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From a nanoscale brobot flexing its muscles to a discussion of the artistry of scientific images, participants at a March 9 event got an up-close look at how quantum science and nanotechnology are shaping our lives.

Arts Unplugged: Science of the Very, Very Small included both online and in-person activities, centered around 11 TED-style talks given by faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences. The faculty shared their research and thoughts on topics from gene manipulation and miniature robots to ethical considerations of nanotech and the interplay between science and fiction through an online eCornell presentation, which was also livestreamed to audiences in the Groos Family Atrium in Klarman Hall and the Clark Atrium in the Physical Sciences Building.

Members of the Cornell community attempt some origami during the event.

Im a particle physicist and particle physicists like to take things apart until we find their smallest constituents, pulling them apart until theres nothing indivisible anymore, said Peter Wittich, professor of physics (A&S) and director of the Laboratory of Elementary Particle Physics, echoing the Arts Unplugged theme.

The event brought together scientists and humanists from numerous fields, including physics, chemistry, biology, literature and moral psychology. Natalie Wolchover, senior science editor and writer at Quanta Magazine and the Zubrow Distinguished Visiting Journalist in A&S, served as moderator, asking questions of each of the panelists after their presentations.

We tend to think of ourselves as small in the grand scheme of things, and understandably so: The universe is huge, Wolchover said. Youd have to line up 500 trillion trillion humans head to toe to stretch across the observable universe. And yet, somehow its still easier to conceive of how much bigger space is compared to us than it is to imagine how small the smallest things in the universe are relative to us.

John Marohn, professor of chemistry and chemical biology (A&S), is building a microscope that can image things smaller than a nanometer the size of an individual water molecule.

Were using this to image spins in quantum materials to study quantum computing, but were also using this to image the molecules of life, he said.

Roald Hoffmann, the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor Emeritus in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology (A&S), spoke of the beauty of scientific images, showing an image of the nanoworld that he compared to a chocolate wafer and another that looked like sand dunes.

These are images that convey information, but they also have some significance just as images, Hoffmann said. The scientists are making artistic choices they dont think they are, but they are in the process of showing them.

Ailong Ke, professor of molecular biology and genetics (A&S), talked about how CRISPR technology can be used to combat disease.

In the next phase of our study, we really hope to bring [about CRISPRs] therapeutic power, Ke said, which could be used to delete viruses from our genome or halt the growth of cancer cells.

Directly after Kes talk, Julia Markovits, associate professor of philosophy (A&S), discussed the slippery slope argument that is often used to justify prohibiting a new technology like gene editing. If we use CRISPR to cure sickle cell anemia, for example, applying the slippery slope means that designer babies would inevitably follow. But such reasoning is faulty, said Markovits: a better metaphor would be a string of dominoes where its difficult to topple the entire string.

Eun-Ah Kim, professor of physics (A&S), talked about her work studying social phenomena of electrons. We are a lucky generation because we can see these electron spins implemented into a set of qubits that can be individually controlled, to be programmed for computation, in quantum computers, she said. In my research, I try to bridge this nascent technology with more established classical computing.

Other A&S faculty presenting included:

During the programs intermission, Michael Reynolds, M.S. 17, Ph.D. 21, postdoctoral associate in the Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the College of Engineering, demonstrated an origami model of a nanobot for viewers to try.

About 30 students from the Milstein Program in Technology and Humanity attended the livestream in Clark Atrium and attempted the origami duck, with some in-person help from Reynolds. Those attending the livestream in Klarman Hall were assisted by Qingkun Liu, postdoctoral researcher in physics. Origami design principles are used by researchers, including Reynolds and Liu, working with Cohen and Paul McEuen, the John A. Newman Professor of Physical Science (A&S), as they create tiny programmable robots, including the brobot.

The intermission time also included the announcement of winners of the Colleges Envisioning the Future contest Lucca Schwartz in the elementary category; Avalon Golden and Sophia Schumaecker in the high school category and Vinh Truong in the adult category. Their winning submissions can be found online on the Arts Unplugged website.

The recording of the event is available to watch for free on eCornell.

Excerpt from:
Panelists explore 'Science of the Very, Very Small' | Cornell Chronicle - Cornell Chronicle

Human beings increasingly desire to live in a world of perfection, which has become attainable thanks to advancements in technology. We have now reached the point of complete automation, thanks to the most recent technical advancements. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one such breakthrough that is godsend for businesses of all types to innovate in this cut-throat competitive period. Artificial Intelligence appears to be on the verge of a breakthrough, having turned a crisis into an opportunity for a variety of businesses across sectors and fundamentally altered the dynamics of the commercial world.

Many polls conducted by specialists across disciplines have found that AI is adding feathers to the caps of various expanding businesses, and as a result, organizations have become more open to incorporating AI technology into their working paradigm. However, when it comes to defining AI, there is still a lot of unanswered questions. An intelligent organism developed by humans with a capability to understand the term technology, is a brief definition of Artificial Intelligence. Many veterans have portrayed Artificial Intelligence as a terminator-like figure capable of acting and thinking on its own and carrying out missions without being taught.

When it comes to developing a solid business strategy, AI plays a vital role. In order to get better results, various sectors have included AI into their business strategy. When it comes to the industrial industry, AI skills have recently taken centre stage. While AI has been deployed in essential aspects of the business, manufacturing businesses have focused the majority of their efforts on fundamental production processes such as product creation, engineering, and assembly, as well as quality testing. Artificial Intelligence has shown to be a game-changer in the industrial industry. It has the potential to change the ROI of industrial operations across the board, regardless of genre.But, as previously stated, the true revolution will occur once all stakeholders recognise the importance of technology in redefining the new business era. When it comes to connecting consumers with profitable solutions and efficient products, digital innovation has paved the way for businesses.

Due to several concerns about technological challenges, the Indian industrial industry has been hesitant to adopt digitalization. However, with the widespread acceptance of digitalization internationally, India has caught the changing and evolving winds in order to stay afloat.

Technology pushing digitalisation

When it comes to industrial automation, technological breakthroughs such as the Internet of Things, connectivity, open software, and electronics have been implemented first. The availability, stable reliability, and performance of these digitalization technologies have been a prime and immediate reason for their adoption for automation and control of industrial manufacturing in the manufacturing sector, which thrives on precision and mission-critical applications and is heavily bound by forward and backward synchronised processes. The manufacturing industry has experienced an increase in demand for customised technical advances to help them improve their processes, as they perceive reliability in its applications across many product categories, which improves time efficiency in industrial controls and automation.

This is just the beginning; industry executives, although being pioneers in their areas, are welcoming digitalization with open arms. This shift in attitude has occurred since digitalization has proven to be a lifesaver in the face of the current pandemic. Manufacturing organisations have been able to maintain and hold their position on supply chain and production targets through time-bound deliveries across global areas, particularly in Asia, thanks to digitalization. Only now, as the benefits of digitalization in automation have become clear to company leaders and forerunners in the field, has it begun to be widely implemented. Given the current upheaval produced by Covid, the industrys perspectives on the benefits of digitalization have been sharpened.

The global manufacturing sector is concentrating on digitalization to improve customer centricity, increase the efficiency of marketing strategies, and channel attractive market prospects through simple and ready-to-use pathways of established procedures. Production will benefit from digitalization in terms of planning, operation, and maintenance.

When it comes to digital hauls for industry,quantum computingis picking frills as well. Companies believe that using exponential data processing in research and development will improve process efficiency while also saving time and resources. Details of highly complex chemical reaction processes can be digitally simulated and analysed in a short amount of time with the help of quantum computing.

Traditional automation suppliers fought hard against the adoption of Ethernet networks and Microsoft support, but they gradually recognised and accepted it. External technologies have increased the pace of production in the industrial business, increasing competitiveness. To maintain competition, it blends industrial automation and business information into computer architecture. A decade ago, no one imagined that technology would be welcomed by the rigorously mechanical industrial manufacturing industry in order to improve production efficiency. However, production efficacy is the key to survival.

Today, the manufacturing sectors future appears brighter; it does not seem to be an unusual ripped page from the book of business synchronicities. Change is never easy to accept, adopt, or execute, but for the industrial manufacturing business, it is necessary to gather fresh sails in order to reach a new shore.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

Read more:
Developing an AI-ready business era is the need of the hour - Times of India

Imagine a city with a weak government and no police force. Gangs would take over and battle each other until they carved up the place for themselves if they didnt destroy it first.

This is our global village, now more than ever.

Roaming its streets are various gangs, some called Groups, their membership largely self-appointed on the basis of size, strength, wealth and weapons. We have theGroup of 7(G-7) and theGroup of 20(G-20), agroup of three superpowers(G-3) and another of thefive permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, not to forgetNATO.

The G-7 and G-20 have the wealth, the G-3 has the power and the five permanent members of the Security Council have the authority at least to veto the efforts of all the others. These five members of the Security Council, which include all G-3 countries, have a history of colonizing other countries. They have the five largest arsenals of nuclear weapons in the world (accounting for97 percent of the total); and with Germany, they are the largest exporters of armaments (81percent of the worlds total).

This is an Insecurity Council.

We hardly needed this latest crisis to appreciate that, as go the three superpowers, so goes the world. That includes the future of you, me and everyone we care about: Our survival is only as good as the mental health of three world leaders who clash with each other like kids in a schoolyard. Sooner or later, this madness will assure our mutual assured destruction.

How to get out of this mess? Certainly not with the groups we have: They exacerbate it, if not directly, then by inflaming their rivalries with powers that do so indirectly. It is obvious, yet imperative, that we must change course immediately. Interestingly, COVID carries a message in this regard. Sufficiently alarmed, we were prepared to do theunthinkable.Who would have thought that governments would act within weeks to lock down their populations and close much of their economies? COVID made the unimaginable imperative.

Here, then, is anotherhard to imaginepossibility. It begins with democracy. We are not about to get planetary elections mercifully. But we may be able to grow legitimate global government from the roots of domestic democracy, much as cities and nations have done to be able to remove leadership that is corrupt or malicious.

Each year, The Economist publishes a Global Democracy Index, compiled from measures of electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties. The score for each country ranks it as a full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime, or autocratic regime. In the full democracies of the 2021 index are21 countries, many of them small, includingUruguay and Costa Rica. The first with apopulation of more than 20 million is Taiwan (at number eight), and the largest is Japan (at number 17). This means that none of the worlds10 most populous countriesis ranked as a full democracy, including the most prominent liberal democracy. So ranked only oneof the G-3, one of the five permanent Security Council members,four members of the G-7 and six members of the G-20.

If the G7 and G20 have created themselves, whats to stop theDemocracy 21 (D-21)from creating an Assembly of Democracies? Compared with the established groups, its membership(using the Global Democracy Index as a guide)would be more legitimate,its reach more global and its concern for the collective interest more credible. Many of its members are among themost progressive countries in the world,having managed to sustain a healthy balance across sectors of society, unlike the three superpowers that tilt toward public sector communism, private sector capitalism, or plural sector populism.

Should democracy weaken in these countries, the procedure for removing it would be as objective as that for including it: a factual assessment of its performance as a democracy. Indeed, this adaptability could be an assemblys greatest strength. With widespread recognition, some political parties might campaign on a promise to get their country inducted (with the Global Democracy Index holding them to account). Democracy could become fashionable again!

Is it outrageous to believe that a D-21, comprising a bunch of pipsqueak countries (as a Harvard colleague once called Canada after I criticized the U.S.), can provide a different voice in the world, and so begin to reverse this madness? The situation we tolerate is outrageous. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is outrageous. A global grouping of full democracies is not. Even and especially now.

The established powers will hardly step aside. But, for starters, an Assembly of Democracies could be a conspicuous alternative to them all. It might even serve as a kind of peace council in-waiting. Should a nuclear confrontation become imminent, it may be the only place to turn for resolution beyond confrontation. Moreover, by getting their collective act together, these countries could challenge the superpowers as well as the divide-and-rule maneuvering of economic globalization, which now faces no countervailing power. (We recently celebrated a global agreement for a minimum tax rate of 15 percent on corporations. Is it truly considered a minimum or maximum?) Eventually, an expanded Assembly of Democracies might metamorphose into a Council of Democracies for serious global government. Imagine that.

When we recognize the obvious as outrageous, we can recognize the outrageous as obvious.

Henry Mintzberg is Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University in Canada and the author of several books about management. He is also the author of "Rebalancing Society: Radical Renewal Beyond Left, Right and Center" and (rebalancingsociety.orginfo).

See the original post:
Our groups of global superpowers need a balancing force for democracy | TheHill - The Hill

By Gail Travers | on March 18, 2022

To the Editor:

March 13 was the Ocean County Democratic Committee meeting and the annual mini-convention to nominate county and congressional candidates to appear on the party line for the primary ballot in June. It was quite an example of the people demanding democracy.

The Democratic leadership sent out notice of the meeting and most committee members received this postcard less than a week before the meeting. Also contained in this notice was an amendment to be voted on at this meeting. This amendment was to allow vote by mail (VBM) to be used for the election of the Democratic leadership, currently led by one of New Jerseys infamous bosses.

After reading the amendment, it seemed like dj vu, going back 12 years when Wyatt Earp did the same thing with extending the term of County Committee members and leadership from two to four years.He gave short notice about the meeting, including the fact that we would be voting on this amendment at the meeting/mini-convention.Its very sad that he didnt learn from that past experience where he failed to give members enough time to understand and digest all the implications of pushing through such an important amendment.

The current VBM amendment has so many loopholes and dangerous precedents that utilizing this voting method for a party election being controlled by the current leadership from the creation of the ballot to the counting and announcing the results opens up so many opportunities for fraud and deception. Its like putting the fox in the hen house.

I think we should have three meetings on this proposed amendment before adopting it. The first meeting should be the presentation of the amendment and the formation of a committee to develop the iron-clad procedures and send out a draft document to members. The second meeting should be for the appointed committee to present its results to the membership and get feedback. The third meeting could be to vote on the amendment. Thats what a responsible organization would do.

The scenario stated above is not what happened this past Sunday. We were not willing to just vote for this amendment without adequate vetting. Many committee members had valid questions.As a result, the chairman kept pushing back on us until a motion was made to table the discussion for a future date with follow-up containing air-tight procedures and controls before we would vote on such a major change in how we do business.

Leadership must understand that gone are the days of backdoor deals and ruling over political fiefdoms within our local Democratic organizations.We must continue to fight for participatory democracy within our County Committee. We are committed to winning this fight and our victory on Sunday is just a start.

Marianne P. Clemente, president

Barnegat Democrat Club

County Committee member

Continue reading here:
Democracy in Action - The SandPaper

How is it possible, you might ask yourself, that nearly half the country believes the 2020 election was stolen? Or that the QAnon conspiracy, which holds Barack Obama is part of a pedophile cabal that eats babies, is now as popular as some major religions?

How could the best educated nation in the world be full of people who cant distinguish fact from fiction?

False information travels six times faster than the truth on Twitter, research has shown, but while 95 percent of Americans agree this is a problem, only 2 in 10 say theyre very concerned that they have personally spread misinformation, a 2021 poll found.

Yet misperceptions abound, and the left is not immune: During former FBI Director Robert Muellers investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Democrats were falling for unfounded conspiracy theories about Trump having sexual trysts with prostitutes in Russia. Still, Republicans in the Trump era have embraced the most dangerous misinformation of all, President Trumps baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The challenge now is for Americans to learn to sort good information from bad, a skill that seems to be in short supply. And the place to start is in our public schools.

You get some information you dont just put that information into a story, you check it out. Thats the core of what were asking everyone to do, thats the core of media literacy, says Sen. Vin Gopal, chair of the states education committee. You dont just take something as fact, you compare it with other information, you use your brain a little.

New Jersey, to its great credit, is trying to do something to fix this. As Florida is banning schools from using the word gay, we are charging in the other direction. A bipartisan bill reintroduced in January would have them learn in the classroom how to spot false news and use critical thinking skills when assessing the truth of what theyve read.

A troubling 2019 study by Stanford University of prospective young voters found they were easily duped by what they saw online. More than 96 percent of high schoolers failed to do a simple Google search to reveal the organization behind a climate change website was funded by fossil fuel companies, for instance, and more than half believed a grainy video on Facebook was strong evidence of voter fraud in the U.S., even though it was actually shot in Russia.

Interestingly, it was Sen. Michael Testa, co-chairman of the Trump campaign in New Jersey, who first approached Sen. Shirley Turner with this legislation to combat disinformation among students. It seems like we make strange bedfellows in some respects, said Turner, a Democrat, but I felt this was a good bill and asked him if I could co-prime it.

We agree we do need more than a course on civics; this should be woven into a K-12 education. Testa told us his wife, a school librarian, has spoken to him about students over-relying on Internet sources such as Wikipedia; they need to have the skills to use their own critical thinking to decide if the resource theyre looking at is a reliable resource, he said. Right.

But Trump was a man known to spread inaccurate stuff on social media, like his rigged election lie that spawned the violent insurrection at the Capitol. So how does Testa square this with his role as chairman of the Trump campaign?

I mean, I gotta be honest with you, I havent been really following Ive been focused on my constituents in Legislative district 1, he said, after a long pause. I was focused on, you know, maybe selfishly, my own reelection in 2021. To me, that election was now two years ago. So, I think those of us in New Jersey have moved on from the 2020 election.

But does he believe that Trump was spreading disinformation? I dont know why youre even going there, Testa said. This is a bill that looks like its getting bipartisan support, and how this is even tied to President Trump is beyond me. Because its not.

Lets move on: A good bill is a good bill. The New Jersey Center for Civic Studies at Rutgers already offers a PowerPoint for teachers to use on media literacy, a useful starting point. It offers tips for spotting false news and identifying errors in reasoning, like a red herring: An intentional diversion to redirect the conversation away from a topic that someone does not want to address.

This problem, of course, is not limited to kids. American adults need this kind of education as well.

What do we do with all of the adults who havent had media literacy instruction or a civics course? Thats tougher, asks Arlene Gardner at the New Jersey Center for Civic Studies at Rutgers. Several people have asked us about a civics course for adults. Maybe Ill suggest to Rutgers that we offer such a course.

Not a bad idea.

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Fight the disinformation that threatens our democracy: Think like a fact-checker | Editorial - NJ.com