Data science is the new must-have degree – Here’s how to train people to do it

Having data at your fingertips isn’t enough - data scientists must know how to apply it. Source: Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

 Feb 13, 2019Feb 14, 2019

THE world is inundated with data. There’s a virtual tsunami of data moving around the globe, renewing itself daily. Take just the global financial markets. They generate vast amounts of data – share prices, commodity prices, indices, option and futures prices, to name just a few.

But data is of no use if there aren’t people able to collect, collate, analyse and apply it to the benefit of society. All that data generated by global financial markets gets used for asset and wealth management – and it must be properly analysed and understood to inform good decision making. That’s where data science comes in.

Data science’s primary aim is to extract insight from data in various forms, both structured and unstructured. It’s a multi-disciplinary field, involving everything from applied mathematics to statistics and artificial intelligence to machine learning. And it’s growing. This is because of advances in computer technology and processing speed, the relatively low cost to store data, and the massive availability of data from the Internet and other sources such as global financial markets.

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For data science to happen, of course, you need data scientists. Because data science is so wide in scope, being a data scientist covers a range of professions. These include statisticians, operations researchers, engineers, computer scientists, actuaries, physicists and machine learners.

This variety isn’t necessarily a bad thing. From my own practical experience, I quickly learnt that when solving data science problems, you need a range of people. Some can work in depth on theory and others can explore the application area.

But how should these data scientists be trained so they’re prepared for the big data challenges that lie ahead?

Data scientists typically use innovative mathematical techniques from their own subfields to try and solve problems in a particular application area. The application areas – finance, health, agriculture and astronomy are just some examples – are very different. This means that each poses different problems, and so data scientists need knowledge about the particular application area.

Visitors at Big Data Expo 2018 in Guiyang, Guizhou province, on the 28th of May, 2018. Source: Jadranko Marjanovic/China Big Data Expo 2018/AFP-Services

For example, consider astrophysics and the Square Kilometre Array being built on the southern tip of Africa. It will be the world’s largest radio telescope when completed in the mid-2020s. The array of telescopes is said to receive data at one terabyte per second and researchers are typically interested in analysing the masses of data in order to detect tiny signals engulfed in white noise.

In finance, researchers exploit large data bases very differently: for example to learn more about their customers’ credit behaviour.

The most established subfields of data science are statistics and operations research and it might be worthwhile to learn from the established training programmes in these fields. Are universities training enough graduates in these fields? And is that training good enough?

SEE ALSO: Data cities: How satellite data can transform urban landscapes

Although students in these fields are well trained academically, many graduates in statistics and operations research lack knowledge about the fields in which they are expected to apply the mathematical techniques. They also tend to battle with real-world problem solving abilities, as well as lacking numerical programming and data handling skills. This is because those skills are not addressed adequately in many curricula.

So, drawing from these failings and the lessons of established data science subfields, what should universities be teaching aspiring data scientists? Here is my list.

• Mathematical and computational sciences, including courses in statistical and probability theory, artificial intelligence, machine learning, operations research, and computer science.
• Programming skills;
• Data management skills;
• Subject matter knowledge in selected fields of application; and
• Professional problem-solving skills.

This list could be expanded at the postgraduate level. And, whether at undergraduate or postgraduate level, all of these courses should have a practical element. This allows students to develop both professionalism and problem-solving skills.

For instance, at the Centre for Business Mathematics and Informatics at South Africa’s North-West University, my colleagues and I have organised a professional training programme that sees students working for six months at a client company to solve a specific industry problem. These problems are mainly in the financial field; for example, models to predict a customer’s ability and willingness to pay, models for improving collections and models for fraud identification.

This helps students to develop the necessary skills to function in the working world, handling real data and applying it to real problems rather than just working at a theoretical level. It also, as a colleague and I have argued in previous research, helps to close the academia-industry gap and so makes data science more relevant. The BMI programmes have been recognised and commended by international experts.

Data science, as a field, is only going to grow over the coming decades. It is imperative that universities train graduates who can handle enormous tranches of data, work closely with the industries that produce and apply this data – and make data something that can change the world for the better.

Riaan de Jongh, Director Centre for BMI, North-West University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

El Chapo escaped two prisons in Mexico — but no one’s ever busted out of the American ‘ADX’

Jurors found Mexico's most feared drug kingpin, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman, guilty of 10 criminal counts. He now faces a possible sentence of life in prison. (Reuters)

By Deanna Paul-February 14

There’s a supermax prison in Florence, Colo., two hours outside Denver. It’s the highest-security penitentiary in the United States. Since opening in 1994, no prisoner has escaped from the Administrative Maximum Facility — known as “the ADX” — one reason former members of federal law enforcement expect the Sinaloa cartel drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán will spend the rest of his life there.

“For him to escape, he would have to have a warden in his pocket,” said a retired federal corrections officer, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity. “It’s a very controlled environment. No one moves there without permission at all. No two inmates move in the facility at the same time.”

The retired officer, who was assigned to ADX, described the entire penitentiary as a singular special housing unit. The special housing unit (or “the SHU”) is solitary confinement. Prison officials at ADX did not respond to a request for comment.

Guzmán would be in rare company at the ADX, joining 400 male inmates and a roster of infamous convicted felons: Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Terry Nichols, co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing; Robert Hanssen, the traitorous double agent; and Zacarias Moussaoui, al-Qaeda operative and 9/11 conspirator.

Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor, described the penitentiary as a secure housing unit for “the most dangerous and notorious criminals in the world.”

[Drug lord Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán found guilty on all counts in federal trial]

For many ADX visitors, the most memorable part of the penitentiary is the eerie silence that encases the hallways.

“I don’t think I saw another inmate while I was there,” former federal prosecutor Allan Kaiser said of visiting his client, Sal Magluta, who was convicted of leading a massive drug organization in South Florida and sentenced to 200 years. “It was immaculately spartan: The floors just shined, the walls were clean, the hallways were empty. There was no one around, no sounds.”

ADX inmates are locked in small cubicles the size of a bathroom for 23 hours per day, according to Deborah Golden, staff attorney at the Human Rights Defense Center, who has visited the ADX several times. Each austere cell is adorned with a bed (a concrete slab covered with a thin foam mattress) and a three-in-one “combo toilet, sink and drinking water unit.” Some inmates may luck out with a single slit in the door that shows a sliver of the hallway.

There are two types of prisoners serving time at the ADX, Golden explained: The vast majority of inmates were transferred to the ADX for disciplinary or management reasons. A smaller number were sent there directly based on their conviction or previous history.

Golden said Guzmán (who escaped from two maximum-security Mexican prisons — in 2001 with the assistance of prison guards and in 2015 through a tunnel underneath the shower in his jail cell) would be a “direct commit.”

An aerial view of the federal correctional complex in Florence, Colo. Clockwise from lower left is the minimum-security federal prison camp, the high-security U.S. penitentiary, the maximum-security U.S. penitentiary and the federal correctional institution. (Kevin Kreck/AP)

According to Golden, the administrative super-maximum program offers a completely different, more isolated approach. With 400 inmates, the ADX also has the highest guard-to-prisoner ratio, allowing increased and personalized attention per inmate.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the country became increasingly concerned about violent crime. 

The stereotypical “superpredator” loomed large in the public mind — conscienceless criminals who lacked empathy and were so reckless they impulsively killed, robbed and raped. The tough-on-crime stance that evolved under President Bill Clinton’s administration came and went, yet many of its policies and programs, including the administrative super-maximum security prisons, are still enforced.

In a 2017 news conference, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Robert Capers, said the U.S. government assured Mexico it would not seek the death penalty if Guzmán were extradited, standard procedure for U.S.-Mexico extraditions, according to law enforcement.

Having been convicted Tuesday of running a drug trafficking enterprise, Guzmán faces multiple life sentences; he will be sentenced in federal court June 25.

“I expect the Bureau of Prisons would be concerned about El Chapo’s communication access; his phone calls, email access and letters are likely to be more closely monitored than the average prison there for federal drug possession,” Golden said, adding that the bureau should account for other factors, such as medical needs, security and communication needs, housing availability, and space.

When you go inside most prisons — even high-security prisons — they’re busy. People are walking around. But not at the ADX.

“The segregation is intense; it’s a punitive environment as harsh as any place on Earth,” Levin said. “It won’t be a coincidence if El Chapo is sent there.”

*A previous version of this story mischaracterized the number of guards the ADX fields. It has highest guard-to-prisoner ratio.

Thoughts on Valentine’s Day in Bangladesh

by Anwar A. Khan-Feb 14, 2019

Feb 14, 2019

“As we watch the sun goes down,
I want to let you know;
my love for you is forever,
I’ll never let you go…. “ -Jenny R. Tajalle

February 14 is celebrated as the Valentine’s Day throughout the world. People in Bangladesh have adopted the traditions of Westerners on celebrating Valentine’s Day, such as exchanging gifts like flowers, chocolates, ties and watches and so on, making a special date to or have a romantic dinner. Thomas Merton has aptly said, “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another”. If we have only one smile in us, give it to the people we love. Where there is great love, there are always wishes.” Mass blind date events, hold in different places, are on the rise in Bangladesh. They draw crowds of several thousands of people, who flock to connect with other singles in search of a spouse. 

On this day, the world celebrates the memory of St Valentine, that day in which Bangladesh’s people show the world their bent to accept foreign ideas without reservation and surpass the initiator of such ideas in the execution of same. We have to take our hat offs to people when commemoration allows for frolicking. That is why, on every Valentine’s Day, something happens that makes the previous year’s celebration insignificant. We expect a peacefully celebration of the event. This year, it may be a more colourful celebration at least from what I have witnessed of St Valentines days in the past one decade. By now, the air has been filled with promotions of programmes targeted at ensuring that men and women have their fill of revelries and are modestly safe at savouring their indulgences.

I could not resist taking a quick reverie back to my days in the university; I came back with no memory of any elaborate celebration of St Valentine’s Day. But things changed progressively. Youths began to get more daring and adventurous towards St Valentine’s Day, they organised activities and gained sponsorships from corporates. To catch the attention of the youth, more and more brands struggle to key in to the Valentine opportunity year in, year out. This is a season that you cannot but notice. Then of course married people began to join the train. Many a man would have more than a usual dose of love on this day, they would treat young, sophisticated girls outside of their homes to some niceties after which those with conscience would go back home and reward the wife with the remnants. Some would get back home and join the wife in condemning those who spend so much time, energy and money on St Valentine’s Day, pretending like nothing happened earlier on in the day. Some will not even come home at all! It is a day in which people become so many things, some throw morality to the winds; some become momentary hypocrites while some really celebrate love.

I am in envy of couples who go all the way on this day. I have friends who take romantic trips to exotic destinations all over the world, just to be away from the heartbreak that our country has become lately. I know people who make elaborate plans within the country. I no longer have the grace to invest so much energy, resources and time on every February 14. Not after the experience I once had when I tried to follow the fad. After about 5 years back, I thought I should go to have a dinner somewhere not too far from us in celebration of the day. My goodness! I got the shock of my life. Vehicular and human traffic to the destination I chose was incredible. I got there at last, only to be turned back because I made no prior bookings. It was the same situation in another venue nearby. That evening ended up being a very tortuous one for me as I encountered the same horrible traffic gridlock on my way home. I got back home from a journey of no accomplishment several hours after I set out totally exasperated. Then, I reached an accord to wit: save myself from this stress in subsequent years and make every waking day Valentine- a celebration of love, in my home.

I also agreed not to wait until February 14 to show love to other people. Anyone who came my way would get a taste of the Almighty’s goodness to us in whatever bit we could afford. I still reckon that the stress and inconvenience that attend the celebration of Valentine’s Day summarily defies the import of the day. But how many people even bother to find out how the day came about? We are only just taken away by the opportunity to merry and in some instances, we should also shower our love to the loved ones.

Valentine’s Day is in memory of a Priest who worked against the decision of the Roman Empire to outlaw marriages among soldiers. This was because Emperor Claudius II, who was fighting many wars, wanted a strong army, but a lot of his men did not want to be soldiers. The Emperor assumed that men refused to join his raids and conquests because they wanted to stay at home to be with their wives and children so he decided to cancel and outlaw all marriages! He reasoned that if men were stopped from getting married, there would be neither woman nor child to distract them from the all-important duty of fighting for the state. But this Priest felt it was important that men got married. He thought that this would save them from the temptation of living with women without being legally married, a sinful act by his faith. So, he decided to do what he thought was right. He would gather people who were interested in getting married in a secret place, far away from prying soldiers and join them in matrimony. For a while, it was a jolly good ride for him and his accomplices but the day of reckoning came fast. He was soon caught in the act! When Roman soldiers discovered his illegal activities, he was arrested and brought before Emperor Claudius.

The priest made a good impression on the Emperor who thought he was a well-spoken and wise young man. Rather than harm the priest, the big man wanted him to have a rethink about his faith. He encouraged him to stop being a Christian and become a loyal Roman citizen, who would conform to the laws of the land. But the priest swore that he would never deny his belief refusing all entreaties from the Emperor. He even dared to sell his Christian faith to the almighty Emperor! The audacity infuriated Claudius and he ordered that the priest be sent to prison until he could be executed. Some accounts claim that while he was in prison, the priest performed a miracle by healing Julia, the blind daughter of his jailer, Asterius. The jailer’s daughter and his 44-member household were said to have been converted and baptised into Christianity. Before his execution, the priest was also said to have written letters to his close friends coveting their prayers and signing these letter by writing “Remember your Valentine.” This good priest was believed to have been executed on the 14th or the 24th of February in the year 269 A.D or 270 A.D. Some two centuries later, around 498 A.D, Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as a church sanctioned holiday in honour of a man who was martyred for the protection of the sanctity of holy matrimony. It is an irony that this is the same institution that we go the extra effort to put in jeopardy while commemorating the priest’s memory!

So what to do on Valentine’s Day? Spare a thought for someone; find time to pray that we will continue to understand the importance of happy, peaceful family units to the overall welfare of our society and our world; make those with whom God has blessed you happy and say a prayer that every soul in need finds someone to love. That is the real spirit of lovers’ day, it is the thing that our world gravely needs.

Robert Fulghum said well, “We are all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness — and call it love- true love.” Because love connects us; gives us hope; humbles us; makes us whole. Helen Keller once said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” Away from that, Valentine’s Day is celebrated every February 14. It is generally a festival of romantic love where people go out of their way to give gifts of endearment like cards, letters and flowers to their partner or simply anyone they love. Beyond our cynicism we think it can also be a really fun day to celebrate love and romance in our lives no matter our relationship status or location in the world. It is a day to remind humanity of love, which we may describe as “a very basic human value needed to maintain peace and harmony.” “Valentine’s Day is something good for the lovers. We think that love is something that should be celebrated every day. We don’t have to wait for February 14 to show that we love and care, we may argue. But love is something that should be demonstrated in our everyday words and actions. We don’t believe in making Valentine’s such a big deal because in the world of love, every day is, or at least should be special.

Valentine’s being about love, I always celebrate it every day. Valentine’s Day just reminds me of the love that I owe my partner. It reminds me of the true love that I have shared with my close friends. To me it is a symbol of love, a reminder to keep the flame of love burning. Still, the beauty queen believes in the idea. “I believe that it can be a memory for two people who love each other. I believe that it is part of life.” Make our loved ones feel loved. Valentine’s Day is all about expressing our love for someone. We should give our partners our undivided attention, and go the extra mile to prove there is no one you would rather share this day with. Celebrate our love and relationship. Reflect on your relationship; relive the laughs, the romance and all the other little things that have made it so special. A photo scrapbook or slideshow, as well as mementos from dates are a great way to show nostalgia and sentimentality for our partners.

Express how much our friendship means. Something as simple as a text wishing them a Happy Valentine’s Day or a Facebook post with heart enosis is a nice way to show that we may not share romantic love, but it is still love all the same. Treat yourself. You love yourself (hopefully) so why not treat yourself to the same kind of love and affection you are giving to others. Buy something for yourself or take an hour for some “me” time. You deserve it. As said by Henry Van Dyke : “Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” Celebrate love in general. Love is universal, so celebrate this natural, all-encompassing human emotion. Celebrate your accomplishments, party with your friends or surround yourself with family. Love comes in all forms beyond just romance. Allow yourself to feel it in some way. Be the best you can be for your loved ones. It’s the one day of the year where everyone should take an extra minute and acknowledge the loved ones that you value, whoever they may be. It truly is the little things, and you will end up making someone’s day by expressing your love for them.

Valentine hearts beat more passionately than everyday hearts. Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat. It is well said you know when you have found your princess because you not only have a smile on your face but in your heart as well. We are most alive when we are in love. “Love is the greatest refreshment in life” has aptly said by Pablo Picasso. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts. Love may be understood as a function to keep human beings together against menaces and to facilitate the continuation of the species. We should say in the words Claudia Adrienne Grandi : “If I had a single flower for every time I think of you, I could walk forever in my garden.”

Valentine’s Day is the Holiday of Romance. Romance is love in its active state, ignited and inspired. Valentine’s Day may feel like a holiday forced on us by the Greeting Card, Jewelry and Floral industries, but the truth is that we have accepted it because we recognise and value its purpose. Love that never inspires romance is stagnant and stale. Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to ignite our existing relationship with romance, and love with an added dose of romance will result in a stronger, longer lasting and far more satisfying relationship. We agree with the words of George Moore: “The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.” To conclude, we wish to read out from the poem of Harry Boslem:

You are my heart, my hope, my help,
The passion that is me,
The whole of which I am a part,
My peace, my ecstasy. 
You are my future, present, past,
My ship, my sail, my ocean,
The wind that brings me home again,
The home for every motion. 
You live within me, yet I am
Without you all alone.
With you I am full of light,
Without you I am stone. 
I think of life as something I
Can spend with only you.

-The End –
The writer is a senior citizen of Bangladesh, writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs

Nuclear holocaust: Clock ticks closer to midnight

2019-02-15

ibakusha in Japanese means bomb-affected persons and the word is exclusively used to refer to the survivors of atomic explosions at Hiroshima or Nagasaki in August 1945.  Today, there are about 170,000 Hibakusha and they are fast becoming extinct. In 20 years or so, there may be none.The Hibakusha live with the horrid memory of the devastation that visited them in the form of atomic bombs which the United States dropped on the two cities, killing more than 350,000 people, mostly civilians, in a war crime that remains unaddressed and unpunished. While the perpetrator justified the use of the atomic bombs on the basis it was necessary to end the war that had killed some 60-80 millions of people, the victims wondered what sins they had committed other than being the citizen of a country that had dragged them into a war. The Hibakusha, sometimes, wished they had been dead – for they are still traumatised not only by what happened seven decades ago, but also by discrimination their descendants face, particularly with regard to marriage. But they are happy to be alive mainly for one reason: they could relate the horror and be peace messengers to eliminate nuclear weapons.  Their stories are etched in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. They were so touching that only an evil-incarnate would come out of it and say that nuclear weapons should stay.  

In May 2016, then US President Barack Obama made a historic visit to Hiroshima Peace Memorial. Becoming the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, Obama called for a “moral revolution” to counter the evil the technology of today churned out in the form of weapons of mass destruction.
“Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us,” Obama said.
Shorn of any compunction to stockpile nuclear weapons, what we see today is moral decadence, instead of progress in human institutions. It was only last month that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS), an advocacy group seeking to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons, decided to keep the Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight. 

The time on the hypothetical clock symbolises how close the Earth is to destruction from nuclear war and other threats such as global warming.
With some de-escalation in global tensions after talks between the US and North Korea in May last year, it was expected that the clock’s time would be put back by a few more minutes. Alas, it was not to be. The reason: Nuclear powers, especially the US, Russia and China are now on an open arms race, which has seen a major escalation in recent weeks and months. 

The clock’s present position indicates that the situation is much graver than what the world faced during the Cuban missile crisis. The 13-day crisis, from October 12 to October 26, 1963, over the deployment of Russian missiles in Cuba, did not warrant the Doomsday Clock keepers to bring the minute hand closer to 12 and warn the world of a likely catastrophe. Instead, they put back the clock from 7 to 12 to 12 to 12. This was because the crisis became a catalyst for several positive developments. Significant among them was the setting up of a hotline between US and Soviet leaders. Within months, they also signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty outlawing underground nuclear weapons testing. It was the first treaty addressing the nuclear weapons threat. This led to several bilateral arms treaties such as the Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM) Treaty of 1972, the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty of 1987 and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) of 1991, in addition to the international treaties such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.  But today, the big powers, especially the US and Russia, are moving in the opposite direction. Instead of disarmament, they are ditching key treaties and moving towards rearmament, deployment and enhancement. What is also alarming is that the very designs of their modern weapons could become an inadvertent trigger for a nuclear holocaust that will make the Earth uninhabitable. 

On February 1, less than two weeks after Doomsday Clock scientists warned of the danger the world faced from nuclear weapons, President Trump withdrew from the INF treaty, citing Russia’s non-compliance. Since October last year, the Trump administration had been threatening to pull out of the INF treaty, claiming Russia had, in a clear breach of the treaty, deployed land-based cruise missiles capable of reaching countries in Europe.
On February 2, Russia did the same, and accused the US of violating the provisions of the INF treaty, which required the two countries to eliminate their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. 

Next year, the START treaty which limits the number of nuclear weapons the two nations could hold comes up for renewal. Given the present one-upmanship mode in US-Russia relations, the prospect of a renewal is beset by uncertainty. Besides, there is also an arms race amid a blame game. In March last year, addressing the Federal Assembly, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin made a computer animation presentation that showcased Russia’s latest weapons to counter the US threat, which he said was arising from Washington’s 2002 withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.   Putin bragged that no anti-ballistic missile system – Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars -- would be able to detect or stop Russia’s weapons. He warned Russia was ready to “annihilate” any attacker who would use nuclear weapons against it.

One need not be a rocket scientist to know that a nuclear arms race only guarantees MAD -- Mutually Assured Destruction. Apart from the US and Russia, the race also involves China, with six other nations with nuclear weapons running at some distance behind. China, not bound by a bilateral nuclear weapons agreement with the US, feels it has been surrounded by US bases and has armed itself with intermediate-range nuclear weapons to face any challenge.
The world’s disarmament community has another worry – the dual-purpose design of modern missiles. They can carry nuclear or conventional payload and it is difficult to say what it carries. This poses a danger of an accidental nuclear war. It is likely that an incoming Russian or Chinese missile carrying conventional payload could be misunderstood by the US to be a nuclear missile and provoke it to launch a nuclear attack in response.
Sadly, life goes on for many people who are unaware of the dangers the current arms race and nuclear weapons pose. The people, especially from nuclear weapons states, must pressurise their leaders to enter into a comprehensive nuclear disarmament treaty aimed at eliminating not only nuclear weapons, but also any miscalculations that could trigger an accidental nuclear holocaust prior to that.

Australia: well placed to join the Moon mining race … or is it?

An astronaut on a moon landing missions. Elements of this photo were furnished by Nasa. Source: Shutterstock

ByAndrew Dempster15th Feb5 min read

IT’S 50 years since man first stepped on the Moon.

Now the focus is on going back to our nearest orbiting neighbour – not to leave footprints, but to mine the place.

Australia has a well-earned reputation as a mining nation. We are home to some of the largest mining companies (such as Vale, Glencore, Rio Tinto, and BHP), some of the best mine automation, and some of the best mining researchers.

But do we have the drive and determination to be part of any mining exploration of the Moon?

SEE ALSO: The road to infinity and beyond could start from these Asia Pacific nations

To the Moon

As far as space goes, the Moon is sexy again. Within the past three months:

• the Chinese landed a rover on the Moon’s far side
• NASA announced it is partnering with nine companies to deliver payloads to the Moon, consistent with its new push for more Moon missions
• the Moon Race competition has been announced, looking at entries in four themes: manufacturing, energy, resources, biology
• the European Space Agency (ESA) announced its interest in mining the Moon for water
• a US collaborative study was released about commercial exploitation of water from the Moon.

Not to be outdone, there is an Australian angle. We at the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research (ACSER) announced our Wilde mission to extract water from the shaded craters at the Moon’s poles.

Australian interests

The Australian angle is important. With the establishment of Australia’s Space Agency, there is a need for us to try to establish niches in space, and it makes sense to exploit our strengths in mining to do so.

This is consistent with one of the agency’s priorities of:

“… developing a strategy to position Australia as an international leader in specialised space capabilities.”

As the agency’s chief executive Megan Clark told the subscription newsletter Space and Satellite AU earlier this month:

“Rio Tinto is developing autonomous drilling and that’s the sort of thing you will need to do on Mars and on the Moon. While we’re drilling for iron ore in the Pilbara, on the Moon they might be looking for basic resources to survive like soils, water and oxygen.”

The CSIRO has also put space resource utilisation into its space road map (which can be downloaded here).

At each of the two most recent CSIRO Space 2.0 workshops, the attendees voted space resource utilisation (off-Earth mining) to be the most promising opportunity discussed.

The ultimate aim of space mining is to exploit asteroids, the most valuable – known as 511 Davida – is estimated to be worth US$27 quintillion (that’s or 27×1018 or 27 million million million dollars). Another estimate puts that value closer to US$1 trillion, which is still a lot of potential earning.

Risky business

Moon surface. Source: Shutterstock

The opportunities are enormous, but the risks are high too – risks with which mining companies are currently not familiar.

The high-level processes are familiar such as exploration (prospecting), mining methods, processing, transportation, but the specifics of doing those things in such challenging conditions – vacuum, microgravity, far from Earth, and so on – are not.

The research we are proposing for the Wilde project aims to start chipping away at reducing those perceived risks, to the point where big miners are more comfortable to invest.

SEE ALSO: China and US are both shooting for the moon – but don’t call it a space race

One of the important risks in any mining is the legal framework. Two international treaties apply quite specifically in this case: the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 (ratified by 107 countries and signed by a further 23) and the Moon Agreement(or Moon Treaty, ratified by 18 and signed by a further four) of 1979.

Australia has ratified both.

When it comes to trying to determine from these treaties whether space mining is allowed, there are two problems.

First, the treaties were drafted at a time when the problems they were trying to avoid were geopolitical. Space activity was considered to be the realm of nation states and they wanted celestial bodies not to be considered property of any nation states.

Second, commercial exploitation of resources is never explicitly mentioned. (A third problem could be that the treaties have never been tested in court.)

This creates a situation in which the interpretation of the treaties can lead to strong support to both sides of the argument. For instance, Article 1 of the Outer Space Treaty says:

“The exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind.”

This could preclude commercial development.

But the same article also states:

“Outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies.”

This could enshrine the right to use those same resources.

For all humanity

There are similar disputes about what exactly was meant when other articles in that treaty refer to sovereignty, appropriation, exploration and use.

The Moon Treaty deals with scientific and non-scientific use of space resources. Article 11 states that the Moon and other celestial bodies and their resources are the common heritage of all mankind (a less gender-specific phrase would be “all humanity”), and that the exploitation of resources would be governed by an international regime, not defined in the treaty.

It also dictates “an equitable sharing by all States Parties in the benefits derived from those resources”.

On the face of it, this may appear to put signatories to this agreement at a disadvantage, by constraining them as to what they can do.

Other global commons such as the high seas, Antarctica and geostationary orbit are well regulated by comparison, and given that the Moon Treaty envisages that “regime” of rules, then it may be time to define that regime, and, as a Treaty signatory with an interest in space resources, Australia has the motivation to lead that discussion.

How that initiative will evolve will depend on various factors, but the next time it gets a public airing, at the Off-Earth Mining Forum in November, we hope to have made significant progress.

By Andrew Dempster, Director, Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research; Professor, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, UNSW. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

Antarctic ice shelves: Searching for clues on climate change

FILE PHOTO: The scientific investigation vessel of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), named Karpuj, is seen in front of the Collins Glacier at King George island, Antarctica, Chile February 2, 2019. REUTERS/Fabian Cambero

Fabian Cambero-FEBRUARY 15, 2019

KING GEORGE ISLAND, Antarctica (Reuters) - In a remote island outpost on the edge of the Antarctic, hundreds of miles from the southern tip of Chile, scientists at a research base are scouring the ice for clues about everything from climate change to cures for cancer.

Chile’s Escudero base on King George Island acts as a research hub for a frozen expanse that extends to the South Pole, with more than 300 international scientists taking turns to brave the bitter Antarctic temperatures.

The Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) has supported research into a biomolecule called “Antartina,” derived from a plant native to the region, which has shown positive early results in diminishing colorectal, liver and gastric cancers in mice.

Scientists there also look at lichens that could treat Alzheimer’s disease, enzymes to remove lactose from milk and others to improve lettuce crops.

This month a multinational team embarked on a research trip to investigate what causes the break-up of ice shelves, a phenomenon associated with climate change.

In 2017, an iceberg the size of Trinidad and Tobago broke off a shelf in Antarctica, sparking widespread alarm, fears of shipping accidents and a further rise in sea levels.

“There are different theories related to changes in sea temperatures eating the platforms, and another that has to do with the behavior of water and its drainage,” New Zealand glaciologist Shelley MacDonell, the team leader, as she prepared to travel to one of the icebergs affected.

MacDonell’s team wants to be able to predict where and when ice shelves might rupture in future.
The scientists hope their research will help the mapping of the shape of world’s southernmost continent in the decades to come, and allow island and coastal nations to plan for rising sea levels.

“There is a whole dynamic (of the Antarctic ecosystem) that needs to be studied quickly, like the upcoming scenarios of climate change,” said INACH’s director, Marcelo Leppe.

WALLS OF ICE

Ice shelves act as a retaining wall that prevent Antarctic ice from spilling more quickly into the ocean. Icebergs have historically broken off over centuries but their break-up has accelerated in recent years.

The loss of ice from the “white continent” rose to an annual net figure of 252,000 million tonnes between 2009 and 2017 from the average of 40,000 million tonnes from 1979 to 1990, according to a study released in January.

“Large platforms have collapsed in the past. What is not known if the collapses were gradual or instantaneous, like the ones we are seeing today,” MacDonell said.

The Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part of the continent and site of the Chilean base, is the focus as one of the areas most affected by melting ice - scientists believe because it had more exposure to the ocean.

“We have a long-term trend that is pointing to this process of warming and collapse of these platforms,” ​​said Chilean glaciologist Francisco Fernandoy, part of MacDonell’s team.

Slideshow (2 Images)

The Netherlands and several island territories are eager for the results of the study. Were the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctic to melt entirely, a 10-meter rise in sea level expected to result would inundate them, according to INACH data.

READING THE ICE

MacDonell and her team have embarked on a lengthy journey by plane, boat, helicopter and on skis to reach a camp on the Müller ice shelf, which itself lost a 1.6-km long iceberg at the end of last year.
They will have to brave blizzards and the sub-zero temperatures of the Antarctic summer to conduct two weeks of sampling before winter descends in the coming month.

The team will use radar waves to take measurements of the icebergs and extract ice cores, columns that allow researchers to effectively look back in time.

The cores will be transported to specialist labs in central Chile for analysis in chilled chambers that keep the temperature at -20 degrees Celsius.

The scientists hope the models for future melts they will be able to build will serve as a basis for agreements among nations to tackle climate change.

“We cannot make these political decisions but we can say what the scenarios are: if the temperature increases, stays the same or drops, this or that will happen,” glaciologist Fernandoy said.

“That’s what we can contribute. The decisions themselves are in another sphere.”

'It is our future': children call time on climate inaction in UK

Thousands of young people take time out of school to join protests across the country
Children demonstrate against climate change as part of the group Youth Strike 4 Climate Photograph: Ben Perry/Rex/Shutterstock

Sandra Laville, Poppy Noor and Amy Walker-Fri 15 Feb 2019

Some wore school uniform, with ties askew in St Trinian’s fashion, others donned face paint, sparkly jackets and DM boots. The youngest clutched a parent’s hand as people gathered in the sunshine in Parliament Square in London, a few metres from the politicians they say are letting down a generation.

They carried homemade placards, with slogans full of humour, passion and hope that the voices of thousands of children and young people would be heard.

“March now – or swim later”, “I’ve seen smarter cabinets in Ikea” and “denial is not a policy” read the banners, as chants for action on climate change grew and strengthened with the passing hours into a deafening roar. “What do we want? Climate action! When do we want it? Now!”

Across the UK it was a day for thousands who are not normally heard, as children took time out of their lessons to attend the strike.

“As students we don’t have the vote, and it is really unfair because this is going to impact on us the most. It is our future,” said Evie Baldwin, 15, from north London.

In Manchester, the students came with handwritten notes from their parents giving authorisation for their photos to be taken, and bullet points to explain why they felt compelled to strike.

Thousands of pupils from schools, colleges and universities have attended the natio
nwide climate change strike. Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images

There was a party atmosphere outside the central library, as students played Where is the Love? by the Black Eyed Peas and I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys.

They cheered as a band played Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi, with its ecological refrain: “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone/They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.”

Lillia Adetoro, nine, told Manchester demonstrators: “Scientists across Europe say we have 12 years to get this right. The technology is there. The solutions are there. Brilliant minds across the world have been working on this for decades. And what they have said has been  ignored.”

Children who had been told not to miss school defiantly attended the rallies anyway. Ten-year-old Hettie Ainsworth, in Brighton, had not been given permission by her primary school to join the protest, but such was her passion that her parents let her attend anyway.

Students are urging the government to declare a climate emergency and take action on climate change. Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images

To her, the issue was personal. She said: “The government isn’t doing enough about it. It’s important because it’s our future and if we don’t start paying attention to climate change, there may not be one.”

There was a range of age groups present, from people in their 60s, to children as young as four and five, running around in superhero costumes. Swedish 15-year-old Greta Thunberg was frequently cited as an inspiration by adults and children.

One group called Fridays for Future Manchester, which has been meeting outside the library every week for more than two months, stood with a banner painted with Thunberg’s face on it. Protesters from Extinction Rebellion and Campaign against Climate Change were also present.

Similar crowds were seen across the north of England, with organisers assembling in Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield.

Ed Miliband attended the demonstration with his nine-year-old son, Daniel. Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images

Magid Magid, Sheffield’s lord mayor, who banned Donald Trump from visiting the city last year, said there was no better time to march than now. He said: “It’s as simple as action or extinction … [These students] come across as the fearless advocates in the face of those who have stopped caring about [the climate crisis]. They are literally saving our bloody planet.”

At the clock tower in the centre of Brighton, hundreds of primary, secondary and university students gathered.

As they marched towards the Level park, the crowd swelled. According to organiser Mary-Jane Farrell, more than 1,000 people were in attendance. While adults and supportive parents followed, teenagers in school uniform marched at the front of the crowd, shouting, among other things: “Greens in, blues out” and “Fuck the Tories”.

The procession blocked traffic on Brighton’s main roads, and onlookers clapped and took photos as people passed through.

Protesters say the government is not doing enough to prevent climate change. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Joe Paugler, 16, left his school during break time to join the march. He said he felt the need to raise awareness. “They don’t discuss climate change as much as they should in politics, probably because there’s no money in it,” he said.

Critics of the strike had suggested some students would use the strike as an opportunity to skip school, but most children seemed more excited by the prospect of attending their first protest.

At Level park, crowds cheered for several of the day’s speakers, but the loudest applause was undeniably for the local Green party MP, Caroline Lucas.

Surrounded by children vying to get a selfie with her, she said today marked a real turning point. “It’s children’s futures at stake, and frankly our generation has let them down and certainly the politicians at Westminster have let them down,” she said.

Hundreds of young people gathered across Glasgow, cheered on by MSP Ross Greer, who tweeted: “Just look at these incredible young women, who can’t be older than 13/14, taking action to save the world and their future.”

In London, there were more than 1,000 in attendance by lunchtime. Among them was former Labour leader Ed Miliband with his nine-year-old son, Daniel. “I am here because it is our future, and we need to protect it,” said Daniel.

The demonstration reaches Downing Street. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

The size of the demonstration took the police by surprise. “I don’t know how many are here, but it’s a lot – much more than we expected,” said one officer.

Several hours in, what had begun as a rally outside the House of Commons turned into a spontaneous running march on Downing Street, as hundreds of teenagers, sprinted along Whitehall to chant their message outside No 10.

As they surged down the road, buses, trucks and taxis, were forced to stop. “Honk your horn,” the teenagers shouted, to blasts from scores of drivers.

Other groups broke away from the main crowd to sit down in the road, forcing Westminster traffic into gridlock for more than two hours. Holding hands, they refused to be moved, as the police deployed mounted officers in an attempt to move them back into Parliament Square.

One officer successfully lifted 15-year-old Alex Cooper off the road – only for her to continue her seated protest moments later. “This is a great turnout,” she said. “We need the government to listen.”

Across the street, among those watching from the sidelines, one woman said: “My 13-year-old daughter is in there somewhere. I am so proud of her.”