Breakthrough with modern tech

Source: Phys.org

"It's very difficult to produce electricity in the same place you're consuming it," Riley said. "This is a huge problem in countries where they don't have an electric grid in place. Our long-term vision is to give people an opportunity to generate power in places where they don't have a massive infrastructure."
...
The work function is basically a measure of how tightly a material clings to its electrons. "In thermionics you take two materials that have very different work functions, put plates next to each other, make one plate hotter than the other, and magically, electricity comes out," Schmid said. "When they explained this to me and showed me the efficiency can be as high as 30 percent or more, which is comparable to the best thermal-to-electricity conversion methods that exist, this was a huge surprise for me."
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The ARPA-E award will allow the team to develop compelling prototypes. Riley and Schwede have founded a startup company, Spark Thermionics, to pursue their portion of the project and drive its commercialization. Ultimately they envision a small device that can fit on a desk and easily scale depending on the application. "Just like solar cells, where you can string many of them together to make a module," Schwede said, "we believe that our thermionic devices can scale in modules from watts to megawatts."

In addition to being useful in developing countries, their thermionic power generator could be used in a combined heat and power (CHP) system for a single home. "When you heat water in your home, you're actually taking a 2,000-plus degree flame—a natural gas flame can be that hot—and all you're doing is heating water to 80 degrees Celsius. From the thermodynamic perspective, all of that is going to waste," Riley said. "Our thermionic device can generate electricity in the home and use the waste heat to warm it, increasing the overall efficiency and dramatically reducing carbon emissions at the same time."

http://m.phys.org/news/2016-03-scientists-thermionic-energy-conversion-efficient.html

I imagine the military will be very interested in this tech too.

Source: BBC

French prosecutors have widened their investigation into corruption in athletics to include the bidding and voting processes for the hosting of the 2016 and 2020 Olympics.

Lamine Diack, the former president of world governing body the IAAF, is already being investigated by French authorities.

He was arrested last year on corruption and money laundering charges, over allegations he took payments for deferring sanctions against Russian drugs cheats.
...
"Since the 1999 Salt Lake City bribery scandal blew the lid on systematic corruption within the IOC, it has overhauled its rules, and regained trust in the integrity of its bidding process.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/35701170

I think Bagdad Bob found a new job...

Source: Naked Capitalism

Conclusions

In sum, the TPP will increase pressures on labor incomes, weakening domestic demand in all participating countries, in turn leading to lower employment and higher inequality. Even though countries with lower labor costs may gain greater market shares and small GDP increases, employment is still likely to fall and inequality to increase.

In fact, most goods trade among TPP countries has already been liberalized by earlier agreements. Instead of promoting growth and employment, the TPP is mainly about imposing new rules favored by large multinational corporations. The TPP greatly strengthens investor and intellectual property rights (IPRs), while weakening national regulation, e.g. over financial services.

The TPP will strengthen IPRs for big pharmaceutical, information technology, media, and other firms, e.g. by allowing pharmaceutical companies longer monopolies on patented medicines, keeping cheaper generics of the market, and blocking the development and availability of similar new medicines.

The TPP would also strengthen foreign investor rights at the expense of local businesses and the public interest. The TPP’s investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system will oblige governments to compensate foreign investors for losses of expected profits in binding private arbitration.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/some-real-costs-of-the-trans-pacific-partnership-nearly-half-a-million-jobs-lost-in-the-us-alone.html

Source: Medicalxpress

In a paper published in the journal Preventive Medicine, he examined the effects of U.S. state and local social spending—monies for welfare, education, and health—on mortality and drew not just a correlation, as the few earlier studies on the subject have done, but opened the door to inferring a cause-??and-??effect relationship between higher spending and longer lives for the more than 430,000 adults he assessed across the country.

The findings are sobering. "Each additional $250 spent per person per year on welfare predicted a 3 percentage point lower probability of their dying from any cause," says Kim, an expert on the social and economic determinants of population health. "Welfare" encompasses several components, including state supplements to unemployment insurance, worker incentive programs, public assistance programs, and services for the elderly and disabled.
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"The Great Recession of the past decade led to unprecedented social spending cuts in 46 U.S. states," says Kim. "Meanwhile, the divide between the rich and the poor has surged in 45 states over the past three decades, reaching levels that we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

"We certainly need to explore my findings further—such as identifying which specific welfare and education programs benefit health. But I hope they will help launch a public discussion about the real-??life health benefits and harms that state policymakers' decisions can have on all of us."

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-03-state-local-decrease-mortality.html

Source: Medicalxpress

Lowering prices on fruits and vegetables may be more effective in reducing heart disease than mass media campaigns over 15 years, according to an updated analysis presented at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology/Lifestyle 2016 Scientific Sessions.

Dietary patterns that reduce fruit and vegetable prices by 10 percent through 2030 could lower the death rate from heart disease and stroke about 1 percent, saving about 64,000 to 69,000 lives over a 15-year period. A 30 percent price drop was modeled to be the most effective in saving lives - diminishing the death rate by almost 3 percent, saving between 191,000 and 205,000 lives over 15 years.

In comparison, researchers reported that a year-long mass media campaign promoting fruits and vegetables could reduce the cardiovascular death rate by about 0.1 percent, or 7,500 to 8,300 lives. A media campaign lasting 15 years, reduced the rate by 0.3 percent, or 22,800 to 24,800 deaths over 15 years, the study found.

Price reduction policies would affect non-Hispanic whites and blacks equally. In comparison, a mass media campaign would be about 35 percent less effective in preventing deaths from cardiovascular disease in non-Hispanic blacks.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-03-policies-prices-fruits-vegetables-thousands.html

Source: phys.org

The scale of workers' insecurity since the economic crisis is revealed in research showing that 32% believed that there was a risk of losing their jobs and 38% were anxious that their pay would be cut.

Many workers also feared arbitrary dismissal and loss of autonomy and pay, as well as discrimination and victimisation by management.

The researchers compared some of the findings with survey data from 2000 and 2001. This showed that the proportion who thought there was a risk they could lose their job had risen from 23.4% to 31.9% (a rise of 36%). Fear of victimisation had risen from 15.9% to 19.3% (a rise of 21%) and discrimination from 17.2% to 18.4% (a rise of 7%).

"The view that employee participation could reduce anxieties relating to insecurity was strongly confirmed," they said. "Higher employee participation was important for reducing both job tenure and job status insecurity. Union recognition, however, had no effect in reducing either type of job insecurity."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-03-workers-jobs.html#jCp

Fluke or is the tide turning? Either way, Hunsader and ZH should also get a tenacity award.

Source: Zero Hedge

Once upon a time it was anathema the publicly proclaim two things: i) that central banks manipulate and intervene in the markets and that ii) the market is rigged. Ever since this website was launched 7 years ago and made the proof of these two claims its mission, it was branded as a collection of "tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists" by either the most incompetent, most corrupt or most clueless cores of what passes for financial media and capital markets participants (with either real or virtual money).

More importantly, what has also become apparent over these same 7 years, is that we were right: it is now no longer even a debate if HFTs rig markets or if central banks intervene directly in stocks, bond or FX - it is broadly accepted and even desired: just imagine the dreadful world in which there is fair price discovery and where traders actually have to take risk. Ghastly.
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Q. What do you think this says about the way markets currently function? Do you think such issues have now been fixed? Do you think the playing field is more "fair now"? Do you still think the markets are rigged?

A. Well yeah.

* * *

Q. Just looking at the history of markets, aren't they always rigged to some degree?

A. Yes, they are always rigged. Does that mean that if someone gets mugged in New York City we don't have to care about it?

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-01/eric-hunsader-explains-cnbc-markets-are-always-rigged-and-what-he-may-spend-his-7500

Source: Zero Hedge

After being screwed by HSBC while trying to modify their mortgage:


Frustrated, the Moores researched the bank online last year and stumbled upon news of the money-laundering settlement and the monitor’s secret report. The Moores say they believe the report details faulty internal controls like those they encountered when trying to modify their loan.

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The letter has thrust Mr. Moore, a chemist, and his wife, Ann Marie Fletcher-Moore, a part-time bookstore manager, into a high-stakes battle over whether HSBC Holdings PLC must release a secret report on its compliance with a $1.9 billion money-laundering settlement.

The disclosure would be the first ever for this type of case and would shine a light on an increasingly common practice for banks accused of breaking the law. Instead of being prosecuted, banks typically enter into settlements under which they often agree to be overseen by monitors whose detailed judgments are kept secret. Judge Gleeson’s order has the potential to dial back that confidentiality, opening a new channel of information that prosecutors say could threaten the viability of such settlements in future cases.

HSBC and Justice Department prosecutors have opposed the release, saying it wouldn’t do much to help Mr. Moore with his mortgage predicament. Judge Gleeson, in his order to unseal the report, said that was irrelevant.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-02/how-us-government-and-hsbc-teamed-hide-truth-pennsylvania-couple

Shout out to Judge Gleeson for standing up to the Oligarchy.