenting the facts.

Trump has been making a charge of currency manipulation since the 2016 presidential campaign, even promising to take action against China right after taking office.

His administration took it to the next level Monday, labeling China a currency manipulator after China allowed its currency, the yuan, to fall below the seven yuan-to-$1 level for the first time in 11 years. It was also the first time the Treasury Department put China on the currency blacklist since 1994. The designation could pave the way for more U.S. sanctions against China.

Trump’s latest complaint in tweets earlier Monday came after the dramatic drop in the yuan.

TRUMP: “China dropped the price of their currency to an almost a historic low. It’s called ‘currency manipulation.’ Are you listening Federal Reserve? This is a major violation which will greatly weaken China over time!”

TRUMP: “Historic currency manipulation by China.”

THE FACTS: Trump is correct to be worried that China may decide to use its currency as a weapon in its ongoing trade war with the United States. But it is Trump’s own Treasury Department which has failed to cite China as a currency manipulator in five reports it has issued since Trump took office.

A weaker yuan would make Chinese goods less expensive in the United States, potentially offsetting some of the impact of the tariffs Trump has already imposed on $250 billion in Chinese goods and is threatening to widen to another $300 billion in goods next month. Those U.S. tariffs drive up the cost of Chinese imports to American consumers.

Trump seems to blame the Federal Reserve for not taking action against China in the currency area. In reality, the Treasury Department’s report, which comes out every six months, has repeatedly said that China does not meet the requirements established in U.S. law to be branded a currency manipulator.

Trump’s mention of the Federal Reserve could also be an effort to pressure the central bank to lower its benchmark interest rate further. It cut the rate for the first time in more than a decade last week, and many analysts believe it will cut rates again in September to keep the fallout from a trade war from derailing the U.S. economy.

Falling U.S. interest rates can put downward pressure on the dollar’s value against other currencies. A weaker dollar could boost U.S. export sales.

___

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

New Post has been published on https://www.buzzinus.com/2019/08/06/space-travel-might-fry-your-brain-causing-permanent-learning-and-memory-problems/

Space travel might fry your brain, causing permanent learning and memory problems

During the course of a deep space mission, astronauts are routinely in various degrees of peril. Depending on which Hollywood sci-fi thrillers you choose, these intrepid explorers are at the mercy of malicious aliens, psychotic computers, or collisions with asteroids or space debris. While these might all be possible concerns, remote or otherwise, the greatest real danger to astronauts may in fact be one that cannot be seen: space radiation.

The Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field, largely protect life on the planet from cosmic radiation. When astronauts travel beyond that protective bubble, energetic particles called galactic cosmic rays bombard their bodies. Galactic cosmic rays are thought to be the remnants of supernovae and contribute to the space radiation environment along with protons and helium nuclei ejected from our Sun.

Our group studies how exposure to radiation affects human health. The most worrisome consequence of these radiation exposures are the adverse effects on the astronauts’ brains. According to the results of our new study in mice, exposure to cosmic rays impairs brain function causing problems with learning, memory and mood that may, if the results hold true for humans, influence a person’s ability to adapt and respond in unexpected or stressful situations. This outcome could jeopardize astronaut safety and mission success.

Simulating space radiation on Earth

We along with other radiation biologists, are specifically concerned about astronauts because, with our current technology, there is no way to protect or shield them from space radiation.

The cosmic radiation particles traveling near the speed of light collide with the spacecraft and generate fragmentation products including neutrons. These fragmentation products still have the energy to pass through the human body. As the neutrons interact with other nuclei in the body they produce free radicals, reactive molecules that can damage cell membranes, DNA and other fine structures in organs. In the brain, my co-investigators and I believe, they damage the microscopic structures of the brain’s cells, or neurons. These include regions of the dendrites, thread-like projections that connect to other brain cells, myelin and synapses that are all vital for forming networks and communicating.

Many investigators funded by NASA have been studying the impact of radiation exposure on astronauts and evidence suggests that the brain will be damaged by exposure to space radiation. Present findings will promote researchers’ understanding of the hazards of space radiation exposure on brain function and will allow us to develop strategies to prevent these problems and facilitate safe human space exploration.

In deep space, radiation exposures happen little by little over the course of the entire trip. That was an element of space travel for which we did not have any data until recently. In those previous studies, radiation exposures were delivered to rodents in a matter of minutes. That doesn’t accurately simulate what an astronaut would experience on a mission to Mars.

Physicists at Colorado State University have now developed a facility that allows researchers to deliver a very slow and much more realistic deep space radiation exposure – 1 milliGray of radiation every day.

Using the Colorado neutron facility, we used this simulated space radiation exposure to measure its effect on the brains of mice.

Earth’s magnetic field protects the planet from cosmic radiation from solar flares and the Big Bang. Naeblys

Broken connections and lost memories

After exposing the mice to this low-level neutron radiation for six months, we examined their neurons. These are the specialized cells that use electrical currents to communicate information and store memories throughout the brain. My co-authors and I discovered that in the brains of the irradiated mice, the circuits connecting the neurons into networks could no longer communicate efficiently. This might be due to damage to fine structures on the neurons, or connections in some neural circuits that may be completely broken. Either change could adversely diminish cognitive function.

We also used the irradiated mice to see whether radiation induced neuronal changes correlated with behavioral problems that might present a risk to astronauts on a deep space mission.

The outcome of our behavior studies demonstrated that mice exposed to neutrons for six months had trouble with learning, adapting and storing memories. For example, these mice were less likely to be interested in a new toy that had been placed in their testing arena compared to a toy that they had already seen before. The control mice, on the other hand, would take much more time to explore the new toy than the old toy. Similarly in another test, the irradiated mice were less likely to care that one of the toys had been moved to a different location. These behaviors suggest impaired memory function.

Social problems

The irradiated mice, compared to their unirradiated counterparts, were also more likely to avoid social interactions and had difficulty dissociating or forgetting an adverse event that happened in the past. These space radiation-induced changes indicate increased anxiety levels.

Altogether, comparing the behavior of normal unexposed mice to mice that received the six months of neutron radiation revealed changes in brain function that are representative of what would happen to human brains in space and could significantly impair the ability of astronauts to respond under stress or in unexpected situations. In fact, when we performed calculations translating the findings of our rodent behavior studies into human risk, we estimated that in a crew of five astronauts traveling to Mars and back, we would expect at least one member to display severe deficits in cognitive function by the time they return to Earth.

Our work is just one study and the results must be replicated, but it does raise the sobering possibility that galactic cosmic radiation exposure may represent a significant obstacle to deep space travel. As with the other technological challenges, though, we hope researchers will find a solution. Perhaps this will be the development of new materials that somehow shield astronauts from this radiation. Perhaps this will be through dietary or pharmacologic supplementation.