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Edmunds: Five dream-worthy vehicles you wish you got for the holidaysFor Makenzie Gilkison, spelling is such a struggle that a word like rhinoceros might come out as “rineanswsaurs” or sarcastic as “srkastik.” The 14-year-old from suburban Indianapolis can sound out words, but her dyslexia makes the process so draining that she often struggles with comprehension. “I just assumed I was stupid,” she recalled of her early grade school years. But assistive technology powered by artificial intelligence has helped her keep up with classmates. Last year, Makenzie was named to the National Junior Honor Society. She credits a customized AI-powered chatbot, a word prediction program and other tools that can read for her. “I would have just probably given up if I didn’t have them,” she said. Artificial intelligence holds the promise of helping countless other students with a range of visual, speech, language and hearing impairments to execute tasks that come easily to others. Schools everywhere have been wrestling with how and where to incorporate AI , but many are fast-tracking applications for students with disabilities. Getting the latest technology into the hands of students with disabilities is a priority for the U.S. Education Department, which has told schools they must consider whether students need tools like text-to-speech and alternative communication devices. New rules from the Department of Justice also will require schools and other government entities to make apps and online content accessible to those with disabilities. There is concern about how to ensure students using it — including those with disabilities — are still learning. Students can use artificial intelligence to summarize jumbled thoughts into an outline, summarize complicated passages, or even translate Shakespeare into common English. And computer-generated voices that can read passages for visually impaired and dyslexic students are becoming less robotic and more natural. “I’m seeing that a lot of students are kind of exploring on their own, almost feeling like they’ve found a cheat code in a video game,” said Alexis Reid, an educational therapist in the Boston area who works with students with learning disabilities. But in her view, it is far from cheating : “We’re meeting students where they are.” Ben Snyder, a 14-year-old freshman from Larchmont, N.Y., who was recently diagnosed with a learning disability, has been increasingly using AI to help with homework. “Sometimes in math, my teachers will explain a problem to me, but it just makes absolutely no sense,” he said. “So if I plug that problem into AI, it’ll give me multiple different ways of explaining how to do that.” He likes a program called Question AI. Earlier in the day, he asked the program to help him write an outline for a book report — a task he completed in 15 minutes that otherwise would have taken him an hour and a half because of his struggles with writing and organization. But he does think using AI to write the whole report crosses a line. “That’s just cheating,” Ben said. Schools have been trying to balance the technology’s benefits against the risk that it will do too much. If a special education plan sets reading growth as a goal, the student needs to improve that skill. AI can’t do it for them, said Mary Lawson, general counsel at the Council of the Great City Schools. But the technology can help level the playing field for students with disabilities, said Paul Sanft, director of a Minnesota-based center where families can try out different assistive technology tools and borrow devices. “There are definitely going to be people who use some of these tools in nefarious ways. That’s always going to happen,” Sanft said. “But I don’t think that’s the biggest concern with people with disabilities, who are just trying to do something that they couldn’t do before.” Another risk is that AI will track students into less rigorous courses of study. And, because it is so good at identifying patterns , AI might be able to figure out a student has a disability. Having that disclosed by AI and not the student or their family could create ethical dilemmas, said Luis Pérez, the disability and digital inclusion lead at CAST, formerly the Center for Applied Specialized Technology. Schools are using the technology to help students who struggle academically, even if they do not qualify for special education services. In Iowa, a new law requires students deemed not proficient — about a quarter of them — to get an individualized reading plan. As part of that effort, the state’s education department spent $3 million on an AI-driven personalized tutoring program. When students struggle, a digital avatar intervenes. More AI tools are coming soon. The U.S. National Science Foundation is funding AI research and development. One firm is developing tools to help children with speech and language difficulties. Called the National AI Institute for Exceptional Education, it is headquartered at the University of Buffalo, which did pioneering work on handwriting recognition that helped the U.S. Postal Service save hundreds of millions of dollars by automating processing. “We are able to solve the postal application with very high accuracy. When it comes to children’s handwriting, we fail very badly,” said Venu Govindaraju, the director of the institute. He sees it as an area that needs more work, along with speech-to-text technology, which isn’t as good at understanding children’s voices, particularly if there is a speech impediment. Sorting through the sheer number of programs developed by education technology companies can be a time-consuming challenge for schools. Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, said the nonprofit launched an effort this fall to make it easier for districts to vet what they are buying and ensure it is accessible. Makenzie wishes some of the tools were easier to use. Sometimes a feature will inexplicably be turned off, and she will be without it for a week while the tech team investigates. The challenges can be so cumbersome that some students resist the technology entirely. But Makenzie’s mother, Nadine Gilkison, who works as a technology integration supervisor at Franklin Township Community School Corporation in Indiana, said she sees more promise than downside. In September, her district rolled out chatbots to help special education students in high school. She said teachers, who sometimes struggled to provide students the help they needed, became emotional when they heard about the program. Until now, students were reliant on someone to help them, unable to move ahead on their own. “Now we don’t need to wait anymore,” she said.

December 23, 2024 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlightedthe following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread by University of Michigan Bright, twisted light can be produced with technology similar to an Edison light bulb, researchers at the University of Michigan have shown. The finding adds nuance to fundamental physics while offering a new avenue for robotic vision systems and other applications for light that traces out a helix in space. "It's hard to generate enough brightness when producing twisted light with traditional ways like electron or photon luminescence," said Jun Lu, an adjunct research investigator in chemical engineering at U-M and first author of the study on the cover of this week's Science . "We gradually noticed that we actually have a very old way to generate these photons—not relying on photon and electron excitations, but like the bulb Edison developed." Every object with any heat to it, including yourself, is constantly sending out photons (particles of light) in a spectrum tied to its temperature. When the object is the same temperature as its surroundings, it is also absorbing an equivalent amount of photons—this is idealized as " blackbody radiation " because the color black absorbs all photon frequencies. While a tungsten lightbulb's filament is much warmer than its surroundings, the law defining blackbody radiation—Planck's law—offers a good approximation of the spectrum of photons it sends out. All together, the visible photons look like white light, but when you pass the light through a prism, you can see the rainbow of different photons within it. This radiation is also why you show up brightly in a thermal image, but even room-temperature objects are constantly emitting and receiving blackbody photons, making them dimly visible as well. Typically, the shape of the object emitting the radiation doesn't get much consideration—for most purposes (as so often in physics), the object can be imagined as a sphere. But while shape doesn't affect the spectrum of wavelengths of the different photons, it can affect a different property: their polarization. Usually, photons from a blackbody source are randomly polarized—their waves may oscillate along any axis. The new study revealed that if the emitter was twisted at the micro or nanoscale, with the length of each twist similar to the wavelength of the emitted light, the blackbody radiation would be twisted too. The strength of the twisting in the light, or its elliptical polarization, depended on two main factors: how close the wavelength of the photon was to the length of each twist and the electronic properties of the material—nanocarbon or metal, in this case. Twisted light is also called "chiral" because the clockwise and counterclockwise rotations are mirror images of one another. The study was undertaken to demonstrate the premise of a more applied project that the Michigan team would like to pursue: using chiral blackbody radiation to identify objects. They envision robots and self-driving cars that can see like mantis shrimp , differentiating among light waves with different directions of twirl and degrees of twistedness. "The advancements in physics of blackbody radiation by chiral nanostructures is central to this study. Such emitters are everywhere around us," said Nicholas Kotov, the Irving Langmuir Distinguished Professor of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, director of NSF Center of Complex Particles and Particle Systems (COMPASS) and corresponding author of the study. Discover the latest in science, tech, and space with over 100,000 subscribers who rely on Phys.org for daily insights. Sign up for our free newsletter and get updates on breakthroughs, innovations, and research that matter— daily or weekly . "These findings, for example, could be important for an autonomous vehicle to tell the difference between a deer and a human, which emit light with similar wavelengths but different helicity because deer fur has a different curl from our fabric." While brightness is the main advantage of this method for producing twisted light—up to 100 times brighter than other approaches—the light includes a broad spectrum of both wavelengths and twists. The team has ideas about how to address this, including exploring the possibility of building a laser that relies on twisted light -emitting structures. Kotov also wants to explore further into the infrared spectrum. The peak wavelength of blackbody radiation at room temperature is roughly 10,000 nanometers or 0.01 millimeters. "This is an area of the spectrum with a lot of noise, but it may be possible to enhance contrast through their elliptical polarization," Kotov said. Kotov is also the Joseph B. and Florence V. Cejka Professor of Engineering, a professor of macromolecular science and engineering and a member of U-M's Biointerfaces Institute. Lu is an incoming assistant professor of chemistry and physics at the National University of Singapore. The device was built in the COMPASS Lab located at the North Campus Research Complex of U-M and studied at the Michigan Center for Materials Characterization. More information: Jun Lu et al, Bright, circularly polarized black-body radiation from twisted nanocarbon filaments, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.adq4068 Journal information: Science Provided by University of Michigan

CLI raising P5B from ‘green’ bond offerTalon Metals, the company proposing an underground nickel mine near Tamarack, Minn., has backed away from a novel plan that would have used a subway-digging machine to carve an underground loop to reach the ore. Instead, Talon, which hopes to one day supply the materials for Tesla’s electric vehicle batteries, will dig a straight path down to those minerals. The revised environmental assessment worksheet filed Dec. 12 incorporated public, state and tribal feedback, said Jessica Johnson, the vice president of external affairs for Talon. “We’re reducing the amount of ground disturbance and the amount of rock that we need to handle and manage,” Johnson said. By no longer using a tunnel boring machine, Talon has sidestepped early concerns from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources about waste rock, potential contamination of water and an untested technology for mining. But building a single, diagonal shaft underground also means that Talon will be blasting rock closer to the surface, at 100 feet below as opposed to 300 feet below. Talon is still studying how many sulfides will be in the waste rock between the surface and the nickel it is seeking, the company said in filings. Sulfide minerals that can interact with air and water to create acid mine drainage, or release sulfates that are toxic to wild rice . The company also abandoned a proposal to pile waste rock outside on top of liners, and now says it will store excess rock inside a central building — or ship it along with ore to a processing plant it intends to build in North Dakota. Several parts of the facility have been moved inside this building, and the central mine shaft will also reach the surface indoors. Johnson described the concept as a “mine in a box.” But the new design also introduces new questions, said Paula Maccabee of the environmental group WaterLegacy. She questioned how Talon would be able to supply enough fresh air for workers in the mine when the main opening is enclosed. Previously, the loop design had two openings at the surface of the ground. In addition to typical dust from blasting activities underground, Talon has acknowledged to the state that some amount of silica fibers will be present in the air. Silica, when inhaled by workers in high amounts, causes an incurable and deadly lung condition known as silicosis. The company also plans to sink two significantly smaller shafts to the underground mine to aid with airflow, according to documents. Talon’s Tamarack Mine is only the third hardrock mining proposal to reach environmental review in Minnesota. Two other projects near Babbitt, the Twin Metals mine the NorthMet mine proposed by the company PolyMet, have faced significant hurdles. Talon is seeking to excavate 8.2 million tons of ore over the 7- to 10-year life of the mine. The company has also said it believes other rich nickel deposits lie near its proposed site, which could eventually create a nickel-mining district in the state . It plans to ship the ore to a still-unannounced location in North Dakota for processing, and has received a $114 million grant from the federal government to support that plant. The company has stressed the underground mine design and lack of locally stored tailings as signs of its environmental friendliness. But many groups, including the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwe, are watching the project development closely for potential to pollute. “We need proof beyond a doubt that this will not harm our environment,” said Kelly Applegate, the commissioner of natural resources for the Mille Lacs band. He said the tribe was reviewing the company’s latest documents. Environmental review still in early stages. The state prepare a much more detailed environmental impact statement in the coming years. A DNR spokesman did immediately have an answer for how long it would take the agency to review the latest submission.

The Christmas tradition has become nearly global in scope: Children from around the world track Santa Claus as he sweeps across the earth, delivering presents and defying time. Each year, at least 100,000 kids call into the North American Aerospace Defense Command to inquire about Santa’s location. Millions more follow online in nine languages , from English to Japanese. On any other night, NORAD is scanning the heavens for potential threats , such as last year’s Chinese spy balloon . But on Christmas Eve, volunteers in Colorado Springs are fielding questions like, “When is Santa coming to my house?” and, “Am I on the naughty or nice list?” “There are screams and giggles and laughter,” said Bob Sommers, 63, a civilian contractor and NORAD volunteer. Sommers often says on the call that everyone must be asleep before Santa arrives, prompting parents to say, “Do you hear what he said? We got to go to bed early.” NORAD’s annual tracking of Santa has endured since the Cold War , predating ugly sweater parties and Mariah Carey classics . The tradition continues regardless of government shutdowns, such as the one in 2018 , and this year . Here’s how it began and why the phones keep ringing. It started with a child’s accidental phone call in 1955. The Colorado Springs newspaper printed a Sears advertisement that encouraged children to call Santa, listing a phone number. A boy called. But he reached the Continental Air Defense Command, now NORAD, a joint U.S. and Canadian effort to spot potential enemy attacks. Tensions were growing with the Soviet Union, along with anxieties about nuclear war. Air Force Col. Harry W. Shoup picked up an emergency-only “red phone” and was greeted by a tiny voice that began to recite a Christmas wish list. “He went on a little bit, and he takes a breath, then says, ‘Hey, you’re not Santa,’” Shoup told The Associated Press in 1999. Realizing an explanation would be lost on the youngster, Shoup summoned a deep, jolly voice and replied, “Ho, ho, ho! Yes, I am Santa Claus. Have you been a good boy?” Shoup said he learned from the boy’s mother that Sears mistakenly printed the top-secret number. He hung up, but the phone soon rang again with a young girl reciting her Christmas list. Fifty calls a day followed, he said. In the pre-digital age, the agency used a 60-by-80 foot (18-by-24 meter) plexiglass map of North America to track unidentified objects. A staff member jokingly drew Santa and his sleigh over the North Pole. The tradition was born. “Note to the kiddies,” began an AP story from Colorado Springs on Dec. 23, 1955. “Santa Claus Friday was assured safe passage into the United States by the Continental Air Defense Command.” In a likely reference to the Soviets, the article noted that Santa was guarded against possible attack from “those who do not believe in Christmas.” Some grinchy journalists have nitpicked Shoup’s story, questioning whether a misprint or a misdial prompted the boy’s call. In 2014, tech news site Gizmodo cited an International News Service story from Dec. 1, 1955, about a child’s call to Shoup. Published in the Pasadena Independent, the article said the child reversed two digits in the Sears number. “When a childish voice asked COC commander Col. Harry Shoup, if there was a Santa Claus at the North Pole, he answered much more roughly than he should — considering the season: ‘There may be a guy called Santa Claus at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I worry about coming from that direction,’” Shoup said in the brief piece. In 2015, The Atlantic magazine doubted the flood of calls to the secret line, while noting that Shoup had a flair for public relations. Phone calls aside, Shoup was indeed media savvy. In 1986, he told the Scripps Howard News Service that he recognized an opportunity when a staff member drew Santa on the glass map in 1955. A lieutenant colonel promised to have it erased. But Shoup said, “You leave it right there,” and summoned public affairs. Shoup wanted to boost morale for the troops and public alike. “Why, it made the military look good — like we’re not all a bunch of snobs who don’t care about Santa Claus,” he said. Shoup died in 2009. His children told the StoryCorps podcast in 2014 that it was a misprinted Sears ad that prompted the phone calls. “And later in life he got letters from all over the world,” said Terri Van Keuren, a daughter. “People saying ‘Thank you, Colonel, for having, you know, this sense of humor.’” NORAD’s tradition is one of the few modern additions to the centuries-old Santa story that have endured, according to Gerry Bowler, a Canadian historian who spoke to the AP in 2010. Ad campaigns or movies try to “kidnap” Santa for commercial purposes, said Bowler, who wrote “Santa Claus: A Biography.” NORAD, by contrast, takes an essential element of Santa’s story and views it through a technological lens. In a recent interview with the AP, Air Force Lt. Gen. Case Cunningham explained that NORAD radars in Alaska and Canada —- known as the northern warning system — are the first to detect Santa. On Jan. 20, Donald Trump will reclaim the most powerful seat in our nation's government. 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Whether you give just one more time or sign up again to contribute regularly, we appreciate you playing a part in keeping our journalism free for all. Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages. He leaves the North Pole and typically heads for the international dateline in the Pacific Ocean. From there he moves west, following the night. “That’s when the satellite systems we use to track and identify targets of interest every single day start to kick in,” Cunningham said. “A probably little-known fact is that Rudolph’s nose that glows red emanates a lot of heat. And so those satellites track (Santa) through that heat source.” NORAD has an app and website, www.noradsanta.org , that will track Santa on Christmas Eve from 4 a.m. to midnight, mountain standard time. People can call 1-877-HI-NORAD to ask live operators about Santa’s location from 6 a.m. to midnight, mountain time. Related From Our PartnerNew studies led by researchers at the University of Central Florida offer for the first time a clearer picture of how the outer solar system formed and evolved based on analyses of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and centaurs. The findings, published today in Nature Astronomy, reveal the distribution of ices in the early solar system and how TNOs evolve when they travel inward into the region of the giant planets between Jupiter and Saturn, becoming centaurs. TNOs are small bodies, or ‘planetesimals,’ orbiting the sun beyond Pluto. They never accreted into planets, and serve as pristine time capsules, preserving crucial evidence of the molecular processes and planetary migrations that shaped the solar system billions of years ago. These solar system objects are like icy asteroids and have orbits comparable to or larger than Neptune’s orbit. Prior to the new UCF-led study, TNOs were known to be a diverse population based on their orbital properties and surface colors, but the molecular composition of these objects remained poorly understood. For decades, this lack of detailed knowledge hindered interpretation of their color and dynamical diversity. Now, the new results unlock the long-standing question of the interpretation of color diversity by providing compositional information. “With this new research, a more-complete picture of the diversity is presented and the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together,” says Noemí Pinilla-Alonso, the study’s lead author. “For the very first time, we have identified the specific molecules responsible for the remarkable diversity of spectra, colors and albedo observed in trans-Neptunian objects,” Pinilla-Alonso says. “These molecules — like water ice, carbon dioxide, methanol and complex organics — give us a direct connection between the spectral features of TNOs and their chemical compositions.” Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the researchers found that TNOs can be categorized into three distinct compositional groups, shaped by ice retention lines that existed in the era when the solar system formed billions of years ago. These lines are identified as regions where temperatures were cold enough for specific ices to form and survive within the protoplanetary disk. These regions, defined by their distance from the sun, mark key points in the early solar system’s temperature gradient and offer a direct link between the formation conditions of planetesimals and their present-day compositions. Rosario Brunetto, the paper’s second author and a Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique researcher at the Institute d’Astrophysique Spatiale (Université Paris-Saclay), says the results are the first clear connection between formation of planetesimals in the protoplanetary disk and their later evolution. The work sheds light on how today’s observed spectral and dynamical distributions emerged in a planetary system that’s shaped by complex dynamical evolution, he says. “The compositional groups of TNOs are not evenly distributed among objects with similar orbits,” Brunetto says. “For instance, cold classicals, which formed in the outermost regions of the protoplanetary disk, belong exclusively to a class dominated by methanol and complex organics. In contrast, TNOs on orbits linked to the Oort cloud, which originated closer to the giant planets, are all part of the spectral group characterized by water ice and silicates.” Brittany Harvison, a UCF physics doctoral student who worked on the project while studying under Pinilla-Alonso, says the three groups defined by their surface compositions exhibit qualities hinting at the protoplanetary disk’s compositional structure. “This supports our understanding of the available material that helped form outer solar system bodies such as the gas giants and their moons or Pluto and the other inhabitants of the trans-Neptunian region,” she says. In a complementary study of centaurs published in the same volume of Nature Astronomy, the researchers found unique spectral signatures, different from TNOs, that reveal the presence of dusty regolith mantles on their surfaces. This finding about centaurs, which are TNOs that have shifted their orbits into the region of the giant planets after a close gravitational encounter with Neptune, helps illuminate how TNOs become centaurs as they warm up when getting closer to the sun and sometimes develop comet-like tails. Their work revealed that all observed centaur surfaces showed special characteristics when compared with the surfaces of TNOs, suggesting modifications occurred as a consequence of their journey into the inner solar system. Among the three classes of TNO surface types, two — Bowl and Cliff — were observed in the centaur population, both of which are poor in volatile ices, Pinilla-Alonso says. However, in centaurs, these surfaces show a distinguishing feature: they are covered by a layer of dusty regolith intermixed with the ice, she says. “Intriguingly, we identify a new surface class, nonexistent among TNOs, resembling ice poor surfaces in the inner solar system, cometary nuclei and active asteroids,” she says. Javier Licandro, senior researcher at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC, Tenerife, Spain) and lead author of the centaur’s work says the spectral diversity observed in centaurs is broader than expected, suggesting that existing models of their thermal and chemical evolution may need refinement. For instance, the variety of organic signatures and the degree of irradiation effects observed were not fully anticipated, Licandro says. “The diversity detected in the centaurs populations in terms of water, dust, and complex organics suggests varied origins in the TNO population and different evolutionary stages, highlighting that centaurs are not a homogenous group but rather dynamic and transitional objects” Licandro says. “The effects of thermal evolution observed in the surface composition of centaurs are key to establishing the relationship between TNOs and other small bodies populations, such as the irregular satellites of the giant planets and their Trojan asteroids.” Study co-author Charles Schambeau, a planetary scientist with UCF’s Florida Space Institute (FSI) who specializes in studying centaurs and comets, emphasized the importance of the observations and that some centaurs can be classified into the same categories as the DiSCo-observed TNOs. “This is pretty profound because when a TNO transitions into a centaur, it experiences a warmer environment where surface ices and materials are changed,” Schambeau says. “Apparently, though, in some cases the surface changes are minimal, allowing individual centaurs to be linked to their parent TNO population. The TNO versus centaur spectral types are different, but similar enough to be linked.” How the Research Was Performed The studies are part of the Discovering the Surface Composition of the trans-Neptunian Objects, (DiSCo) project, led by Pinilla-Alonso, to uncover the molecular composition of TNOs. Pinilla-Alonso is now a distinguished professor with the Institute of Space Science and Technology in Asturias at the Universidad de Oviedo and performed the work as a planetary scientist with FSI. For the studies, the researchers used the JWST, launched almost three years ago, that provided unprecedented views of the molecular diversity of the surfaces of the TNOs and centaurs through near-infrared observations, overcoming the limitations of terrestrial observations and other available instruments. For the TNOs study, the researchers measured the spectra of 54 TNOs using the JWST, capturing detailed light patterns of these objects. By analyzing these high-sensitivity spectra, the researchers could identify specific molecules on their surface. Using clustering techniques, the TNOs were categorized into three distinct groups based on their surface compositions. The groups were nicknamed “Bowl,” “Double-dip” and “Cliff” due to the shapes of their light absorption patterns. They found that: Bowl-type TNOs made up 25% of the sample and were characterized by strong water ice absorptions and a dusty surface. They showed clear signs of crystalline water ice and had low reflectivity, indicating the presence of dark, refractory materials. Double-dip TNOs accounted for 43% of the sample and showed strong carbon dioxide (CO2) bands and some signs of complex organics. Cliff-type TNOs made up 32% of the sample and had strong signs of complex organics, methanol, and nitrogen-bearing molecules, and were the reddest in color. For the centaurs study, the researchers observed and analyzed the reflectance spectra of five centaurs (52872 Okyrhoe, 3253226 Thereus, 136204, 250112 and 310071). This allowed them to identify the surface compositions of the centaurs, revealing considerable diversity among the observed sample. They found that Thereus and 2003 WL7 belong to the Bowl-type, while 2002 KY14 belongs to the Cliff-type. The remaining two centaurs, Okyrhoe and 2010 KR59, did not fit into any existing spectral classes and were categorized as “Shallow-type” due to their unique spectra. This newly defined group is characterized by a high concentration of primitive, comet-like dust and little to no volatile ices. Previous Research and Next Steps Pinilla-Alonso says that previous DiSCo research revealed the presence of carbon oxides widespread on the surfaces of TNOs, which was a significant discovery. “Now, we build on that finding by offering a more comprehensive understanding of TNO surfaces” she says. “One of the big realizations is that water ice, previously thought to be the most abundant surface ice, is not as prevalent as we once assumed. Instead, carbon dioxide (CO2) — a gas at Earth’s temperature — and other carbon oxides, such as the super volatile carbon monoxide (CO), are found in a larger number of bodies.” The new study’s findings are only the beginning, Harvison says. “Now that we have general information about the identified compositional groups, we have much more to explore and discover,” she says. “As a community, we can start exploring the specifics of what produced the groups as we see them today.” The research was supported by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute. Astrobiology, Astrochemistry,

Munster, Ind., Dec. 20, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Finward Bancorp (Nasdaq: FNWD) (the “Bancorp” or “Finward”), the holding company for Peoples Bank (the “Bank”), today announced that on December 20, 2024 the Board of Directors of Finward declared a dividend of $0.12 per share on Finward’s common stock payable on February 3, 2025 to shareholders of record at the close of business on January 21, 2025. About Finward Bancorp Finward Bancorp is a locally managed and independent financial holding company headquartered in Munster, Indiana, whose activities are primarily limited to holding the stock of Peoples Bank. Peoples Bank provides a wide range of personal, business, electronic and wealth management financial services from its 26 locations in Lake and Porter Counties in Northwest Indiana and the Chicagoland area. Finward Bancorp’s common stock is quoted on The NASDAQ Stock Market, LLC under the symbol FNWD. The website ibankpeoples.com provides information on Peoples Bank’s products and services, and Finward Bancorp’s investor relations. Forward Looking Statements This Current Report on Form 8-K may contain forward-looking statements regarding the financial performance, business prospects, growth, and operating strategies of Finward. For these statements, Finward claims the protections of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements in this communication should be considered in conjunction with the other information available about Finward, including the information in the filings Finward makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Forward-looking statements provide current expectations or forecasts of future events and are not guarantees of future performance. The forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by using words such as “anticipate,” “estimate,” “project,” “intend,” “plan,” “believe,” “will” and similar expressions in connection with any discussion of future operating or financial performance. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially include: the Bank’s ability to demonstrate compliance with the terms of the previously disclosed consent order and memorandum of understanding entered into between the Bank and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) and Indiana Department of Financial Institutions (“DFI”), or to demonstrate compliance to the satisfaction of the FDIC and/or DFI within prescribed time frames; the Bank’s agreement under the memorandum of understanding to refrain from paying cash dividends without prior regulatory approval; changes in asset quality and credit risk; the inability to sustain revenue and earnings growth; changes in interest rates and capital markets; inflation; customer acceptance of Finward’s products and services; customer borrowing, repayment, investment, and deposit practices; customer disintermediation; the introduction, withdrawal, success, and timing of business initiatives; competitive conditions; the inability to realize cost savings or revenues or to implement integration plans and other consequences associated with mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures; economic conditions; and the impact, extent, and timing of technological changes, capital management activities, and other actions of the Federal Reserve Board and legislative and regulatory actions and reforms. Additional factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements are discussed in Finward’s reports (such as the Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and Current Reports on Form 8-K) filed with the SEC and available at the SEC’s Internet website ( www.sec.gov ). All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements concerning Finward or any person acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements above. Except as required by law, Finward does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date the forward-looking statement is made. In addition to the above factors, we also caution that the actual amounts and timing of any future common stock dividends or share repurchases will be subject to various factors, including our capital position, financial performance, capital impacts of strategic initiatives, market conditions, and regulatory and accounting considerations, as well as any other factors that our Board of Directors deems relevant in making such a determination. Therefore, there can be no assurance that we will repurchase shares or pay any dividends to the holders of our common stock, or as to the amount of any such repurchases or dividends. ### FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT INVESTOR RELATIONS (219) 853-7575Native American patients are sent to collections for debts the government owesAre Sania Mirza and Mohammed Shami Planning to Get Married? Here’s What We Know

[Latest] Hyaluronic Acid Market Likely to Experience a Tremendous Growth by 2030

Moody's Corp. stock outperforms competitors despite losses on the dayWhile New Year’s Eve is around the corner here on Earth, Mars scientists are ahead of the game: The Red Planet completed a trip around the Sun on Nov. 12, 2024, prompting a few researchers to raise a toast. But the Martian year, which is 687 Earth days, ends in a very different way in the planet’s northern hemisphere than it does in Earth’s northern hemisphere: While winter’s kicking in here, spring is starting there. That means temperatures are rising and ice is thinning, leading to frost avalanches crashing down cliffsides, carbon dioxide gas exploding from the ground, and powerful winds helping reshape the north pole. “Springtime on Earth has lots of trickling as water ice gradually melts. But on Mars, everything happens with a bang,” said Serina Diniega, who studies planetary surfaces at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Mars’ wispy atmosphere doesn’t allow liquids to pool on the surface, like on Earth. Instead of melting, ice sublimates, turning directly into a gas. The sudden transition in spring means a lot of violent changes as both water ice and carbon dioxide ice — dry ice, which is much more plentiful on Mars than frozen water — weaken and break. “You get lots of cracks and explosions instead of melting,” Diniega said. “I imagine it gets really noisy.” Using the cameras and other sensors aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which launched in 2005, scientists study all this activity to improve their understanding of the forces shaping the dynamic Martian surface. Here’s some of what they track. In 2015, MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured a 66-foot-wide (20-meter-wide) in freefall. Chance observations like this are reminders of just how different Mars is from Earth, Diniega said, especially in springtime, when these surface changes are most noticeable. “We’re lucky we’ve had a spacecraft like MRO observing Mars for as long as it has,” Diniega said. “Watching for almost 20 years has let us catch dramatic moments like these avalanches.” Diniega has relied on HiRISE to study another quirk of Martian springtime: gas geysers that blast out of the surface, throwing out dark fans of sand and dust. These explosive jets form due to energetic sublimation of carbon dioxide ice. As sunlight shines through the ice, its bottom layers turn to gas, building pressure until it bursts into the air, creating those dark fans of material. But to see the best examples of the newest fans, researchers will have to wait until December 2025, when spring starts in the southern hemisphere. There, the fans are bigger and more clearly defined. Another difference between ice-related action in the two hemispheres: Once all the ice around some northern geysers has sublimated in summer, what’s left behind in the dirt are scour marks that, from space, look like giant spider legs. Researchers this process in a JPL lab. For Isaac Smith of Toronto’s York University, one of the most fascinating subjects in springtime is the . Etched into the icy dome are swirling troughs, revealing traces of the red surface below. The effect is like a swirl of milk in a café latte. “These things are enormous,” Smith said, noting that some are a long as California. “You can find similar troughs in Antarctica but nothing at this scale.” Fast, warm wind has carved the spiral shapes over eons, and the troughs act as channels for springtime wind gusts that become more powerful as ice at the north pole starts to thaw. Just like the Santa Ana winds in Southern California or the Chinook winds in the Rocky Mountains, these gusts pick up speed and temperature as they ride down the troughs — what’s called an adiabatic process. IMAGE The winds that carve the north pole’s troughs also reshape , causing sand to pile up on one side while removing sand from the other side. Over time, the process causes dunes to migrate, just as it does with dunes on Earth. This past September, Smith coauthored a detailing how carbon dioxide frost settles on top of polar sand dunes during winter, freezing them in place. When the frost all thaws away in the spring, the dunes begin migrating again. Each northern spring is a little different, with variations leading to ice sublimating faster or slower, controlling the pace of all these phenomena on the surface. And these strange phenomena are just part of the seasonal changes on Mars: the southern hemisphere has its own unique activity. The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information, visit: Astrobiology,

Edmunds: Five dream-worthy vehicles you wish you got for the holidaysRetail investors, once an afterthought in financial markets, are now reshaping brokerage operations, pushing for real-time tools and constant market access. This shift was a central theme at the recent Benzinga Fintech Deal Day & Awards event, where a panel of experts explored the growing demands of Main Street investors and the technology adapting to meet them. "Retail is now about half of the U.S. equity market volume," said Brandis DeSimone , moderator and vice president at Nasdaq . She noted that the growth of retail trading has transformed it into a force capable of influencing the markets, a far cry from its marginal role just a decade ago. Eric Krueger , CEO of GTN Americas , reflected on how this change has made investing accessible to everyone. "When I started, my first trade was $1,000 worth of Microsoft, and I paid $100 in commission," he said. Today, retail investors can trade seamlessly on mobile apps with zero fees. "The barrier to entry has disappeared." Stephen Sikes , COO of Public , highlighted how modern retail investors demand more than accessibility. They want real-time pricing, instant alerts, and meaningful tools," Sikes said. Driven by the fast-paced digital age, investors have come to expect information at their fingertips. Beyond tools, Sikes noted the influence of social media on investor behavior. "They're not turning to traditional outlets like CNBC. They're getting their information from influencers and platforms like TikTok," he explained, emphasizing the need for brokerages to adapt to these new trends. Daniel Pipitone , CEO of TradeZero , stressed the importance of education in addressing this shift. "We focus on working with trusted educators to provide unbiased content," he said. "It's about teaching risk management and smart strategies without giving specific advice." See Also: Retail Investors Reshape Financial Markets: How Wall Street Is Catching Up Krueger discussed how personalized tools are helping investors make smarter decisions. "We're using data to create personas based on trading habits, watchlists, and activity," he said. This allows platforms to deliver education and resources tailored to each investor's needs, reducing common mistakes like failing to use stop losses or overtrading after a loss. Sikes shared an example of Public's recent success with its bond account feature. "We had bonds available for eight months, but uptake was minimal," he said. When the company repackaged bonds into a user-friendly format, trading volumes surged. "It's about presenting complex products in ways that are easy to understand." The panel also explored the global demand for U.S. equities. "About 90% of trading volume from our international clients goes into the U.S. market," said Krueger. He attributed this to the strong performance of U.S. companies and the widespread recognition of brands like Tesla and Amazon. Yoshi Yokokawa , CEO of Alpaca , noted similar trends. "We see a huge appetite for U.S. equities from clients in over 35 countries," he said, adding that platforms are adapting to serve these markets efficiently while keeping costs low. As retail investors continue to shape financial markets, brokerages are stepping up to meet their demands. By focusing on personalization, education, and accessibility, the industry is closing the gap between Wall Street and Main Street. "Retail investors have matured," Sikes said. "They're not just chasing trends anymore — they're looking for tools and strategies that work for them." With technology evolving rapidly, the retail investing revolution shows no signs of slowing down. Read Next: • Warren Buffett Gains Exposure To Digital Banks In Africa, Asia: Here’s How Photo: Shutterstock © 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Trade facilitation specialist Folk Maritime Services has secured a strategic agreement with Shanghai CIMC Yangshan Logistics Equipment to purchase 5,600 advanced, fully recyclable shipping containers, revealed the company’s CEO. The move is part of the Public Investment Fund-owned company’s broader strategy to promote sustainability and drive technological innovation in the Middle East’s maritime industry. Poul Hestbaek emphasized the company’s role as a leader in the regional liner and feeder sector, focusing on sustainability and the implementation of advanced technologies. “These containers have a capacity of 6,700 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) and are 100 percent recyclable,” Hestbaek told Arab News in an interview. “We have only chosen materials that, once the containers have gone through their lifecycle, can be fully recycled and put back into the production line. This is a significant sustainability element,” he added. The containers, designed to last 15 to 20 years, are part of Folk Maritime’s broader efforts to reduce its environmental footprint. Hestbaek said, “By designing containers with full recyclability in mind, we’re closing the loop on waste and contributing to a more sustainable shipping industry.” In addition to sustainability, Folk Maritime is investing in cutting-edge tracking technology to enhance customer experience. The company is installing sensors in its containers that will allow customers to monitor their cargo in real-time. “We are installing trackers so that our customers can, at any given time, follow their container’s location and monitor their cargo,” Hestbaek said. These trackers include sensors that provide real-time updates and alerts if the container’s door is opened or closed, ensuring that customers can detect potential compromises to their shipments. “This feature is relatively new technology. While it may be used in some very big global trade, it’s the first of its kind in the Middle East area. We are the first to offer that, and we believe it will be a big help for our customers,” Hestbaek said. Folk Maritime is expanding its services to improve regional trade connectivity and connect key ports, in line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. “Our first services connected Jeddah to Egypt and Jordan. We also opened the first weekly direct connection between Jeddah and NEOM, along with a sea connection to Yanbu, which offers safer transportation of heavy containers and reduces road wear and tear,” Hestbaek said. Additionally, Folk Maritime has launched services in Port Sudan, further strengthening trade relations between Saudi Arabia and the African nation, and is facilitating cargo transport from India to Jeddah and surrounding countries. With trade between India and the Middle East expanding rapidly, Folk Maritime is positioning itself to capitalize on this growing corridor. “Our service connects India directly to Dammam, offering faster and more reliable transit times. Unlike competitors, we skip ports like Jebel Ali and Abu Dhabi to ensure quicker delivery for Saudi customers,” Hestbaek said. India, increasingly a major supplier of goods to the Middle East, has seen Saudi Arabia account for half of the region’s consumption, further underscoring the strategic importance of this new service. Sustainability remains a cornerstone of Folk Maritime’s strategy. The company operates fuel-efficient vessels and optimizes services to run at lower, more cost-effective speeds, reducing both fuel consumption and carbon emissions. “Our vessels are specifically designed to operate efficiently at lower speeds, which significantly reduces our environmental impact,” Hestbaek said. Looking ahead, Folk Maritime is exploring carbon capture technology to further reduce its environmental footprint. “If we can find a way to capture the carbon footprint of fossil fuel use, it will be a game changer, especially for this part of the world,” Hestbaek emphasized. As part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, Folk Maritime is focused on transforming the Kingdom into a global logistics hub. By connecting key ports and streamlining trade flows, the company aims to facilitate greater regional trade while supporting the country’s broader economic objectives. “Saudi Arabia generates a significant amount of the region’s cargo. Our goal is to serve this growing market and align with Vision 2030’s objectives to create seamless trade networks across the region,” Hestbaek concluded. Folk Maritime’s focus on sustainability, technological innovation, and expanding regional connectivity positions it as a key player in reshaping Middle East, East Africa, and India trade routes, setting a new benchmark for the shipping industry. Source: Arab NewsIntel may have ousted CEO Pat Gelsinger, but he’s leaving the company with a significant payday. He’s set to receive 18 months of his base annual salary of $1.25 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission . He will also receive 1.5 times his current target bonus of 275% of that annual wage – about $3.4 million – payable over 18 months. He’ll also be eligible for 11/12ths of his 2024 bonus, since he stepped down on the first day of December. Overall, that’s at least $10 million. Gelsinger also owns roughly 646,000 shares in Intel as of a November regulatory filing. These days, that’s worth more than $14.5 million. On Monday, Intel announced Gelsinger would resign after his difficult tenure in the company contributed to its stock cratering from missing out on the AI boom that boosted much of its rivals. Gelsinger became Intel’s chief executive in February 2021 and had previously served as chief technology officer. He had briefly left Intel to be CEO of software giant VMWare. The company’s stock plunged more than 60% during his tenure. Once an iconic American tech giant, Gelsinger had to turn around a company that was facing unprecedented competition, production delays and the departure of top talent. But he wasn’t able to catch Intel up despite billions of dollars in US government spending to support its domestic chip manufacturing. The company announced in August it would lay off 15% of its staff to help reach its goal of slashing $10 billion in costs. CNN’s Clare Duffy and David Goldman contributed to this report.

stc, MEW promote awareness on water, energy consumptionNeel Kamal writes about sustainable agriculture, environment, climate change for The Times of India. His incisive and comprehensive reporting about over a year-long farmers' struggle against farm laws at the borders of the national capital won laurels. He is an alumunus of Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology. Read More 10 beautiful animals that are pink in colour 9 vegetarian dishes shine in the ‘100 Best Dishes in the World’ list How to grow Spring Onion in the kitchen garden without soil (you only need water!) How to make nutrition-rich and super delicious Bathua Paneer Paratha 10 best places to visit in North India for a thrilling wildlife experience ​Winter special: ​How to make Lemon Banana Tea cake ​ 10 Korean recipes that are trending in India 8 South Indian delicacies made with leftover rice 10 conversations you must have with your child everyday in the morning ​10 animals with amazing healing abilities​

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