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McConnell sets stage for new face-off with Biden |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-16-2020, 02:17 PM - Forum: Politics
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McConnell sets stage for new face-off with Biden after delivering blow to Trump's election fantasy
(CNN)President Donald Trump is now learning, in the words of his Rolling Stones campaign anthem, that he can't always get what he wants. Sen. Mitch McConnell, on the other hand, usually does.
The Republican Senate majority leader chose Tuesday, the day after the Electoral College affirmed President-elect Joe Biden's victory, as the moment to pull the floor out from under the defeated President. He belatedly congratulated his old Senate colleague 38 days after his election victory that Trump still denies.
Putting his authority on the line, McConnell also asked his Senate colleagues not to stage any stunts when Congress meets for a joint session to ratify the election on January 6, effectively crushing the President's hopes of an 11th hour reprieve, CNN reported.
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Mitch McConnell: Top Trump ally breaks silence to congratulate Biden |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-16-2020, 11:38 AM - Forum: Politics
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A top member of US President Donald Trump's Republican Party, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has congratulated Joe Biden on winning the presidential election last month.
Senator McConnell spoke after the electoral college formally confirmed Mr Biden's victory over Mr Trump.
The Democrat won 306 electoral college votes to Mr Trump's 232.
President Trump still refuses to concede, making unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud.
Relations with the Senate, currently controlled by the Republicans, will be crucial to Mr Biden's presidency.
He visited Atlanta, Georgia, to campaign for the Democrats in next month's Senate run-off elections. Two seats will be decided on 5 January and could determine whether or not his party takes control of the chamber. Democrats already control the House of Representatives.
After Monday's confirmation of Mr Biden's victory, three world leaders whose refusal to congratulate the president-elect had been commented widely, did so on Tuesday: Russia's Vladimir Putin, Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro and Mexico's Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
How did McConnell break ranks?
Speaking on the Senate floor, Mr McConnell said he had hoped for a "different result" from the 3 November election but the electoral college had spoken. "So today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden," he said.
Also congratulating Mr Biden's running-mate, Kamala Harris, he added: "All Americans can take pride that our nation has a female vice president-elect for the very first time."
Mr Biden said later he had phoned Mr McConnell to thank him for the congratulations and the two had agreed to "get together sooner than later".
In an interview to ABC News, Ms Harris said she welcomed Mr McConnell's comments. "It would have been better if it were earlier but it happened, and that's what's most important. Let's move forward. And where we can find common purpose and common ground, let's do that."
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An AI breakthrough that could change everything |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-16-2020, 10:10 AM - Forum: AI - Artificial Intelligence
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Imagine a world where plastic waste doesn’t clog up our life-giving rivers but is instead broken down into its constituent parts and returned to the earth.
Imagine a world where carbon dioxide is captured from the atmosphere, reducing global temperatures and helping mitigate climate change.
Imagine a world where new diseases are deciphered and drugs devised in a matter of weeks, not years or decades.
These are some of the many ways the world could transform for the better, thanks to the artificial intelligence (AI) breakthrough that took place slightly more than two weeks ago when an AI program designed by Google DeepMind solved one of science’s grand challenges: the protein folding problem.
It was such a profound advance that it moved Andrei Lupas, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology to call it a game-changer. He added: “This will change medicine. It will change research. It will change bioengineering. It will change everything.”
Mohammed AlQuraishi, a computational biologist at Columbia University reiterated this, gushing: “It’s a breakthrough of the first order, certainly one of the most significant scientific results of my lifetime.”
For some context, a grand challenge is a difficult and highly consequential but unsolved scientific or technological problem. One of the grand challenges in physics is the search for a grand unified theory – one that reconciles quantum mechanics with general relativity; while a grand challenge in climate change is the development of feasible carbon capture technology.
Similarly, the protein folding problem is a grand challenge in biology – one that has eluded scientists for half a century. Until now that is.
But before we delve into the details of the breakthrough, we need to understand what a protein is. I know what you’re thinking. You know what protein is – it’s what you’re told to consume copious amounts of when you’re hitting the gym right? Well yes, but it’s much more than that. So much more.
Proteins are the building blocks of life. They are a chain of amino acids, each of which is made up of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen atoms, although some also have sulfur atoms and one even has a selenium atom. In total, there are 20 types of amino acids – which in different combinations make up all the proteins that are a part of you and me.
Proteins are vital to a host of things, including digesting food (amylase, pepsin), transporting substances in the body (haemoglobin), defending the body against pathogens (immunoglobulin), and making muscles contract (actin, myosin).
Rest assured, we would not exist if not for these phenomenal molecular wonders that animate us.
The function of a specific protein is dictated by its complex 3D structure – something that at a quick glance looks like confetti. An oft-quoted maxim in molecular biology is “structure is function”. Traditionally, the shape of a protein was determined by expensive and laborious techniques like X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance. This is why even though we know of around 200 million proteins across many lifeforms, we’ve only determined the 3D structure of around 170,000 of them – a minuscule fraction.
However, a long-standing hypothesis in the field holds that the structure of a protein should be able to be determined using only its amino acid sequence. This prophetic postulation propelled scientists to pore through the data, looking to determine the structure and by consequence, the function, of a host of proteins using only their amino acid sequences. However, their decades-long effort only resulted in middling results.
But all that changed when AlphaFold 2 – an AI system designed by DeepMind – entered the fray. It’s the same company that created AlphaGo, the AI system that bested Go grandmaster Lee Sedol in 2016, sending shockwaves through many in the AI world who thought that such a monumental feat was at least a decade away. For context, the game of Go is many times more complex and nuanced than chess and was thought by some to require human intuition to master, unlike chess which is bound by strict logic.
In this year’s Critical Assessment of Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) competition – the Olympics of protein folding if you will – DeepMind’s AlphaFold 2 algorithm came in head and shoulders above the competition and essentially solved the problem of protein folding.
It achieved a median score of 92.4 GDT (Global Distance Test) out of 100. Anything above 90 is considered solved. It is so mind-bogglingly accurate that the predictions only have an average error of the width of an atom (0.1 nanometres).
This has numerous potential uses, including two major ones. It could herald a revolution in the drug discovery process, accelerating the synthesis of life-saving drugs for a host of diseases, including Covid-19. Even more excitingly, it could aid in the design of novel proteins that could degrade plastic, produce biofuels, and capture carbon in the atmosphere – addressing two of the biggest environmental problems plaguing us today – plastic pollution and climate change.
Its incredible potential impelled Arthur Levinson, Founder and CEO of Calico to proclaim: “AlphaFold is a once in a generation advance, predicting protein structures with incredible speed and precision. This leap forward demonstrates how computational methods are poised to transform research in biology and hold much promise for accelerating the drug discovery process.”
The stunning result achieved by DeepMind is a fantastic example of the wide-ranging and consequential ways AI is and will continue to transform the world we live in. It’s a potent tool that will not only help computing advance by leaps and bounds but will also be the next great tool in scientific inquiry and technological advancement.
In a decade, specialised AI programmes will become just as indispensable as Microsoft Excel, AutoCad, and Adobe Photoshop are to professionals in their respective fields. It will bleed into every industry, reducing our workload, increasing productivity but also invariably increasing unemployment.
Just as a telescope opens up new never-before-seen vistas of space and a microscope opens up an almost infinitesimally small universe, AI will open up portals through which we can view the world in a different, more nuanced light. It’ll reveal things in better, clearer detail, and stumble into solutions to problems we didn’t even know we had.
I expect AI to herald a new age of scientific discovery, becoming the preeminent sandbox for scientists. In addition, it’ll help create mechanistic entities that blur the line between life and non-life, as Boston Dynamics and some other companies have already started to demonstrate.
And it’s best we Malaysians get on board this high-speed train into the future as soon as possible. It waits for no one.
The writer can be contacted at kathirgugan@gmail.com.
Source: FMT
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Academic giant Royal Prof Ungku Aziz dies at 98 |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-15-2020, 10:07 PM - Forum: Local News
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KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 — Royal Professor Ungku Abdul Aziz Abdul Hamid, the first Malaysian appointed as the vice-chancellor of University of Malaya and its longest-serving, has died today at 98 of old age.
Ungku Aziz, who was also the father of former Bank Negara Malaysia governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar, was earlier admitted to Prince Court Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 4.30pm today.
Astro Awani quoted the late academic’s wife, Rohayah Ahmad Bahiran, saying that the body will be taken to Masjid At-Taqwa in Taman Tun Dr Ismail here where he will be buried tonight.
Ungku Aziz held his post at the UM between 1968 and 1988, and was awarded the title of Royal Professor in 1978 — the sole Malaysian so far to hold the title.
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'The rule of law, our Constitution and the will of the people prevailed' |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-15-2020, 07:26 PM - Forum: Politics
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Biden after Electoral College affirms win: 'The rule of law, our Constitution and the will of the people prevailed'
"The flame of democracy was lit in this nation a long time ago. And we now know nothing, not even a pandemic or an abuse of power, can extinguish that flame," Biden said.
In a speech Monday night in Delaware, Biden launched the most direct and detailed defense of his victory yet -- and the harshest condemnation of Trump's flailing efforts to change reality.
He catalogued the failures of Trump's campaign and his allies in state and federal courts and state legislatures, and recounts that have not substantially changed vote tallies. He called efforts by Trump and his supporters to use the courts to overturn the election result "so extreme we've never seen it before."
"Thankfully, a unanimous Supreme Court immediately and completely rejected this effort," Biden said.
Biden's speech came after the Electoral College had cast 306 votes for Biden and 232 for Trump, cementing Biden's win. The Electoral College votes will now be sent to Congress to be counted formally next month. Though some House Republicans have indicated they will object to the results in key states, they can do little more than delay the process during a joint session of Congress on January 6. Then, Biden will be inaugurated at noon on January 20.
Biden declared it time to "turn the page, to unite, to heal."
"In this battle for the soul of America, democracy prevailed," Biden said. "We the people voted. Faith in our institutions held. The integrity of our elections remains intact. And so, now it is time to turn the page. To unite. To heal."
But he also unleashed on Trump and Republicans who have attempted to thwart the democratic process in a way he had not before.
Lawsuits from Trump and his allies were rejected resoundingly in state and federal courts. "And yet, none of this could stop baseless claims about the legitimacy of the results," Biden said.
His harshest words were directed at Trump and his Republican allies -- including 17 state attorneys general and 126 members of Congress who backed a baseless Texas lawsuit seeking to undo other states' election results.
"This legal maneuver was an effort by elected officials and one group of states to try to get the Supreme Court to wipe out the votes of more than 20 million Americans in other states and to hand the presidency to a candidate who lost the Electoral College, lost the popular vote and lost each and every one of the states whose votes they were trying to reverse. It's a position so extreme, we've never seen it before," he said.
The President-elect, who paused throughout his remarks several times to either cough or clear his throat, called it "a position that refused to respect the will of the people, refused respect the rule of law and refused to honor our Constitution."
He also condemned attacks by Trump and his supporters, who have sought to throw out legitimately cast ballots, on state and local elections officials.
"It is my sincere hope we never again see anyone subjected to the kinds of threats and abuse we saw in this election. It's simply unconscionable," Biden said.
He sought to move past Trump's denials of reality, pointing to record-breaking voter turnout that he said "should be celebrated, not attacked."
The President-elect noted more than 81 million votes being cast in favor of himself and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, the most in history and 7 million more than Trump and Vice President Mike Pence received.
Biden also noted that he won by the same electoral vote count that Trump received in 2016, saying that it was a "clear victory" then and now.
The President-elect also laid out the work that will dominate the early days of his administration: the battle against the coronavirus pandemic, including distributing vaccines and slowing its spread as those vaccines become available, and rebuilding an economy battered by the pandemic.
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Congressman cites Trump's efforts to overturn election in announcing decision to quit |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-15-2020, 02:18 PM - Forum: Politics
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(CNN)In an exclusive interview, Rep. Paul Mitchell, Republican of Michigan, told CNN that his disgust and disappointment with President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the election have led him to request that the Clerk of the House change his party affiliation to "independent," and to notify GOP leaders in a letter that he is withdrawing his "engagement and association with the Republican Party at both the national and state level."
"This party has to stand up for democracy first, for our Constitution first, and not political considerations," Mitchell said on CNN's "The Lead."
"Not to protect a candidate. Not simply for raw political power, and that's what I feel is going on and I've had enough."
Mitchell, who is retiring at the end of this session of Congress, says he fears that the House GOP leadership's participation in the outgoing President's conspiracy theories and attempts to disenfranchise millions of American voters to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's victory could cause "long-term harm to our democracy."
It is "unacceptable for political candidates to treat our election system as though we are a third-world nation and incite distrust of something so basic as the sanctity of our vote," Mitchell wrote in his letter, which was sent Monday.
Mitchell noted that Republican leaders had been "collectively sit(ting) back and tolerat(ing) unfounded conspiracy theories and 'stop the steal' rallies without speaking out for our electoral process," and the last straw for him seemed to be "the leadership of the Republican Party and our Republican Conference in the House actively participating in at least some of those efforts."
He echoed that message later Monday, saying on CNN that, "Anybody that gets in politics has to be willing to accept winning and losing with some level of grace or maturity. I've done both. Losing is brutal, it's personal, it hurts, but if you're not willing to accept that, you should not be in political leadership."
"This country needs it desperately and, unfortunately, we haven't seen it demonstrated as much as we should."
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A Swiss biotech firm developing a Covid treatment has seen its share price soar |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-14-2020, 06:44 PM - Forum: Business, Economy and Investment
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A Swiss biotech firm developing a Covid treatment has seen its share price soar 38,000% this year - Relief Therapeutics Chairman Ram Selvaraju told CNBC that Relief Therapeutics and NeuroRx had been in contact with the HSS’ Operation Warp Speed, and expects topline data from its late-stage trial of RLF-100 in January.
- Relief Therapeutics had a market cap of less than 100 million Swiss francs ($113 million) at the end of July, and on August 10 following promising results from the first 21 patients treated with RLF-100 under FDA Expanded Access Protocol authorization, it had surpassed 1.6 billion Swiss francs.
LONDON — Swiss biotech firm Relief Therapeutics has seen its share price climb by 38,000% so far this year, as it develops a drug focused on respiratory failure arising from severe Covid-19.
Last week, the company, along with U.S. partner NeuroRx, met the 165 patient enrollment target agreed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in their ongoing phase 2b/3 trial of RLF-100, which is a patented version of aviptadil.
Aviptadil is a synthetic formulation of a naturally occurring peptide called Vasoactive Intestinal Polypeptide (VIP), which is primarily concentrated in the lungs and works to reset the immune system response along with serving as a vasodilator and boosting the production of surfactant in the lungs, which enables blood oxygen transfer.
RLF-100 has been around since 2000, when it was developed to treat acute respiratory distress and other lung conditions and subsequently acquired by Biogen. Earlier this year, Relief scientists discovered that it could protect the cell that is attacked by the Covid-19 virus.
Speaking to CNBC via telephone from New York, Relief Therapeutics Chairman Ram Selvaraju said the ongoing trial is expected to provide topline data in the first half of January, and attributed the meteoric rise in the company’s share price in part to its evidence of efficacy in “otherwise untreatable patients.”
“Where other people have focused primarily on mildly infected or moderately infected people, we have fastidiously tried to see whether our drug can bring benefits to the critically ill and the end-stage folks,” he explained.
Early stage results from expanded access use of RLF-100 in patients suffering with critical Covid-19 and severe comorbidities showed 72% of those admitted into the ICU surviving.
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Electoral College set to seal Trump's fate -- yet again |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-14-2020, 02:44 PM - Forum: Politics
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(CNN)A constitutional ritual that is normally a little-noticed curiosity will Monday turn into a symbol of the US political system's durability while under assault from a defeated President seeking to overturn a democratic election.
Electors from 50 states and the District of Columbia will gather across the country to cast their ballots, which will confirm Joe Biden as the rightful 46th president and California Sen. Kamala Harris as vice president.
A moment of historic resonance will activate safeguards stemming from the founders' fears nearly 250 years ago of a monarchical leader wielding unaccountable power to counter President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly spurned the fundamental principles of American democracy.
Earlier attempts by Trump to strong-arm local Republican lawmakers to produce delegations in swing states that would ignore the will of millions of voters and his election loss failed. So ballots cast Monday will confirm Biden will surpass the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. The ballots will be transmitted to Washington, DC, to be tallied in Congress on January 6, when a building -- but almost certainly futile -- rearguard by Republican lawmakers may expose a large rump of the party that has also turned against the democratic principles that underpin free and fair elections.
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Donald Trump's long goodbye |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-13-2020, 09:58 PM - Forum: Politics
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(CNN)Minutes after he took the oath of office as the 45th President of the United States at the US Capitol on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump expressed gratitude to the outgoing President and first lady.
"Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power," Trump said, "and we are grateful to President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent."
But ever since Trump's defeat at the hands of Joe Biden last month, the President has been anything but magnificent. He has done all he can to prevent an "orderly and peaceful" transfer to the next administration. This week, he threw his support behind an unprecedented lawsuit brought by the state of Texas which asked the US Supreme Court to throw out the votes of millions of people in states that gave Biden his victory.
Seventeen red states and more than 100 GOP members of Congress quickly backed what would have amounted to a judicial coup d'état designed to give Trump four more years in office. But on Friday evening, the Supreme Court dismissed the assault on democracy, saying Texas had no legal standing to challenge "the manner in which another state conducts its elections."
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Supreme Court rejects Trump backed lawsuit that sought to overturn Biden's victory |
Posted by: superadmin - 12-13-2020, 07:36 PM - Forum: Politics
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Supreme Court rejects Trump backed lawsuit that sought to overturn Biden election victory
“As Members of Congress, we take a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution,” her letter said. “Republicans are subverting the Constitution by their reckless and fruitless assault on our democracy which threatens to seriously erode public trust in our most sacred democratic institutions, and to set back our progress on the urgent challenges ahead.”
Sen. Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who has clashed with Trump, said in a statement that the Supreme Court has finally “closed the book on the nonsense.”
“Since Election Night, a lot of people have been confusing voters by spinning Kenyan Birther-type, ‘Chavez rigged the election from the grave’ conspiracy theories, but every American who cares about the rule of law should take comfort that the Supreme Court — including all three of President Trump’s picks — closed the book on the nonsense,” he said.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who had represented her state against Paxton’s suit, said the ruling “is an important reminder that we are a nation of laws, and though some may bend to the desire of a single individual, the courts will not.”
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