As millions of people across the country take to the streets and raise their voices in response to the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing problem of unequal justice, many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about real change.   Ultimately, it’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from past efforts that are worth remembering.   First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States. The overwhelming majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring. They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation – something that police in cities like Camden and Flint have commendably understood.   On the other hand, the small minority of folks who’ve resorted to violence in various forms, whether out of genuine anger or mere opportunism, are putting innocent people at risk, compounding the destruction of neighborhoods that are often already short on services and investment and detracting from the larger cause. I saw an elderly black woman being interviewed today in tears because the only grocery store in her neighborhood had been trashed. If history is any guide, that store may take years to come back. So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.   Second, I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s often only been in response to protests and civil disobedience that the political system has even paid attention to marginalized communities. But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices – and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.   Moreover, it’s important for us to understand which levels of government have the biggest impact on our criminal justice system and police practices. When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it. But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.   It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all elected positions. In some places, police review boards with the power to monitor police conduct are elected as well. Unfortunately, voter turnout in these local races is usually pitifully low, especially among young people – which makes no sense given the direct impact these offices have on social justice issues, not to mention the fact that who wins and who loses those seats is often determined by just a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes.   So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.   Finally, the more specific we can make demands for criminal justice and police reform, the harder it will be for elected officials to just offer lip service to the cause and then fall back into business as usual once protests have gone away. The content of that reform agenda will be different for various communities. A big city may need one set of reforms; a rural community may need another. Some agencies will require wholesale rehabilitation; others should make minor improvements. Every law enforcement agency should have clear policies, including an independent body that conducts investigations of alleged misconduct. Tailoring reforms for each community will require local activists and organizations to do their research and educate fellow citizens in their community on what strategies work best.   But as a starting point, I’ve included two links below. One leads to a report and toolkit developed by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and based on the work of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing that I formed when I was in the White House. And if you’re interested in taking concrete action, we’ve also created a dedicated site at the Obama Foundation to aggregate and direct you to useful resources and organizations who’ve been fighting the good fight at the local and national levels for years.   I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispiriting – that the fear, sorrow, uncertainty, and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic reminders that prejudice and inequality still shape so much of American life. But watching the heightened activism of young people in recent weeks, of every race and every station, makes me hopeful. If, going forward, we can channel our justifiable anger into peaceful, sustained, and effective action, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nation’s long journey to live up to our highest ideals.   Let’s get to work.

Black holes have long been a source of much excitement and intrigue. And interest regarding black holes will surely grow now that gravitational waves have been discovered.
Many of the questions I am asked regard how “true” science fiction concerning black holes might be, and whether worm holes, such as those featured in Stargate, are real or not. Invariably though, the one item that is almost assured to come up are the largely gruesome ways in which black holes might theoretically affect human beings and the Earth itself.

Mass, charge, spin
There are three properties of a black hole that are (in principle) measurable: their mass, their spin (or angular momentum) and their overall electronic charge. Indeed, these are the only three parameters that an outside observer can ever know about since all other information about anything that goes in to making up a black hole is lost. This is known as the “no hair theorem”. Put simply: no matter how hairy or complex an object you throw in to a black hole, it will get reduced down (or shaved) to its mass, charge and spin.
Of these parameters, mass is arguably the most significant. The very definition of a black hole is that it has its mass concentrated in to a vanishingly small volume – the “singularity”. And it is the mass of the black hole – and the huge gravitational forces that its mass generates – which does the “damage” to nearby objects.

Space spaghetti
One of the best known effects of a nearby black hole has the imaginative title of “Spaghettification”. In brief, if you stray too close to a black hole, then you will stretch out, just like spaghetti.
This effect is caused due to a gravitation gradient across your body. Imagine that you are headed feet first towards a black hole. Since your feet are physically closer to the black hole, they will feel a stronger gravitation pull towards it than your head will. Worse than that, your arms, by virtue of the fact that they’re not at the centre of your body, will be attracted in a slightly different (vector) direction than your head is. This will cause parts of the body toward the edges to be brought inwards. The net result is not only an elongation of the body overall, but also a thinning out (or compression) in the middle. Hence, your body or any other object, such as Earth, will start to resemble spaghetti long before it hits the centre of the black hole.
The exact point at which these forces become too much to bear will depend critically on the mass of a black hole. For an “ordinary” black hole that has been produced by the collapse of a high mass star, this could be several hundred kilometres away from the event horizon – the point beyond which no information can escape a black hole. Yet for a supermassive black hole, such as the one thought to reside at the centre of our galaxy, an object could readily sink below the event horizon before becoming spaghetti, at a distance of many tens of thousands of kilometres from its centre. For a distant observer outside the event horizon of the black hole, it would appear that we progressively slow down and then fade away over time.

Bad news for Earth
What would happen, hypothetically, if a black hole appeared out of nowhere next to Earth? The same gravitational effects that produced spaghettification would start to take effect here. The edge of the Earth closest to the black hole would feel a much stronger force than the far side. As such, the doom of the entire planet would be at hand. We would be pulled apart.
Equally, we might not even notice if a truly supermassive black hole swallowed us below its event horizon as everything would appear as it once was, at least for a small period of time. In this case, it could be some time before disaster struck. But don’t lose too much sleep, we’d have to be unfortunate to “hit” a black hole in the first place – and we might live on holographically after the crunch anyway.

Mind the radiation
Interestingly, black holes are not necessarily black. Quasars – objects at the hearts of distant galaxies powered by black holes – are supremely bright. They can readily outshine the rest of their host galaxy combined. Such radiation is generated when the black hole is feasting on new material. To be clear: this material is still outside the event horizon which is why we can still see it. Below the event horizon is where nothing, not even light, can escape. As all the matter piles up from the feast, it will glow. It is this glow that is seen when observers look at quasars.
But this is a problem for anything orbiting (or near) a black hole, as it is very hot indeed. Long before we would be spaghettified, the sheer power of this radiation would fry us.

Life around a black hole
For those who have watched Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar, the prospect of a planet orbiting around a black hole might be an appealing one. For life to thrive, there needs to be a source of energy or a temperature difference. And a black hole can be that source. There’s a catch, though. The black hole needs to have stopped feasting on any material – or it will be emitting too much radiation to support life on any neighbouring worlds.
What life would look like on such a world (assuming its not too close to get spaghettified, of course) is another matter. The amount of power received by the planet would probably be tiny compared to what Earth receives from the Sun. And the overall environment of such a planet could be equally bizzare. Indeed, in the creation of Interstellar, Kip Thorne was consulted to ensure the accuracy of the depiction of the black hole featured. These factors do not preclude life, it just makes it a tough prospect and very hard to predict what forms it could take.

What are the real reasons that brought hundreds of thousands of African irregular migrants to Europe? The results of the UNDP (United Nations Development Program) investigation are clear: hundreds of thousands of Africans illegally reached Europe, resorting to criminal organizations and not to be rejected, they lied claiming to be refugees in escape from wars and persecutions.
They land in Europe after crossing the Mediterranean and seek asylum, "so they are not economic emigrants". One of the first recommendations addressed to newcomers by employees of NGOs and cooperatives that assist those who enter Italy illegally seems to be to declare refugees, to beware of saying that you have left the country of origin in search of work or in any case better luck, a statement that would classify them as illegal to repatriate.

Instead, asylum applications start the procedure foreseen by international conventions to ascertain the truthfulness of what has been said and decide whether to give migrants the legal status of refugee that authorizes them to reside in the country in which they have applied for asylum: if it is Italy , guests of a CAS, an extraordinary reception center.

We have been talking about them for a few days: because the landings have quintupled compared to 2019, because there is evidence that Malta rejects them and directs them to Italy, and because of the chat in which magistrates recognized that Matteo Salvini was right when as minister of the interior he opposed their landing, but was still attacked.

Whether they are refugees or emigrants makes a difference because only those who flee from threats to life and freedom admit that they enter a foreign country without documents in order and yet they must be welcomed. So last year the UNDP, the United Nations Development Program, commissioned an investigation to find out what the real reasons were that brought hundreds of thousands of African irregular migrants to Europe. The research results were published in October 2019 in a report entitled "The Scaling Fences: Voices of Irregular African Migrants to Europe". Reading it is useful for the information it contains. The same cannot be said of the conclusions it reaches.

UNDP researchers interviewed 1,970 people in 13 European states, originating in 39 African countries. The answers - explains the UNDP - deny "what is commonly said about irregular emigration from Africa to Europe". In fact, all the interviewees declare that they traveled using irregular channels, in other words relying on men's smuggler organizations, and that they did so not because they were driven by the need to seek asylum. The figure is surprising even for those who know that most of the asylum applications are without foundation and are rejected.

Many emigrants were by no means poor at home and do not have a low level of education, the report continues. That the poor cannot bear the high cost of an illegal travel has long been established. But the UNDP study says more. 9 out of 100 respondents went to school upon departure. 49 out of a hundred had a job. On average, they attended school for at least three years longer than their peers and, although about 50 percent said they did not earn enough, almost all of them received good, above average, wages.

Other interesting information emerges from the interviews. 41 percent of immigrants say nothing would dissuade them from leaving. 93 out of 100 say they took risks during the trip, but only 2 out of 100 say that if they knew what was waiting for them they would have given up on the plan to migrate irregularly. In addition to economic motivations, many add the unease due to unjust and corrupt governments, the sense of powerlessness in the face of political systems that do not create development, which keep people in poverty.

Although not everyone wants to live permanently in Europe, two factors cause them to stay. Among those who have found employment, some send money home: it is less than a third of what they earn, however, they say, equivalent to about 85 percent of what they earned at home. Going home would make this contribution to the family less, given the difficulty of reintegration into economic and social life, especially for those who return without resources. In the case of those who do not have a job, the shame of having failed, of not having implemented the project of sending remittances to families and communities is the main factor that prevents them from returning home. This is especially true for 53 percent of respondents who say they have received some form of financial help from relatives and friends to pay for travel expenses in Europe.

The results of the UNDP investigation are clear. Those who want to stop irregular migrants are right: they confirm that hundreds of thousands of Africans have reached Europe illegally, resorting to criminal organizations, to not be rejected they have lied claiming to be refugees fleeing wars and persecutions. Little considered but equally important fact, some of them find a regular job and it would seem a good thing. But every job so busy goes to the detriment of those who try to emigrate following rules and legal procedures: in Italy, starting from the entry quotas of non-EU workers established every year by the Directorate-General for Immigration and Integration Policies .

This is what the UNDP conclusions should deal with. Instead "the fundamental message that emerges from this study - comments the report - is that emigration is the effect of uneven development and in particular of a development that excludes young people, sends a strong signal to policy makers". The UNDP seems to consider irrelevant what instead constitutes the peculiarity of the phenomenon considered: the fact that young Africans decide to leave their countries clandestinely, headed for a continent, Europe, where it is completely unlikely that they will find a job, while millions of Africans instead emigrate regularly, mostly without leaving their continent, choosing as destination countries where there is a demand for labor.

It is worth highlighting the use of the expression "uneven development" because it refers to the Marxist theories of the 60s of the last century which attribute to the capitalist system, to its exploitation of the "peripheries" of the world, to its "domination" on the planet. cause of underdevelopment and persistent poverty.
 

A close look at fundamental symmetries has exposed hidden patterns in the universe. Physicists think that those same symmetries may also reveal time’s original secret.

In late August 2019, paleontologists reported finding the fossil of a flattened turtle shell that “was possibly trodden on” by a dinosaur, whose footprints spanned the rock layer directly above. The rare discovery of correlated fossils potentially traces two bygone species to the same time and place. “It’s only by doing that that we’re able to reconstruct ancient ecosystems,” one paleontologist told The New York Times.
The approach parallels the way cosmologists go about inferring the history of the universe. Like fossils, astronomical objects are not randomly strewn throughout space. Rather, spatial correlations between the positions of objects such as galaxies tell a detailed story of the ancient past. “Paleontologists infer the existence of dinosaurs to give a rational accounting of strange patterns of bones,” said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a physicist and cosmologist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. “We look at patterns in space today, and we infer a cosmological history in order to explain them.”
One curious pattern cosmologists have known about for decades is that space is filled with correlated pairs of objects: pairs of hot spots seen in telescopes’ maps of the early universe; pairs of galaxies or of galaxy clusters or superclusters in the universe today; pairs found at all distances apart. You can see these “two-point correlations” by moving a ruler all over a map of the sky. When there’s an object at one end, cosmologists find that this ups the chance that an object also lies at the other end.
The simplest explanation for the correlations traces them to pairs of quantum particles that fluctuated into existence as space exponentially expanded at the start of the Big Bang. Pairs of particles that arose early on subsequently moved the farthest apart, yielding pairs of objects far away from each other in the sky today. Particle pairs that arose later separated less and now form closer-together pairs of objects. Like fossils, the pairwise correlations seen throughout the sky encode the passage of time — in this case, the very beginning of time.
Cosmologists believe that rare quantum fluctuations involving three, four or even more particles should also have occurred during the birth of the universe. These presumably would have yielded more complicated configurations of objects in the sky today: triangular arrangements of galaxies, along with quadrilaterals, pentagons and other shapes. Telescopes haven’t yet spotted these statistically subtle “higher-point” correlations, but finding them would help physicists better understand the first moments after the Big Bang.
Yet theorists have found it challenging even to calculate what the signals would look like — until recently. In the past four years, a small group of researchers has approached the question in a new way. They have found that the form of the correlations follows directly from symmetries and other deep mathematical principles. The most important findings to date were detailed in a paper by Arkani-Hamed and three co-authors that took its final form this summer.
The physicists employed a strategy known as the bootstrap, a term derived from the phrase “pick yourself up by your own bootstraps” (instead of pushing off of the ground). The approach infers the laws of nature by considering only the mathematical logic and self-consistency of the laws themselves, instead of building on empirical evidence. Using the bootstrap philosophy, the researchers derived and solved a concise mathematical equation that dictates the possible patterns of correlations in the sky that result from different primordial ingredients.
“They’ve found ways of calculating things that just look totally different from the textbook approaches,” said Tom Hartman, a theoretical physicist at Cornell University who has applied the bootstrap in other contexts.
Eva Silverstein, a theoretical physicist at Stanford University who wasn’t involved in the research, added that the recent paper by Arkani-Hamed and collaborators is “a really beautiful contribution.” Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the work, Silverstein and others said, is what it implies about the nature of time. There’s no “time” variable anywhere in the new bootstrapped equation. Yet it predicts cosmological triangles, rectangles and other shapes of all sizes that tell a sensible story of quantum particles arising and evolving at the beginning of time.
This suggests that the temporal version of the cosmological origin story may be an illusion. Time can be seen as an “emergent” dimension, a kind of hologram springing from the universe’s spatial correlations, which themselves seem to come from basic symmetries. In short, the approach has the potential to help explain why time began, and why it might end. As Arkani-Hamed put it, “The thing that we’re bootstrapping is time itself.”
 

We often hear that Britain is a “class-based society”. Ask people what class is and you’ll get a wide range of answers – from accent to cultural tastes – leaving you perplexed as to how it might ever be a useful construct to understand much about the realities of British life. But really it’s all about what job you do.
I study the relationship between a person’s class and their life chances and it has become glaringly apparent during the coronavirus crisis that class – what job you do – has never been more important.
There is a clear class divide in the COVID-19 death rate, with working class jobs such as carers, taxi drivers, security guards and retail assistants clearly worse affected than middle and upper class jobs who can much more easily self-isolate and work from home.
Analysing data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on registered deaths in England and Wales among people aged 20 to 64, up to and including April 20, I find a sharp divide between the fraction of deaths in managerial and professional occupations and routine and manual occupations. While routine and manual occupations account for around 34% of jobs, those working in such jobs account for more than 43% of COVID-19 deaths among those of working age. Conversely, managerial and professional occupations account for 43% of all jobs but 28% of these deaths so far.

Author’s analysis of Office for National Statistics data. England and Wales aged 20 to 64 only. Mark Williams, CC BY-ND
Digging further into the detail makes very tragic reading. The deaths are highly concentrated in occupations that have been working on the frontline: caring and health, delivery workers, drivers and those working in retail. Of the 369 occupations listed by the ONS, just five account for 17% of COVID-19 deaths among those of working age in England and Wales. Just ten occupations account for 27% of these deaths, with 20 accounting for 40% (only 20% of people work in these 20 occupations).
These jobs are also overwhelmingly manual and routine occupations – those carried out by the economically least advantaged. While the class divide in COVID-19 deaths is not wholly out of sync with the divide in non-COVID deaths, these figures are a powerful reminder that what you do quite literally determines your life chances.

CC BY-ND
Impact of easing lockdown
Workers who cannot work from home can now return to their workplaces. This will clearly affect classes differently. Around 75% of managerial and professional workers will almost certainly carry on working from home because they can. By contrast, a similar proportion of routine and manual workers will most likely be back at their workplaces. According to my analysis of ONS data, these are occupations where less than 10% have ever worked from home.

Author’s analysis of ONS data. England and Wales aged 20 to 64 only. Mark Williams, CC BY-ND
One way to get a handle on the class dimension of the risks of going back to work is by using recent statistics published by the ONS on occupational exposure to infectious diseases and proximity to others at work. The first indicator in the graph below (blue bars) shows those in routine and manual occupations are most likely to be exposed to infectious disease in their job. The second indicator (red bars) shows these workers are also most likely to work in close proximity to others, making social distancing measures more difficult.

Author’s analysis of ONS data. This uses pre-pandemic data and does not reflect changes made since. Mark Williams, CC BY-ND
Combining these two indicators to form an overall risk index (green bars) reinforces the pattern that those workers being told to go back to work are also most vulnerable to infection at work. By contrast, managerial and professional occupations are less at risk – with some notable exceptions, such as those related to health like medical practitioners, nurses and dentists.
What is more, routine and manual jobs are the lowest paid, have the poorest sick pay and other workplace benefits and are the most insecure. But this predates the coronavirus crisis – class inequalities in conditions of employment have been becoming more entrenched over the past four decades.
What COVID-19 does is accelerate the impact of these class differences and throw the issue into stark relief. Reorganising workplaces to enable social distancing will likely be the most challenging and least effective in those jobs being told they can go back to work. They are also most at risk to infection, as well as being the ones needing to go back to work the most to make ends meet. What kind of job you have has never been more important for your life chances.

Over the last 50 years, a lot has changed in rocketry. The fuel that powers spaceflight might finally be changing too. To safely explore the solar system and beyond, spaceships need to go faster – nuclear-powered rockets may be the answer.

With dreams of Mars on the minds of both NASA and Elon Musk, long-distance crewed missions through space are coming. But you might be surprised to learn that modern rockets don’t go all that much faster than the rockets of the past.
There are a lot of reasons that a faster spaceship is a better one, and nuclear-powered rockets are a way to do this. They offer many benefits over traditional fuel-burning rockets or modern solar-powered electric rockets, but there have been only eight U.S. space launches carrying nuclear reactors in the last 40 years.
However, last year the laws regulating nuclear space flights changed and work has already begun on this next generation of rockets.

Why the need for speed?
The first step of a space journey involves the use of launch rockets to get a ship into orbit. These are the large fuel-burning engines people imagine when they think of rocket launches and are not likely to go away in the foreseeable future due to the constraints of gravity.
It is once a ship reaches space that things get interesting. To escape Earth’s gravity and reach deep space destinations, ships need additional acceleration. This is where nuclear systems come into play. If astronauts want to explore anything farther than the Moon and perhaps Mars, they are going to need to be going very very fast. Space is massive, and everything is far away.
There are two reasons faster rockets are better for long-distance space travel: safety and time.
Astronauts on a trip to Mars would be exposed to very high levels of radiation which can cause serious long-term health problems such as cancer and sterility. Radiation shielding can help, but it is extremely heavy, and the longer the mission, the more shielding is needed. A better way to reduce radiation exposure is to simply get where you are going quicker.
But human safety isn’t the only benefit. As space agencies probe farther out into space, it is important to get data from unmanned missions as soon as possible. It took Voyager-2 12 years just to reach Neptune, where it snapped some incredible photos as it flew by. If Voyager-2 had a faster propulsion system, astronomers could have had those photos and the information they contained years earlier.
Speed is good. But why are nuclear systems faster?

Systems of today
Once a ship has escaped Earth’s gravity, there are three important aspects to consider when comparing any propulsion system:

• Thrust – how fast a system can accelerate a ship
• Mass efficiency – how much thrust a system can produce for a given amount of fuel
• Energy density – how much energy a given amount of fuel can produce

Today, the most common propulsion systems in use are chemical propulsion – that is, regular fuel-burning rockets – and solar-powered electric propulsion systems.
Chemical propulsion systems provide a lot of thrust, but chemical rockets aren’t particularly efficient, and rocket fuel isn’t that energy-dense. The Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the Moon produced 35 million Newtons of force at liftoff and carried 950,000 gallons of fuel. While most of the fuel was used in getting the rocket into orbit, the limitations are apparent: It takes a lot of heavy fuel to get anywhere.
Electric propulsion systems generate thrust using electricity produced from solar panels. The most common way to do this is to use an electrical field to accelerate ions, such as in the Hall thruster. These devices are commonly used to power satellites and can have more than five times higher mass efficiency than chemical systems. But they produce much less thrust – about three Newtons, or only enough to accelerate a car from 0-60 mph in about two and a half hours. The energy source – the Sun – is essentially infinite but becomes less useful the farther away from the Sun the ship gets.
One of the reasons nuclear-powered rockets are promising is because they offer incredible energy density. The uranium fuel used in nuclear reactors has an energy density that is 4 million times higher than hydrazine, a typical chemical rocket propellant. It is much easier to get a small amount of uranium to space than hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel.
So what about thrust and mass efficiency?

Two options for nuclear
Engineers have designed two main types of nuclear systems for space travel.
The first is called nuclear thermal propulsion. These systems are very powerful and moderately efficient. They use a small nuclear fission reactor – similar to those found in nuclear submarines – to heat a gas, such as hydrogen, and that gas is then accelerated through a rocket nozzle to provide thrust. Engineers from NASA estimate that a mission to Mars powered by nuclear thermal propulsion would be 20%-25% shorter than a trip on a chemical-powered rocket.
Nuclear thermal propulsion systems are more than twice as efficient as chemical propulsion systems – meaning they generate twice as much thrust using the same amount of propellant mass – and can deliver 100,000 Newtons of thrust. That’s enough force to get a car from 0-60 mph in about a quarter of a second.
The second nuclear-based rocket system is called nuclear electric propulsion. No nuclear electric systems have been built yet, but the idea is to use a high-power fission reactor to generate electricity that would then power an electrical propulsion system like a Hall thruster. This would be very efficient, about three times better than a nuclear thermal propulsion system. Since the nuclear reactor could create a lot of power, many individual electric thrusters could be operated simultaneously to generate a good amount of thrust.
Nuclear electric systems would be the best choice for extremely long-range missions because they don’t require solar energy, have very high efficiency and can give relatively high thrust. But while nuclear electric rockets are extremely promising, there are still a lot of technical problems to solve before they are put into use.

Why aren’t there nuclear powered rockets yet?
Nuclear thermal propulsion systems have been studied since the 1960s but have not yet flown in space.
Regulations first imposed in the U.S. in the 1970s essentially required case-by-case examination and approval of any nuclear space project from multiple government agencies and explicit approval from the president. Along with a lack of funding for nuclear rocket system research, this environment prevented further improvement of nuclear reactors for use in space.
That all changed when the Trump administration issued a presidential memorandum in August 2019. While upholding the need to keep nuclear launches as safe as possible, the new directive allows for nuclear missions with lower amounts of nuclear material to skip the multi-agency approval process. Only the sponsoring agency, like NASA, for example, needs to certify that the mission meets safety recommendations. Larger nuclear missions would go through the same process as before.
Along with this revision of regulations, NASA received US$100 million in the 2019 budget to develop nuclear thermal propulsion. DARPA is also developing a space nuclear thermal propulsion system to enable national security operations beyond Earth orbit.
After 60 years of stagnation, it’s possible a nuclear-powered rocket will be heading to space within a decade. This exciting achievement will usher in a new era of space exploration. People will go to Mars and science experiments will make new discoveries all across our solar system and beyond.

Stubborn problems with dark matter, dark energy, and cosmic expansion have some astronomers rethinking what we know about the early universe.

A series of powerful observations has made it clear that our universe has expanded for billions of years, emerging from the hot, dense state we call the Big Bang. Over the past several decades, new types of precise measurements have allowed scientists to scrutinize and refine this account, letting them reconstruct the history of our universe in ever greater detail. When we compare the results from different kinds of measurements — the expansion rate of the universe, the temperature patterns in the light released when the first atoms formed, the abundances of various chemical elements, and the distribution of galaxies and other large-scale structures — we find stunning agreement. Each of these lines of evidence supports the conclusion that our universe expanded and evolved in just the way that the Big Bang theory predicts. From this perspective, our universe appears to be remarkably comprehensible.
But cosmologists have struggled — if not outright failed — to understand essential facets of the universe. We know almost nothing about dark matter and dark energy, which together make up more than 95 percent of the total energy in existence today. We don’t understand how the universe’s protons, electrons, and neutrons could have survived the aftereffects of the Big Bang. In fact, everything we know about the laws of physics tells us that these particles should have been destroyed by antimatter long ago. And in order to make sense of the universe as we observe it, cosmologists have been forced to conclude that space, during its earliest moments, must have undergone a brief and spectacular period of hyperfast expansion — an event known as cosmic inflation. Yet we know next to nothing about this key era of cosmic history.
It’s possible that these puzzles are little more than loose ends, each of which will be resolved as cosmologists continue to investigate our universe. But so far, these problems have proven to be remarkably stubborn and persistent. With the goal of identifying the individual particles that make up dark matter, scientists have designed and built a series of impressive experiments — yet no such particles have appeared. Even powerful particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider have revealed nothing that moves us closer to resolving any of these cosmic mysteries. And despite having measured the expansion history and large-scale structure of the universe in ever increasing detail, we have not gained any substantively greater understanding of the nature of dark energy, the force that seems to be accelerating the expansion of the cosmos.
It is from this perspective that some cosmologists have found themselves asking whether these cosmic mysteries might be symptoms of something more significant than a few loose threads. Perhaps these puzzles are not as unrelated as they might seem, but are instead collectively pointing us toward a very different picture of our universe and its earliest moments. What we’ve learned by not discovering dark matter Dark matter is likely the most celebrated problem facing modern cosmologists. Astronomers have determined that most of the matter in our universe does not consist of atoms or any other known substances, but of something else — something that does not appreciably radiate, reflect, or absorb light.
Despite not knowing much about the nature of dark matter, cosmologists often speculate about the kinds of particles that might make up this substance. In particular, researchers have long recognized that if dark matter particles interact through a force that is approximately as powerful as the weak nuclear force (which governs radioactive decay), then the number of these particles that should have emerged from the Big Bang would roughly match the measured abundance of dark matter found in the universe today. With this in mind, weakly interacting massive particles — WIMPs — became the best guess for dark matter’s nature.
MPs was that scientists thought they knew how to detect the particles and study their properties. Motivated by this goal, physicists engaged in an ambitious experimental program to identify these WIMPs and learn how they were forged in the Big Bang. Over the past couple of decades, researchers have deployed a succession of increasingly sensitive dark matter detectors in deep-underground laboratories that are capable of detecting individual collisions between a dark matter particle and the atoms that make up the target.
These sophisticated experiments performed beautifully — as well as or better than designed. Yet no such collisions have been observed. A decade ago, many scientists were optimistic that these experiments would bear fruit. But dark matter has turned out to be very different, and far more elusive, than we had once imagined.
Although it’s still possible that dark matter could consist of some form of difficult-to-detect WIMPs, the lack of any signal from underground experiments has led many physicists to shift their focus toward other dark matter candidates. One such contender is a hypothetical ultralight particle known as an axion. Axions are predicted according to a theory proposed by particle physicists Roberto Peccei and Helen Quinn in 1977. Although scientists are searching for axions in experiments that use powerful magnetic fields to convert them into photons, these investigations have yet to place very strict constraints on the properties of these particles.
Another possibility that could explain why dark matter has been so difficult to detect is that the first moments of the universe may have played out much differently than cosmologists have long imagined. Take the case of the conventional WIMP. Calculations show that the fledgling universe should have produced vast quantities of these particles during the first millionth of a second or so after the Big Bang, when they reached a state of equilibrium with the surrounding plasma of quarks, gluons, and other subatomic particles. The number of WIMPs that could have survived these conditions — and ultimately contributed to the dark matter found throughout today’s universe — depends on how, and how often, they interacted. But when carrying out calculations such as these, scientists generally assume that space expanded steadily during the first fraction of a second, without any unexpected events or transitions. It is entirely plausible that this simply was not the case.
Although cosmologists know a great deal about how our universe expanded and evolved over most of its history, they know relatively little about the first seconds that followed the Big Bang — and next to nothing about the first trillionth of a second. When it comes to how our universe may have evolved, or to the events that may have taken place during these earliest moments, we have essentially no direct observations on which to rely. This era is hidden from view, buried beneath impenetrable layers of energy, distance, and time.
Our understanding of this period of cosmic history is, in many respects, little more than an informed guess based on inference and extrapolation. Look far enough back in time, and almost everything we know about our universe could have been different. Matter and energy existed in different forms than they do today, and they may have experienced forces that have not yet been discovered. Key events and transitions may have taken place that science has yet to illuminate. Matter likely interacted in ways that it no longer does, and space and time themselves may have behaved differently than they do in the world we know.
With this in mind, many cosmologists have begun to consider the possibility that our failure to detect the particles that make up dark matter might be telling us not only about the nature of dark matter itself, but also about the era in which it was created. By studying dark matter, scientists are learning about the first moments after the Big Bang.

  How fast is space expanding? In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies are moving away from us at speeds proportional to their distances. This provided the first clear evidence that our universe is expanding. Ever since, the current rate of this expansion — the Hubble constant — has been one of the key properties of our universe that cosmologists study.
It’s fair to say that the Hubble constant has long been difficult to measure. Hubble’s original determination was plagued with systematic errors that led him to overestimate the expansion rate by a factor of 7. As recently as the 1990s, textbooks often quoted values ranging from as low as 50 to as high as 100 kilometers per second for every million parsecs separating two points in space — usually written as 50 to 100 km/s/Mpc. (One megaparsec [Mpc] equals 3.26 million light-years.) Although the precision of these measurements has improved considerably over the past two decades, no consensus yet exists regarding the correct value for this quantity. In fact, as these measurements have improved, the results from different methods seem to disagree with one another even more.
One way to determine the Hubble constant is to directly measure how fast objects are moving away from us, just as Hubble did in 1929. For his measurements, Hubble used a special class of pulsating stars known as Cepheid variables, whose intrinsic luminosities track nicely with the periods over which they brighten and fade. Modern cosmologists continue to use Cepheids for this purpose, but they also employ other classes of objects, including type Ia supernovae — exploding white dwarfs that all have the same approximate luminosity. When researchers combine the latest data, they find that the universe is currently expanding at a rate of about 72 to 76 km/s/Mpc.
But that’s not the end of the story. Cosmologists also can infer the value of the Hubble constant by studying the primordial light released when the first atoms formed some 380,000 years after the Big Bang. The detailed temperature patterns of this light — known as the cosmic microwave background — serve as a map that shows how matter was distributed throughout the universe at that time.
When scrutinized, this map reveals many details about our young universe, including how much matter and other forms of energy were present, as well as how fast space was expanding. It also tells us that the Hubble constant is about 67 km/s/Mpc — a significantly smaller value than cosmologists have found through more direct measurements.
What does this mismatch mean for our universe? Assuming that these studies have correctly accounted for all the systematic uncertainties inherent in the observations, these two ways of determining the Hubble constant appear to be incompatible — at least within the context of the standard cosmological model. To make these discrepant results mutually consistent, astronomers would be forced to change how we think the cosmos expanded and evolved, or to reconsider the forms of matter and energy in the universe during the first few hundred thousand years following the Big Bang.
According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the rate at which space expands depends on the density of matter and other forms of energy it contains. When cosmologists infer the value of the Hubble constant from the cosmic microwave background, they have to make assumptions about the amounts of dark matter, neutrinos, and other substances that were present.
Perhaps the simplest way to explain the tension between the different measurements of the Hubble constant would be to hypothesize that the cosmos contained more energy than expected during the first hundred thousand years or so following the Big Bang. This energy might have taken the form of an exotic species of light and feebly interacting particles, or of some kind of dark energy associated with the vacuum of space itself that has long since disappeared from the universe. Or perhaps there is something else we don’t understand about this era of cosmic history. We simply do not yet know how to resolve this intriguing mystery. Is a revolution coming? As I said earlier, it’s possible that the various puzzles cosmologists face today are little more than a few trivial threads that scientists will tie up nicely in the years ahead with the help of new experiments and observations. But lately, it seems the more we study the universe, the less we understand it. Despite decades of effort, the nature of dark matter remains unknown, and the problem of dark energy seems nearly intractable. We do not know how the particles that make up the atoms in our universe managed to survive the first moments of the Big Bang, and we still know little about cosmic inflation, how it played out, or how it came to an end — assuming that something like inflation happened at all.
It is from this perspective that I sometimes find myself considering whether these mysteries might represent something greater than a few open and unrelated questions. Perhaps they are telling us that the earliest moments of our universe were far different from what we long imagined them to be. Perhaps these problems represent the beginning of a revolution for the science of cosmology.
Sometimes I wonder whether we might be on a significant precipice of scientific history, similar to what we experienced in 1904. At that time, physics had never before seemed to be on such solid footing. For more than two centuries, the principles of Newtonian physics had been applied successfully to problem after problem. And although physicists expanded their knowledge into areas such as electricity, magnetism, and heat, these aspects of the world were really not so different from those Newton had described hundreds of years earlier. To the physicists of 1904, the world seemed well understood. There was little reason to expect a revolution.
Similar to the situation cosmologists confront today, however, the physicists of 1904 had not yet been able to address a few challenges. The medium through which they believed light traveled — the luminiferous ether — should have induced variations in the speed of light, and yet light always moves through space at the same rate. Astronomers observed the orbit of Mercury to be slightly different from what Newtonian physics predicted, leading some to suggest that an unknown planet, dubbed Vulcan, might be perturbing Mercury’s trajectory.
Physicists in 1904 had no idea what powered the Sun — no known chemical or mechanical process could possibly generate so much energy over such a long time. Lastly, scientists knew various chemical elements emitted and absorbed light with specific patterns, none of which physicists had the slightest idea how to explain. In other words, the inner workings of the atom remained a total and utter mystery.
Although few saw it coming, in hindsight, it’s clear that these problems were heralds of a revolution in physics. And in 1905, the revolution arrived, ushered in by a young Albert Einstein and his new theory of relativity. We now know that the luminiferous ether does not exist and that there is no planet Vulcan. Instead, these fictions were symptoms of the underlying failure of Newtonian physics. Relativity beautifully solved and explained each of these mysteries without any need for new substances or planets.
Furthermore, when scientists combined relativity with the new theory of quantum physics, it became possible to explain the Sun’s longevity, as well as the inner workings of atoms. These new theories even opened doors to new and previously unimagined lines of inquiry, including that of cosmology itself.
Scientific revolutions can profoundly transform how we see and understand our world. But radical change is never easy to see coming. There is probably no way to tell whether the mysteries faced by cosmologists today are the signs of an imminent scientific revolution or merely the last few loose ends of an incredibly successful scientific endeavor.
There is no question that we have made incredible progress in understanding our universe, its history, and its origin. But it is also undeniable that we are profoundly puzzled, especially when it comes to the earliest moments of cosmic history. I have no doubt that these moments hold incredible secrets, and perhaps the keys to a new scientific revolution. But our universe holds its secrets closely. It is up to us to coax those secrets from its grip, transforming them from mystery into discovery.
 

This May 14, 2020, the faithful of different religious traditions have been invited to prayer and fasting for the end of the pandemic.
Interview with Msgr. Yoannis Lahzi Gaid, Secretary of Pope Francis and member of the High Committee for Human Fraternity, created after the historic Abu Dhabi meeting between the Holy Father and the Grand Imam Al-Tayyeb


Msgr. Yoannis Lahzi Gaid, how did this idea of a day of joint prayer and fasting on May 14, for Christians and Muslims, come about?
The idea arose within the High Committee for Human Fraternity during its last meeting, which took place on March 31, 2020 in a video conference due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The initiative was born from the question: how can we give shared witness before a shared danger? The answer was "praying together as brothers and sisters".

How is the High Committee progressing one year on from the Abu Dhabi meeting and what are your future plans?
The High Committee continues with enthusiasm and great good will to carry out its mission, that is to strengthen fraternity and to spread the values mentioned in the Document on Human Fraternity, through concrete initiatives, such as, for example, the invitation to prayer, fasting and charity works scheduled for May 14, as well as the promotion of the "Human Fraternity" award which will be given each year to personalities recognized as promoters of fraternity, and also the construction of the "House of Abraham" in Abu Dhabi to realize the value of fraternity and respect for divergences and differences. Faith in God must unite and not divide or even justify violence.
The Document on Human Fraternity is prophetic in affirming universal fraternity. In fact, Coronavirus has not differentiated between rich and poor, between West and East, between developed and developing countries... we are the same, we are brothers and sisters in danger and with a common struggle.

Some would speak of syncretism and give way to polemics when it comes to prayer with an interreligious dimension. Why is it not syncretism and how can we help make this aspect better understood?
Prayer is a universal value inherent in man in every age and time. This is a fact. Inviting everyone to pray together, each according to his or her own faith and belief, does not syncretize but reinforces the value of prayer and fraternity.  As a priest and as a Christian who recites the prayer that Christ taught his disciples every day, the "Our Father", I can see in this invitation only the hand of God that unites all the siblings and children in an act of prayer. This does not weaken my faith in Christ, the only Saviour of the World, but strengthens it, knowing that only God can transform evil into good, a pandemic into an occasion of fraternity, a prayer into a power. We cannot forget that God brings his rain down on the good and the bad, makes His sun rise on it all. And precisely for this purpose, Pope Saint John Paul II held an international peace meeting in Assisi in 1986 where the participants each prayed according to their faith.
The initiative therefore wishes to unite all men and women to call for the end of the Coronavirus. It would be the first time that all humankind unites for a single goal: to pray together, each according to their own faith, thus proving that faith unites and does not divide.
Covid-19 has brought us all to our knees but being on our knees is the best position to pray. The virus made us understand our fragility and the need to unite as brothers. We cannot emerge from this separately: either united, together or nobody.

In your personal experience, in Egypt, your country, what can you say about the role of Our Lady in Islamic-Christian spiritual friendship?
The figure of the Virgin Mary is fundamental in interreligious dialogue with Muslims who venerate and respect her. In Egypt many Muslims go to pray at Marian shrines and some even make vows to her. Both the figure of the Virgin and the Document on Fraternity can represent "common points". It is always better to start the dialogue from what unites us and not from what divides us. This never means failing in our duty to proclaim the Truth of the Gospel and of our faith, but to do it with charity, with respect and with humility. Determination never means presumption. Christ who commands us to bring the Gospel to the whole world also asks us to love and pray for everyone, that is, not to fall into the trap of the Pharisees: to believe that we possess the keys to the Kingdom of God, without entering and without letting others enter. Adversity does not bring Christ to others, on the contrary, it hinders the proclamation of the Gospel and deforms the beauty of our faith.

In the spring of 2015, through my research in the 216-digits project, I became interested in verifying how number theory was useful in revealing secrets in astronomy.

I therefore verified my intuition that a terrestrial year expressed in days was related to the prime numbers, to the metaphysical value 666 and to phi, the golden number underlying many proportions in nature, the approximate value of which is 1.61803398875.

My guess was that the average of the difference in the value of 666 minus each prime number less than 666, including 1, differed from the number of days in an earth year by the value of ϕ.

Here is the verification through the following table, in which:

• The first column represents the list of prime numbers lower than 666, including the value 1;
• The second column represents the differences between 666 and the list of prime numbers including 1.
• The third column is the calculation of the average of the differences between 666 and each prime number, including 1, in their sequence.
• The fourth column represents the difference between the exact days 365,2421875 that make up an earth year and the averages of the third column.
• The fifth column represents the difference between the approximate 365.25 days that make up an earth year and the averages of the third column.
• The last two columns represent the difference between the Phi value and the results of the two previous columns respectively.

Prime p	666 - p	Average (666-p)	365,2421875 - Av	365,25 - Av	Phi-(365,242-Av)	Phi-(365,25-Av)
1	665	665.00	-299.76	-299.75	301.38	301.37
2	664	664.50	-299.26	-299.25	300.88	300.87
3	663	664.00	-298.76	-298.75	300.38	300.37
5	661	663.25	-298.01	-298.00	299.63	299.62
7	659	662.40	-297.16	-297.15	298.78	298.77
11	655	661.17	-295.92	-295.92	297.54	297.53
13	653	660.00	-294.76	-294.75	296.38	296.37
17	649	658.63	-293.38	-293.38	295.00	294.99
19	647	657.33	-292.09	-292.08	293.71	293.70
23	643	655.90	-290.66	-290.65	292.28	292.27
29	637	654.18	-288.94	-288.93	290.56	290.55
31	635	652.58	-287.34	-287.33	288.96	288.95
37	629	650.77	-285.53	-285.52	287.15	287.14
41	625	648.93	-283.69	-283.68	285.30	285.30
43	623	647.20	-281.96	-281.95	283.58	283.57
47	619	645.44	-280.20	-280.19	281.81	281.81
53	613	643.53	-278.29	-278.28	279.91	279.90
59	607	641.50	-276.26	-276.25	277.88	277.87
61	605	639.58	-274.34	-274.33	275.95	275.95
67	599	637.55	-272.31	-272.30	273.93	273.92
71	595	635.52	-270.28	-270.27	271.90	271.89
73	593	633.59	-268.35	-268.34	269.97	269.96
79	587	631.57	-266.32	-266.32	267.94	267.93
83	583	629.54	-264.30	-264.29	265.92	265.91
89	577	627.44	-262.20	-262.19	263.82	263.81
97	569	625.19	-259.95	-259.94	261.57	261.56
101	565	622.96	-257.72	-257.71	259.34	259.33
103	563	620.82	-255.58	-255.57	257.20	257.19
107	559	618.69	-253.45	-253.44	255.07	255.06
109	557	616.63	-251.39	-251.38	253.01	253.00
113	553	614.58	-249.34	-249.33	250.96	250.95
127	539	612.22	-246.98	-246.97	248.59	248.59
131	535	609.88	-244.64	-244.63	246.25	246.25
137	529	607.50	-242.26	-242.25	243.88	243.87
139	527	605.20	-239.96	-239.95	241.58	241.57
149	517	602.75	-237.51	-237.50	239.13	239.12
151	515	600.38	-235.14	-235.13	236.75	236.75
157	509	597.97	-232.73	-232.72	234.35	234.34
163	503	595.54	-230.30	-230.29	231.91	231.91
167	499	593.13	-227.88	-227.88	229.50	229.49
173	493	590.68	-225.44	-225.43	227.06	227.05
179	487	588.21	-222.97	-222.96	224.59	224.58
181	485	585.81	-220.57	-220.56	222.19	222.18
191	475	583.30	-218.05	-218.05	219.67	219.66
193	473	580.84	-215.60	-215.59	217.22	217.21
197	469	578.41	-213.17	-213.16	214.79	214.78
199	467	576.04	-210.80	-210.79	212.42	212.41
211	455	573.52	-208.28	-208.27	209.90	209.89
223	443	570.86	-205.61	-205.61	207.23	207.23
227	439	568.22	-202.98	-202.97	204.60	204.59
229	437	565.65	-200.40	-200.40	202.02	202.02
233	433	563.10	-197.85	-197.85	199.47	199.46
239	427	560.53	-195.29	-195.28	196.90	196.90
241	425	558.02	-192.78	-192.77	194.39	194.39
251	415	555.42	-190.18	-190.17	191.79	191.79
257	409	552.80	-187.56	-187.55	189.18	189.17
263	403	550.18	-184.93	-184.93	186.55	186.54
269	397	547.53	-182.29	-182.28	183.91	183.90
271	395	544.95	-179.71	-179.70	181.32	181.32
277	389	542.35	-177.11	-177.10	178.73	178.72
281	385	539.77	-174.53	-174.52	176.15	176.14
283	383	537.24	-172.00	-171.99	173.62	173.61
293	373	534.63	-169.39	-169.38	171.01	171.00
307	359	531.89	-166.65	-166.64	168.27	168.26
311	355	529.17	-163.93	-163.92	165.55	165.54
313	353	526.50	-161.26	-161.25	162.88	162.87
317	349	523.85	-158.61	-158.60	160.23	160.22
331	335	521.07	-155.83	-155.82	157.45	157.44
337	329	518.29	-153.05	-153.04	154.67	154.66
347	319	515.44	-150.20	-150.19	151.82	151.81
349	317	512.65	-147.41	-147.40	149.02	149.02
353	313	509.88	-144.63	-144.63	146.25	146.24
359	307	507.10	-141.85	-141.85	143.47	143.46
367	299	504.28	-139.04	-139.03	140.66	140.65
373	293	501.47	-136.22	-136.22	137.84	137.83
379	287	498.64	-133.40	-133.39	135.02	135.01
383	283	495.84	-130.60	-130.59	132.22	132.21
389	277	493.04	-127.80	-127.79	129.41	129.41
397	269	490.20	-124.96	-124.95	126.58	126.57
401	265	487.39	-122.15	-122.14	123.76	123.76
409	257	484.54	-119.30	-119.29	120.92	120.91
419	247	481.65	-116.40	-116.40	118.02	118.01
421	245	478.80	-113.55	-113.55	115.17	115.16
431	235	475.89	-110.65	-110.64	112.27	112.26
433	233	473.04	-107.79	-107.79	109.41	109.40
439	227	470.17	-104.93	-104.92	106.55	106.54
443	223	467.33	-102.09	-102.08	103.71	103.70
449	217	464.49	-99.25	-99.24	100.86	100.86
457	209	461.62	-96.38	-96.37	97.99	97.99
461	205	458.77	-93.52	-93.52	95.14	95.13
463	203	455.96	-90.71	-90.71	92.33	92.32
467	199	453.16	-87.92	-87.91	89.54	89.53
479	187	450.30	-85.06	-85.05	86.68	86.67
487	179	447.41	-82.17	-82.16	83.79	83.78
491	175	444.55	-79.31	-79.30	80.92	80.92
499	167	441.66	-76.41	-76.41	78.03	78.02
503	163	438.78	-73.54	-73.53	75.16	75.15
509	157	435.91	-70.67	-70.66	72.28	72.28
521	145	432.97	-67.73	-67.72	69.35	69.34
523	143	430.07	-64.83	-64.82	66.45	66.44
541	125	427.05	-61.81	-61.80	63.43	63.42
547	119	424.03	-58.79	-58.78	60.41	60.40
557	109	420.97	-55.73	-55.72	57.35	57.34
563	103	417.91	-52.67	-52.66	54.29	54.28
569	97	414.86	-49.61	-49.61	51.23	51.23
571	95	411.84	-46.60	-46.59	48.22	48.21
577	89	408.82	-43.58	-43.57	45.20	45.19
587	79	405.77	-40.53	-40.52	42.14	42.14
593	73	402.72	-37.47	-37.47	39.09	39.08
599	67	399.66	-34.42	-34.41	36.04	36.03
601	65	396.65	-31.41	-31.40	33.02	33.02
607	59	393.63	-28.39	-28.38	30.01	30.00
613	53	390.62	-25.38	-25.37	27.00	26.99
617	49	387.62	-22.38	-22.37	24.00	23.99
619	47	384.66	-19.42	-19.41	21.04	21.03
631	35	381.65	-16.40	-16.40	18.02	18.01
641	25	378.60	-13.36	-13.35	14.97	14.97
643	23	375.58	-10.34	-10.33	11.96	11.95
647	19	372.59	-7.35	-7.34	8.96	8.96
653	13	369.59	-4.35	-4.34	5.97	5.96
659	7	366.60	-1.35	-1.35	2.97	2.96
661	5	363.63	1.61	1.62	0.00699402973	-0.000818470

It can be seen that the final result oscillates between the value of 0.00699403 in excess and 0.00081847 in default.
So it can be seen with good approximation that: “the average of 666 minus all prime numbers less than 666, including 1 differ from the days that make up a terrestrial year of the value of ϕ”.

The following questions arise spontaneously:

• Is the duration of an Earth's orbit around the sun constant, is it increasing or decreasing?
• Is the mathematical relationship just verified a case that concerns only our Earth or could it also concern the other exoplanets in which there is life?

In ensuring the safest, most sanitized space for your guests—the most protected from the New Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)—ions are your best friend. So says Steve Levine and Tony Abate from AtmosAir Solutions. Their company’s technology has been proven to eliminate the Coronavirus, other viruses, bacteria, fungi and allergens. Levine is President & CEO of the Fairfield, Conn.-based company and Abate is Chief Technology Officer.
At the core of AtmosAir systems is Bi Polar Ionization technology. Within an HVAC system or as a standalone unit, ionization tubes are placed. As airflow passes through the tubes, Bi Polar—positive and negative—ions are created that persist for up to 300 seconds. In the case of a virus such as the Coronavirus, the ions destroy the virus surface structure on a molecular level. As a result, the virus cannot infect, even if it enters the body. The ions also bond to dust and mold particles, break down germs and odors at their source, and break down toxic gasses.
There are three primary ways for the Coronavirus to spread—through person to person contact, by touching a surface that has the virus, and by breathing in microscopic droplets expelled by someone with the virus.
“The ions that we produce pack the occupied space,” Abate says. “They saturate the space and go anywhere the conditioned air will go. “Our system can continuously disinfect the air and surfaces. The system offers another layer of protection against the droplets.”

‘Active’ Form of Air Purification
Unlike a passive system that draws air in and then “filters” it, AtmosAir technology creates the ions once the air flows through the system. “It is an active form of air purification,” Abate says.
Ionization is nature’s air cleaning process. Whereas, unique environmental conditions contribute to ion concentration in excess of 5,000 ions/cm3 near waterfalls and high mountains, ion levels can be as low as 75 ions/cm3 in some indoor locations. Bi Polar Ionization restores ion levels.
Because AtmosAir removes contaminants from the air, less makeup air is needed in a space—up to 50 percent less. According to Levine, HVAC system size can be reduced by 15 percent and energy consumption can be reduced by 30 percent. “If designed into a project at the outset, your HVAC system does not need to be quite as big,” Levine says. The life of HVAC equipment and filters can also be extended.
When asked what advances have been made to his company’s systems since the company was founded in 2007, Levine said, “Now we have incorporated sensors into the technology so you can measure the air quality on a real-time basis. We have also advanced the tubes so that they last 2 years—18,000 hours.” AtmosAware sensors measure different environmental conditions such as TVOC (total volatile organic compound), ozone, and relative humidity. The AtmosSmart logic-based controller interprets the data and automatically adjusts ion intensity to ensure optimal levels and air cleaning performance are maintained, 24/7.
An AtmosAir system is scalable, Levine adds—from a PTAC to a central air system. “We just did 140 hotel rooms in Tulsa. They are integrated into every hotel room in the fan coil unit.”
In addition to the direct physical public health, cost and energy savings benefits, bipolar ionization can be part of a wellness program. Levine says all of Hilton’s Five Feet to Fitness rooms will have AtmosAir purification. Some hotels are marketing rooms with AtmosAir systems as allergy and asthma proofed. In general, enhanced air quality has been proven to result in improved worker productivity, less sickness, and less missed work time.

When connections between people you meet can provide digital information.

On 19.4.2020 the post of a female contact of mine appeared on my Facebook news feed. Nothing of her had ever appeared to me previously, despite having been connected since 23 March 2018, without having any memory of it.
Her post communicated the alleged numerical value of the word QAnon in the Jewish gematria and for this reason it immediately caught my attention.
I left a comment, flying over the meaning of the word QAnon, which refers to a far-right conspiracy theory detailing a supposed secret plot by an alleged "deep state" against U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters, and asking if she had been an expert on Jewish gematria.
From there we started to communicate privately, slowly leading me to believe in a singular connection.
In fact, she told me that on 2.1.2018 she had close contact with higher entities who initiated her to new acquaintances and that in March 2019 she had a dream in which she read 3 times the word Death, that in Italian language begins with the letter M, on the walls of a building that could have been a hospital, associated with the date 8.8.2020.
I therefore let myself be carried away by my numeric and symbolic intuition by noting significant singularities:

1. Personal Information analysis:

• Her name has the value 30 in the gematria T9, reduced to 3 in mod 9.
• Her surname has the value 48 in the gematria T9, reduced to 3 in mod 9.
• Her date of birth is 31.10.1982. The sum of the single digits gives 25, reduced to 7 in mod 9.
• In total 3.3.7. In summary 13, reduced to 4 in mod 9.

2. Connections with the dream and meaning of the results:

• The symbolic date dreamed by her is: 8/8/2020, from which 8.8.4 is obtained.
• So with the partial results I can build the following matrix: [3.3.7; 8.8.4]
• Adding the digits of the columns we get 11.11.11. In 216-digits searches the number 11 represents time and is the first master number.
• Adding all the digits of the matrix for each of the two lines I get 33, another master number, a value that represents light and its speed. The coincidence is that 33 is also the symbolic value in the gematria T9 of her full name.
• MORTE (death), the dreamed world has the value of 30 in the gematria T9.
• The dreamed first letter M in T9 is worth 6. 3 times 6 gives 666, the number that of John's apocalypse is associated with the Antichrist.
• Then, taking the result of the previous matrix: 11.11.11 and multiplying it by 3, the number of times the date appeared in her dream is obtained 33.33.33. In mod9 this gives the value 6.6.6, in synthesis 666 associating the digits and 216 multiplying 6x6x6, value that leads to the 216-digits matrix.

3. More about the date of 08.08.2020 that she dreamed of, in connection with her birthday:

• This date is spaced from her birthday on 31.10.2020 of 84 days.
• Multiplying 84 by the approximation for excess of π calculated by Archimedes from Syracuse and making the square we obtain 69696.
• On number 84 I discovered many things, for example the fact that it represents my full name in the gematria T9, or the fact that 84 days correspond to 2016 hours.
• The number 2016 is very unique. For example: 2016 - 216 (the number of digits in the matrix) - 1188 (the sum of the digits in the matrix) = 612 (216 read backwards).
• Or: (1188 - (2016 + 216) / 2) = 216/3 = 72 (the number of years for the sun to move 1 ° around the ecliptic), so I invite you to see the video I produced, entitled 72.
• In particular, 72 multiplied by 30, the number of patterns in the 216-digits Time Code gives the value 2160.
• Recalling that 2028 is the year that according to 216-digits humanity will enter the so-called imaginary time, and that it also corresponds to 338 (the numerical value of my surname in the gematria in Italian) multiplied by 6, it is therefore observed that [ 2x (2160-2028)] ^ 2 leads back to 69696, which represents the tree of knowledge in the garden of Eden.

What could all this mean about my connection with this woman in terms of digital philosophy, especially regarding the date she dreamed that will arrive only in about 3 months?

The spread of the Covid-19 is not only limited practicing social distancing but also combating the indoor air pollution.

Many people might be tempted to think that staying indoors means to be safe from air pollution, but research shows that this is far from the case. Air pollution can occur indoors, too, and has been linked to occurrences of headaches, dizziness, lack of concentration, and fatigue. The World Health Organization calls this “sick building syndrome.”

In the developed world, we already collectively spend around 90% of our time indoors. With these numbers increasing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, managing indoor air pollution is even more important.
 

The World Health Organization (WHO) must take swift action to establish global guidance on indoor air quality to reduce the spread of airborne bacteria and viruses in buildings, urges a new petition

A new petition has called on the WHO to take decisive action to establish global guidance on indoor air quality, with a clear recommendation on the minimum lower limit of air humidity in public buildings.

Supported by members of the global scientific and medical community, the petition is designed to not only increase global awareness on the role indoor environmental quality plays in physical health but also to call on the WHO to drive meaningful policy change.

As Covid-19 continues to put pressure on health systems and the economy globally, the group calls on the WHO to review the extensive research that shows an indoor humidity level of between the 40%-60% relative humidity (RH), is the optimum threshold for inhibiting the spread of respiratory viruses such as influenza.

Keep indoor air at 40-60%

Professor Dr Akiko Iwasaki PhD, The Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of immunobiology and professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at Yale, and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute said: “90% of our lives in the developed world are spent indoors in close proximity to each other.
“When cold outdoor air with little moisture is heated indoors, the air’s relative humidity drops to about 20%. This dry air provides a clear pathway for airborne viruses, such as Covid-19.
“That’s why I recommend humidifiers during the winter, and why I feel the world would be a healthier place if all our public buildings kept their indoor air at 40 to 60% RH.”
Evidence shows the important role indoor humidity levels play in preventing virus transmission and improving immune system response.

There are three key notable findings:

• Breathing dry air impairs our respiratory immune system’s ability to efficiently capture, remove and fight airborne viruses and germs, rendering us more vulnerable to respiratory infections.
• When the RH is lower than 40%, airborne droplets containing viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, shrink through evaporation making them lighter. This enables the particles to float for longer in the air, increasing the likelihood of infection.
• The vast majority of respiratory viruses suspended in dry atmospheres survive and remain infectious for much longer than those floating in air with an optimum humidity of 40-60%RH.

Optimum humidity can improve indoor air quality
One of the leading forces in the charge for a globally recognised 40-60%RH guideline for public buildings, Dr Stephanie Taylor MD, infection control consultant at Harvard Medical School, ASHRAE distinguished lecturer & member of the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Group, said: “In light of the Covid-19 crisis, it is now more important than ever to listen to the evidence that shows optimum humidity can improve our indoor air quality and respiratory health.
“It is time for regulators to place management of the built environment at the very center of disease control. Introducing WHO guidelines on minimum lower limits of relative humidity for public buildings has the potential to set a new standard for indoor air and improve the lives and health of millions of people.”
Dr Walter Hugentobler, MD, general physician, former lecturer Inst. of primary care at the University of Zürich, added: “Raising air humidity by humidification reduces the risk of virus spread in hospitals and other buildings at low-cost and without causing negative effects.
“It can also be easily implemented in public buildings, both in private and workplace environments with relative ease. Humidification gives people a simple means of actively combatting seasonal respiratory infections.”
According to the group, if the WHO publishes much-needed guidance on minimum lower limits of humidity, building standards regulators around the world would be encouraged to act urgently.

If these recommendations were implemented, the following effects could benefit global health systems and the world economy:

• Respiratory infections from seasonal respiratory viruses, such as flu, being significantly reduced
• Thousands of lives saved every year from the reduction in seasonal illness
• Global healthcare services being less burdened every winter
• The world’s economies massively benefiting from less absenteeism through illness
• A healthier indoor environment and improved health for millions of people.

There are different interpretations of whether a Third Temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem as one of the critical signs of the Messiah's imminent arrival.

Beliefs around the Third Temple are a part of eschatology, the branch of theology concerned with the end times.
The First Temple of Jerusalem, also known as Solomon's Temple, was the holy place for the Kingdom of Israel and was destroyed in 587 BCE when the city was under siege. The temple was rebuilt less than 100 years later as a holy site, before being destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70 CE and starting an exile of the Jewish people.
Rebuilding the temple — that being the third temple in Jerusalem — has important value in Jewish and Christian scriptures in the Book of Ezekiel. Both religions detail a clear beginning of mankind, so there must be a clear end, which the Third Temple symbolizes, said Motti Inbari, University of North Carolina at Pembroke associate professor of religion.
Jewish tradition says as the end times approaches, God will return the Jews to their homeland and begin performing miracles. One of those miracles will be a temple descending from heaven onto the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Inbari said.
"It will be a perfect return of everything that was destroyed in the year 70 [CE]," he said.
In the 20th century, the growing Zionist movement pushed for Jewish emigration from Europe to a Jewish state. Jews saw the success in doing the work of creating a nation themselves, and in the 1990s some strands of theology shifted to believing humans should also build the Third Temple rather than letting it come from heaven, Inbari said.
However, the idea of humans building the temple remains a minority view, Inbari said.
The Third Temple plays a significant role in Christianity as a sign of Jesus' second coming, detailed in the Book of Revelation, said Darrell Bock, Dallas Theological Seminary senior research professor.
"Among Christians, you really have two approaches: One is to say there is not going to be a physical temple, per se," Bock said. "But the more well-known view is that there will be, and when it shows it up, that's an indication that we're pretty close to the return of Christ."
Christianity is also split on whether the temple will be built by human hands, Bock said. Christians who read the Bible more literally, who tend to be theological conservatives, believe the temple will be a physical building.
 

Industry 4.0 is not only as relevant as it was before the global Covid-19 emergency, it's actually far more relevant moving forward. 

The world is gripped by the Covid-19 pandemic. The global supply chain is experiencing a level of disruption that has never been seen before.
Some manufacturers have ceased production completely, some have seen greatly reduced demand and others have seen a huge increase in demand. Every manufacturer is impacted by this crisis in some way and for many this poses an existential threat.
Prior to the crisis, Industry 4.0 was an area of great interest to many manufacturers. It was an exciting topic with huge potential benefits and was widely regarded as a ‘positive’ and future thinking topic.
Today, many of us are focused on the here and now. Our health and that of our family, friends and colleagues; the ability to access the food and supplies we need; our job security; the financial impact on our employers, clients and partners.
Beyond that we also have to consider the wider economic impact and the unknown amount of time it will take for things to return to some level of normality.
At this point it seems insensitive and inappropriate to discuss Industry 4.0 in the way it was discussed pre-crisis. The business drivers of Industry 4.0 pre-crisis were focused on competitive advantage, cost reduction, productivity, sustainability and innovation. The goal was to make well run businesses run better.
The focus for many manufacturers now is survival first and foremost and beyond that, damage limitation.
The immediate financial impact on manufacturers is already resulting in a huge reduction in non-essential spending and investments. Many Industry 4.0 solutions currently being considered or being deployed fall into the category of non-essential business activities.
This raises a few challenging but pertinent questions:

• Is Industry 4.0 even a topic manufacturers should be thinking about?
• Is Industry 4.0 relevant anymore?
• If it is relevant, why and what role does it have to play moving forward?

The short answer is yes, I believe Industry 4.0 is not only as relevant as it was before, I believe it is actually far more relevant moving forward. Here’s why.
The priorities for most manufacturers today fall into three distinct phases: Phase 1 – Survival; Phase 2 – Recovery; Phase 3 – Business as Usual in the new post-crisis paradigm.
The goal for all manufacturers will be to get to Phase 3 as soon as possible and at the lowest cost. In defining the operating model for Phase 3 they will factor in lessons learned from the crisis and try to build a more resilient and agile business.
They will be asking themselves some fundamental questions such as: Where were the weaknesses? Where did they make costly decisions and why? What would have helped?
I believe that the key finding will be that the systems and processes in place weren’t fit for purpose. It’s too early to say for certain, but it seems clear from events unfolding before us that one of the major weaknesses is a lack of real-time visibility across the business. Visibility that is essential to support critical business decisions.
Examples include:

• What is the demand for products and where can we manufacture them?
• What are our current raw material, WIP and finished goods inventory levels?
• What is our manufacturing capacity, both in terms of human resources and asset availability?
• What is our spare parts inventory and where are they?
• Where are our raw material shipments and what alternatives do we have?
• How is our finished goods distribution network operating?

Most system architectures currently consist of a heterogenous mix of applications and data silos. This architecture results in latency of information and a lack of a single real-time view of the business status. As soon as this architecture was tested beyond its normal operating conditions it failed, and this is why it is not fit for purpose.
I believe that another key learning from the crisis will be driven by manufacturers’ reliance on human capital and the impacts of social distancing. If we go one level deeper than the supply chain view, then manufacturing in particular will be highlighted as a big area for improvement.
During the crisis, production plans will have been changing on a much higher frequency as a result of changing demands and availability of raw materials, key staff and assets. Manufacturing has a much higher volume and frequency of ‘transaction’ than the supply chain. Manufacturing is real-time, not near real-time.
As I write this, the recovery phase is still an unknown amount of time away. When manufacturers do begin to move into the recovery phase, they will still be asking the same questions they are asking during the crisis highlighted above.
Eventually, we will reach the new normality and manufacturers will be keen to make sure this cannot happen again. The role of Industry 4.0 in the future Industry 4.0 has a different role from today onward. Its role should be to:

1. Help make sure that more companies survive
2. Shorten the recovery phase and help return businesses to normal operations as soon as possible
3. Provide the platform to develop new, more resilient businesses in the medium to long term

Industry 4.0 can achieve this because many of the capabilities it offers could have greatly reduced the impact of this crisis on us all.
Just a few examples are:

• Real-time visibility into the availability of raw materials, finished goods, WIP, people and assets
• Use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to constantly reassess and re-plan activities
• Robotic process automation (RPA) to support non-value add labour intensive activities
• The use of mobile technology and augmented / virtual reality to enable workers to perform tasks they were not trained for more easily. This could have assisted with skills shortages due to self-isolation or repurposing of manufacturing
• The same technologies together with digital twins and remote support from OEM’s would improve availability of assets
• The same technologies could also have enabled more remote and virtual working to help with the issue of lockdown and social distancing
• 3D printing of spare parts that were stuck in the supply chain
• Use of AGV’s, autonomous electric vehicles and drones to again reduce the reliance on people and to further assist with social distancing.

Many of these technologies and solutions were seen as a nice to have. Many were waiting to ‘cross the chasm’ into mainstream adoption. Rather than retreating away from them, I believe we should be thinking about how we can use these technologies now and in the future.
Can any be deployed now to help deal with the crisis? Beyond that, how can they be used to help us recover more quickly and develop more resilient and robust businesses that are better equipped to deal with this level of disruption in the future?
There is one other critical factor in navigating our way out of this. I have felt for a very long time that the key to successful digital transformation was not technology but collaboration.
We need to break down the traditional silos both within organisations and in the external supplier ecosystem. This has ever been truer than it is today and the fact that I can see it happening in so many different areas gives me a lot of hope.
I don’t have all of the answers, none of us do. What I do have are lots of ideas, a desire to make a difference and a willingness to listen.
 

Cosmic religious sentiment ... is the strongest and most noble motivation of scientific research. (Albert Einstein)

The West has the merit of having created a truly universal experimental science, capable of giving unity of understanding, language and method to researchers of all races, faiths and cultures. Science gives humanity knowledge of the material and energy laws of the universe, an intellectual skyscraper of enormous proportions and very solid foundations, extending human awareness to the universes of the infinitely small and infinitely large, and revealing the biochemical alchemies of the body and brain, and their structures.

The unified field theory and the holistic paradigm:
The Unified Field Theory - a series of equations capable of bringing together the various laws of nature - was the dream of Einstein and many contemporary physicists. In the unified field theory, we find the same tendency towards unity, which characterizes the holistic paradigm. This tendency, which in Eastern thought is deeply imbued with spirituality, maintains a rational and analytical approach in physics. The drive for unity however remains the same. We are thus faced with scientific hypotheses that reflect the concept of Original Unity, from which everything developed.

The new frontiers of science:
Current science, like any other type of human culture, is going through a moment of profound transformation and renewal. While a part of science is still firm to a materialistic and reductive vision of the phenomena of existence, and often also closed to new visions, an increasingly large part of scientists is projected towards new paradigms and hypotheses, and opens up to new scenarios of research and interpretation of data. The theories of systems and the sciences of complexity, the theories of everything, of chaos and catastrophes, cybernetics and computer science, "psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology", cognitive sciences, virtual realities, networks are born. computer science, multimedia education.
The science of the nineties, called "the decade of the brain", crossed the border that separated it from the scientific study of consciousness, thus breaking a historical taboo that limited it from its birth. Until the 1980s, conscience was still considered a limiting topic (if not declaredly forbidden) within official science, although already around the middle of the twentieth century, various scientists, researchers and Nobel laureates disagreed with a purely vision materialistic science. Physicists such as Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Niels Bohr, Erwing Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Robert Oppenheimer and Marco Todeschini, believed that scientific thinking was not incompatible with a spiritual worldview. In quantum physics, in particular, there are numerous hypotheses and discoveries that seem to overcome materialistic conceptions, opening up new perspectives of integration between matter and consciousness. For a new unitary science, however, a new attitude of the scientist who finds its roots in a new experience of being is necessary. Note that the words science and consciousness have the same Latin root "scire", which means knowing, knowing.

The science of matter:
Science, properly so called, was born in the seventeenth century with Galileo's proposal for an experimental - and therefore reproducible - method that could give a high margin of truthfulness and universality to the data collected and the hypotheses on the functioning of reality. The experimental method was born as a response to the old way of imposing "truth", in a dogmatic and fideistic way, without any real basis, typical of established religions and of medieval magic / superstitious thought.
Truths that no one could oppose or claim to be false or undocumentable. Verifiability, quantification and prediction thus become the flags of a new path of scientific knowledge, more mature, realistic and universal. After an initial persecution against scientists such as Galileo Galilei, the Church - using Descartes' "diplomatic" proposal - decides to give science its own space, dividing the fields of investigation and power: the spiritual part, the soul or Res Cogitans the prerogative of the Church remains, while science is granted the study of all that is material, the physical substance, the Res Extensa.
Materialistic and reductive science therefore arises from this severe limit imposed by religion and also from the limited sensitivity that characterized the men of that time, unable to recognize consciousness as reality. In science as it came to be defined, nothing was granted to sensitivity, love of life, respect for the intelligence and conscience of animals, nature and the human being. From then on, the scientist divides matter from consciousness: the living, sentient and conscious unity is fragmented into body and soul, consequently losing the sense of unity and the sacred.
In ancient India, Truth was one of the three attributes of God, inseparably linked to the attributes of Beauty and Good. Today science has taken on the task of establishing the Truth of Things, replacing religion, but unfortunately doing so without the support of aesthetics, respect for the global good, without ecological and psychological awareness and without sacredness. Science and nature have become two antagonistic and apparently irreconcilable terms. By now, the current official science is only the expression of scientists who have not sufficiently developed a global awareness, or who have unconsciously accepted the conditioning of the current materialistic culture.

Total science:
It is necessary to re-found a new science: the times impose it loudly, animals invoke it with their sad eyes from zoos, experimentation laboratories and slaughterhouses; the forests implore him with their silence, while fire or bulldozers destroy their millenary home; humans hope for it, thrown and confused by a world that turns too fast. The hope is that good will finally take over. Hope, however, has always been frustrated.
Man hopes for the wise fathers of science, hopes that they know and understand how to save man and Earth from catastrophe, forgetting that this catastrophe is largely created precisely by a science at the service of materialism, personal gain and conquest. We therefore ask, with a loud voice, that wisdom, sacredness and respect fully enter into the world we now call science. It is therefore the time for a new science that bases its method of seeking the truth, without ever forgetting life in its infinite delicacy and intelligence. May you not forget the child and the oak tree, nor the stream and its fish, nor the air, nor the silence and beauty of its peace. Because the whole existence is divine and One. For this reason, the new science will be "holistic", growing in respect and love for the Whole, for the whole.

Logical assumptions and roots of the unitary experience:
The division that Western culture has created between mind and body arises from the non-unitary experience of oneself. There will be no holistic science until the human being experiences the sacred experience of being "one", in the complexity of the body, psyche, emotions and consciousness. A unity of consciousness composed of an aggregate of living atoms and sensitive cells, daughter of the maternal Earth, and witness of the infinite intelligence of the Whole, which creates and animates everything. Only a new scientific method can lead to a new science: a method that is based on a different state of being, more enlarged and inclusive, where all the parts that make up life and consciousness find the right space and consideration, and not only the material aspects.

Experience the unity of being:
First, a new science must take into account the implicit reality of consciousness as a starting point for a correct assessment of life. Each of us is above all a "cogito", a consciousness: "if we think, we must be aware of ourselves and the thing thought". Consciousness is the profound experience of being aware! For example, a man who does not know what meditation is, cannot fully understand the description of the experience of emptiness, silence or self-awareness. Self-experience is an experience that is cultivated internally, as a subtle art in which pleasure lies in the experience itself of being conscious, without finality, without clamor. Inner experience teaches everyone that there is an oceanic depth in their being, of which we are deeply ignorant.

Observe the observer:
A holistic science must start from an experimental methodology, in which the experimenter first considers himself a unity of consciousness, and therefore experiences himself as pure consciousness. Observation can never be truly objective and impartial, until science understands the nature of the observer or witness, the very essence of subjectivity. In particular, with a view to a global observation of existence, we must consider the importance of the fact that "you only see what you know". A scientist therefore who has no inner experience of himself in a state of fluid and pure awareness, will not even be able to recognize and understand the consciousness that animates every living being, and therefore will only be able to become the creator of a science "separate from life" and potentially destructive .
The experience of meditation understood as a vigilant consciousness without thoughts, unites almost all the great oriental religions and the ancient and modern schools of spiritual research, and is characterized by a synchronization of the various areas of the brain and a parallel feeling of psychophysical integrity of the 'to be.

Holistic ethics:
The recognition of the sacred does not depend on the intellectual acceptance of the term, but on the experience of the sacred within oneself. When a scientist tries to know one of the infinite aspects of the Whole we live in, he must remember that he is trying to know one of the faces of the divine, another aspect of himself. Any action or experimentation must therefore be conducted with enormous awareness and respect for the life of each creature. Any injury to the freedoms of others invalidates the ethical conduct that underlies holistic experimentation. Certainly this means a drastic reduction and limitation of current experiments and how they are conducted. In the logic of a world of peace and awareness, the fact of causing pain, limitation or death for "scientific reasons" to other living beings is no longer acceptable.
Any pain leads to another pain and generates a destructive science. We believe instead that by stimulating the ability of a more careful observation, and the development of new technical instruments, non-invasive systems and greater deductive capacity, it will be possible to determine a huge qualitative leap, which will be reflected in an improvement in medical art and in general of all sciences.

Holistic logic:
While in current science any experimentation is legitimate, when supported by a certain methodology, in holistic science the logic must be positive and non-violent from the beginning. Every experiment must be oriented towards the global good. Therefore, no production of substances, technologies, drugs, experiments that produce directly or indirectly (from production to after consumption) substances that are toxic or harmful to the environment, nature or humans will no longer be accepted. And this will cut the problem of pollution at the root. By holistic positive logic we mean experimenting for well-being, studying health as a primary function and no longer disease. It means understanding the logic of natural times, rhythms and cycles and how to modify the distorted reality that surrounds us, bringing it back to harmony. This means opening the future to prevention, to reducing consumption and to increasingly simpler and more ecological ways of living.
 

How will the debts that the States accumulate be repaid? And if their weight is not a problem, why not have increased them much more, and much earlier?

The answers to these questions, which everyone is asking, very largely determine our future. The Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve are due to give them new responses this week at their monthly meetings. And if the European countries give them different answers, the European project will be condemned.

At the current rate, in the United States the debt level of 1946 (106%) could be exceeded in 2023. That of Japan already exceeds 200%. Italian debt should drop from 135% to 155% before the end of 2020. French debt should increase by 17 points to 115% at the end of 2020. On average, that of the OECD will exceed 120% of GDP in 2021. That of the Euro Zone should, at best, reach 112% in 2022 against 84% at the end of 2019. Global debt, public and private, is approaching 300%.

Should we worry about it? Not necessarily.

First, we must question this criterion for assessing public debt: comparing it to GDP is as absurd as comparing the debt of a town hall to the total income of all the inhabitants of the municipality; whereas it is necessary, as for a household, to compare it with the budget of the commune, to know if it was used to invest or to pay current expenses; take into account its repayment capacity and identify borrowers.

Then you have to ask yourself how to make it disappear. History teaches that there are four ways: growth, repayment by borrowers, plunder of lenders, or war.

1. Growth, even accompanied by moderate inflation, is the best solution: after 1945, it largely wiped out war debt, both in the United States and in Europe.

2. Repayment, whether voluntary or forced, by borrowers (ie, taxpayers) involves more tax and less public spending, known as "austerity". Which is obviously political unacceptable (how to make households pay for what has been widely distributed to businesses?), And economically absurd, since it would destroy any prospect of growth and weaken the economy of life.

3. The plundering of lenders presupposes the cancellation of public debts. It is regularly practiced in emerging countries (and still recently, for African countries) but very difficult to imagine in developed countries. Recently, the President of the European Central Bank even dismissed this solution, calling it "totally unthinkable". In addition, when the debt is, as in Japan and Europe, very largely held by nationals, the plunder of the lenders would only impoverish the country. Finally, the plunder of lenders by inflation is not likely today, and will not be for a long time, unless a serious food crisis triggers it.

4. There remains the war or a pandemic to make people accept higher taxes. Obviously intolerable.

And since none of these solutions is popular, political leaders are trying at all costs not to decide. And, for that, they transfer the responsibility to the central banks: Once the private debts bought by the States, the latter will sell them to their central bank, thus organizing more or less direct financing of households, businesses and expenses public, by the printing press. Some central banks are already buying corporate bonds, property loans, and soon local government loans.

This is already reflected in the balance sheets of the three main central banks (Japan, US and Europe), which increased from $ 3.4 trillion in 2017 to $ 14.6 trillion in 2019 and more than 20,000 before the end of the year. The balance sheet of the EDF alone will triple in 2020. The ECB now holds 20% of public debts in the euro area, and soon 25%. And even more than 30% of the German public debt.

When politicians give up all courage and transfer their responsibility to central banks, that is to say to the printing press, democracy is threatened.

Many believe that this delegation of power to an abstract entity is all the more possible since a central bank will, in theory, never go bankrupt; it can even maintain its activity with negative equity, as the Central Bank of Chile has done for several years.

From all this, it follows that whatever political leaders will do everything to bring the ultimate burden of debt to the central banks.

However, no one should doubt the sustainability of this bank. This will only be the case for the ECB if the European Union becomes a political, democratic, stable and predictable entity. Until then, European public debt remains an extremely risky political gamble.

Any meditative practice related to the physical body and will presupposes concentration. We have different types of interconnected bodies, in this regard I speak both of the physical body as a conscious movement and of the will as an etheric body. Concentration is the basis, it is part of the foundations of a complete meditation but it is also a basic element to correctly do anything. Even though most of our daily actions involve mechanical movements or automatisms, they all move an energy. When we are relaxed the energy is well distributed throughout the body, when instead we perform a specific action it concentrates in that specific area. It represents the center of all movements and we can represent it as a set of arrows directed towards a specific area and it can be defined as an accumulation of forces in a given space to give shape or crystallize something. For this reason it is therefore essential to know how to concentrate if we want to implement our ideas in life. All meditative practices involving movement (eg Yoga, Tai Chi, Martial Arts ..) require this ability but also relaxation techniques such as Mindfulness. This technique benefits our heart and our mind because it purifies, strengthens and harmonizes the physical and energetic body. How to focus properly? Breathing is the easiest method. Put yourself in a comfortable position, at ease and in a peaceful and undisturbed environment. The vertebral column must be erected without tension. Close your eyes, feel your body by observing what state you are in. After recalling a certain calm in you, bring the thought to the subject you want to focus on, increasing your concentration more and more. After about ten minutes your thinking will be very well directed and obeys your command. Concentration is a mechanical phenomenon that can bring a good or bad result depending on how we target it. But what will bear great fruit is the essential key to concentration. The secret of excellent concentration is the attraction towards such a subject or thing. So the real secret is not simply a continuous thought, but the way you think. The secret is love. Exactly. Always and exclusively love. If we don't think about that particular thing, goal or person with love, concentration will lead to nothing. If we want to get good results we must have love in our thoughts. Here the concentration changes: you start gently, without forcing the mind, listening without any judgment and without any kind of pretense. To achieve this we need to work on ourselves since it is the desire for growth that makes us gather all our potential and achieve a certain purpose. We will certainly find resistance but they exist to hone our skills and make them strong. The obstacles are opposed to us only in appearance and their task is not to stop us but to mobilize all our abilities to be able to overcome and fortify us. We are grateful for every means we have available to awaken the divinity that lives within each of us.

Climate change, biodiversity loss and deforestation are contributing drivers behind pandemics. Like COVID-19, these cross-cutting challenges do not observe national borders and can be managed only through collective action.

COVID-19 is infecting millions of people around the world, claiming thousands of lives, with numbers likely to rise exponentially in the coming weeks. The virus is also causing massive disruptions in the global economy and financial markets, amplified by a trade war on oil, which is already starting to cause economic hardship for people around the globe.
While we fully commend the European Institutions, ECB, EIB and member states for their swift efforts to confront the immediate threat of the virus and direct well-needed capital to economic recovery, we call on EU heads of state to ensure that recovery plans do not undermine climate neutrality pathways and European Green deal objectives due to clear feedback loops that will impact future public health.
It is important to acknowledge that the planet is facing a deeper and longer-term crisis, rooted in a number of interconnected global challenges.
Recent research on the ecology of diseases suggests that climate change, biodiversity loss and deforestation are contributing drivers behind pandemics, interacting with high levels of global travel, trade and high-density living.
Outbreaks of animal-borne and other infectious diseases such as Ebola, SARS, bird flu and now COVID-19, caused by a novel coronavirus, are on the rise and this is only the tip of the iceberg.
Like COVID-19, climate change, biodiversity loss, and financial collapse do not observe national or even physical borders. These problems can be managed only through collective action that starts long before they become full-blown crises.
They must be acted upon not as singular threats but as a potential series of shocks and long-term risks to human health and livelihoods, economic prosperity and planetary stability as targeted by the World Economic Forum this year.
No one is underestimating the incredible disruption to the global economy and across society from COVID-19 nor the gravity of the situation for those who have lost or will lose loved ones, but what this pandemic has revealed is that overnight transformational change is possible. A different world, a different economy is suddenly dawning.
This is an unprecedented opportunity to move away from unmitigated growth at all costs and the old fossil fuel economy, and deliver a lasting balance between people, prosperity and our planetary boundaries.

Green Deal should be Europe’s new Marshall Plan
In the midst of a global health emergency and imminent economic recession, the importance of the European Green Deal has become even greater. It must be the framework for responding to the current crisis and the broader planetary emergency, of which it is a part.
As drafted, the European Green Deal already aspires to protect the health and well-being of citizens from environment-related risks and impacts and establish a toxic-free environment, deliver healthy and sustainable diets, and protect biodiversity.
The previous Commission’s Juncker Plan was an effective tool to focus investment and minds on clear priorities for Europe.
The European Green Deal should do the same with a greater link between the converging tipping points of public health, climate change and biodiversity and ensure we re-direct perverse subsidies and private and public capital towards solutions that promote a just transition for resilient societies and economies.
This should be Europe’s new Marshall Plan. A plan that fosters an integrated approach between the European Green Deal and an economy that works for people as prescribed by President Ursula von der Leyen.
A plan that also addresses digital optimisation as a tool to enhance the long-term quality of life for all citizens not only when they are in a pandemic lockdown.
Rather than delaying critical initiatives such as the “Farm to Fork” and Biodiversity strategies, the EU institutions and its member states should address these strategies as future-proofing mechanisms.
For example, shifting from industrial to regenerative agriculture is feasible today and generates immediate economic and health benefits. Redirecting capital and subsidies to catalyse regenerative practices would allow us to sequester carbon in the soil at a rate that is sufficient to reverse the climate crisis.
Moreover, doing so would turn a profit, enhance economic and environmental resilience, create jobs, protect biodiversity and improve wellbeing in both rural and urban communities.
Luckily, there is a very strong business case for dealing systemically with the planetary emergency – the convergence of crises referred to above – and the health pandemic simultaneously.
For example, there is no good reason not to be phasing out fossil fuels and deploying renewable energy technologies, most of which are now globally available and already cheaper than fossil fuels in many cases.
With the recent oil-price plunge, perverse fossil-fuel subsidies can and should be eliminated, as the G7 and many European countries have pledged to do by 2025. These subsidies should be redirected to proper green and social infrastructure including well-needed health system upgrades.
At a time when we need to make sure we can guarantee a stable economy and create new jobs post COVID-19, the economic case for Green Deal solutions is also clear.
According to the New Climate Economy, more ambitious action to address climate change could deliver more than $26 trillion in net global economic benefits between now and 2030 compared with business-as-usual, including the creation of more than 65 million new low-carbon jobs.
As humans we’re resilient. We’re entrepreneurial. We begin again. The future can be positive and we can learn from our failings. The European project is itself an inspiring example of that.
We therefore call upon European leaders to embrace this moment of reflection and upheaval to adopt economic recovery plans that create more resilient communities, greater health and wellbeing, and shared prosperity on a healthy planet so that we can truly emerge from this emergency stronger and more resilient.

In the Buddhist tradition we have the practice of breathing in mental presence and walking in mental presence in order to generate the energy of mental presence. It is exactly with this energy that we can recognize, embrace and transform our anger.
Mindfulness is the type of energy that helps us to be aware of what is happening within us and around us, and everyone can be in mindfulness. If you drink a cup of tea you know that you are drinking a cup of tea: this is drinking in mindfulness.
When you inhale and know that you are inhaling, focus your attention on inspiration: this is awareness of breathing.
When you take a step and are aware that you are taking a step: awareness of walking.
The basic practice is to generate mindfulness in every moment of daily life.
When you are angry, you are aware that you are angry because you already have the energy of mindfulness in you created by the mental practice of recognizing, embracing, looking deeply and understanding the nature of your suffering. When you are not calm, avoid acting and stay available for yourself, centered in yourself.There are systems through which we can return to ourselves and rediscover the calm, tranquility and lucidity in order to be able to understand the real causes of suffering. And this understanding will help us do what needs to be done, and not do what could be harmful to us and others. Before continuing, we practice breathing in mindfulness for half a minute.
In Buddhist psychology, we usually speak of consciousness in terms of seeds. We have the seed of anger, in our conscience, despair, fear and at the same time we also have the seed of understanding, wisdom, compassion and forgiveness.
Knowing how to water the seed of wisdom and compassion in us, these seeds will manifest themselves as powerful energies that will help us make a gesture of forgiveness and compassion.When we are angry with someone, be they friends or couples, do not hold anger for more than twenty-four hours without telling the other person.
.
. The three steps to Embrace Anger.
. .

.
• The first step is to say these words (if you are not calm enough to say it you can write it on a sheet):
.

. “Dear / a, I suffer, and I want you to know. I don't know why you did this to me. I don't know why you said that. " .

.
• The second step is to say or write:
.

. "I'm doing my best." Or rather: “ I am practicing to say nothing, do nothing with anger, because I know that in this way I would create greater suffering. So I'm embracing my anger,
.I am looking deeply into the nature of my anger. So tell the other person that you are practicing understanding anger for the purpose of discovering it comes from your bad understanding, your wrong perception, your poor mindfulness or lack of ability.

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• The third and final step you might want to say is:
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. "I need your help." Generally when we get angry with someone we want to do exactly the opposite. We want to say: “I don't need you. I can also survive on my own. "" I need your help " means:" I need your practice, I need your looking in depth, I need you to help me overcome this anger because I suffer. " .If you suffer you cannot be happy, because happiness is not an individual matter. If the other suffers, there is no way you can be happy alone.
.These three steps are the language of true love.
They all inspire to practice and to look deeply to achieve understanding and reconciliation together.
The advice for those who cannot manage anger?
. Write these phrases on a piece of paper and put it in your wallet.
. Whenever you get angry with your partner, or with your son or daughter, you can practice breathing in the presence of mind, take out the sheet and read it.
.It will be a bell of awareness that will tell you what to do and what not to do.
The three sentences are:

.
1. "I suffer and I want you to know."
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2. "I'm doing my best."
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3. "Please help me."
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The quality of our being is very important, because that question, that statement is not a condemnation, but a desire to create true communication. All things need food to live and grow, including our love and hate. Love is a living thing, hate is a living thing.
.If we do not nourish our love, it will die. If we cut the source of nourishment to violence, violence will also die.
Therefore the path indicated by the Buddha is the path of conscious consumption.
Every day we consume sensory impressions through the eyes, ears, tongue, body and mind. When we read a magazine, we consume. When we listen to a conversation, we consume. When we watch television, we consume. These things can be highly toxic.
.There may be many poisons such as greed, violence, anger, despair.
Thus, we allow ourselves to be intoxicated by what we consume in terms of sensory impressions.
We allow children to get intoxicated by these products. For this reason it is very important to look deeply into the nature of our malaise: in order to recognize the source of nourishment that we have used to bring it within us and in our society.
By looking deeply through meditation, we will be able to identify the source of nourishment that is feeding us.
For this reason, the suggestion is to practice calmness, to be concentrated, to water the seeds of wisdom and compassion that are already in us and to learn the art of conscious consumption.
This is a real revolution, the only type of revolution that can help us get out of this difficult situation we are experiencing, in which violence and rancor prevail.

The covid 19 health emergency is linked to the emergencies of the loss of biodiversity and species, the disappearance of forests and the climate.
All these emergencies are rooted in a mechanistic, militaristic, anthropocentric worldview in which man is separate and superior to other beings who can be owned, manipulated and controlled and on the idea of ​​an economic model based on the illusion of growth. and limitless greed. Diseases are moving from other animals to humans as we destroy the habitat of wild species, altering the balance between animals, viruses and bacteria.
The globalized, industrialized and inefficient food and agricultural model is invading the ecological habitat of other species, manipulating animals and plants with no respect for their integrity and health. In this way new diseases are being created. The illusion that the earth and its beings are mere raw materials to be exploited for profit is creating a single world connected through disease.
The current health emergency offers us the opportunity to look at unhealthy and healthy systems from a holistic and systemic perspective.
We must discard "the policies and practices that lead to the physical and moral degradation of the food system, destroying our health and endangering the ecological stability of the planet, and endangering the biogenetic survival of life on the planet".
The health emergency is forcing us to deglobalize today by showing that we can do it when there is a political will.
We need to make this de-globalization permanent. The localization of agriculture and biodiverse food systems protects health and reduces the ecological footprint, leaving room for the growth of different species, cultures and economies.
The richness of biodiversity in our forests, on our farms, in our food and in our intestinal microbiome makes the planet, its species, including humans, healthier and more resistant to pests and diseases. Governments must then ensure that biosecurity and food safety assessments are not influenced by industry that benefits from the manipulation of living organisms and suppresses scientific evidence of harm.
The global attempt to deregulate the rules on food safety and food biosecurity must be stopped. At the same time, an attempt is underway to undermine the European precautionary principle through free trade agreements such as the so-called "mini-deal" that the European Union is negotiating with the US. But new GMOs based on gene editing have unpredictable health impacts.
Governments are showing that they are able to act to protect people's health when they want to. At this point the time has come for them to take all the necessary measures to stop all the activities that compromise the metabolic processes that regulate our health.
The coronavirus crisis must become an opportunity to stop the processes that undermine our health and that of the planet and instead start a process that regenerates both.

Here is the practical functioning of the apps and technological systems (and not) with which China, South Korea and Singapore are winning the epidemic. And the comparison with the solution chosen in Italy with only app for tracing coronavirus positives or fencing to guarantee confinement: various methodologies and technologies combined with analogue means are making their way in the world, implemented by the various countries affected by the CoviD pandemic- 19. Italy has already confirmed the choice of an app, Immuni di Bending Spoon, on April 16 and various European countries and the United States are making similar choices, different from those of the Eastern countries.

Where did the human being believe he had arrived? Why, forced to stop, does he no longer know who he is? And what do you plan to do in the face of the negativity of life? Here is my thought, unsettling and stinging.
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The change imposed by the coronavirus appears to be a difficult pain to endure, even if humanity has overcome far worse. It happens because we are in the condition in which all our modernity , technological protection, globalization, the market, in short, everything we are bragging about, what in short we call progress, suddenly finds itself dealing with the simplicity of existence human . We are faced with the unexpected: we thought we were controlling everything and instead we are not controlling anything at the moment when biology slightly expresses its revolt . I say lightly, because this is only one of the first biological events that will denounce, from here on, the excesses of our globalization.
If this is the picture, is there an inability to evolve as humans? Christianity has spread an optimism in the West that has taught us to think in these terms: the past is bad, the present is redemption and the future is salvation. This way of considering time has been acquired by science, which in turn says that the past is ignorance, the present is research and the future is progress. Even Karl Marx is a great Christian when he preaches that the past is social injustice, the present will explode the contradictions of capitalism and the future will do justice on Earth. And Sigmund Freud, who also writes a book against religion, argues that traumas and neuroses are made up in the past, that the present is magical and that the future is healing. It is not so. The future is not the time of salvation, it is not expected, it is not hope . The future is a time like any other. There will be no providence that comes to us and solves the problems in our inertia. Let's hope, hope, hope: they are all verbs of passivity . We stand still and the future will provide: it is not so.
So what should we do? There is nothing to do, there is to suffer. We accept that we are precarious: have we forgotten it? We realize that we no longer have the words to name death because we have forgotten it. We admit that when one of our loved ones is sick we entrust him to the outside, to a technical structure called hospital, and from there we no longer have any contact. Once fathers saw children die as much as children saw fathers die. There were wars, famines, plagues. There was a concrete relationship with the end. Today we lost it. When someone is sick, words are lacking to comfort him. Let's say: you will see that you will make it. What nonsense. What a lie. Because we have lost touch with pain , with the negative of life. So how do we get strategies when the negative becomes explosive?
.You ask me: is the fear of change a valid limit? Let's first make a point about reality. The country has not been governed for thirty years : realizing now that we have five thousand beds in intensive care when Germany has 28 thousand, discovering that prisons are in turmoil and that it is possible to escape to the roofs, now admitting that other structures had to be built why prisoners could live in at least livable conditions; it is the bill we are paying for being distracted , for not having demanded real guidance. Not to mention the public debt: a boulder that will become even heavier to make up for the economic difficulties of these months. This is the limit, real. And above all, young people will find it in front of them , as at the moment they do not seem to die with the same speed and intensity as the old ones: then it will be up to them, if they do not get sick, to continue to exist in this world.
It is a moment of suspension, especially from the daily frenzy. They tell me: for many it is a positive value, for others a warning of fate.I think that the suspension finds us mostly unprepared : we complain every day that we have to go out to go to work, but if we have to stop we don't know what to do anymore. We no longer know who we are. We had entrusted our identity to the job role . The suspension from functionality forces us with ourselves: strangers, if we have never made a reflection on life, on the meaning of what we are looking for . Since we don't, then we find ourselves in emptiness, in disorientation. So let's ask ourselves: was the landscape work ? Was identity the function? Outside that scenario, do we no longer know who we are? This is another problem. It is not enough to get distracted in life, you must also internalize and look at yourself. So far we have run away, as if we were our worst enemy. Our weekends were not an opportunity to turn our gaze to us, to our children. They were escapes on the highway. Because we know two ways of existence: working and distracting ourselves . Out of that circle, it's nothing.
. A quarter of the Italian population is extremely fragile : the virus has shown it. There are those who are surprised by the relativism of society with respect to the weakest. But it is inevitable. I know very well that if I were to get sick I would go into the background, because young people have to be saved first. The problem is why we came to face this type of choice, because we did not create the conditions, and the structures, to face the dilemma. We will die from inefficiency . If a virus spreads with a number of victims comparable to the dead in war, it is clear that the line between who has to live and who to die will have to be drawn clearly.
Now: selfishness is not now becoming a primary value. It is already the primary value in our culture. Solidarity has plummeted in recent years. Individualism, narcissism, selfishness: they are all figures of solitude . Socialization has reduced to its digital semblance. And if even education, after passing this experimental phase, forced by the times, should then be spread via the internet? Children need to learn but also to look at each other , to laugh, to understand through their eyes whether the other is telling the truth or is lying. They need physical experiences. In isolation and adversity, humans need to feel that they are not alone in fighting. The Chinese in Wuhan shouted from the windows. So if the digital network has made it possible to connect where there is no possibility of meeting, I think: well, excellent, it has proven its usefulness. But as it has worked so far, the Internet has also isolated our bodies. It's one thing to say things online, it's one thing to say them in person. The problem, from here on, is to continue to have a social relationship according to nature , in which a man meets a man, and not the image of a man on a screen.
. When will the human soul recover? And how? The degradation has been significant. In my opinion, the human soul was more up to these situations at the time of our grandparents, when fatigue and shortage and poverty were the conditions of solidarity. In opulent societies, we developed selfishness , because we were allowed to, no longer needing our neighbor . It seems clear to me that western humanity is losing: we are forced into the house with our food supplies and our warm bed, the only penalty that is inflicted on us is not being able to go out. We are the weakest people on Earth , the most assisted by technology: if there is no light for twelve hours we panic. I go further: the racism of us Italians , beyond how it is induced, has a reason rooted in the unconscious .We are afraid of Africans because we understand that those gentlemen capable of crossing the deserts, surviving prisons and crossing the sea are biologically superior to us. Bios means life. And d is biology, let's accept it, that will win .

With some delay, we humans are beginning to marshal our counter-attack against the coronavirus. Some nascent but promising developments across a number of areas are worth noting, for they sketch a broader lesson for how we might innovate better, even after the crisis has one day passed. 
One development has been the rapid mobilization of scientists, pharmaceutical companies and government officials to launch tests of more than 50 different compounds as possible vaccines against the virus. A second development has been the release yesterday of all the medical research articles in machine readable form from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. This was done with the intent to accelerate the analysis of the existing research to identify possible new avenues of attack against Covid-19. And the coronavirus itself was synthesized early on in the outbreak, providing the genetic sequence of the virus, showing where it differed from earlier viruses such as SARS and MERS. This data was immediately shared widely with scientists and researchers around the world.
What these developments have in common is openness. In times of crisis, speed is crucial, and the sooner we know more and take action, the better for all of us. Opening up causes our progress to accelerate. By unleashing a volunteer army of researchers, we can test 50+ vaccine candidates in parallel, across different labs in different countries, labs that are already built, staffed and certified. Notice that these vaccine candidates are already-approved drugs for other medical uses, so their basic safety dosage levels in humans have already been established. This allows the testing to start in the middle of the usual drug development process, with the Phase 1 safety protocols already completed. Releasing all the relevant medical research at once, in a form that allows rapid absorption of the science, to anyone who wants to look at it, allows researchers from all over the world to contribute. And not just professional researchers, but amateur researchers who have a passion and a hunch to test. And the availability of the gene sequencing of the virus establishes a clear target to all of what the target is.
This openness will likely help us find a vaccine sooner. But in the meantime, there is a world of people to be treated. Openness could help here as well. There has been a shortage of masks for people to protect themselves against the virus. What if mask manufacturers like 3M opened up their mask designs and IP temporarily, so that anyone in the world with a 3D printer could print a mask? There also is a severe shortage of ventilators in this crisis. What if ventilator companies also provided open access to their designs, and waived their IP rights? We are already seeing a version of this with hand sanitizers, as recipes for home-made hand sanitizers (usually featuring grain alcohol, and softeners like aloe vera) abound on the internet, even in unlikely places like TikTok.
This openness could go still further.  We have a severe shortage of hospital beds. We also have a lockdown on non-essential business travel, causing most business hotel rooms to go empty. Could we devise ways to allow non-contagious patients in hospitals to migrate to these unused hotel rooms? It is likely to be much cheaper than the fully allocated costs of inpatient hospital rooms. And this infrastructure is already built, ready to be used. We can even offer them room service! 
There are lessons here for us even after the crisis has one day passed. Why don’t pharmaceutical companies allow more of their unused compounds to be repurposed for other possible indications? Shouldn’t that become a frequently used, standard business practice? Advanced medical technology and supply companies want to protect their latest products with IP, but why not license out the previous generation technologies (which worked pretty well, and are good enough for many markets) to spread these technologies to new markets? And when your newest, latest product emerges, the now-obsolete earlier version is again put up for license. Only now there is an entire new market waiting for the improved product, built up from the earlier generation of licensing. And why don’t more companies share their most challenging problems (and relevant scientific and technical data) with the world, to invite anyone who cares enough to participate, to offer possible new solutions to those problems?
Good ideas can come from anywhere, making openness is an imperative in these times of crisis. And it is a damn good idea in other times as well. This is one of the many lessons we are learning as we struggle to meet the challenge of our times.
(My thanks to Graham Cross of Innosapiens for brainstorming with me on this column)
 

Yesterday my 16 year old daughter asked me a question that prompted me to write this article. He asked me: "Father, in September will I be able to go to sushi with my friends? And to the cinema? And to the disco?". The temptation was to liquidate it with a nice "you have to see if the discos will still exist in 6 months!", However I refrained and thinking about the answer to give her I also started to explore the socio - working scenarios from here to 6 months.

In a documentary produced and broadcast by us entitled Covid-19: Fighting a Pandemic, the environmental problem of coronavirus transmission in closed environments is studied with reference to the micro-droplets exhaled by people.
See the extract of the video Covid-19: Fighting a Pandemic in Attached Documents.
In the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, a new research reveals how tiny droplets carrying the virus can remain in the air for some time.

The Infection Routes are:

• Contact with object that has virus on it;
• Inhaling droplets emitted by sneezes and coughs.

During an interview, Kazuhiro Tateda, President at The Japanese Association for Infectious Disease, declare: “It seems transmissions are happening during conversations and even when people are standing a certain distance apart. These cases can’t be explained by ordinary droplet infection. We think infection comes from micrometer particles. This transmission mechanism can be called micro-droplet infection.”

So, how does this take places?
With a group of researchers an experiment has been made. The team would track particles in the air using laser and a high sensitivity camera. This technology allows to detect droplets as small as 0.1 micrometer wide. During the experiment we can see micro-droplet floating in the air, both when a person sneezes and during a conversation.

Kazuhiro Tateda say that “Micro-droplets carry many viruses. We produce them when we talk loudly or breathe heavily. People around us inhale them, and that’s how the virus spreads. We’re beginning to see this risk now.”
The risk of infection through micro-droplet becomes even greater in a close space with poor ventilation.

Another experiment is made in a room with ten people with a person that sneezes. The macro droplets go down to the ground after 1 minute, while the micro droplets continue to float in the air also after 20 minutes.

Masashi Yamakawa, Associate Professor at the Kyoto Institute of Technology declare that “If the air isn’t flowing, the micro-droplets won’t move, and since they can’t move on their own, they stay in place for some time.”
Opening windows and increasing air circulation is believed to be effective.

“What’s important is to create two openings and do this at least once an hour; That lowers the risk of infection considerably, Kazuhiro Tateda say.

Should more of us wear face masks to help slow the spread of coronavirus?
This question is to be assessed by a panel of advisers to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The group will weigh up research on whether the virus can be projected further than previously thought; a study in the US suggests coughs can reach 6m and sneezes up to 8m.
The panel's chair, Prof David Heymann, told BBC News that the new research may lead to a shift in advice about masks.
The former director at the WHO explained: "The WHO is opening up its discussion again looking at the new evidence to see whether or not there should be a change in the way it's recommending masks should be used."

What is the current advice?
The WHO recommends keeping a distance of at least 1m from anyone coughing or sneezing to avoid the risk of infection.
It says people who are sick and show symptoms should wear masks.

• Who should be wearing masks?
• US considers cloth face masks for public

But it advises that healthy people only need to wear them if they are caring for others suspected of being infected or if they themselves are coughing or sneezing.

It emphasises that masks are only effective if combined with frequent hand-washing and used and disposed of properly.
The UK, along with other countries including the US, advises that social distancing should mean staying at least 2m apart.
This advice is based on evidence showing that viruses can only be transmitted while carried within drops of liquid.
The understanding is that most of those drops will either evaporate or fall to the ground near to the person who released them.

So what does the new research say?
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, US, used high-speed cameras and other sensors to assess precisely what happens after a cough or sneeze.
They found that an exhalation generates a small fast-moving cloud of gas that can contain droplets of liquid of varying sizes - and that the smallest of these can be carried in the cloud over long distances.
The study - conducted in laboratory conditions - found that coughs can project liquid up to 6m away and that sneezes, which involve much higher speeds, can reach up to 8m away.

What are the implications?
The scientist who led the study, Prof Lydia Bourouiba of MIT, told me that she is concerned about the current concept of "safe distances".
"What we exhale, cough or sneeze is a gas cloud that has high momentum that can go far, traps the drops of all sizes in it and carries them through the room," she said.
"So having this false idea of safety at one to two metres, that somehow drops will just fall to the ground at that distance is not based on what we have quantified, measured and visualised directly."

Does this change the advice about masks?
Prof Bourouiba's view is that in certain situations, especially indoors in poorly ventilated rooms, wearing masks would reduce the risks.
For example, when facing someone who's infected, masks could help divert the flow of their breath and its load of virus away from your mouth.
"Flimsy masks are not going to protect from inhaling the smallest particulates in the air because they do not provide filtration," Prof Bourouiba said.
"But they would potentially divert the cloud that is being emitted with high momentum to the side instead of forward."

What do the WHO advisers think?
According to Prof Heymann, the new research from MIT and other institutions will be evaluated because it suggests that droplets from coughs and sneezes could be projected further than originally thought.
He said that if the evidence is supported, then "it might be that wearing a mask is equally as effective or more effective than distancing."
But he adds a warning that masks need to be worn properly, with a seal over the nose. If they become moist, Prof Heymann explained, then particles can pass through. People must remove them carefully to avoid their hands becoming contaminated.
He adds that masks need to be worn consistently.
"It's not on to wear a mask and then decide to take it off to smoke a cigarette or eat a meal - it must be worn full time," he said.
The panel, known as the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards, is due to hold its next virtual meeting in the next few days.
A spokesperson for Public Health England said there was little evidence of widespread benefit from wearing masks outside clinical settings.
"Facemasks must be worn correctly, changed frequently, removed properly, disposed of safely and used in combination with good universal hygiene behaviour in order for them to be effective.
"Research also shows that compliance with these recommended behaviours reduces over time when wearing facemasks for prolonged periods."

Aren't countries changing their advice on masks anyway?
Long popular in many countries in Asia, masks are now being assessed for public use by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
In Austria, the police now wear them and anyone dealing with the police will have to wear one too. Supermarkets there will insist that customers do too.
A once-rare sight in Europe is becoming more common, and new advice from the WHO would accelerate that change.
 

The areas most affected by Covid-19 are, at present, three: Wuhan in China; the Po Valley and particularly Lombardy in Italy; New York in the United States of America. The correlation is easy: there are three areas with a high rate of pollution, therefore the coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 spreads especially in areas where the air is full of substances such as nitrogen oxides or particles such as PM10 and PM2.5.
Pandemic and air pollution therefore seem to go hand in hand.
But it is so? Fabio Zampieri interviewed by Federica d’Auria has already mentioned how the relationship between infectious diseases and the environment is very close. Now let's try to investigate more specifically. What is the relationship between air pollution and the spread of Covid-2019?
The first general answer is that we know little about it and that, as Fabrizio Bianchi (director of the Environmental Epidemiology Unit of the CNR of Pisa) and Fabio Cibella (epidemiologist of the CNR of Palermo) explain, published on Sunday 29 March in the scientific journal BMJ (British Medical Journal) it is necessary to investigate quickly. Because understanding how things go between spreading the virus can serve not only to explain, but also to act in real time.
But let's start from this factual observation: even if the classic media and above all the social media talk a lot about it and even if there have been announcements of the beginning of in-depth studies, from the scientific point of view we do not yet know with sufficient detail definition what the relationship is between air pollution and Sars-CoV-2.
 There are three areas of greatest interest. The first concerns the reduction of air pollution in areas subject to lockdown (or isolation), starting right from the region of Hubei, that of the city of Wuhan, in China and from Lombardy in Italy. Satellite measurements - for example from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) - show a sharp decrease in the concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2, a strong indicator of air pollution) both in China and on the Po Valley. In the Hubei region, due to the lockdown, particulate matter has decreased between 20% and 30% in recent weeks compared to December. Air pollution kills about one million people a year in China alone. So, it is calculated, the reduction detected in these first three months of 2020 has (but it is better to use the conditional, it would have) saved the lives of 4,000 children and 73,000 adults.
A reduction of similar air pollutants has also been detected, as we have said, in northern Italy. As reported by the astrophysicist Patrizia Caraveo on the Sunday of the Sole24Ore, the Sentinel 5P satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) has obtained similar results for Italy and has detected a decrease in pollutants also in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. An increase in mortality from air pollution can therefore be expected, also in Italy and the United States. But in order to be sure of this, epidemiologists and statisticians must be pronounced.
In any case, even if this were verified, we can neither applaud the Convid-2019 nor diminish our effort to counter it by staying at home. We must drastically decrease air pollution and its consequences regardless of Sars-Cov-2.
In China there has also been a decrease in carbon dioxide emissions, the main greenhouse gas (or climate-altering as experts like to call them). Excellent news. But we must not confuse between a global pollutant that does not directly attack our health, such as carbon dioxide, and local pollutants, such as NO2 and particulates that directly attack our health and, in particular, the respiratory tract.
A second point of attention in the articulated SARS-CoV-2 tar report and air pollution concerns the ability of the particulates to be a carrier and a booster, or to transport the virus. According to this hypothesis, the pollution in three high-rate areas in particulate pollution such as Wuhan, Lombardy and New York could be explained, therefore, not only by the direct transmission from man to man, but by the transport of the virus on microparticles. If true, the virus would prove to be much more subtle than you think and even more "smart" than many of its brothers. This possibility must be investigated. But, as Bianchi and Cibella recall, so far there is no scientific proof that particulate matter is a career a coronavirus booster.
Now let's reason by hypothesis, without any claim of scientific solidity. But if air pollution and particulate matter in particular had a direct connection - cause-effect type - we would have to solve two small or large anomalies. The first is that - to date, we never hope - the coronavirus has not dramatically spread to the most polluted cities in the world, which are not European and North American ones and, as much as it wants a cliché, not even the Chinese ones. The most polluted cities in the world (from an air point of view) are mainly in India, then in Pakistan, in many countries of Southeast Asia and, also, in Africa. Lagos, in Nigeria, with its 16 million inhabitants and passes is among them. Well, we repeat, to date the spread of the virus in India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia and Africa has not reached the spread it has had in Hubei, northern Italy and New York.
Second small anomaly, the hypothesis that pollution is the direct cause of the spread does not explain why Spain and in particular the area of ​​Madrid has a virus spread rate comparable to that of Lombardy. In the Iberian peninsula, however high, the air pollution rate is significantly lower than the Po Valley.
These correlations, of course, are purely abstract. They could be completely misleading. There is a need, once again, for an accurate scientific evaluation, which is not there. Therefore, prudence in proposing any type of hypothesis. For now we do not know with sufficient detail definition how the virus works. Of course there is only that it is transmitted from man to man. And therefore, we fully agree with the invitation of the scientific and political authorities: we are at home.
The third point that is worth investigating (also and above all because it has tangible effects on prevention and treatment) is the indirect correlation between lethality and air pollution. There is no doubt: an immense consolidated scientific literature, as Fabio Zampieri also reminded us, has shown that air pollution makes us more susceptible to virus infections. The main reason is that it makes our immune system weaker. This can at least partially explain the high lethality of Sars-CoV-2 in Lombardy and in the northern part of Emilia-Romagna. Those who have been breathing polluted air for years found themselves in a situation of greatest weakness when they were attacked by the virus.
This does not, however, take away the apparent high lethality in this part of the country is, in fact, apparent. And that the absolute number of deaths (with an average age of around 80 and a large majority with one or more diseases on the shoulders) is due to a much higher number of infected than that revealed by the tests.
One day, hopefully not too far, we will know.
For now we record the words of Fabrizio Bianchi: "Even if one day we will demonstrate that atmospheric particulate matter is Sars-Cov-2's booster career, we must not pass the belief that the cause of Covid-19 is pollution". What is certain is that air pollution "remains a powerful killer of other diseases and is a predisposer to Covid-19, increases susceptibility to the virus". And equally certain is that the origin and spread of this new pathogen "is in turn the effect of unsustainable development".
Ultimately: the relationship between the environment and Sars-CoV-2 exists, but it is very complex and complex. And most importantly, it still needs to be investigated. As soon as possible.

We are only at the beginning of this crisis, in all of its dimensions, and particularly on the economic and social fronts. Many sectors, such as tourism, transportation and entertainment, will only recover in a very long time; many jobs will be destroyed. In contrast, other sectors are insufficiently developed and cruelly lacking in production. Therefore, we must act now to give the economy a new direction and to harness new engines of development.
This is true everywhere in the world, and particularly in Europe, which produces a large number of goods and services that will be less needed for a long time to come. Furthermore, Europe has lost an essential part of its sovereignty in sectors that many are now discovering to be key; because Brussels has put the mantra of competition ahead of the requirements of autonomy.
The European Union is not yet equal to these new challenges. And it is normal: health is not a Community policy as defined by Member States; and the Union's budget is limited to one percent of GDP. And yet, with these meagre resources, and though taken by surprise, the current leaders of the Union, in particular the Commission and the Central Bank, are performing miracles. National governments are also doing a lot, in a more fragmented manner.
As such, the federalists have rightly come up with an old idea, Eurobonds, which would enable the European Union to support Member States that have difficulty obtaining low-interest financing.
This proposal has led to, once again, deep division between the countries of the South (this time, France rightly lined up beside them), and the others, not at all determined to finance the less prosperous states. Among the most vehement, we find the Germans and the Dutch; either because they do not want to give their populist oppositions an opening; or because populist parties are already members of the ruling coalition.
In fact, this is an outdated debate. And we have to think quite differently about the issues before us.
Firstly, because the European Central Bank now has the means and the intention to act as guarantor of a decrease in the yield spread of the loan to each Member State; secondly, because governments are very active in supporting their own businesses; and thirdly, because the European Investment Bank (EIB) and other European instruments, including the European Safe Bond (ESB), are about to enter the fray.
It is an opportunity to change the paradigm and think about a completely different solution, which would not just be financial but also political in the noblest sense. A solution that would make it possible to strengthen solidarity between the Member States, get the economy moving again, and resolve the problems of sovereignty.   
To achieve this, the Union would have to equip itself with the means to regain its autonomy in the key sectors of tomorrow's world, those that I call the "industries of life": health, food, hygiene, water, housing, digital, energy, education, research, distribution, environmental protection, security, information and a few others. We cannot continue to depend on non-European suppliers in these essential sectors; and we will have to accept paying more for these products and services, as a price for our autonomy. This will create jobs to compensate for those lost elsewhere, and new sources of profitable investment.
One way of initiating this policy, which can only be a common one, would be for the European Union to issue a massive loan, (for example, an initial amount of 200 billion euros). But not a so-called “coronabond,” which would aim to finance the entire economy, but rather a "lifebond,” (a "life eurobond,” which could also be called a "sovereign bond"), which would only finance life industries (and the conversion of less essential industries to these sectors), to ensure the autonomy of the Union.
These resources would be managed on the model of what is being prepared, albeit at a slow pace, for a Europe of Defence. An ad hoc institution would decide on the rules for the distribution of this funding among the various countries and companies, on the basis of tender offers, as massively and rapidly as possible. Even the countries that are most reluctant to show European solidarity would have a selfish interest in this.   
We urgently need to take action; to get out of the shock and emergency; to show that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And to move forward. 

There’s no question the United States missed the opportunity to get ahead of the novel coronavirus. But the window for making important decisions hasn’t closed. The choices we and our leaders make now will have an enormous impact on how soon case numbers start to go down, how long the economy remains shut down and how many Americans will have to bury a loved one because of COVID-19.
Our foundation has been working to slow the outbreak for several months. To date, we’ve invested $105 million in efforts to create new therapeutics, expand access to testing, and limit the virus’s impact here in Seattle.
As a result of this work, I’ve spoken with experts and leaders in Washington and across the country. It’s become clear to me that we must take three steps.

First, we need a consistent nationwide approach to shutting down. Despite urging from public health experts, some states and counties haven’t shut down completely. In some states, beaches are still open; in others, restaurants still serve sit-down meals.
This is a recipe for disaster. Because people can travel freely across state lines, so can the virus. The country’s leaders need to be clear: Shutdown anywhere means shutdown everywhere. Until the case numbers start to go down across America—which could take 10 weeks or more—no one can continue business as usual or relax the shutdown. Any confusion about this point will only extend the economic pain, raise the odds that the virus will return, and cause more deaths.

Second, the federal government needs to step up on testing. Far more tests should be made available. We should also aggregate the results so we can quickly identify potential volunteers for clinical trials and know with confidence when it’s time to return to normal. There are good examples to follow: New York state recently expanded its capacity to more than 25,000 tests per day.
There’s also been some progress on more efficient testing methods, such as the self-swab developed by the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network, which allows patients to take a sample themselves without possibly exposing a health worker. I hope this and other innovations in testing are scaled up across the country soon.
Even so, demand for tests will probably exceed the supply for some time, and right now, there’s little rhyme or reason to who gets the few that are available. As a result, we don’t have a good handle on how many cases there are or where the virus is likely headed next, and it will be hard to know if it rebounds later. And because of the backlog of samples, it can take seven days for results to arrive when we need them within 24 hours.
This is why the country needs clear priorities for who is tested. First on the list should be people in essential roles such as health-care workers and first responders followed by highly symptomatic people who are most at risk of becoming seriously ill and those who are likely to have been exposed.
The same goes for masks and ventilators. Forcing 50 governors to compete for lifesaving equipment—and hospitals to pay exorbitant prices for it—only makes matters worse.

Finally, we need a data-based approach to developing treatments and a vaccine. Scientists are working full speed on both; in the meantime, leaders can help by not stoking rumors or panic buying. Long before the drug hydroxychloroquine was approved as an emergency treatment for COVID-19, people started hoarding it, making it hard to find for lupus patients who needed it to survive.
We should stick with the process that works: Run rapid trials involving various candidates and inform the public when the results are in. Once we have a safe and effective treatment, we’ll need to ensure that the first doses go to the people who need them most.
To bring the disease to an end, we’ll need a safe and effective vaccine. If we do everything right, we could have one in less than 18 months—the fastest a vaccine has ever been developed. But creating a vaccine is only half the battle. To protect Americans and people around the world, we’ll need to manufacture billions of doses.
Without a vaccine, developing countries are at even greater risk than wealthy ones, because it’s even harder for them to do physical distancing and shutdowns. The further down the income ladder people live, the more important it is that they go to work every day just to feed their family.
If they live in the poorest parts of sub-Saharan Africa or India, staying home simply isn’t an option. Even if they do stay home, they can’t just wall themselves off from their neighbors; in slums, the houses are packed together so closely that there’s no way to keep your distance. All the work that rich countries are doing now to develop vaccines will save lives in those places, too.
We can get a head start on manufacturing all of the doses we’ll need now by building the facilities where these vaccines will be made. Because many of the top candidates are made using unique equipment, we’ll have to build facilities for each of them, knowing that some won’t get used. Private companies can’t take that kind of risk, but the federal government can. It’s a great sign that the administration made deals this week with at least two companies to prepare for vaccine manufacturing. I hope more deals will follow.
In 2015, I urged world leaders in a TED Talk to prepare for a pandemic the same way they prepare for war—by running simulations to find the cracks in the system. As we’ve seen this year, we have a long way to go. But I still believe that if we make the right decisions now, informed by science, data, and experience of medical professionals, we can save lives and get the country back to work.

As the coronavirus continues its march around the world, governments have turned to proven public health measures, such as social distancing, to physically disrupt the contagion. Yet, doing so has severed the flow of goods and people, stalled economies, and is in the process of delivering a global recession. Economic contagion is now spreading as fast as the disease itself.
This didn’t look plausible even a few weeks ago. As the virus began to spread, politicians, policy makers, and markets, informed by the pattern of historical outbreaks, looked on while the early (and thus more effective and less costly) window for social distancing closed. Now, much further along the disease trajectory, the economic costs are much higher, and predicting the path ahead has become nearly impossible, as multiple dimensions of the crisis are unprecedented and unknowable.
In this uncharted territory, naming a global recession adds little clarity beyond setting the expectation of negative growth. Pressing questions include the path of the shock and recovery, whether economies will be able to return to their pre-shock output levels and growth rates, and whether there will be any structural legacy from the coronavirus crisis.

Higher public debt levels will become an economic feature and be accompanied by private debt cancellation 

The coronavirus pandemic is a human tragedy of potentially biblical proportions. Many today are living in fear of their lives or mourning their loved ones. The actions being taken by governments to prevent our health systems from being overwhelmed are brave and necessary. They must be supported.  But those actions also come with a huge and unavoidable economic cost. While many face a loss of life, a great many more face a loss of livelihood. Day by day, the economic news is worsening. Companies face a loss of income across the whole economy. A great many are already downsizing and laying off workers. A deep recession is inevitable.  The challenge we face is how to act with sufficient strength and speed to prevent the recession from morphing into a prolonged depression, made deeper by a plethora of defaults leaving irreversible damage. It is already clear that the answer must involve a significant increase in public debt. The loss of income incurred by the private sector — and any debt raised to fill the gap — must eventually be absorbed, wholly or in part, on to government balance sheets. Much higher public debt levels will become a permanent feature of our economies and will be accompanied by private debt cancellation.  It is the proper role of the state to deploy its balance sheet to protect citizens and the economy against shocks that the private sector is not responsible for and cannot absorb. States have always done so in the face of national emergencies. Wars — the most relevant precedent — were financed by increases in public debt. During the first world war, in Italy and Germany between 6 and 15 per cent of war spending in real terms was financed from taxes. In Austria-Hungary, Russia and France, none of the continuing costs of the war were paid out of taxes. Everywhere, the tax base was eroded by war damage and conscription. Today, it is by the pandemic’s human distress and the shutdown.  The key question is not whether but how the state should put its balance sheet to good use. The priority must not only be providing basic income for those who lose their jobs. We must protect people from losing their jobs in the first place. If we do not, we will emerge from this crisis with permanently lower employment and capacity, as families and companies struggle to repair their balance sheets and rebuild net assets. Employment and unemployment subsidies and the postponement of taxes are important steps that have already been introduced by many governments. But protecting employment and productive capacity at a time of dramatic income loss requires immediate liquidity support. This is essential for all businesses to cover their operating expenses during the crisis, be they large corporations or even more so small and medium-sized enterprises and self-employed entrepreneurs. Several governments have already introduced welcome measures to channel liquidity to struggling businesses. But a more comprehensive approach is needed.  While different European countries have varying financial and industrial structures, the only effective way to reach immediately into every crack of the economy is to fully mobilise their entire financial systems: bond markets, mostly for large corporates, banking systems and in some countries even the postal system for everybody else. And it has to be done immediately, avoiding bureaucratic delays. Banks in particular extend across the entire economy and can create money instantly by allowing overdrafts or opening credit facilities.  Banks must rapidly lend funds at zero cost to companies prepared to save jobs. Since in this way they are becoming a vehicle for public policy, the capital they need to perform this task must be provided by the government in the form of state guarantees on all additional overdrafts or loans. Neither regulation nor collateral rules should stand in the way of creating all the space needed in bank balance sheets for this purpose. Furthermore, the cost of these guarantees should not be based on the credit risk of the company that receives them, but should be zero regardless of the cost of funding of the government that issues them.  Companies, however, will not draw on liquidity support simply because credit is cheap. In some cases, for example businesses with an order backlog, their losses may be recoverable and then they will repay debt. In other sectors, this will probably not be the case. Such companies may still be able to absorb this crisis for a short period of time and raise debt to keep their staff in work. But their accumulated losses risk impairing their ability to invest afterwards. And, were the virus outbreak and associated lockdowns to last, they could realistically remain in business only if the debt raised to keep people employed during that time were eventually cancelled.  Either governments compensate borrowers for their expenses, or those borrowers will fail and the guarantee will be made good by the government. If moral hazard can be contained, the former is better for the economy. The second route is likely to be less costly for the budget. Both cases will lead to governments absorbing a large share of the income loss caused by the shutdown, if jobs and capacity are to be protected.  Public debt levels will have increased. But the alternative — a permanent destruction of productive capacity and therefore of the fiscal base — would be much more damaging to the economy and eventually to government credit. We must also remember that given the present and probable future levels of interest rates, such an increase in government debt will not add to its servicing costs.  In some respects, Europe is well equipped to deal with this extraordinary shock. It has a granular financial structure able to channel funds to every part of the economy that needs it. It has a strong public sector able to co-ordinate a rapid policy response. Speed is absolutely essential for effectiveness. Faced with unforeseen circumstances, a change of mindset is as necessary in this crisis as it would be in times of war. The shock we are facing is not cyclical. The loss of income is not the fault of any of those who suffer from it. The cost of hesitation may be irreversible. The memory of the sufferings of Europeans in the 1920s is enough of a cautionary tale.  The speed of the deterioration of private balance sheets — caused by an economic shutdown that is both inevitable and desirable — must be met by equal speed in deploying government balance sheets, mobilising banks and, as Europeans, supporting each other in the pursuit of what is evidently a common cause.

Japan is considering using Avigan, an anti-influenza medication developed by a unit of Fujifilm Holdings Corp., to treat patients of the novel coronavirus, health minister Katsunobu Kato said Saturday.

“We will do everything we can,” Kato said on a TV program, noting that there is no established treatment for COVID-19 yet. The drug is also known as Favipiravir.

“We hear from overseas that some (drugs) among those that have been used against influenza may be useful,” he said.

Kato told reporters his ministry will check how effective flu drugs are at fighting the disease and, if necessary, make it possible for many medical institutions to administer them to patients.

He also said the government will disclose a basic policy on how to deal with the outbreak as soon as Tuesday. The policy will be based on one Japan already has in place for a novel influenza, according to government officials.

Avigan, developed by Fujifilm Toyama Chemical Co., has been stocked in Japan as a flu drug but is viewed as having the potential to treat other diseases, including Ebola and a tick-borne illness.

As some studies have pointed to the possibility of it causing fetal abnormalities in animals, pregnant women are advised to not use the medication.
So far, about 750 people have tested positive for the pneumonia-causing coronavirus in Japan. But most of the people infected with the virus, which spread from Wuhan, China, were on the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Yokohama.

Japanese authorities are said to be using the drug in clinical trials of coronavirus patients who have mild or moderate symptoms, but the results are not as effective if patients with more severe symptoms are to be treated.

South Korea, the country that praises itself for how it is treating the epidemic and suggested as a model in Italy, will not use the drug Avigan because it was deemed not effective and above all unsafe following tests on animals that would have proved harmful to the fetus. Here's what Korean sites report:

"The anti-viral drug developed by the Fujifilm Holdings Corp. has emerged as one of the potential drugs in the race to find an effective treatment for COVID-19 as there is currently no specific treatment.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said it has decided not to import Avigan after a team of infectious disease experts here ruled there is not enough clinical data to prove the drug's efficacy.

Avigan was approved as a backup drug for reemergent influenza in Japan in 2014. However, it has not been used to treat regular flu because several animal studies showed potential fetal damage. "

For some time in Italy there has been talk of the Avigan antiviral drug and it is not a novelty at all. In fact, this drug was used in 2015 at Spallanzani in Rome as an experimental treatment against Ebola, given the emergency, but still recommending further research at the time.

Recently, in fact, it was mentioned on March 18, 2020 in The Guardian, the Chinese medical authorities seen in the Japanese drug Avigan, an efficacy against the new coronavirus. According to Zhang Xinmin, an official from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, the drug has a high degree of safety and is effective in the treatment.

In order for a drug to enter the market in Italy, and in Europe, it must be subjected to adequate controls and studies. In this case, exceptionally, we want to speed up the pace.

"In this sense, there is already an open road with the immediate green light in Italy for all possible promising therapies. The Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA) has in fact activated, in collaboration with Ema, the European regulatory body of medicines, a fast track, a fast process that allows, in case data on new drugs effective to combat Covid-19 come to light, to approve their use in hospitals in a few hours. The requirements are the availability of data on the safety of the use in humans, "recalls Aifa at Adnkronos Salute.

Contribution to the reflection on the Coronavirus
.
.I would like to report a beautiful reflection signed by a friend named Raffaella, originally from Bassano del Grappa, who deals with family Constellations , a psychological method practiced all over the world.
.
. With modesty and respect for what is happening in these days, now weeks, in light of the recent measures to declare all of Italy in the "red" area, I would like to offer my thoughts on this.
It is not easy for me to express a position or feeling in this difficult moment, without the fear of speaking out of turn or simplifying events that deeply affect the lives of all people, especially those who are sick and have lost their Dear.
Therefore, I would like to submit my reflection on tiptoe, in full respect of everyone's life, offering a different reflection which, I repeat again, underlies, embraces and respects the gravity of these moments.
These days I have read everything and more on various websites and in the various messages that I have received via Messenger and / or Whatsapp. Too much information is confusing and everything can be true or false as far as we know, since we really don't have access to the scientific data of what this virus really is. I stick only to a feeling felt in the circle of healing meditation activated in these days, in which I felt the need to integrate the virus into the world and not to exclude it. To this was added a further feeling, arrived talking this morning with a friend who had sent me a prayer (received in turn). In this the virus was intimated: "disappear, out of here, I don't accept you".
As a primary feeling I thought there was something wrong and I said to myself that, in psychoanalytic terms and in the eyes of the teachings of BERT (BERT HELLINGER, creator of the Family Constellations, who died at the age of 94 in Bischofswiesen in 2019, editor's note), what is denied, finds more and more strength to act and be noticed.
Paradoxically, if it is true that this virus was created in the laboratory, (but I do not dare to say an opinion on it) if it is a creature of man, the virus acts as an abandoned child, an illegitimate child, excluded and therefore the immune system (of humanity - the family that created it) does not recognize it and rejects it.
But beyond these conjectures that I cannot prove, I am connected to the disease as a representative of an excluded person. The virus goes out into the world in search of a father and mother or family from which it has been removed. It does not belong, perhaps it still represents a different consciousness.
.
So I did a blind constellation with three people tonight. I didn't tell anyone of them who they represented. I staged a representative of Coronavirus, one for the immune system and the third for humanity. In looking at the Coronavirus, the representative of the immune system felt very tired and collapsed to the ground, the representative of humanity was afraid and that of the Coronavirus was sad, he looked at the representative of the immune system with supplicant eyes.
.I then had the immune system representative say, "I see you, you belong.", Towards the virus and the situation changed - the virus breathed a sigh of relief, the immune system felt better and slowly took come on, humanity has gone to the immune system.
The representative of the immune system said that with this sentence he felt much better, "fuller", the virus was relaxed because he had been seen and humanity said he was better, he could observe the world with less fear.
Scientifically, Coronavirus is something new that we humans are not yet ready for, our immune system does not recognize and fight so that it does not have the antibodies to beat it. Immunity, on the other hand, is built from the memory of antibodies that activate each time that same virus occurs. The immune system and healing are memory.My reflection is therefore this: if the immune system says to the virus : YOU BELONG, this sentence gives strength to the system because by integrating it, it recognizes it as something that is familiar. What is fought, in truth, belongs. and belonging awakens the memory of the antibody.
Through the sentence and the inclusion, the system acts as if the memory of silent antibodies is reactivated and awakens by "remembering" something already known.
.
.I recognize that it may seem paradoxical or too superficial. I am not a doctor, nor a biologist, but I have only observed how the phrase "you belong" was the basis for building immunity.
.
. We do not fight what is present and integrated, we fight what we do not know.
The basis for getting out is inclusion, if each of us takes a moment of silence and looks at the virus internally with love, with a sense of acceptance, as if it were inside a glass, despite the pain, anger, bitterness , always inwardly he whispers to him: "YOU BELONG", then and only then does confidence come and diminish, move back, fear eases. Good life?
.
. .

The coronavirus emergency risks having short and long-term social and economic effects on various production sectors: the priorities in this situation are to improve skills and quality.

The moment is difficult, the situation is constantly evolving and the choices of the Italian government are not always clear, which remain more cause for concern in the entire national economic system. It remains complicated to imagine what the real consequences of coronavirus will be in our country, both economically and socially: let's try to analyze the situation and understand what the future prospects could be after the emergency.

Abstract

Background
Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been found to be efficient on SARS-CoV-2, and reported to be efficient in Chinese COV-19 patients. We evaluate the role of hydroxychloroquine on respiratory viral loads.

Patients and methods
French Confirmed COVID-19 patients were included in a single arm protocol from early March to March 16th, to receive 600mg of hydroxychloroquine daily and their viral load in nasopharyngeal swabs was tested daily in a hospital setting. Depending on their clinical presentation, azithromycin was added to the treatment. Untreated patients from another center and cases refusing the protocol were included as negative controls. Presence and absence of virus at Day6-post inclusion was considered the end point.

Results
Six patients were asymptomatic, 22 had upper respiratory tract infection symptoms and eight had lower respiratory tract infection symptoms.
Twenty cases were treated in this study and showed a significant reduction of the viral carriage at D6-post inclusion compared to controls, and much lower average carrying duration than reported of untreated patients in the literature. Azithromycin added to hydroxychloroquine was significantly more efficient for virus elimination.

Conclusion
Despite its small sample size our survey shows that hydroxychloroquine treatment is significantly associated with viral load reduction/disappearance in COVID-19 (Coronavirus) patients and its effect is reinforced by azithromycin.

• Governments, central banks and the WHO will not defeat coronavirus alone; the private sector must play a key role.
• As companies respond to COVID-19, business leaders who back moral statements with practical action will stand out.
• Protecting employees and redeploying their unique capabilities to meet society’s immediate needs could build more loyal workforces and public good will while helping to fight a global crisis.

The many layers to the COVID-19 crisis are unfolding in front of our eyes. Our political leaders, financial institutions and global governance structures are being severely tested. Their job is made all the harder by low levels of public trust and broken social contracts in many parts of the world.
Many countries are bracing themselves should their health services buckle as services have in those countries already badly affected. Despite the many wonderful acts of charity being witnessed in communities in lockdown, we know imminent hardship will take a toll on social cohesion.
As the limits on our go-to crisis-management tools become clear, it is increasingly apparent that we need the private sector to join the coronavirus front line. There’s a reason the White House has asked Walmart and others to help with drive-thru testing and Downing Street wants manufacturers to shift production lines to building ventilators. Governments, central banks and the WHO will not defeat this disease alone.
Responsible capitalism, which seeks to move corporate culture beyond shareholder primacy, now faces its biggest test yet. Today’s CEOs are knee-deep in invidious choices as they attempt to absorb losses, steady cashflow and balance the competing needs of their investors, customers, staff and suppliers. There are no firm answers, just best judgements and countless unknowns over supply chains, volatile markets and the impact of travel bans and social distancing. It will be impossible to keep everyone happy.
Yet, perhaps, there is opportunity too. In recent years we have seen that employees and consumers increasingly reward businesses that use their powers for good. Companies which uphold clear values to advance a bigger societal mission regularly exhibit stronger financial performance. We saw this clearly at Unilever during my 10 years as CEO when putting purpose at the heart of our business model delivered a 300% shareholder return. As companies respond to coronavirus, false virtuousness will be easy to spot. Business leaders who back moral statements with practical action will stand out.
Firstly, some businesses can redeploy their unique capabilities to meet society’s immediate needs. Think war-time effort: Luxury goods giant LVMH is producing hand sanitizer in its perfume factories, for use in French hospitals; Johnson & Johnson has donated a million surgical masks to Chinese health workers; IKEA is helping to kit-out hospitals in affected areas. These acts will not be forgotten by their recipients and will build good will among the wider public for a long time to come.
Secondly, responsible firms will do everything possible to protect their people, meaning employees, customers and supply chains. Promoting health and safety is priority number one; next is trying to mitigate the financial impact, especially for staff on precarious contracts. Microsoft has agreed to keep paying regular wages to the hourly workers who support their campus, even if hours reduce. UK supermarket Morrisons has just launched a hardship fund for employees facing difficulties as a result of the virus. Others are following suit, some by initiating paid sick leave. While governments can and must provide support to families, it is foolish to hope that overstretched national exchequers can do all the heavy lifting. If our societies are to emerge from the turmoil as strong as possible, it will be essential for businesses to do their bit.
Easier said than done. It is always tempting to ensure your investors get paid first. But long-sighted firms who balance this demand with providing real help to other groups will see immense benefits in the months and years ahead.
These companies will build more resilient and more loyal workforces, better positioned to weather a prolonged economic storm. All but the hardest-hit large firms should be able to protect vulnerable workers through dedicated schemes and guaranteed minimum income, including those people unable to perform their duties because of sickness or through no fault of their own. Doing everything possible to insulate supply chains, especially extending credit where needed, is not only ethically right but is in companies’ enlightened self-interest. The fewer businesses that go to the wall, the better for the overall health of the economy and our eventual recovery.
None of this is revolutionary. The last decade has seen a growing movement towards longer-term, multistakeholder business models. And it’s obvious that most businesses can’t thrive in faltering economies. But don’t underestimate the siege mentality that will be gripping many boardrooms and the powerful instinct to protect profits, even if compassion and humanity are the cost.
The greatest business leaders will, by contrast, play a longer game to serve the societies which host them in this moment of great need, offering people security and stability as an antidote to panic and fear. Employees above all will expect this. This extraordinary and overwhelming crisis demands more of our top executives as they help lead our response. The best will advance the interests of others knowing that it makes us all better off.
Nobel prize winner Wangari Maathai said that, in the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called upon to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. For C-suites everywhere, that time is now.

Good afternoon everybody and thank you very much for coming.
I’ve just chaired a meeting of the government’s emergency committee including ministers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
And it’s clear that coronavirus, COVID-19, continues and will continue to spread across the world and our country over the next few months. We’ve done what can be done to contain this disease and this has bought us valuable time.
But it is now a global pandemic.
And the number of cases will rise sharply and indeed the true number of cases is higher - perhaps much higher - than the number of cases we have so far confirmed with tests.
I’ve got to be clear, we’ve all got to be clear, that this is the worst public health crisis for a generation.
Some people compare it to seasonal flu. Alas, that is not right. Owing to the lack of immunity, this disease is more dangerous.
And it’s going to spread further and I must level with you, level with the British public, many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time. And the Chief Scientific Adviser will set out the best information we have on that in a moment.
But as we’ve said over the last few weeks, we have a clear plan that we are now working through.
And we are now moving to the next phase in that plan.
Because this is now not just to attempt to contain the disease as far as possible, but to delay its spread and thereby minimise the suffering. If we delay the peak even by a few weeks, then our NHS will be in a stronger state as the weather improves and fewer people suffer from normal respiratory diseases, more beds are available and we’ll have more time for medical research.
We can also act to stretch the peak of the disease over a longer period so that our society is better able to cope.
The Chief Medical Officer will set out our lines of defence. We have to deploy these at the right time to maximise their effect. The most important task will be to protect our elderly and most vulnerable people during the peak weeks when there is the maximum risk of exposure to the disease and when the NHS will be under the most pressure. So the most dangerous period is not now but some weeks away depending on how fast it spreads.
Today therefore we are moving forward with our plan. From tomorrow, if you have coronavirus symptoms, however mild – either a new continuous cough or a high temperature – then you should stay at home for at least 7 days to protect others and help slow the spread of the disease.
We advise all those over 70 and those with serious medical conditions against going on cruises and we advise against international school trips.
At some point in the next few weeks, we are likely to go further and if someone in a household has those symptoms, we will be asking everyone in the household to stay at home. We are not introducing this yet for reasons Sir Patrick will explain, but I want to signal now that this is coming down the track.
We are considering the question of banning major public events such as sporting fixtures. The scientific advice as we’ve said over the last couple of weeks is that banning such events will have little effect on the spread.
But there is also the issue of the burden that such events can place on public services. So we’re discussing these issues with colleagues in all parts of the United Kingdom and will have more to say shortly about the timing of further action in that respect.
At all stages, we have been guided by the science, and we will do the right thing at the right time.
We are not - repeat not - closing schools now. The scientific advice is that this could do more harm than good at this time. But we are of course keeping this under review and this again may change as the disease spreads. Schools should only close if they are specifically advised to do so. And that remains our advice.
There is no escaping the reality that these measures will cause severe disruption across our country for many months.
The best scientific advice is that this will help us slow the disease and save lives. There will be detailed information available on the NHS website and from 111 online. But I want to stress something that is very important in the wake of what we’re saying this afternoon – I urge people, who think in view of what we’re saying about their potential symptoms that they should stay at home, not to call 111 but to use the internet for information if they can.
I also want at this stage to speak directly to older people. Because this disease is particularly dangerous for you, for older people, even though the vast majority this will be a mild to moderate illness, I know that many people will be very worried. And I think we should all be thinking about our elderly relatives, the more vulnerable members of their family, our neighbours, and everything we can do to protect them over the next few months. We’re going to need to mobilise millions of people to help and support each other. And I just want to you to know that the government will do all we can to help you and your family during this period. We’re not just going to be as you saw yesterday supporting the economy during this period, we will be providing money and many other forms of support, and helping communities to support each other.
And as we have done over the last few weeks, we will continue to provide, as soon as we have it, as much clear scientific and medical information as we can.
So I’d like to end by repeating the two important messages, with which you will have become familiar – it is still vital, perhaps more vital than ever – that we remember to wash our hands.
And lastly of course even if things seem tough now, just to remember, that we will get through this, this country will get through this epidemic, just as it has got through many tougher experiences before if we look out for each other and commit wholeheartedly to a full national effort.
 

Politicians, Community Leaders and Business Leaders: What Should You Do and When?
With everything that’s happening about the Coronavirus, it might be very hard to make a decision of what to do today. Should you wait for more information? Do something today? What?
Here’s what I’m going to cover in this article, with lots of charts, data and models with plenty of sources:

• How many cases of coronavirus will there be in your area?
• What will happen when these cases materialize?
• What should you do?
• When?

When you’re done reading the article, this is what you’ll take away:
The coronavirus is coming to you.
It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways.
Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies.
The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.
As a politician, community leader or business leader, you have the power and the responsibility to prevent this.
You might have fears today: What if I overreact? Will people laugh at me? Will they be angry at me? Will I look stupid? Won’t it be better to wait for others to take steps first? Will I hurt the economy too much?
But in 2–4 weeks, when the entire world is in lockdown, when the few precious days of social distancing you will have enabled will have saved lives, people won’t criticize you anymore: They will thank you for making the right decision.
Ok, let’s do this.

French, French, my dear compatriots,
For the past few weeks, our country has been facing the spread of a virus, Covid-19, which has affected several thousand of our compatriots. I have, of course, this evening, before anything else, an emotional and warm thought for the families and loved ones of our victims. This epidemic which affects all continents and strikes all European countries is the most serious health crisis that France has experienced in a century. In the overwhelming majority of cases, Covid-19 is safe, but the virus can have very serious consequences, especially for those of our compatriots who are elderly or affected by chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity or cancer.