The Speaker Editors

World’s First Running Night Festival In Two Canadian Cities

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Joggers and festival-goers will convene again this year for the world’s first night running music festival. The event will take place in 35 locations around the world, including two Canadian cities and dozens of U.S. cities.

The 2016 Night Nation Run now has over one million registered members.

On the night of the event, runners will dress up in bright colors and don glow-in-the-dark and illuminated items. Check-ins start at 5:30 p.m. The pre-party will begin at 7:30 p.m.

The run — along an illuminated 5 kilometer course — will be accompanied by live music, lights and lasers, and will start at 8:30 p.m.

At the end of the run, a party will be held for the runners, featuring fog, lights, cyro, confetti guns, and giveaways, besides the music — including a surprise headliner DJ.

The run will happen in Toronto on July 23 and Vancouver on August 6.

Tickets for the event cost $70, but early bird prices of $35 are available until February 12. Tickets include a T-shirt, race bib, and glow necklace, besides admission to all of the night’s events. Kids under 8 years old are free when they accompany a paying adult.

Proceeds from event tickets will go partly to fund the charity organization Stand Up To Cancer.

Night Nation Run is reminding all participants to bring a copy of their confirmation email to the event for faster processing.

By Andy Stern

Bill Murray Confirms New Role In Wes Anderson Film

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A new Wes Anderson-directed picture will feature the return of actor Bill Murray to the cast. Murray will provide the voice of a dog in a the stop-action film.

The film is inspired by a Japanese story, and will be a film similar to “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Murray said.

The film will be comedic, Murray also said, but no further details have been released about the film except some of its other case members.

Other voice roles will be taken on by Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Edward Norton (all of whom played in past Anderson films), and Bryan Cranston, known for his role on the television series “Breaking Bad.”

By Andy Stern

Kate Winslet Admits She Could Have Saved Di Caprio At End Of Titanic

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In one of the biggest-grossing films of movie history, Kate Winslet’s character Rose bid a farewell to DiCaprio’s character Jack — a farewell that left many movie-goers in tears.

Now, 20 years later, the actress admitted publicly that the death of her character’s lover was probably unnecessary. The statement came while Winslet was being interviewed on the popular American late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!

The two were discussing a recent awards show, at which Winslet had been seated nearby DiCaprio’s, when Kimmel put it out there, saying that Winslet’s character had let DiCaprio freeze to death at the end of the film.

“I agree,” said Winslett. “I think he actually could have fitted on that bit of door.”

“There was plenty of room,” Kimmel continued, emphatically. Winslet repeated that she knew.

The popularity of the 1997 film is still high, Winslet continued as she spoke with the talk show host about the excitement people still show whenever she and DiCaprio share the same space.

“People are always so excited to see Leo and myself in the same space,” said Winslet. “Which you know, at the end of the day, that is so lovely, isn’t it?

“It’s been 20 years and people still get such a kick out of it.”

By Andy Stern
Image: FameFlynet

Vancouver Is Getting A 200-Foot High Glass-Floored Pool

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A new development in Vancouver is getting a city first: a shared swimming pool with a glass bottom. Underneath the glass floor panes of the pool is a drop of 200 feet.

The architects of Concord Pacific’s upcoming building — called the ARC after its distinctive shape — are sacrificing residential space for iconic impact. It is estimated that the space unused inside the building’s “arc” would be worth millions if developed into dwellings, but in order to create a distinctive impression the company is forgoing the revenue.

“What we realized is that there’s an opportunity here where if we actually have these two towers that are in fact connected at a higher level, we could put the amenity up there and all the residents from their homes could go up and enjoy the views and outlets from this higher level amenity,” said Concord Pacific Senior Vice President Peter Webb.

In order to manage the “arc” structure, the building will include giant steel and concrete beams that will be made at the building site. Glotman Simpson Engineers will undertake the engineering work for these elements as well as the 60 foot horizontal span that will sustain the pool area.

“In this particular case we really challenged our office and went back and forth with Walter and with Peter to try and create a space that gave them what they wanted, which was this really cool clear span space that’s high, that has the ability to put a pool in it, between the beams,” said Principal at Glotman Simpson Geoffrey Glotman. “And to do that overall was a really interesting, exciting opportunity for us.”

By Andy Stern
Images: Concord Pacific

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Islamic Violence Kills 1,508 In First Month Of 2016

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In the first month of 2016, Islamic attacks in 23 countries took the lives of at least 1,508 people and injured 1,714 others, according to Islamic violence watch group The Religion of Peace.

Among the 138 attacks that took place in January, 38 were suicide blasts.

Since the World Trade Center attack in 2001, when TROP began its count, there have been 27,712 attacks that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world.

Read more: Islamic Extremists Killed 27,000 People In 52 Countries In 2015

 

Inflatable Space Module Set For ISS Mission

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Bigelow Aerospace’s inflatable BEAM module — a new lightweight activity module, part of Bigelow’s continued endeavors toward putting into use a wide range of portable expandable habitation spaces, including the living-and-working-space BA-330 (pictured above) — has been scheduled for a March NASA mission to the space station.

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module will be sent to the space station in the SpaceX Dragon capsule, and will be berthed to the space station’s Tranquility node. It will then be pressurized and expand to its full size with air stored in the compressed module.

BEAM will then be monitored through a test period of two years. Astronauts will periodically enter the module to inspect it and gather performance data.

After the test period, BEAM will be jettisoned and will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, burning up.

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BEAM and SpaceX Dragon Capsule show scaled to human figure (Image: Bigelow Aerospace)

Bigelow Aerospace is working with NASA to produce expandable systems, including habitational systems, and has already completed two succeful missions with its Genesis pathfinder I and II spacecraft — missions noted for their relatively low-cost.

The low cost comes from the low weight of the Bigelow constructions — one-tenth the weight of some similar modules. Improvements in craft weights have come in large part from advances in lightweight, strong materials such as Kevlar.

The BEAM module walls are made of many layers of Vectran, a material similar to Kevlar but made of spun liquid crystal fibers, and fire-resistant Nomex.

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Space modules linked in Bigelow development lab (Photo: Bill-Ingalls/NASA)

The Nevada-based company is working towards a standalone space habitat in addition to its current module projects. A large expandable module is already being developed by Bigelow — three times the size of any individual module on the ISS, the BA330 is designed for a maximum crew size of six in its 330-meter square environment. The BA330 is designed to be used in conjunction with other modules to build larger module complexes in space.

By Andy Stern

Some images of future BEAM modules

Octopuses Turn Black, Posture Aggressively To Intimidate Each Other

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A recent study of octopuses off the coast of Australia has discovered that — despite usually being considered a solitary animal — octopuses have a social life, and part of that social life involves physical displays of toughness.

When octopuses meet each other in agonistic interactions, they exhibit certain types of behavior, researchers at the Alaska Pacific University found.

“We found that octopuses are using body patterns and postures to signal to each other during disputes,” said David Scheel of Alaska Pacific University.

“The postures and patterns can be quite flashy, such as standing very tall, raising the body mantle high above the eyes, and turning very dark.”

The impetus for the research came from a member of an online cephalopod community noting something he’d seen octopuses doing that he thought was interesting. The researchers took it from there, watching 186 interactions between Octopus tetricus — a species that lives in Jervis Bay, Australia — which furnished them with 500 interactions.

The agonistic behavior was what they noticed primarily.

When both octopuses turned black, it was more likely they would engage in physical violence to settle the question of dominance, but when one turned black and the other was a pale color, the pale colored octopus more often retreated while the black octopus held the field.

“Dark color appears to be associated with aggression, while paler colors accompany retreat,” said Scheel.

Next for the researchers is further investigation of octopus interactions — specifically, they want to investigate suspicions that social interactions among the species occur when food is abundant and hiding places scarce. They also want to understand the consequences of these types of social interactions in the context of octopus populations.

The report, “Signal Use by Octopuses in Agonistic Interactions,” was completed by Drs. David Scheel, Peter Godfrey-Smith and Matthew Lawrence, and was published in the journal Current Biology.

By Andy Stern

America Has The Right Type Of Mosquito For The Zika Virus – Yale Epidemiologist

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The Zika virus, which has caused a surge in infant birth defects in Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years, and which has now spread to the U.S., is carried by a type of mosquito common in the Southern states, according to Dr. Albert Icksang Ko, an epidemiologist at Yale.

“The mosquito vector for Zika is genus Aedes mosquitos, of which Aedes aegypti as well as Aedes albopictus is found to infest regions of North America, such as Mexico and southern U.S,” Ko, Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine at Yale, told The Speaker.

Ko, whose work focuses on the health problems which have emerged as a consequence of rapid urbanization and social inequity, commented on the possible future of the virus:

“This is a potentially serious public health threat since it can be transmitted rapidly to regions where the mosquito vector is in sufficient abundance and because of the risk it poses to causing birth defects in newborns whose mothers were infected during pregnancy.”

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Dr. Albert Icksang Ko

The as-yet untreatable virus has been found in a half-dozen cases in the U.S. over the past two weeks. In all cases the mother had recently travelled to a Latin American or Caribbean country.

A U.S. travel warning is currently in effect advising pregnant women to avoid travel from 22 countries in which the Zika virus is common.

Ko told us that human biological responses to the virus — such as immunity in already-affected areas — are not yet understood.  “We presume that after an immunocompetent individual is infected with zika virus they will develop lifelong immunity shortly after infection as with other flavirus infectionsm but we don’t have direct evidence at this point.”

The Zika virus has been known since 1947 when it was identified in Uganda. The virus was initially found in a rhesus monkey during yellow fever research. Seven years later, in 1954, the virus was discovered in a human in Nigeria. Cases were rare until 2007 when larger outbreaks began in several Pacific Island nations.

CDC map of affected areas

TD Bank Raises Fees

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Canada’s TD Bank has raised fees in several areas this year, including significant charges for things that were free before.

The cost to withdraw cash from non-TD Bank ATMS has risen 50 cents to $2.00, but perhaps most significant are the completely new fees:

Interac e-Transfers, which were a free service with TD Bank, now cost $5 each. It will also cost $5 to deposit a post-dated check, which was free before.

Also, TD Bank’s tax-free savings accounts previously allowed free transfers to other banks. Now those transfers will cost $75 plus tax.

The bank has also added insufficient funds fees, whereas before such fees were not applicable.

TD Bank

The changes will take effect March 1, according to a TD Bank customer email sent out this week.

By Andy Stern

Venus Flytraps: Scientists Discover How They Work

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An accumulation of action potentials is behind Venus Flytraps’ “decision” to keep closed and start producing digestive enzymes once their trap sensors are triggered, scientists at Universität Würzburg have found.

“The carnivorous plant Dionaea muscipula, also known as Venus flytrap, can count how often it has been touched by an insect visiting its capture organ in order to trap and consume the animal prey,” said Rainer Hedrich of Universität Würzburg in Germany.

The researchers wanted to understand how Venus Fly traps decide to close and how they decide they have something to digest. After all, the researchers noted, closing their traps around an object and filling with digestive enzymes is biologically costly, and sometimes their sensors are triggered by stimuli that are not prey at all — “false alarms.”

The researchers sought to test this by implanting artificial sensors in a Venus Flytrap. The sensors are thin spikes that stick out of the inside of the plant’s interior walls. They then flicked the sensors to cause the plant to close. When the scientists continually flicked the sensors, the plant became excited and began to produce the acidic digestive bath that fills their closed lobes.

By means of accumulated action potentials, the plant understands that what it has caught is in fact a struggling insect. It also understands the size of the insect by the number of the sensors it triggers.

Fruit fly

“The number of action potentials informs [the plant] about the size and nutrient content of the struggling prey,” Hedrich said. “This allows the Venus flytrap to balance the cost and benefit of hunting.”

To eat, the scientists concluded, a Venus Flytrap requires at least five contacts with its sensors. The second trigger closes the plant, the third and further triggers activate touch hormones and begin the production of digestive enzymes, and the fifth begins the uptake of nutrients.

The report, “The Venus Flytrap Dionaea muscipula Counts Prey-Induced Action Potentials to Induce Sodium Uptake,” was completed by Böhm and Scherzer et al, and was published in the journal Current Biology.

By Andy Stern