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DRIVER-POLITICS-INFRASTRUCTURE-TREATEMENT Criminal Charges Filed Against 6 Officials Schuette announced criminal charges against six more current and former state employees, bringing the total number of people charged to nine. Liane Shekter-Smith is the former director of the drinking water and municipal assistance office within the MDEQ. She and two subordinates, Adam Rosenthal and Patrick Cook, allegedly misled officials about Flint's water treatment plant, which was not in compliance with lead and copper rules. The other three people charged are current or former employees of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. The director of the child health unit, Nancy Peeler, her subordinate, Robert Scott, and a state epidemiologist Corinne Miller allegedly failed to release a report that showed unsafe lead levels in the blood of Flint children. All six are charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy, and willful neglect of duty. Rosenthal is also charged with tampering with evidence, for allegedly requesting water tests that did not show elevated lead.

"Lead leached from old pipes after the city began using the Flint River in 2014 without adding corrosion-control chemicals. Flint returned in 2015 to Detroit's water system.(...)Residents in Flint whose homes still may need new water lines due to lead contamination may have a new benefactor in Elon Musk. The tech billionaire caused a stir on Twitter Wednesday, tweeting Wednesday that he was committing to "fund fixing the water in any house" with contamination above federal levels."

"The smart homes market was valued at USD 79.13 billion in 2020, and it is expected to reach USD 313.95 billion by 2026 and register a CAGR of 25.3% over the forecast period (2021 - 2026). Across real estate companies and the architect ecosystem, the 'new normal' defined through the social distancing results in a requirement to go back to the redesign basics and reinvent the residential real estate product by factoring in new-age designing, efficiency, and innovation. As the redesign happens, the need for a totally new set of amenities has resurfaced and gained prominence. What the customer will need in the 'new normal' has undergone a revolution in the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is leading to a paradigm shift in residential spaces."

"The global semiconductor shortage will lead to 7.7 million fewer vehicles produced in 2021, costing automakers billions in lost sales, according to consulting firm AlixPartners. The forecast, released Sept. 23, estimates that the shortage will cost the auto industry $210 billion globally in lost revenue in 2021, up sharply from the May projections of $110 billion in forgone sales and 3.9 million fewer vehicles built."

THis is an extensive look at seaports and anticipated changes in coming years leading up to 2050. One big factor it mentions is that existing ports will need more space due to increased volumes and climate change factors. More space has to be considered in planning. With more space for the ports to operate, more is likely displaced and that will have an effect on surrounding communities.

As top federal officials like Janet Yellen, Jerome Powell and Gary Gensler debate how cryptocurrency and the companies involved in it should be regulated, and members of Congress consider 18 bills tied to digital assets, states are quietly enacting their own laws and issuing charters for crypto companies.

Driverless trucks are already heading out to the highway, as shipping companies increasingly look to autonomous technology to meet rising demand for goods. The focus now: determining the best way to hand off trailers from machine to human.

DRIVER-POLITICS Water Politics Limited, a geopolitical risk advisory and consulting firm, found that water scarcity could lead to conflict or political instability in many countries. Sources including the Euphrates, Tigris, Jordan, Nile, Danube, and Okavango rivers as well as the Tibetan watershed and resources will become insufficient to support the surrounding areas. These sources currently provide water to dozens of countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Water scarcity will therefore affect communities across the globe. Importantly, it may spark conflict over remaining water resources, within a nation or even between nations. Anya Groner at The Atlantic points to evidence of past conflicts that have revolved around water. These include the riots in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2012, which responded to inequality in the distribution of water resources.

When we modeled what the next two decades would look like if we continued current underinvestment trends, we found that no industry is immune to water disruptions. The most water-reliant businesses will spend $250 billion in 2039 on costs related to water service disruptions. Less reliable water service would make industries less efficient and profitable, and the consequences would ripple across the entire economy, leading to more than $4.5 trillion in lost business sales, a $2.9 trillion decline in the gross domestic product (GDP), and 636,000 fewer jobs. Individual households and communities would also endure the consequences of underinvestment as more frequent and extreme weather inflict shutdowns, and street flooding deteriorating and rupturing water infrastructure. Without proper infrastructure investment, there will be greater costs to US households. At the current rate, costs will be seven times higher in 20 years than they are today, totaling $14 billion in 2039.

"I have seen one fool's gold rush from up close in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis. It feels like we may be on the cusp of another with cryptocurrencies (crypto) and decentralized finance (DeFi). The 2008 crisis holds lessons that can help industry and regulators chart a better path and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past."

It leads to new ways to activate our brain to be more eficient during certain tasks.This achievement helps to identify the roles played by individual neurons in coordinating and carrying out behaviors which could be a cornerstone of future neural interface technologies. This research begins to teach us how the brain processes and executes goal-directed behaviors in higher-order species, giving the knowledge and tools to begin making sense of neural circuitry and coding. (Sanchez, Justin)

DARPA is always a great source! Is this H1, H2, or H3...in your view?

To me this is how leadership leads - The current UN plans want at least 10% of fuel used in global aviation to be sustainable by 2030. The head of Rolls Royce, manufacturer of aircraft engines, feels the industry needs to move quicker. He has committed to making sure their Trent engine can run purely on sustainable fuel by 2023. And Shell has committed to increasing their production tenfold by 2025.

Rising temperatures and lack of protection, both politically and from the environment, may be leading to an increase in farmworker deaths.

Stronger, lighter and more flexible than graphene, borophene has the potential to revolutionize batteries, electronics, sensors, solar cells and quantum computing. And if growing one layer was difficult, growing multiple layers of atomically flat borophene seemed impossible. Because bulk boron is not layered like graphite, growing boron beyond single atomic layers leads to clustering rather than planar films.

University of Utah mechanical engineering professor Jake J. Abbott is leading a team of researchers that has discovered a method to manipulate orbiting debris with spinning magnets. With this technology, robots could one day gently maneuver the scrap to a decaying orbit or further out into space without actually touching it, or they could repair malfunctioning objects to extend their life. Space debris mitigation is a growing problem without a solution, and the objects are travelling so fast that impact of even a small piece of debris with a valuable asset can render it useless. This technology allows moving the objects 'in six degrees of movement, including rotating them', as well as 'control where the debris goes without physically grabbing it.' The tactical value of space assets continues to grow, and being able to control them without contact could be a valuable capability.