High temperatures have been a big talking point at the Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt - but will the knock-out stages feature more goals now that the afternoon kicks-offs have gone?
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Friday, July 5, 2019
A new way of making complex structures in thin films
Self-assembling materials called block copolymers, which are known to form a variety of predictable, regular patterns, can now be made into much more complex patterns that may open up new areas of materials design, a team of MIT researchers say.
The new findings appear in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper by postdoc Yi Ding, professors of materials science and engineering Alfredo Alexander-Katz and Caroline Ross, and three others.
“This is a discovery that was in some sense fortuitous,” says Alexander-Katz. “Everyone thought this was not possible,” he says, describing the team’s discovery of a phenomenon that allows the polymers to self-assemble in patterns that deviate from regular symmetrical arrays.
Self-assembling block copolymers are materials whose chain-like molecules, which are initially disordered, will spontaneously arrange themselves into periodic structures. Researchers had found that if there was a repeating pattern of lines or pillars created on a substrate, and then a thin film of the block copolymer was formed on that surface, the patterns from the substrate would be duplicated in the self-assembled material. But this method could only produce simple patterns such as grids of dots or lines.
In the new method, there are two different, mismatched patterns. One is from a set of posts or lines etched on a substrate material, and the other is an inherent pattern that is created by the self-assembling copolymer. For example, there may be a rectangular pattern on the substrate and a hexagonal grid that the copolymer forms by itself. One would expect the resulting block copolymer arrangement to be poorly ordered, but that’s not what the team found. Instead, “it was forming something much more unexpected and complicated,” Ross says.
There turned out to be a subtle but complex kind of order — interlocking areas that formed slightly different but regular patterns, of a type similar to quasicrystals, which don’t quite repeat the way normal crystals do. In this case, the patterns do repeat, but over longer distances than in ordinary crystals. “We’re taking advantage of molecular processes to create these patterns on the surface” with the block copolymer material, Ross says.
This potentially opens the door to new ways of making devices with tailored characteristics for optical systems or for “plasmonic devices” in which electromagnetic radiation resonates with electrons in precisely tuned ways, the researchers say. Such devices require very exact positioning and symmetry of patterns with nanoscale dimensions, something this new method can achieve.
Katherine Mizrahi Rodriguez, who worked on the project as an undergraduate, explains that the team prepared many of these block copolymer samples and studied them under a scanning electron microscope. Yi Ding, who worked on this for his doctoral thesis, “started looking over and over to see if any interesting patterns came up,” she says. “That’s when all of these new findings sort of evolved.”
The resulting odd patterns are “a result of the frustration between the pattern the polymer would like to form, and the template,” explains Alexander-Katz. That frustration leads to a breaking of the original symmetries and the creation of new subregions with different kinds of symmetries within them, he says. “That’s the solution nature comes up with. Trying to fit in the relationship between these two patterns, it comes up with a third thing that breaks the patterns of both of them.” They describe the new patterns as a “superlattice.”
Having created these novel structures, the team went on to develop models to explain the process. Co-author Karim Gadelrab PhD ’19, says, “The modeling work showed that the emergent patterns are in fact thermodynamically stable, and revealed the conditions under which the new patterns would form.”
Ding says “We understand the system fully in terms of the thermodynamics,” and the self-assembling process “allows us to create fine patterns and to access some new symmetries that are otherwise hard to fabricate.”
He says this removes some existing limitations in the design of optical and plasmonic materials, and thus “creates a new path” for materials design.
So far, the work the team has done has been confined to two-dimensional surfaces, but in ongoing work they are hoping to extend the process into the third dimension, says Ross. “Three dimensional fabrication would be a game changer,” she says. Current fabrication techniques for microdevices build them up one layer at a time, she says, but “if you can build up entire objects in 3-D in one go,” that would potentially make the process much more efficient.
These findings “open new pathways to generate templates for nanofabrication with symmetries not achievable from the copolymer alone,” says Thomas P. Russell, the Silvio O. Conte Distinguished Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who was not involved in this work. He adds that it “opens the possibility of exploring a large parameter space for uncovering other symmetries than those discussed in the manuscript.”
Russel says “The work is of the highest quality,” and adds “The pairing of theory and experiment is quite powerful and, as can be seen in the text, the agreement between the two is remarkably good.”
The research was funded by the Office of General Sciences of the U.S. Department of Energy. The team also included graduate student Hejin Huang.
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Thursday, July 4, 2019
Louisiana experiences major drop in new HIV cases, its lowest in a decade
Louisiana diagnosed 989 people with HIV last year, its lowest number of new HIV cases in at least a decade in a state with a heavy number of infections within the African American community.
Although Louisiana ranked in the top 10 states to register the highest number of new HIV cases in 2017, the latest numbers from 2018 are a welcome decline that state officials hope reflect a new trend, according to NOLA.com.
READ MORE: Ex-Florida cop gets eight-year sentence for knowingly exposing woman to HIV
Overall, new HIV transmissions have declined by 12 percent over the past three years, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. State officials attribute the decrease to the state’s Medicaid expansion, which provided greater access to medication like PrEP, a daily pill that prevents HIV and increased screenings.
“This provides even more support for the importance of knowing your status and taking control of your infection to suppress the virus in the body,” Dr. Alexander Billioux, assistant secretary for the state’s Office of Public Health, told NOLA.com. “As we have said before, undetectable equals untransmittable.”
Out of the state’s 989 new transmissions, roughly three-quarters of these cases were male and African-American. Blacks accounted for 70% of the new diagnoses, while whites made up 23%, Hispanics 6%, and Asians 1%.
READ MORE: The importance of World AIDS Day as a person living with HIV
Health professionals found Louisiana’s news hopeful and possibly indicative of what’s to come.
“I feel as though we will actually see the end of HIV in our lifetime,” Fran Lawless, director of the Office of Health Policy & AIDS Funding, within the New Orleans Health Department, told Nola.com. “I think that’s just on the horizon. This year is the first that I felt that might actually come to fruition. Things were pretty bleak when I first entered this area.”
Billioux agreed that Louisiana has battled HIV and other health challenges that have at times felt “insurmountable.” But she pointed to the Medicaid expansion as proof that it works in bringing access to treatment to vulnerable populations. Billioux also compared other southern states, like Georgia, which did not expand Medicaid, and how its numbers continue to rank among the highest in the nation. According to Nola.com, Georgia saw 2,698 new HIV diagnoses in 2017, the most recent year data was available, which translates to a rate of 30 people per 100,000. By comparison, Louisiana’s rate dropped from 28.9 in 2016 to 26.6 in 2017.
The post Louisiana experiences major drop in new HIV cases, its lowest in a decade appeared first on theGrio.
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Bail denied for Mississippi man charged with murdering 21-year-old pregnant woman
A Mississippi man, who is the son of a judge, was denied bail on charges that he murdered a young woman and her unborn child.
The Holmes County district attorney said a special appointed judge had to be called in because two justice court judges in the county know the suspect, Terrence K. Sample’s mother, who works as a judge in neighboring Attala County, reported the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. The two judges recused themselves.
Sample, 33, is charged with two counts of murder and one count of kidnapping in the killing of 21-year-old Makayla Winston, whose body was found Monday on a deserted road in the county a few days after her family first reported her missing. She was nine months pregnant, and Mississippi is one of 38 states with a fetal homicide law in place that allows murder charges to be levied against suspects for the death of an unborn child.
READ MORE: D.A. makes decision on Alabama woman charged with manslaughter when she lost baby after being shot
Police believe Winston was Sample’s girlfriend, but he reportedly denies this, and also denies having any connection with Winston. Holmes County Sheriff Willie March said police are questioning another woman, from Attala County, who is also believed to have been in a romantic relationship with Sample. This second woman has not been identified.
According to Holmes County District Attorney Akille Malone-Oliver, one of Sample’s relatives found Winston’s body near his property. Her body was found on State Park Road. Winston’s family told police that she was last seen Thursday night. She told family members that she was going to show the baby’s sonogram to the father but that she never returned. Her due date was Thursday.
In a bail hearing this week, Yazoo County Justice Court Judge Bennie Warrington denied bond for Sample. The next court appearance will likely be for a preliminary hearing, something Sample’s attorney, Richard Carter would have to request, Oliver said.
Sample is being held at the Holmes-Humphreys County Regional Correctional Facility.
March told reporters on Tuesday that he expects that a charge of capital murder will be added against Sample.
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Did Kamala Harris backpedal a bit on the issue of school busing?
Sen. Kamala Harris appears to have slightly dialed back a comment made at the Democratic presidential debate regarding school busing.
On Wednesday, Harris said she thinks busing should be a decision made by local school districts attempting to desegregate their locations. At the debate, she seemed to support federal intervention to force districts to utilize busing, and sharply criticized former Vice President Joe Biden for his record on the issue.
READ MORE: New 2020 Democratic poll reveals Harris and Warren tied for third place
When reporters asked Harris point blank whether she favors federally mandated busing, after a Democratic Party picnic Wednesday in West Des Moines, Iowa, she responded: “I think of busing as being in the toolbox of what is available and what can be used for the goal of desegregating America’s schools,” according to the Associated Press.
During the debate last week, Harris zinged Biden for opposing federally mandated school busing when he was a senator in the 1970s. Harris told the audience that she was bused in the 1970s as an elementary school student growing up in Berkeley, California, and that busing provided her a great education.
“That’s where the federal government must step in,” Harris said passionately, while eyeing a surprised Biden. The crowd burst in applause.
But on Wednesday, she stated that busing should be an option for local school districts to make.
READ MORE: Kamala Harris scores endorsement from freshman Congresswoman Jahana Hayes
When reporters asked her whether she agrees with federally mandated busing, Harris replied, “I believe that any tool that is in the toolbox should be considered by a school district.”
Biden’s campaign took no time bashing Harris’ comment.
Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, tweeted that Harris isn’t being consistent.
“It’s disappointing that Senator Harris chose to distort Vice President Biden’s position on busing — particularly now that she is tying herself in knots trying not to answer the very question she posed to him!” Bedingfield said.
READ MORE: Biden lands 2020 endorsement from Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms
For his part, Biden insists that he is not against busing, but thinks it should be a decision made by the districts and not forced on them.
During an appearance at a conference last week in Chicago, Biden told the audience he “never, never, never, ever opposed voluntary busing.”
In the 1970s and 80s, Biden was an outspoken critic of federally mandated busing. Back then, he even sponsored a congressional measure that would have imposed funding limits for federal busing.
The post Did Kamala Harris backpedal a bit on the issue of school busing? appeared first on theGrio.
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Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Irv Gotti on debuting Kanye West song “Brothers” on ‘TALES’ and Ye’s support for Trump: ‘He knows what he’s doing’
TALES is back on BET for its second season and the show created by Irv Gotti will debut a new song from Kanye West on Tuesday night. In “Brothers” Yeezy seems to address the ongoing tension between him and Jay-Z, and TheGrio sat down with the Murder Inc. founder to find out his thoughts on Mr. West.
“I got Kanye to agree to make a new song. It’s a brand new song on season premiere of TALES. You’ll see a two-hour movie that is associated with the song about the trials and tribulations of two brothers,” he says.
“I can get new songs from artists and turn them into two hour movies…I think about what I want and what I think the hip-hop culture wants.”
“Brothers” features Charlie Wilson and the TALES episode stars Elijah Kelley, Isaiah Washington, Draya Michele, and more.
“It’s a brand new record that I produced. I also directed the episode,” he says.
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Irv Gotti announces Murder Inc. tour
“Working with Kanye is fascinating because you never know you got him until you got him. Working with him, he dances to the beat of his own drum. If you want to talk Kanye and Donald Trump— and he gets so much flack for that, it’s not that he really f***s with Donald Trump…”
According to Gotti, West’s support for Trump,p has more to do with his desire to go against the grain than it does about his actual politics.
“He doesn’t like people telling him what he can and cannot do. He doesn’t care. You’re not going to tell him how to think or how to feel,” he says.
“He’s not a bad person. I love Kanye. Kanye is actually a super family man. He and Kim’s relationship is real. There’s real love there and they’re raising a family.”
Gotti also admitted he has a hard time buying the notion that West’s questionable behavior has to do with his mental illness.
“He wants to be crazy because he wants people to think and feel that he’s a genius. I’ve been around him, I’m not giving him that out. You’re my man, you ain’t crazy. Shut up. You know what you doing. That’s not to belittle mental health, but I just feel and think Kanye is smart and he knows what he’s doing,” he says.
“If you want to stop wearing the hat you can stop wearing the hat. If you want to wear the hat to announce your rebelliousness to the way things are then cool. Take the backlash that’s gonna come with it.”
Charlamagne Tha God to host BET’s music competition series ‘The Next Big Thing’
Each week, TALES transforms the lyrics of hip hop’s greatest hits into captivating visual narratives through the eyes of Irv Gotti. The scripted anthology series will feature timeless hits including Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor,” Nas’ “I Gave You Power,” Mary J. Blige’s “My Life,”Migos’ “Slippery,” Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow”, and XXXtenacion’s “Moonlight.”
Check out the full interview above.
TALES airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on BET.
The post Irv Gotti on debuting Kanye West song “Brothers” on ‘TALES’ and Ye’s support for Trump: ‘He knows what he’s doing’ appeared first on theGrio.
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Georgia family fires contractor after seeing a Confederate flag on his truck
A Black woman in Georgia canceled a job before it even began after a white, independent contractor showed up to her house with a Confederate flag attached to his truck.
Allison and Zeke Brown of Atlanta hired the contractor, named Michael, to fix their golf cart brakes but when he got to their home on Saturday, they couldn’t help but notice the gigantic rebel flag hanging from the back, according to Yahoo.
READ MORE: Texas school district bristling after student wears Confederate battle flag to classes
Allison knew her family wouldn’t be doing business with Michael, and she told him as much. She later posted the encounter on Ring.
“Hi, you know what, I do apologize, I know you’ve come from a very long way, but we’re going to use someone else,” Allison, 40, told Michael, according to Yahoo.
“She’s upset with the flag,” explained her husband, Zeke, 48.
“No, I’m beyond upset with the flag,” the 40-year-old radiation therapist responds.
READ MORE: Georgia woman who faced backlash after taking photo of a homeless dad issues apology
Michael said he would remove the flag, but the damage was already done.
“No, you don’t need to take it down. You can continue to believe what you need to believe, sir. But no, I cannot pay you for your services. Thank you, have a good day,” Allison said, reported Yahoo.
After the video footage was posted on Ring, thousands viewed it and commented on how well she kept it together.
Allison explained how it all went down. She said when Michael first arrived, she didn’t initially see him because she was cleaning out her closet.
It was when her husband, Zeke, came into their bedroom and uttered: “God is testing me,” that she knew there was a problem.
“When my husband told me about the flag, I said, ‘Let me handle this,’” Allison said to Yahoo Lifestyle. She said the couple’s son left the house, sure of how his mom would respond.
“I didn’t want to be the ‘angry black woman’ but I wanted him to learn and feel that bottom-line loss,” Allison explains. “You don’t go to Germany and wave the Nazi flag. It’s the same thing.”
Zeke was left surprised. For three days, he had gone back and forth with the contractor over the logistics of the job. “He hadn’t been disrespectful prior, so seeing the flag did not fit my preconceptions,” Zeke told Yahoo. “The flag was absurd — I had to walk back into the house to calm myself down.”
The Browns said that they received another message from Michael after he left, which said: “I didn’t know the flag offended y’all.”
Chile.
The post Georgia family fires contractor after seeing a Confederate flag on his truck appeared first on theGrio.
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Tuesday, July 2, 2019
Ankita Reddy ’19 blends anthropology and biology to improve public health
Before she even set foot on the MIT campus, Ankita Reddy ’19 was exploring questions of medicine, public health, and social inequities. During high school, she produced a documentary about Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cell line has proved invaluable to medical research — but who never gave consent for its use in this way. And while interning in a lab at the National Institutes of Health, Reddy found her focus shifting to a societal picture, as federal budget reductions squeezed scientists:
"I was curious about the impacts of cuts on physicians and researchers who were struggling to sustain work on human diseases," she recalls. "I realized I was increasingly interested in finding meaningful intersections of science and the humanities."
Intersections of science and the humanities
At MIT, Reddy swiftly identified a path for pursing discipline-spanning studies. As a double major in anthropology and biology, she put her full range of interests to work. Her senior thesis involved hybrid research in these two areas: Reddy helped develop a rapid, inexpensive diagnostic for mosquito-borne disease, and she also performed field research and analysis looking at the potential deployment of this and other diagnostic devices in developing countries.
The efficacy and success of medical advances must always be evaluated within a larger social context, Reddy says. "Infectious diseases impact communities unequally — often hitting hardest those without resources," she notes. "In order to do the most good for individual patients and to slow the spread of disease, our interventions need to take into consideration the public health capacity of communities, as well as local ideas of health and sickness."
A foundation in anthropology
Reddy credits foundational anthropology coursework for her commitment to this kind of public health approach. As a first-year student, she took 21A.331[J] (Infections and Inequalities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Global Health), which was taught by three professors: chemical engineer Arup Chakraborty; biologist and physician Dennis Kim; and medical anthropologist Erica Caple James, who became Reddy's advisor.
"It is fascinating to view infectious diseases through multiple lenses," says Reddy. "The goal is finding the synergy of anthropological and medical thinking to make interventions more tailored and culturally sensitive, so they can be deployed to effect widespread change," she says.
Combining anthropology with biology for a public health mission
As she honed her skills in Boston-area wet labs and pursued a developmental health clinical internship at a Johannesburg, South Africa, hospital, Reddy sought opportunities to realize her interdisciplinary ambitions. James sent Reddy to the lab of Lee Gehrke, the Hermann L.F. von Helmholtz Professor in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science at MIT. There, she was recruited by senior researcher Irene Bosch to help design an inexpensive paper-based diagnostic for such diseases as Zika, dengue, and Chikungunya. This proved the ideal venue for Reddy to play out her fusion of anthropology and scientific interests within a public health mission.
Starting in 2017, Reddy helped tweak the diagnostics in the lab, and spent some frenzied months field-testing the devices internationally — all while carrying a full course load.
"In junior year, I took the devices to Brazil for a long weekend, and it was really challenging," she recounts. "I had to take 10 flights round-trip, which really tested my motivation and resilience."
These trips helped spark the idea behind her senior thesis in anthropology. While evaluating the efficacy of the diagnostic in the field, Reddy was also wondering how such tests "could be be meaningfully deployed in resource-poor areas."
Experience and intuition
So in 2018, with the help of an Eloranta Summer Research Fellowship, Reddy spent several months in Hyderabad and Bangalore, India, interviewing and observing physicians and medical students during rounds at infectious disease hospitals catering largely to poor populations. She hoped to learn whether mosquito-borne diseases posed a major issue for these hospitals; what kind of improvements in treatment, public health infrastructure, or diagnosis physicians might seek; and how they used technology or other methods to relieve the suffering of patients in their daily practice.
Drawing on ethnographic expertise garnered from such classes as 21A.802 (Seminar in Ethnography and Fieldwork), Reddy was able to tease out some central themes from interview transcripts and field notes.
"Experience and intuition play a huge role in medical expertise in these hospitals," says Reddy. "Everyone had a story about a physician who had a sixth sense, who knew from a glance — without using any technology — what disease a patient suffered from." Any attempt to bring new technologies into these hospital environments, she says, "must acknowledge the existing structures that are based on medical improvisation and intuition."
From diagnostics to doctor
These insights will prove useful as Reddy launches her post-graduation life as a researcher at E25Bio, a startup spun out of the Gehrke Lab. With her grasp of cultural context, Reddy hopes to help craft a realistic business model to attract funding and speed the dissemination of her team's diagnostic technology. She particularly looks forward to the project's next phase, where uploaded data from globally deployed diagnostic devices could provide a detailed picture of the spread or containment of mosquito-borne illnesses around the world.
But even as she helps advance this pathbreaking biotechnology, Reddy is intent on pursuing a more direct way of contributing to public health: She is applying to medical schools.
"I aspire to be a physician-anthropologist, because I don't think I can choose one or the other," she says. "I'd like to use the power of the white coat to listen to what people have to say, take care of them in a collaborative way, and maybe, while doing this, contribute a new perspective to both the medical and anthropology fields."
Story prepared by MIT Anthropology and MIT SHASS Communications
Communications Director: Emily Hiestand
Liaison: Irene Hartford
Writer: Leda Zimmerman
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Top Strategies to Have in Place Before You Start an Online Business
You can start an online business if you are willing to be strategic in your approach. Smart brand builders understand the need to develop strategies for continued growth. If you’re an online business owner who wants to do everything in your power to succeed, the following are the top strategies you need to have in place when building your company.
4 Strategies to Have in Place Before You Start an Online Business
Lead Generation
Without a sound lead generation strategy, your online business is likely doomed for failure. Customers aren’t going to discover your company magically. It would be best if you had a plan in place to acquire new customers. Even after you acquire customers, some of them will never return to your business. You can’t depend on existing customers to keep purchasing from your business. Lead generation is an ongoing component of building a successful company and is critical to long-term viability.
Content Marketing
Choosing to use content marketing to grow your business is only the first step. There is a massive amount of content already online. You need to develop a plan for your content marketing outreach. A ‘create it, and they will come’ strategy won’t work when today’s consumer has a sea of quality blog posts at their disposal. It would help if you determined in advance who will be responsible for content creation, how topics will be decided, and who will be responsible for monitoring the performance and ROI of your content.
Social Media Marketing
If you are building an online business, social media outreach needs to be part of your marketing plans. Even if you’re only on Facebook, your business needs a sound social media marketing strategy to ensure your posts reach your target customers. Consider everything from which social platforms you’ll use to the types of posts you’ll share. If your company isn’t active on social media, your competitors will beat you to prospective customers.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is another essential component of building a profitable online business. It’s not enough to use content marketing and social media marketing to attract consumers; you need to integrate SEO into both of those outreach efforts. Ensure that your social media posts are optimized for keywords your customers will use, and your blog posts contain long-tail keywords search engine users will hunt for. Today’s consumers are using platforms like Twitter and Facebook as search engines; your social media posts need to be optimized for discovery just like your blog posts.
Building a successful online business requires that you have several marketing strategies in place. In an increasingly contentious business environment, it is the savviest brand builder who will succeed.
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Tiny motor can “walk” to carry out tasks
Years ago, MIT Professor Neil Gershenfeld had an audacious thought. Struck by the fact that all the world’s living things are built out of combinations of just 20 amino acids, he wondered: Might it be possible to create a kit of just 20 fundamental parts that could be used to assemble all of the different technological products in the world?
Gershenfeld and his students have been making steady progress in that direction ever since. Their latest achievement, presented this week at an international robotics conference, consists of a set of five tiny fundamental parts that can be assembled into a wide variety of functional devices, including a tiny “walking” motor that can move back and forth across a surface or turn the gears of a machine.
Previously, Gershenfeld and his students showed that structures assembled from many small, identical subunits can have numerous mechanical properties. Next, they demonstrated that a combination of rigid and flexible part types can be used to create morphing airplane wings, a longstanding goal in aerospace engineering. Their latest work adds components for movement and logic, and will be presented at the International Conference on Manipulation, Automation and Robotics at Small Scales (MARSS) in Helsinki, Finland, in a paper by Gershenfeld and MIT graduate student Will Langford.
Their work offers an alternative to today’s approaches to contructing robots, which largely fall into one of two types: custom machines that work well but are relatively expensive and inflexible, and reconfigurable ones that sacrifice performance for versatility. In the new approach, Langford came up with a set of five millimeter-scale components, all of which can be attached to each other by a standard connector. These parts include the previous rigid and flexible types, along with electromagnetic parts, a coil, and a magnet. In the future, the team plans to make these out of still smaller basic part types.
Using this simple kit of tiny parts, Langford assembled them into a novel kind of motor that moves an appendage in discrete mechanical steps, which can be used to turn a gear wheel, and a mobile form of the motor that turns those steps into locomotion, allowing it to “walk” across a surface in a way that is reminiscent of the molecular motors that move muscles. These parts could also be assembled into hands for gripping, or legs for walking, as needed for a particular task, and then later reassembled as those needs change. Gershenfeld refers to them as “digital materials,” discrete parts that can be reversibly joined, forming a kind of functional micro-LEGO.
The new system is a significant step toward creating a standardized kit of parts that could be used to assemble robots with specific capabilities adapted to a particular task or set of tasks. Such purpose-built robots could then be disassembled and reassembled as needed in a variety of forms, without the need to design and manufacture new robots from scratch for each application.
Langford's initial motor has an ant-like ability to lift seven times its own weight. But if greater forces are required, many of these parts can be added to provide more oomph. Or if the robot needs to move in more complex ways, these parts could be distributed throughout the structure. The size of the building blocks can be chosen to match their application; the team has made nanometer-sized parts to make nanorobots, and meter-sized parts to make megarobots. Previously, specialized techniques were needed at each of these length scale extremes.
“One emerging application is to make tiny robots that can work in confined spaces,” Gershenfeld says. Some of the devices assembled in this project, for example, are smaller than a penny yet can carry out useful tasks.
To build in the “brains,” Langford has added part types that contain millimeter-sized integrated circuits, along with a few other part types to take care of connecting electrical signals in three dimensions.
The simplicity and regularity of these structures makes it relatively easy for their assembly to be automated. To do that, Langford has developed a novel machine that's like a cross between a 3-D printer and the pick-and-place machines that manufacture electronic circuits, but unlike either of those, this one can produce complete robotic systems directly from digital designs. Gershenfeld says this machine is a first step toward to the project's ultimate goal of “making an assembler that can assemble itself out of the parts that it's assembling.”
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Lil Nas X’s announcement sends strong message to LGBT teenagers to be themselves, says Milan Christopher
Lil Nas X’s announcement that he is gay could potentially save LGBT teen lives, according to Milan Christopher.
TMZ asked the former “Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood” star to weigh in on the rapper-country artist’s revelation that he’s gay, and Milan said the announcement would give children hope that they too can live their truths and be successful.
—Did Lil Nas X just come out of the closet?-—
“I think it’s dope. I think we really needed that,” said Christopher. “He’s at the height of his career and he did it. I totally support it. I’m here for it.”
“I think it’s the perfect time to do it. He didn’t wait until his career was like super huge, he just released that song and came right out with it before Pride Month ended,” Milan added. “I think he’s going to inspire a lot of young kids.”
Lil Nas X, the 20-year-old who wrote the blockbuster hit, “Old Town Road,” came out as gay on Sunday after he performed in front of 180,000 people in Glastonbury, England with Billy Ray Cyrus and Miley Cyrus. It was the last day of Pride Month.
“Some of y’all already know, some of y’all don’t care, some of y’all not gone fwm no more. but before this month ends i want y’all to listen closely to c7osure,” Lil Nas tweeted.
Milan, who is also gay, said Nas’ bravery will help isolated gay teenagers from feeling so alone in the world.
—LAPD’s internal affairs will investigate police handling of getaway driver in Nipsey Hussle case—
“LGBT youth, especially African-American LGBT youth, (have) the highest rate of suicide in our country,” Milan said. “That was one of the hardest times of my life when I was a youth growing up in the hood,” as a gay man. “So I think by him doing that, it sends a strong message to kids to be themselves, they can be successful. His song is #1 on iTunes. He’s killing it.”
Milan added, with a chuckle, that Nas’ revelation also is “an aha moment to all the bigots who don’t like gay people whatever and the whole time they been dancing to his song. It was genius.”
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LAPD’s internal affairs will investigate police handling of getaway driver in Nipsey Hussle case
The Los Angeles Police Department’s Office of the Inspector General is now investigating why the woman who fled the scene of Nipsey Hussle’s murder, driving the suspect in a getaway car was sent home by police after she attempted to turn herself in.
The Internal Affairs Group is evaluating a desk officer’s response in the incident, according to CBS News.
The woman, whose name is being withheld by police, reportedly helped the suspect, Eric R. Holder, flee from the March 31 killing but later went to the police station after her car and license plate were widely featured on the news.
“Oh my God,” the woman told her mother, according to Grand Jury testimony. “My car is on here and everything, and I didn’t do anything. I didn’t know this boy was gonna do this.”
—Nipsey Hussle reportedly called his killer a ‘snitch’ before he was shot dead—
CBS News reported that when her mother tried to notify police, she was allegedly told that detectives wouldn’t be available until 6 a.m. the next day.
The next morning, when they showed up at the police station, a front desk officer said “don’t worry about it” and “don’t listen to the news,” according to Grand Jury transcripts. The woman left but attempted to reach detectives again later, but was turned away, according to LAPD Detective Cedric Washington’s testimony.
Now an internal investigation will examine what went wrong.
—Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist was victim of hoax 911 police call—
“While the initial indications pointed to a miscommunication, we have initiated an administrative investigation to ensure all policies and procedures were followed,” Josh Rubenstein, an LAPD spokesman, told CBS News in an email. “We will review all statements that have already been given, interview all of the individuals involved, and look for any potential body cam video that may have captured the interchange.”
But so far, Rubenstein told the Los Angeles Times that police appeared to have acted properly.
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Nike pulls Betsy Ross-era flag sneaker after Colin Kaepernick reached out to the company
This is why representation matters.
Nike has made the decision not to release a sneaker that features an old 18th-century replica of the American flag. Nike had created the sneaker to commemorate the July 4th holiday.
In a statement released to CNN Business, the athletic-wear giant wrote: “Nike has chosen not to release the Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July as it featured an old version of the American flag.”
—Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist was victim of hoax 911 police call—
This comes after Nike had already delivered some of the sneakers to retail stores. But after Nike received a complaint from former NFLer, Colin Kaepernick, that he and others found the sneakers to be offensive, Nike is asking stores to return them, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The sneaker was priced at $140 and set to release on Monday, according to Sneakernews.com. Released photos of the shoe show a version of the American flag with 13 stripes and 13 stars arranged in a circle – the Betsy Ross version of the American flag used in the United States from 1777 to 1795. It was used during the era of slavery.
It is not known whether any of the sneakers were sold before Nike pulled them and asked stores to return already distributed shoes.
—“Old Town Road” #1 on Billboard for 13th week setting hip-hop record—
CNN was unsuccessful in reaching Kaepernick for comment on Monday. Last year, Kaepernick became the face of a groundbreaking Nike advertising campaign.
Nike has had its share of pulled products in recent months.
The company recently halted selling some of its products in China following a fashion designer’s support for protests in Hong Kong, which sparked backlash across social media.
In a statement, Nike said it made a decision to remove some products “based on feedback from Chinese consumers.”
And in May, Nike stopped an Air Force 1 sneaker from being released after an indigenous group in Panama took issue with its design.
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Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist was victim of hoax 911 police call
A prank phone call led police to the Bowie, Md. home of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Leonard G. Pitts Jr., where they handcuffed him while investigating a report of a crime.
Pitts, a columnist for The Miami Herald, said police woke him up early Sunday morning at 4:48 a.m. to investigate a reported crime taking place inside Pitts’ home. The phone tip, which called into the Bowie police and referenced that a serious crime was taking place, was found to be false, according to The Washington Post.
—“Old Town Road” #1 on Billboard for 13th week setting hip-hop record—
Pitts told reporters that he didn’t have a clue who would make such a call, but that someone called 911 to report to police that his wife or another person was “being murdered” inside his house. Pitts said police ordered him out of the house and told him to get on his knees. It was then that they handcuffed a surprised Pitts.
Pitts’ wife and other family members soon exited the house, and after police checked the house to determine there “were no corpses,” Pitts was released with a police apology, he said.
The column that Pitts, 61, writes covers national issues and runs in roughly 250 papers. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary in 2004.
Bowie Police Chief John Nesky, who also arrived at the scene early Sunday morning, told the Miami Herald that his department would investigate the matter, according to The Washington Post.
Nesky also told the Miami Herald that his officers have to “assume the information is valid until we prove otherwise.”
Swatting is a common type of fraudulent call where callers send police to random people’s homes on the report of a crime. However, Nesky told the paper he isn’t sure if this incident can be classified as swatting or something that was more targeted.
Pitts said he is clueless as to who could have done this, and said police informed him that the caller’s telephone number was blocked.
When a reporter asked him whether he had recently written on a topic that may have been controversial, Pitts laughed and responded that much of his work could be deemed that way. But say most recently he was on vacation so couldn’t have ruffled any feathers.
And he said he holds no grudges against the police, who were just doing their jobs.
The police “were pretty cool,” he said. “I can find no fault with them.”
Hoax call about a murder sends cops to @MiamiHerald columnist and Pulitzer-winning writer Leonard Pitts Jr.’s door. Cops apologize https://t.co/UZcaI5uyLs pic.twitter.com/IU80S7MT40
— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) July 1, 2019
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Secrets from a Recovering Multitasker
Be honest: None of us are as good as multitasking as we think we are. Research shows that it takes the brain of a multitasker 15 minutes to refocus on the task they were originally committed to completing.
Natalia Peart, is a clinical psychologist, business consultant, and author of the book FutureProofed: How to Navigate Disruptive Change, Find Calm in Chaos, and Succeed in Work & Life. She says that it is time to dispel the myth that being a “good multitasker” makes for more productivity in the workplace and for individuals personally when it’s actually the cause of burnout.
With over 25 years of experience problem solving for Fortune 1000 companies, nonprofits, and corporate America, Peart says that with the pace of people’s lives being quicker than ever, and the digital age, it is time stop championing the unproductive behavior of multitasking.
Natalia Peart
“We try to multitask; we realize it’s not working; we assume that we’re not doing it well enough—and so you know, what we do? We look for the next productivity tip, we look for the next hack,” says Peart.
And it simply does not work. “We exhaust ourselves some more until we’re completely burned out.”
Dr. Peart offers these tips to become a recovering multitasker to prevent burnout and prioritize yourself and your health:
- See it [life and assignments] as a series of sprints and not a marathon. — Our bodies and our brains can only absorb about 90 to 120 minutes until we’re going to need a break.
- Pay attention to your body. – If you need rest, rest. Do not caffeinate in efforts to get more done.
- Give yourself a quick break.– Get up, walk, clear your brain a little bit, let it rest, especially you know, those days where you have a lot happening and you’re just mentally fatigued.
- Don’t work against yourself, work with yourself.
- Take regular stretch breaks. – Take yourself away from your work, come back, you’ll be able to get more done.
“We always have a to-do list and we feel really good about checking stuff off but then we put off happiness because we’re always trying to figure out what’s that next thing to check off,” says Peart. To that point, she says that you should find time to restore yourself.
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“Old Town Road” #1 on Billboard for 13th week setting hip-hop record
For the 13th straight week, Lil Nas X ‘s “Old Town Road,” which features country crooner Billy Ray Cyrus tops the Billboard Hot 100 – setting a record for the longest reign of a hip hop song.
“Old Town Road” (on Columbia Records) leads the Streaming Songs chart for a 13th week, with 88.7 million U.S. streams, which was down slightly at 3%, for the week ending June 27, according to Nielsen Music.
The track supersedes previous records set by Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” in 2015, The Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” in 2009 and Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” in 2002-2003, according to Billboard. Each of these songs topped the chart in the rap category for 12 weeks.
Lil Nas X is in rarefied company. “Old Town Road” is only the 12th single in the Hot 100’s 60-year history to dominate the charts for as long as it has. In fact, it’s the first hit since “Despacito,” Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’shit maker featuring Justin Bieber, which spent 16 weeks at No. 1 back in 2017 and ties the record for that length of time with Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men’s “One Sweet Day” in 1995-96.
Coming in at No. 2 this week is Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello’s “Señorita.”
“Road” is the little song that could. Despite some controversy earlier in the year, when Billboard, recategorized it from its Hot Country Songs chart to hip hop, it has continued to gain traction and rule the charts. Billboard removed “Old Town Road” from the Hot 100 chart, the Hot Country Songs chart, and the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, saying it doesn’t reflect a traditional country music song. The organization notified Lil Nas X’s label, Columbia Records, that the song was ranked by mistake, according to Rolling Stone.
In a statement released in late March, Billboard said: “It does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version,” according to a statement Billboard released in late March, sparking backlash and allegations of racism.
Fast-forward to the week of July 6th. “Old Town Road” is at the top spot on the hip hop charts.
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Monday, July 1, 2019
WATCH: Here’s why Lizzo should play Ursula in ‘The Little Mermaid’ over Melissa McCarthy
Disney has had tons of success remaking their iconic animated features into live-action versions and The Little Mermaid is reportedly next on their list. Although the studio is reportedly in talks with Melissa McCarthy to play Ursula, Lizzo has her eyes on the role and we agree she would make the perfect choice.
When news broke that Melissa McCarthy was being considered for the role, the body-positive beauty reacted with a sad face emoji on social media.
Lizzo calls out “racist” security guard at Summerfest, says she will file complaint
— |L I Z Z O| (@lizzo) June 28, 2019
It wasn’t long before she took matters into her own hands and released an audition tape that proves she has what it takes to bring the vivacious villain to life. “I’M URSULA. PERIOD @Disney,” she posted along with a video of herself dressed as the sea witch.
Check it out:
I’M URSULA. PERIOD. @Disney pic.twitter.com/9YPVPPvVpz
— |L I Z Z O| (@lizzo) November 1, 2018
While Melissa McCarthy is a great comedian and has proven she can dive into drama as well, Ursula isn’t exactly a humorous character. Lizzo has the voice to pull off Ursula’s biggest moments, including “Poor Unfortunate Souls” the song she nailed in her impromptu audition.
Our new fave: 5 powerful life lessons we could all learn from Lizzo
The role would certainly take Lizzo’s career to the next level, and who could deny that this would be a perfect opportunity for Disney to take their diversity initiatives to new heights? Huge stars like Will Smith and Beyonce are featured in Aladdin and The Lion King, but what about getting a rising star in a big role?
We can’t help but be proud of Lizzo for going after what she wants, especially when an award-winning actress is already being considered. Let’s hope she gets the shot she deserves.
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Getting more heat out of sunlight
A newly developed material that is so perfectly transparent you can barely see it could unlock many new uses for solar heat. It generates much higher temperatures than conventional solar collectors do — enough to be used for home heating or for industrial processes that require heat of more than 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit).
The key to the process is a new kind of aerogel, a lightweight material that consists mostly of air, with a structure made of silica (which is also used to make glass). The material lets sunlight pass through easily but blocks solar heat from escaping. The findings are described in the journal ACS Nano, in a paper by Lin Zhao, an MIT graduate student; Evelyn Wang, professor and head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering; Gang Chen, the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor in Power Engineering; and five others.
The key to efficient collection of solar heat, Wang explains, is being able to keep something hot internally while remaining cold on the outside. One way of doing that is using a vacuum between a layer of glass and a dark, heat-absorbing material, which is the method used in many concentrating solar collectors but is relatively expensive to install and maintain. There has been great interest in finding a less expensive, passive system for collecting solar heat at the higher temperature levels needed for space heating, food processing, or many industrial processes.
Aerogels, a kind of foam-like material made of silica particles, have been developed for years as highly efficient and lightweight insulating materials, but they have generally had limited transparency to visible light, with around a 70 percent transmission level. Wang says developing a way of making aerogels that are transparent enough to work for solar heat collection was a long and difficult process involving several researchers for about four years. But the result is an aerogel that lets through over 95 percent of incoming sunlight while maintaining its highly insulating properties.
The key to making it work was in the precise ratios of the different materials used to create the aerogel, which are made by mixing a catalyst with grains of a silica-containing compound in a liquid solution, forming a kind of gel, and then drying it to get all the liquid out, leaving a matrix that is mostly air but retains the original mixture’s strength. Producing a mix that dries out much faster than those in conventional aerogels, they found, produced a gel with smaller pore spaces between its grains, and that therefore scattered the light much less.
In tests on a rooftop on the MIT campus, a passive device consisting of a heat-absorbing dark material covered with a layer of the new aerogel was able to reach and maintain a temperature of 220 C, in the middle of a Cambridge winter when the outside air was below 0 C.
Such high temperatures have previously only been practical by using concentrating systems, with mirrors to focus sunlight onto a central line or point, but this system requires no concentration, making it simpler and less costly. That could potentially make it useful for a wide variety of applications that require higher levels of heat.
For example, simple flat rooftop collectors are often used for domestic hot water, producing temperatures of around 80 C. But the higher temperatures enabled by the aerogel system could make such simple systems usable for home heating as well, and even for powering an air conditioning system. Large-scale versions could be used to provide heat for a wide variety of applications in chemical, food production, and manufacturing processes.
Zhao describes the basic function of the aerogel layer as “like a greenhouse effect. The material we use to increase the temperature acts like the Earth’s atmosphere does to provide insulation, but this is an extreme example of it.”
For most purposes, the passive heat collection system would be connected to pipes containing a liquid that could circulate to transfer the heat to wherever it’s needed. Alternatively, Wang suggests, for some uses the system could be connected to heat pipes, devices that can transfer heat over a distance without requiring pumps or any moving parts.
Because the principle is essentially the same, an aerogel-based solar heat collector could directly replace the vacuum-based collectors used in some existing applications, providing a lower-cost option. The materials used to make the aerogel are all abundant and inexpensive; the only costly part of the process is the drying, which requires a specialized device called a critical point dryer to allow for a very precise drying process that extracts the solvents from the gel while preserving its nanoscale structure.
Because that is a batch process rather than a continuous one that could be used in roll-to-roll manufacturing, it could limit the rate of production if the system is scaled up to industrial production levels. “The key to scaleup is how we can reduce the cost of that process,” Wang says. But even now, a preliminary economic analysis shows that the system can be economically viable for some uses, especially in comparison with vacuum-based systems.
The research team included research scientist Bikram Bhatia, postdoc Sungwoo Yang, graduate student Elise Strobach, instructor Lee Weinstein and postdoc Thomas Cooper. The work was primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program.
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R. Kelly is staying visible despite sex abuse charges
Singer R. Kelly is not hiding out in his condo as sexual assault charges continue to pile on. Instead, he is out and about, playing b-ball and dining at some of Chicago’s top eateries.
“Last Tuesday, we had a great time dining on Rush Street — along with his attorney Steve Greenberg — where people were coming up to his table in droves,” his publicist, Darrell Johnson told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Look, at the end of the day, it is what it is and he [Kelly] is looking forward to his day in court.”
—Kelly charged with 11 brand NEW counts of sexual abuse—
Johnson said Kelly is also writing music and working on his upcoming album.
“Right now he is looking forward to the release of his first recording [since the latest indictments] hopefully in the next few months — and being able to tour and working with artists on more spiritual songs,” he said.
Michael Sneed, of the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote in the article that sources told him Kelly recently dined at Tavern on Rush and Gibsons – two top restaurants on Rush Street – and that he was pleasantly greeted by fans who wanted to pose for pictures with him.
“What is really surprising … is when he [Kelly] dines out, he gets no negativity from anybody,” one source, who reportedly dined with Kelly at Gibson’s last week, told Sneed. The source wants to remain anonymous.
Even as Kelly faces the civil suit as well as criminal sex abuse charges that involve four victims – three of whom were minors in the late 1990s when the alleged abuse occurred – some people are still happily snapping pictures with him when they see him out and about. In contrast, President Donald Trump’s son, Eric, was recently spat upon at a Chicago restaurant last week by a disgusted waitress.
—When she got pregnant, Jada Pinkett Smith caved to her “old school” mom and married Will Smith—
“In fact, patrons ask for pictures with him, not of him! Not everybody asks for autographs these days. They want an instant hit. Photos. It makes it easy on everybody,” the unnamed source told the newspaper.
“… he isn’t laying low! He frequently smokes his favorite cigars outside Trump Tower where he lives! And was doing so at Tavern on Rush last week,” the source added.
As a condition of his bail, Kelly is prohibited from leaving the state of Illinois. So he’s been spending some of his time hooping it up with guys from his neighborhood.
“But now it’s at least three days a week with his neighborhood buddies at an indoor court on the South Side, losing weight and doing cardio five days a week,” said his publicist, Johnson.
In other R. Kelly news, last week the embattled singer’s lawyers filed a motion asking a Cook County judge to dismiss a civil sexual abuse lawsuit seeking claims for damages asserting that the statute of limitation had expired.
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Kamala Harris’ campaign is not here for the birther innuendo
We’ve been down this birther road before.
Kamala Harris who is believed to be one of the Democratic presidential frontrunners is firing back at Donald Trump, Jr. who shared a Twitter post that seemed to question Harris’ American Blackness, and her campaign is letting it be known that they are not here for the Obama birther redux.
“This stuff is really vile and everyone should speak out against it,” Lily Adams, Harris’ campaign spokeswoman, tweeted Saturday.
—Kamala Harris hit in new birther movement—
The tweet came after the Daily Beast ran a story about Harris’ candidacy among the crowded pool of Democrat 2020 candidates and the racial attacks levied against her, which the outlet calls “a play straight out of the racist birther playbook used against Barack Obama.”
Trump Jr. became involved after he shared a Twitter post which read: “Kamala Harris is not an American Black. She is half Indian and half Jamaican. I’m so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself) of our history” and then commented: “Is this true? Wow.”
Trump Jr. has since deleted the comment. Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past decade, you’d realize that Trump Jr.’s daddy played the same “birther” card against Obama, rallying the fringes of the Republican Party to question whether our forever POTUS was born in the United States and legally eligible to be president.
—Kamala Harris pressed to get more personal about why she’s running for president—-
According to The New York Times, a spokesperson for Trump Jr. claims that his tweet was “simply him asking if it was true that Kamala Harris was half-Indian because it’s not something he had ever heard before.”
Harris’ rival former vice president Joe Biden responded to the post calling it “birtherism.”
The same forces of hatred rooted in ‘birtherism’ that questioned @BarackObama‘s American citizenship, and even his racial identity, are now being used against Senator @KamalaHarris. It’s disgusting and we have to call it out when we see it. Racism has no place in America.
The same forces of hatred rooted in ‘birtherism’ that questioned @BarackObama‘s American citizenship, and even his racial identity, are now being used against Senator @KamalaHarris. It’s disgusting and we have to call it out when we see it. Racism has no place in America.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 29, 2019
While Twitter followers of Adams were incredulous.
“Deplorable,” agreed Phil @PrettyGoodPhil.
“Been speaking out about it even before she declared. I don’t understand what not being ‘black enough’ even means,” wrote Sambar Pappad.
Yet some others agreed that Harris isn’t Black Black.
“The allegation was that she’s not a member of the African American community. This is true. She has no African American ancestor. The most time she’s spent around African Americans was locking them in cages,” wrote a user by the Twitter name of Boko Harambe.
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When she got pregnant, Jada Pinkett Smith caved to her “old school” mom and married Will Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith wasn’t ready to get married. But after she got pregnant by Will Smith, her mother felt differently.
“…My mother was like, ‘You have to get married’ – she’s so old school – and Will wanted a family. So I said, ‘All right, maybe it’s something I should do,” Pinkett Smith, 47, told PEOPLE magazine.
But as for herself, Jada tells the magazine: “I never wanted to get married.”
—-Jada Pinkett Smith admits she had a threesome ‘once’-—
The actress and talk show host graced this week’s cover, and along with her daughter Willow, 18, and mother Adrienne, 65 – who together star in Facebook Watch’s Red Table Talk – the ladies dish on their family’s super tight relationship.
Jada and Will started dating in 1995. Two years later, she became pregnant with her son, Jaden, 21. That’s when all this marriage talk started to bubble over.
“Gammy (Adrienne) freaking called Will and cried her freaking eyes out, so then I had to have a wedding and that was infuriating,” Jada tells PEOPLE, explaining that she was in her first trimester and suffering from morning sickness when they wed on New Year’s Eve, 1997.
Now Pinkett Smith is grateful that she married Will. Back then, however, she couldn’t fathom them going the distance because she had never personally witnessed a successful marriage.
“I had never seen a happy marriage,” Pinkett Smith explains. “I adored Will, I f——- adored him, but I just didn’t want to be married.”
Twenty-one years married, these days Jada and Will shun labels and don’t call themselves “married.” That feels too confining for Pinkett Smith’s liking. Instead, she refers to their union as a “life partnership.”
“I don’t own him. He doesn’t own me. He has to be his own person first, and vice versa… Love is freedom,” she says.
We’re just glad they are still happily together because Black love is beautiful.
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