Day: December 21, 2023

In El Salvador, preference for cash and privacy fears deterred the widespread adoption of Bitcoin as an everyday currency, researchers report. The findings suggest that policies incentivizing cryptocurrency adoption as legal tender will likely fail unless populations are financially literate and already trust digital currencies.

The introduction of digital currencies is one of the most important developments in monetary economics in the last decade. Unlike traditional digital currencies, which rely on central authorities such as governments or banks governed by regulations to mediate security and transactions, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin use sophisticated cryptography and a decentralized network to ensure verifiable transactions.

It’s argued that cryptocurrency may offer solutions for the unbanked or those reliant on remittances. However, cryptocurrencies have yet to be widely adopted for financial transactions, and the barriers that have kept them from becoming mainstream mediums of exchange aren’t fully understood.

Here, Fernando Alvarez and colleagues leverage a unique natural experiment to evaluate these questions – the adoption of Bitcoin as a legal tender in El Salvador.

In 2021, the Salvadorian government formally recognized bitcoin as a legal tender and made it law that bitcoin must be accepted as a means of payment for taxes and debts. The government required all businesses to accept bitcoin as a medium of exchange.

To facilitate this, the Salvadorian government launched the app “Chivo Wallet” to allow users to digitally trade and exchange both Bitcoins and US dollars. Alvarez et al. developed a nationally representative, face-to-face survey of 1,800 households across El Salvador and analyzed data encompassing all transactions made over the Chivo Wallet.

The authors found that digital payments and Bitcoin use have been generally low and have declined since its introduction as legal tender, despite the government’s efforts to incentivize its use. According to the findings, Salvadorians prefer tangible cash and had concerns about Bitcoin’s privacy and transparency, which is notable given that these are two areas decentralized cryptocurrencies aim to address. Both factors impeded Bitcoin’s widespread adoption by El Salvador’s population at large.

What’s more, the authors’ survey highlighted that Bitcoin was most used by the already wealthy, financially literate and banked, which starkly contrasts with the recurrent hypothesis that the use of cryptocurrencies may help the poor and unbanked the most.

This photo of Saturn was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on October 22, 2023, when the ringed planet was approximately 850 million miles from Earth. Hubble’s ultra-sharp vision reveals a phenomenon called ring spokes.

Saturn’s spokes are transient features that rotate along with the rings. Their ghostly appearance only persists for two or three rotations around Saturn. During active periods, freshly-formed spokes continuously add to the pattern.

In 1981, NASA’s Voyager 2 first photographed the ring spokes. NASA’s Cassini orbiter also saw the spokes during its 13-year-long mission that ended in 2017.

Hubble continues observing Saturn annually as the spokes come and go. This cycle has been captured by Hubble’s Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program that began nearly a decade ago to annually monitor weather changes on all four gas-giant outer planets.

Hubble’s crisp images show that the frequency of spoke apparitions is seasonally driven, first appearing in OPAL data in 2021 but only on the morning (left) side of the rings. Long-term monitoring show that both the number and contrast of the spokes vary with Saturn’s seasons. Saturn is tilted on its axis like Earth and has seasons lasting approximately seven years.

“We are heading towards Saturn equinox, when we’d expect maximum spoke activity, with higher frequency and darker spokes appearing over the next few years,” said the OPAL program lead scientist, Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

This year, these ephemeral structures appear on both sides of the planet simultaneously as they spin around the giant world. Although they look small compared with Saturn, their length and width can stretch longer than Earth’s diameter!

“The leading theory is that spokes are tied to Saturn’s powerful magnetic field, with some sort of solar interaction with the magnetic field that gives you the spokes,” said Simon. When it’s near the equinox on Saturn, the planet and its rings are less tilted away from the Sun. In this configuration, the solar wind may more strongly batter Saturn’s immense magnetic field, enhancing spoke formation.

Planetary scientists think that electrostatic forces generated from this interaction levitate dust or ice above the ring to form the spokes, though after several decades no theory perfectly predicts the spokes. Continued Hubble observations may eventually help solve the mystery.

In general, frogs’ teeth aren’t anything to write home about—they look like pointy little pinpricks lining the upper jaw. But one group of stream-dwelling frogs in Southeast Asia has a strange adaptation: two bony “fangs” jutting out of their lower jawbone. They use these fangs to battle with each other over territory and mates, and sometimes even to hunt tough-shelled prey like giant centipedes and crabs. In a new study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers have described a new species of fanged frog: the smallest one ever discovered.

“This new species is tiny compared to other fanged frogs on the island where it was found, about the size of a quarter,” says Jeff Frederick, a postdoctoral researcher at the Field Museum in Chicago and the study’s lead author, who conducted the research as a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. “Many frogs in this genus are giant, weighing up to two pounds. At the large end, this new species weighs about the same as a dime.”

In collaboration with the Bogor Zoology Museum, a team from the McGuire Lab at Berkeley   found the frogs on Sulawesi, a rugged, mountainous island that makes up part of Indonesia. “It’s a giant island with a vast network of mountains, volcanoes, lowland rainforest, and cloud forests up in the mountains. The presence of all these different habitats mean that the magnitude of biodiversity across many plants and animals we find there is unreal – rivaling places like the Amazon,” says Frederick.

While trekking through the jungle, members of the joint US-Indonesia amphibian and reptile research team noticed something unexpected on the leaves of tree saplings and moss-covered boulders: nests of frog eggs.

Frogs are amphibians, and they lay eggs that are encapsulated by jelly, rather than a hard, protective shell. To keep their eggs from drying out, most amphibians lay their eggs in water. To the research team’s surprise, they kept spotting the terrestrial egg masses on leaves and mossy boulders several feet above the ground. Shortly after, they began to see the small, brown frogs themselves.

“Normally when we’re looking for frogs, we’re scanning the margins of stream banks or wading through streams to spot them directly in the water,” Frederick says. “After repeatedly monitoring the nests though, the team started to find attending frogs sitting on leaves hugging their little nests.” This close contact with their eggs allows the frog parents to coat the eggs with compounds that keep them moist and free from bacterial and fungal contamination.

Closer examination of the amphibian parents revealed not only that they were tiny members of the fanged frog family, complete with barely-visible fangs, but that the frogs caring for the clutches of eggs were all male. “Male egg guarding behavior isn’t totally unknown across all frogs, but it’s rather uncommon,” says Frederick.

Frederick and his colleagues hypothesize that the frogs’ unusual reproductive behaviors might also relate to their smaller-than-usual fangs. Some of the frogs’ relatives have bigger fangs, which help them ward off competition for spots along the river to lay their eggs in the water. Since these frogs evolved a way to lay their eggs away from the water, they may have lost the need for such big imposing fangs. (The scientific name for the new species is Limnonectes phyllofolia; phyllofolia means “leaf-nester.”)

“It’s fascinating that on every subsequent expedition to Sulawesi, we’re still discovering new and diverse reproductive modes,” says Frederick. “Our findings also underscore the importance of conserving these very special tropical habitats. Most of the animals that live in places like Sulawesi are quite unique, and habitat destruction is an ever-looming conservation issue for preserving the hyper-diversity of species we find there. Learning about animals like these frogs that are found nowhere else on Earth helps make the case for protecting these valuable ecosystems.”

By Tenzin Pema

Cultivate a life of virtue that will benefit others. 

This is the message that the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, told over 2,000 leaders and monks representing 30 countries and from various Buddhist traditions who gathered this week for a conference in northern India. 

The 14th Dalai Lama, 88, inaugurated the four-day International Sangha Forum in Bodh Gaya, in northern India, where Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment, to boost collaboration and dialogue among the practitioners of different Buddhist traditions and to deliberate on the role of Buddhism in the 21st century. 

“Whether you believe in religion or not, what is important for us to do is to avoid doing bad actions or accumulating bad karmas because bad karmas not only harm others but also are a cause of ruin to oneself,” he told monks, nuns and scholars. “Therefore, as much as possible, it is critical to cultivate a wealth of virtue.” 

“Being of benefit to others with a good heart and doing your best to remove their sufferings, that is the most important teaching of the Buddha,” he said as he sat in the middle of a large stage flanked by more than 30 other Buddhist leaders. 

The conference comes on the heels of increased efforts by China to strengthen ties with neighboring Buddhist countries such as Nepal and Bhutan to gain their leaders’ support for determining the current Dalai Lama’s successor. 

China, however, is the only Buddhist country that failed to send a representative to the conference despite the government’s accelerated efforts to leverage Buddhism as a soft power tool to advance its political ambitions in the international arena. 

China, which annexed Tibet in 1951, rules the western autonomous region with a heavy hand and says only Beijing can select the next spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, as stated in Chinese law. 

Tibetans, however, believe the Dalai Lama chooses the body into which he will be reincarnated, a process that has occurred 13 times since 1391, when the first Dalai Lama was born. 

Disciplining one’s mind

Presiding over the three-day conference that began on Wednesday, the Dalai Lama underscored the importance of disciplining one’s mind and developing bodhichitta, or an altruistic attitude, to lead a meaningful life and to benefit others.

“If you wish to help others, you need to discipline your own mind,” he said. 

The Dalai Lama went on to say that cultivating altruism lies at the heart of both the Pali and Sanskrit Buddhist traditions. 

The Pali canon is the body of scriptures central to the Theravada school of Buddhism practiced in India, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Indonesia. 

The Sanskrit canon is the body of scriptures central to Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Mongolia and other countries.

The Dalai Lama told attendees that bodhichitta and the wisdom understanding of emptiness are the core of his daily Buddhist practice from the moment he wakes up. 

“This way I gather merit and purify mental defilement,” he said during his speech. “I continuously make a prayer to be of service to others as long as space endures. Being of benefit to others is the way to lead a meaningful life.”

Bridging traditions

The forum’s theme of bridging traditions and embracing modernity aims to strengthen harmony among the different Buddhist traditions “so that we can learn from one another, enriching our practice and the philosophy that we are encouraged to study,” said Ven. Mahayano Aun from Thailand who moderated the conference.  

“This is even more crucial in our 21st century where we are more connected than ever before,” he said.

Pema Khandu, chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh state in northeastern India, told the attendees that he was grateful for forums such as this that fulfill the Dalai Lama’s vision of bringing the Pali and Sanskrit traditions together. 

“And I’m happy to be able to take part in this sharing of knowledge and wisdom,” he said. “We try not only to cultivate the Buddha’s teachings within ourselves, but also attempt to make them the basis of policy.”

Since the Dalai Lama’s arrival in Bodh Gaya last week, devotees from India, Bhutan, Nepal and other countries have inundated the town, considered one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites, in hopes of glimpsing or receiving blessings from the Dalai Lama. 

Migmar, a 93-year-old Tibetan Army veteran who traveled more than 950 kilometers (600 miles) from his home in Bhutan, said he “made it a point to travel to receive His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s blessings.”

“I always pray for His Holiness’s long life and for the quick resolution of the Tibetan issue,” he said, referring to Beijing’s repressive rule over the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan-populated areas of China, which Tibetans have deemed to be an illegal occupation for over 60 years.

The Tibetan Army, in existence from 1913 to 1959, was established by the 13th Dalai Lama  after he declared the independence of Tibet in 1912, but later dissolved by the Chinese government following the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising.

On Thursday and Friday, international Buddhist leaders will focus on Buddhist practices and studies that are common across traditions and discuss how Buddha’s teachings can be adapted to meet the ever-changing needs of people while ensuring their authenticity is maintained. 

The gathering ends Saturday with a post-conference prayer session for world peace at Maha Bodhi Temple, one of the four holy sites related to the life of the Lord Buddha and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Menendez wants ‘unprecedented’ trial pushed after feds turn over trove of evidence  NJ.com

The Holy Martyrs family of schools — Ferrahian High School, Cabayan Elementary School, and Pilavjian Preschool — continues its unprecedented growth and expansion with plans to acquire a 1.7-acre parcel adjacent to the North Hills campus.

With the blessing and support of Western Prelate Bishop Torkom Donoyan, as well as the Prelacy’s Executive Council and Board of Regents, the Holy Martyrs School Board has filed the necessary paperwork to open escrow on the large property abutting the entire western boundary of the existing campus.

“This undertaking comes at a critical point for our schools, with enrollment at an all-time high and with the overwhelming desire of the community at-large to be part of this dynamic and proudly Armenian academic environment,” said a statement from the Holy Martyrs Ferrahian, Cabayan and Pilavjian School Board.

The expansion of the North Hills property will facilitate the construction of new preschool and elementary school classrooms, parking lots, athletic fields, and other upgrades. These improvements will put into greater focus the schools’ vision to provide a singular and state-of-the-art home where our children will continue to learn, laugh, and excel. Indeed, this anticipated acquisition comes during the final permitting stages of a comprehensive remodeling and new construction plan for the North Hills campus.

The groundbreaking phase of that plan is poised to commence in the near future, as final building permits are issued.

Of course, this momentous development comes on the heels of the Encino campus’ recent expansion. In 2022, the school acquired the adjacent three-acre property on White Oak Avenue, effectively doubling its footprint and providing much-needed classrooms, parking, a second gymnasium and other facilities.

“Today, Ferrahian is proud to have more than 530 students who, like their 600 younger brothers and sisters at the North Hills campus, are afforded the opportunity to thrive academically, athletically, and socially in a uniquely nurturing and secure Armenian setting,” the school Board statement added.

“The future is bright for the Holy Martyrs family of schools, now approaching its 60th year of unparalleled service to our community. As the first Armenian day school in the United States, we have every intention to continue to lead the way for the next 60 years and beyond. The recent expansion efforts will ensure that this will be the case,” the statement said.

Armenia’s Pashinyan, Iran’s Raisi discuss 3+3 regional platform  Xalqqazeti.az

Chief of Staff Arayik Harutyunyan, Ambassador Sobhani discuss Armenia-Iran bilateral agenda  ARMENPRESS

Iran, India Promote New Trade Route Through Armenia  Ազատություն Ռադիոկայան