Tourist attractions combine sightseeing and science

Science and Health

HOT SPRINGS, S.D. – Family vacations with school-aged children are a time for fun and increasingly a time for learning. Most tourist attractions have always offered some kind of cultural or historical education opportunities. But there is an emerging appetite to engage with science and research at a deeper level. Some sites hope to capitalize on that attention and inspire the next generation of South Dakota’s science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workforce. One of the first examples in the state was unearthed 50 years ago. In 1974, heavy machine operators leveling land for a Hot Springs housing development uncovered a 7-foot tusk. Further excavation found an unprecedented number of mammoth fossils. The landowner, Phil Anderson, donated the property to create the Mammoth Site. Hot Springs takes next steps in push for prosperityThe Southern Black Hills city is part of a pilot project to identify top problems and solutions using journalism and community engagement.The active research location is enclosed in a visitor center, which is also home to a museum and a variety of educational programs. “If the site in ’74 had been done like a lot of traditional paleo digs, they probably would have come in, removed everything, and the construction project would have continued,” said Chris Jass, lead researcher at the Mammoth Site. “Here, because we have the building, we can take our time. And as new analytical techniques come along, as new methods of understanding the past come along, we can actually apply those to the site.”For example, researchers initially believed the site to be about 26,000 years old, he said. More recent work suggests the site could actually be at least 140,000 years old. Mammoth Site lead researcher Chris Jass and SDPB’s Jackie Hendry stand next to one of the mammoth fossils in the active dig site in Hot Springs, S.D., on July 17, 2024. (Photo: Krystal Schoenbauer / SDPB)”Because of that, revisiting the age of the site, we’re going back and evaluating some of the questions that were asked in the past. But we’re doing it with new information,” said Jass. The Mammoth Site sees more than 100,000 visitors a year. Presston Gabel, chief operating officer, said it partners closely with regional tourism associations. “There’s millions of visitors that come to the Hills every year,” he said. “And 90% of our funding, even though we’re a nonprofit, comes from tourism. It comes from admissions, it comes from gift shop sales and things like that.”

‘Agent 86,’ Unusual China-Tunisia Action Film, Heads for Theatrical Release (EXCLUSIVE)

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

“Agent 86,” a rare China-Tunisia coproduction film, will have its world premiere on Friday in Tunisia, ahead of a commercial release in Tunisian theaters from Sept. 25.
The film is pitched as “a fast-paced action thriller following an international Special Task Force that comes together to fight cross border drug trafficking after a devastatingly addictive drug named Devil’s Breath goes on sale in Hong Kong.”

The driving force behind the movie is Tunisian actor-director Bassem Khayati, who produced and directed the film and also appears as its co-lead.

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Khayati is a veteran of several Jackie Chan movies including “Dragon Blade,” “Kung Fu Yoga” and “Vanguard,” as well as action roles in numerous other Chinese titles including “Fox Hunting,” “Mojin, The Lost Legend” and “Go Away Mr. Tumor.” In the west, Khayati has had various action and stunt roles in the John Cena-starring “Hidden Strike,” the Scott Adkins-starring “Abduction” and the Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen-starring “Outcast.”

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His new film stars Tiger Chen (“The Matrix” “Jet Li’s Fearless”) as a member of the Hong Kong law enforcement team working to bring down a drug ring, and mainland China actor Wu Jingxi (“Be Somebody”), who plays a member of the Chinese task force.

They are joined by Xiang Lianghue, Wang Zhenwei (“The Karate Kid” and stunt double for Simu Liu in “Shang Chi & The Legend of the 10 Rings”), and Temur Mamisashvili, who was for a decade a member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team and has credits including Herman Yau’s Moscow Mission, Renny Harlin’s “Skiptrace” and Martin Campbell’s “The Foreigner.” Mamisashvili plays a drug dealer with plans to break into the big-time global drug trade. Another key villain is portrayed by Kevin Lee, whose career also straddles East and West with credits including Chinese blockbusters “Wolf Warrior” and “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” and The Weinstein Co.’s Netflix TV series “Marco Polo.”

“Agent 86” was shot predominantly in Hong Kong and mainland China in 2023, with a few days additionally in Tunisia. Production is by Jiukeyin Film Production Cultural Communication (Co Ltd) from China and by Tunisia’s Ste. Bka Inter Production.

While the release in Tunisia is imminent, the film has yet to receive its Dragon Seal, meaning that release in China is on hold pending regulatory approval.

Hong Kong-based industry veteran Mike Leeder (“Man of Tai Chi,” “Triple Threat”) who served the picture as producer and consultant, told Variety that the producers are in final negotiations ahead of appointing an international sales agent.

Global travel and tourism sector deal activity fell by 12.6% YoY in H1 2024

Travel

Deals have dipped in H1. Credit: GlobalData

A total of 456 deals (mergers and acquisitions (M&A), private equity and venture financing) were announced in travel and tourism sector for the period of January to August 2024, which was a year-on-year (YoY) decline of 12.6% in deal volume, according to GlobalData, this publication’s parent company.

An analysis of GlobalData’s Deals Database revealed that the travel and tourism sector saw the announcement of a total of 522 deals during January-August 2023.

Aurojyoti Bose, lead analyst at GlobalData, commented: “The travel and tourism sector’s deal activity reflects a cautious approach by deal-makers even though the regional and country-specific data reveal a mixed picture with majority experiencing contraction.”

During January to August 2024, North America, Asia-Pacific, and South and Central America regions reported YoY decline in deals volume of 32.9%, 17.9%, and 21.4%, respectively, whereas the number of deals for the Middle East and African region mostly remained at the same levels. However, Europe saw a 12.5% improvement in deal volume during January-August 2024 compared to January-August 2023.

Similarly, the US, China, Australia, and France experienced YoY decrease in deal volume by 32.9%, 44.1%, 25%, and 47.6%, respectively, during January-August 2024. However, deal volume in the UK, South Korea and India mostly remained at the same levels, whereas Japan, Germany and Spain witnessed improvements.

Meanwhile, the number of M&A deals and venture financing deals YoY decreased by 9.2% and 25.8%, respectively during the review period. Private equity deal volume, on the other hand, remained flat.

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‘Spiders’ on Mars? NASA scientists recreate mysterious Red Planet formations

Science and Health

This image from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, acquired May 13, 2018, during winter at the South Pole of Mars, shows a carbon dioxide ice cap covering the region. As the sun returns in the spring, “spiders” begin to emerge from the landscape. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)
(NEW YORK) — Over two decades since NASA researchers first saw images of mysterious, spider-like formations across the southern hemisphere of Mars, the space agency announced it’s recreated the planet’s “spiders” here on Earth.
Dubbed “araneiform terrain,” the formations span over a half-mile long and have hundreds of branches that resemble spider legs, according to NASA.
Theories surrounding the Red Planet’s “spiders” date back to 2003, when researchers got a glimpse of the terrain via Mars orbiters, with many believing they are formed through carbon dioxide ice, which doesn’t occur naturally on Earth.
To confirm this hypothesis, researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California said they recreated the formation process in a simulated Mars environment that mimicked the planet’s air pressure and temperature.
The simulation chamber — called the Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE for short — uses liquid nitrogen to reach temperatures as low as minus 301 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NASA.
Results from the five-year study were published this month in The Planetary Science Journal.
“The spiders are strange, beautiful geologic features in their own right,” JPL researcher Lauren Mc Keown said in a Sept. 11 press release. “These experiments will help tune our models for how they form.”
Researchers found that when sunlight heats soil underneath slabs of carbon dioxide ice that form on the surface of Mars each winter, the soil absorbs the heat and causes the ice closest to it to turn directly into carbon dioxide gas, according to NASA.
This process, called “sublimation,” causes the ice to crack and brings dust and soil to the surface of the ice, according to the agency.
“When winter turns to spring and the remaining ice sublimates, according to the theory, the spiderlike scars from those small eruptions are what’s left behind,” researchers wrote in the study.
To recreate the formation process in DUSTIE, researchers said they analyzed simulated Mars soil that was contained and submerged into a liquid nitrogen bath.
Matching the reduced air pressure to match that of Mars’ southern hemisphere, researchers said they watched as carbon dioxide gas then flowed into the chamber and condensed into ice over a period of three to five hours.
Researchers then placed a heater inside the chamber below the simulated soil to warm it up and crack the ice.
Mc Keown said she was “ecstatic” when the theories were proven by seeing a carbon dioxide gas plume erupt from within the Mars soil simulation.
Lab experiments and orbiter images are the closest look NASA has at these unique Martian spiders, with the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers exploring far from the region where they occur.
So far, a spacecraft has yet to land on the Red Planet’s southern hemisphere.
Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Scientists create one-dimensional gas made of light

Science and Health

Physicists from the University of Bonn and the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) have successfully created a one-dimensional gas using light, allowing them to experimentally test theoretical predictions about this exotic state of matter for the first time.

Their innovative method has the potential to advance the study of quantum effects.

Imagine standing by a swimming pool and wanting to increase the water level. By using a garden hose to produce a high-arching jet of water that falls onto the pool’s surface, you observe a minimal increase in the water level as the falling water quickly disperses. However, if you were to direct the jet into a gutter, the water would create a wave due to the confinement provided by the gutter’s walls.

The physicists from the Institute of Applied Physics (IAP) at the University of Bonn, in collaboration with colleagues at RPTU, have explored whether similar effects of dimensionality can be achieved with gases made out of light particles.

“To create these types of gases, we need to concentrate lots of photons in a confined space and cool them simultaneously,” explains Dr. Frank Vewinger from the IAP, who is also a member of the transdisciplinary research area “Matter” at the University of Bonn.

The polymers applied to the reflective surface – trap the photon gas in a parabola of light. The narrower this parabola is, the more one-dimensionally the gas behaves. Artistic illustration: IAP/Uni Bonn

In their experiment, researchers carefully prepared a minute container filled with a potent dye solution, which they then stimulated using a precise laser. The resulting photons ricocheted between the reflective walls of the container, undergoing a remarkable cooling process whenever they interacted with a dye molecule, ultimately leading to the condensation of the photon gas.

The dimensional properties of the gas were found to be modifiable by altering the surface of the reflective walls. This pioneering study was a result of collaboration between the researchers at the IAP and the esteemed research group led by Prof. Dr. Georg von Freymann from the RPTU. Leveraging a high-resolution structuring method, they successfully applied it to the reflective surfaces of the photon container, marking a significant advancement in this field of study.

“We were able to apply a transparent polymer to the reflective surfaces to create microscopically small protrusions,” explains Julian Schulz from the RPTU. “These protrusions allow us to trap the photons in one or two dimensions and condense them.”

Kirankumar Karkihalli Umesh witht the centerpiece of the experiment – a resonator mirror printed with polymer structures. Credit: Volker Lannert/ Uni Bonn

“These polymers act like a type of gutter, but in this case for light,” says Kirankumar Karkihalli Umesh, lead author of the study. “The narrower this gutter is, the more one-dimensionally the gas behaves.”

In two dimensions, a specific temperature threshold triggers condensation, much like water freezing at exactly zero degrees Celsius. Physicists refer to this as a phase transition.

“However, things are a little different when we create a one-dimensional gas instead of a two-dimensional one,” says Vewinger. “So-called thermal fluctuations take place in photon gases, but they are so small in two dimensions that they have no real impact. However, in one dimension, these fluctuations can – figuratively speaking – make big waves.”

These fluctuations disrupt the uniformity of one-dimensional systems, causing different regions within the gas to behave differently. Consequently, the phase transition, while still precisely defined in two dimensions, becomes increasingly “smeared out” in more one-dimensional systems. Nevertheless, its properties are still governed by quantum physics, similar to the case of two-dimensional gases, which are known as degenerate quantum gases. It’s akin to water transforming into a slushy state at low temperatures without completely freezing.

“We have now been able to investigate this behavior at the transition from a two-dimensional to a one-dimensional photon gas for the first time,” explains Vewinger.

The research teams successfully proved that one-dimensional photon gases lack a precise condensation point. With minor adjustments to polymer structures, a detailed exploration of phenomena at the transition between dimensionalities is now feasible. Although currently classified as basic research, this breakthrough has the potential to unveil new applications for quantum optical effects.

Journal reference:

Kirankumar Karkihalli Umesh, Julian Schulz, Julian Schmitt, Martin Weitz, Georg von Freymann, and Frank Vewinger. Dimensional crossover in a quantum gas of light. Nature Physics, 2024 DOI: 10.1038/s41567-024-02641-7

David Schwimmer turned down a lead role in ‘Men in Black’ to direct a movie with his friends. He missed out on being in one of the biggest movies of the ’90s.

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Entertainment

David Schwimmer turned down a lead role in ‘Men in Black’ to direct a movie with his friends. He missed out on being in one of the biggest movies of the ’90s.

Ayomikun Adekaiyero

2024-09-19T11:05:08Z

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David Schwimmer (right) said he was asked to star in “Men In Black,” but the role ended up going to Will Smith.

Columbia Pictures / Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images

David Schwimmer told the “Origins with Cush Jumbo” he turned down a role in the “Men In Black.”Schwimmer said the role, which Will Smith took, could have made him a movie star.”Men In Black” became one of the biggest movies of the ’90s, and a major franchise.

Small Business Owners Are Watching the Election — But They’re Deeply Skeptical

Business News

Entrepreneur surveyed 500 small business owners across the country to ask how they’re feeling about their business and current events.Most reported a deep interest in the presidential election: Most (81%) say they are following the news closely, and 45% report daily monitoring. But only 40% actually believe and expect that the next president’s policies could improve their business.In fact, 39% of small business owners don’t have faith that any helpful policies will be passed next year — and 15% of both Democrats and Republicans believe that government policy cannot materially improve their business at all. (Independents were even more pessimistic, at 29% saying the government can’t help them.)

Related: 10 Significant Ways A Second Trump Administration Could Impact Your TaxesThat pessimism may be driven by the economy as a whole: The majority of respondents (70%) say they are concerned that the U.S. will enter a recession in the next two years. In fact, stressed-out entrepreneurs are losing an average of seven hours of sleep a week worrying about the state of their business.

So, where are small business owners feeling optimistic? Interestingly, the answer is in something that politicians are currently discussing regulations for: artificial intelligence.The majority (74%) of small owners report feeling optimistic about artificial intelligence, with 28% saying AI is helping their business become more efficient, 27% saying AI will create new business opportunities and 19% saying AI is saving them money.The optimism for AI falls along generational lines: 84% of millennial business owners see AI as helping their business in some way, while only 46% of baby boomer owners say the same.Related: 10 Significant Ways Your Taxes Will Be Impacted By A Kamala Harris Administration

As AI has gained prominence, other internet fixtures have begun to shift: Google has been adjusting its algorithms to favor forums like Reddit and Quora, X (formerly Twitter) has prioritized viral videos and more. Although that’s causing some impact for small business owners, 60% say these shifts have not meaningfully impacted their businesses.Entrepreneur’s survey of 500 small business owners was conducted in partnership with Talker Research in August. For the full results of our survey, click here.

This Home Owner Couldn’t Find the Lawn Care Equipment He needed, So He Created His Own. Here’s How Alibaba.com Fueled His Business.

Business News

Alibaba.com is sourcing made simple. It’s the easiest way to connect with suppliers, create products, and turn your business dreams into reality.”My Way” tells the stories of four entrepreneurs who utilized Alibaba.com’s capabilities to create, launch and grow their dream businesses.Self-described lawn care enthusiast Andrew Laplante wanted a less messy, more efficient way to spread peat moss around his property. And when he couldn’t find what he was looking for online, he resolved to develop a tool that would solve this problem for himself and for countless property owners.Hewent to work sketching plans for what would eventually become his signature product, the 24-inch Peat Moss Spreader. To bring his idea to life, Laplante submitted an RFQ (Request for Quotation) on Alibaba.com and was soon connected with multiple manufacturers. “The RFQ process made everything so simple for me because it gave me the ability to narrow down the manufacturers based on their years of experience and their star rating,” Laplante recounts.He credits Alibaba.com’s simplified sourcing tools with helping him find the right partner to build his design to his exact specifications, with no compromises. And that steadfastness paid off. His first shipment of products sold out within a week of launch and now his company Landzie is thriving with an expanded array of products.Find out more about Laplante’s journey, and how Alibaba.com’s resources fueled his entrepreneurial fire in the video above.Learn how Alibaba.com can help your business grow, visit Alibaba.com

Happy 90th birthday Sophia Loren! Her greatest films

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

20. Prêt-à-Porter (1994)Loren’s 14th and final collaboration with her frequent co-star Marcello Mastroianni provides one of the few bright spots in Robert Altman’s dog’s dinner of a satire. They play ex-lovers reuniting during Paris fashion week, during which she re-enacts her famous striptease from Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.View image in fullscreen19. A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)Charles Chaplin’s last film as director (and actor, in a cameo), and his first in colour, is a plodding misfire, not helped by a miscast Marlon Brando phoning in a lifeless performance. It’s left to Loren, as a stateless Russian countess who stows away in his cabin, to carry the show.18. Grumpier Old Men (1995)Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon reunite in this sequel for more curmudgeonly shenanigans. Matthau finds romance with Loren (now in her 60s and as alluring as ever), who plans to turn the oldsters’ favourite bait shop into a trattoria. All three actors have been in better comedies, but they are icons, so we’ll allow it.View image in fullscreen17. The Millionairess (1960)Looking like a goddess, Loren plays the world’s richest woman in this nonsensical adaptation of a George Bernard Shaw play, but an altruistic East End doctor (Peter Sellers in brownface) is immune to her charms. Loren and Sellers reprised these characters in a maddening novelty pop song called Goodness Gracious Me (not in the film).16. Legend of the Lost (1957)Loren, playing a woman of ill repute, gets sweaty in the Sahara with John Wayne, hired as a guide to help a Bible-basher (Rossano Brazzi) find a lost city. Not even Wayne can resist Sophia’s charms, but Henry Hathaway’s adventure yarn runs out of plot long before its characters run out of water.View image in fullscreen15. Houseboat (1958)Cary Grant and Loren, who had an affair while co-starring in The Pride and the Passion, reunited a year later for this serviceable romcom. He plays a widower who moves into a leaky houseboat; she’s a famous conductor’s daughter hired to look after his three children. She also sings Bing! Bang! Bong!14. Heller in Pink Tights (1960)George Cukor directed this minor but colourful western. Sophia wears a blond wig as an actress touring the old west with Anthony Quinn’s theatre troupe, and gets tied to a horse in his production of Mazeppa. The producer was Carlo Ponti, who nurtured Loren’s Hollywood career; their marriage lasted until his death in 2007.View image in fullscreen13. It Started in Naples (1960)An American lawyer (Clark Gable in his penultimate film) finds his late brother has left behind an eight-year-old son, now cared for by his aunt (Loren) on Capri. Cue local colour, May-September romance, dismantling of anti-Italian prejudice and Loren singing and dancing up a storm.12. The Life Ahead (2020)Loren came out of retirement to play a Holocaust survivor and former sex worker providing daycare in a southern Italian port in this drama written and directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti. She bonds with a 12-year-old Senegalese street kid who steals her bag. It’s manipulative and sentimental, and I wept buckets. By gum, she’s still got it!View image in fullscreen11. Boy on a Dolphin (1957)Loren’s first English language film, in which she plays a Greek sponge diver who finds an ancient statue, and is torn between an ethical archaeologist and a smarmy collector. It was the first Hollywood production filmed on location in Greece, but who’s looking at the Acropolis when Sophia is emerging from the Aegean sea in a wet dress?10. Sunflower (1970)Loren and Mastroianni get together again in Vittorio De Sica’s romantic melodrama – but not for long! Alas, it’s the second world war and he is dispatched to the Russian front. When the fighting is over she trudges all over the USSR searching for him, with results that will make you get something in your eye, dammit.View image in fullscreen9. The Cassandra Crossing (1976)Like many a Hollywood veteran in the 1970s, Loren found herself part of an all-star ensemble cast in a disaster movie. She and her ex-husband (played by Richard Harris) are trans-Europe train passengers exposed to a stowaway infected with a deadly plague. Not only that, but their train is speeding towards a dangerous viaduct. Fans of the genre won’t want to miss what happens next!8. The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)Thanks to Loren’s larger-then-life screen persona, she holds her own against the pre-CGI spectacle in her two epics for director Anthony Mann. In an Edward Gibbon-inspired scenario (partly recycled by Gladiator), she plays Marcus Aurelius’s daughter, who joins her lover (Stephen Boyd) in trying to topple the despotic Emperor Commodus – Christopher Plummer on deliciously nutty form.View image in fullscreen7. Arabesque (1966)Stanley Donen fails to recreate the magic of his 1963 romantic thriller Charade, but Loren, looking ravishing in Dior as the villain’s girlfriend, almost single-handedly makes this chic England-set caper worth seeing. On the downside, Gregory Peck (playing a hieroglyphics professor) is no Cary Grant, while familiar British and Irish actors playing Middle Eastern characters in brownface are distracting, to say the least.6. The Key (1958)William Holden plays a Canadian tugboat captain assigned the suicidal mission of rescuing shipping from U-boats in the second world war. Like his killed-in-action predecessors, he seeks refuge in the flat of a Swiss expat played by Loren. She effectively dials down her sexiness for Carol Reed’s sombre drama (with exciting maritime action), but can’t help looking fabulous in striped pyjamas.View image in fullscreen5. Marriage Italian Style (1964)While Loren’s English language films often typecast her as a sexpot, the dozen or so films she made for De Sica provided her with more nuanced roles. In this romantic comedy, she plays the long-term mistress of a cynical businessman (Mastroianni, somehow making a despicable character likable) who fails to treat their relationship seriously until she pretends to be dying.4. El Cid (1961)In her first Anthony Mann epic (see Fall of the Roman Empire), Loren plays Chimene, whose marriage to the 11th-century Castilian hero (Charlton Heston) gets off to a rocky start when he kills her father in a duel. But they reconcile, and she ultimately radiates noble stoicism as her husband rides into legend, accompanied by Miklós Rózsa’s churchy score. Impossible to watch without blubbing.View image in fullscreen3. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)Loren and Mastroianni show their range playing three sets of Italian couples in De Sica’s Oscar-winning comic anthology. A working-class Neapolitan keeps getting pregnant to avoid jail; the callousness of a Milanese trophy wife shocks her boyfriend; and, in Rome, a high-class sex worker treats her frustrated client to one of cinema’s sexiest stripteases.2. Two Women (1960)De Sica’s neorealist wartime drama, adapted from a novel by Albert Moravia but based on the horrific real events of the Marocchinate, gives Loren one of the meatiest roles of her career and won her an Academy Award for best actress. She plays a mother who flees the allied bombing of Rome with her daughter. But worse is to come, in a harrowing story of survival that still packs a mighty punch.View image in fullscreen1. A Special Day (1977)Ettore Scola’s sepia-tinted but still pertinent study of everyday fascism is set in 1938, during Hitler’s state visit to Rome. Loren plays an overworked housewife whose husband and six kids have left with their neighbours to watch the parade, leaving her apartment block deserted except for a gay radio announcer (Mastroianni) awaiting deportation. The two bond in unlikely ways, treating us to one of cinema’s greatest screen couples operating at the top of their game.