NAIROBI, Kenya--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 7, 2023--

While the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness program last month, a separate and significant change to the federal student loan system is moving ahead.

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A new technique is a dramatic breakthrough in the search for alien life, astronomers say. Researchers at the Breakthrough Listen project based at the University of California, Berkeley say they have developed a new way to be sure that any potential signal is really coming from space – and not from something more boring. Astronomers spend vast amounts of time looking for radio signals that might have come from alien civilisations as part of work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. But they have in the past been fooled by very human technology, such as cellphones, microwaves and car engines, that can produce a blast of radio signals that look as if they have come from distant worlds. One way to check whether signals are really alien is to point the telescope elsewhere and then repeatedly return to the same spot, with the hope of seeing the signal again and ensuring that it is not a false alarm. But that is not foolproof – and only works if the signal sticks around. Some of the most promising radio signals might only be detectable once. The so-called “Wow!” signal, for instance – a radio signal detected in 1977 that was so shocking the astronomer who found it wrote the exclamation on a printout – has not been detected since, and astronomers still do not know whether it was an alien message or just a mistake. Now scientists have devised a new test that can be used to see whether a signal has really passed through interstellar space, which should help show that it is not from elsewhere on Earth. It works by looking for “scintillation” – the changes in amplitude of a signal as it is affected by the cold plasma of space. “The first ET detection may very well be a one-off, where we only see one signal. And if a signal doesn’t repeat, there’s not a lot that we can say about that. And obviously, the most likely explanation for it is radio frequency interference, as is the most likely explanation for the Wow! signal,” said Andrew Siemion, principal investigator for Breakthrough Listen and director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, which operates the world’s longest running SETI program. “Having this new technique and the instrumentation capable of recording data at sufficient fidelity such that you could see the effect of the interstellar medium, or ISM, is incredibly powerful.” Dr Siemion called the breakthrough “one of the biggest advances in radio SETI in a long time” and said that it would be the first time researchers would be able to differentiate a real signal from a false alarm, even if it was only detected once. The technique can only be used for signals that have travelled 10,000 light years or more to Earth, researchers note. If it was closer to us, the scintillation effect cannot be seen because they are not travelling through enough of the interstellar medium, or ISM. The research is described in a new paper, ‘On Detecting Interstellar Scintillation in Narrowband Radio SETI’, published in The Astrophysical Journal. Read More Battery breakthroughs are about to trigger a transport revolution Huge asteroid nearly crashes into Earth – and is only spotted days later ChatGPT rival with ‘no ethical boundaries’ sold on dark web

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Consumer cryptocurrency trading should be regulated as gambling, the treasury committee has urged. In a new report, the committee called for consumer trading in unbacked crypto assets to be treated in regulation as gambling. The cross-party committee of MPs said cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are being used by criminals in scams and money laundering. Unbacked crypto assets – often called cryptocurrencies – are not supported by underlying assets, the committee added. They pose significant risks to consumers, given their price volatility and the risk of losses, according to the MPs, who said retail trading in unbacked crypto more closely resembles gambling than a financial service and should be regulated as such. The report said: “We strongly recommend that the government regulates retail trading and investment activity in unbacked crypto assets as gambling rather than as a financial service, consistent with its stated principle of ‘same risk, same regulatory outcome’.” The committee pointed to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) figures indicating that around 10 per cent of UK adults hold or have held crypto assets. The MPs also said potential productive innovation in financial services should not be unduly constrained. They said technologies underlying crypto assets may bring some benefits to financial services, particularly for cross-border transactions and payments in less developed countries. A balanced approach should be taken to supporting the development of crypto asset technologies, while avoiding spending public resources on projects without a clear, beneficial use, the MPs said. Harriett Baldwin, chair of the treasury committee, said: “The events of 2022 have highlighted the risks posed to consumers by the crypto asset industry, large parts of which remain a wild west. “Effective regulation is clearly needed to protect consumers from harm, as well as to support productive innovation in the UK’s financial services industry. “However, with no intrinsic value, huge price volatility and no discernible social good, consumer trading of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin more closely resembles gambling than a financial service, and should be regulated as such. “By betting on these unbacked ‘tokens’, consumers should be aware that all their money could be lost.” The committee is considering central bank digital currencies as a separate piece of work. A treasury spokesperson said: “Risks posed by crypto are typical of those that exist in traditional financial services and it’s financial services regulation – rather than gambling regulation – that has the track record in mitigating them. “Crypto offers opportunities but we are taking an agile approach to robustly regulating the market, addressing the most pressing risks first in a way that promotes innovation.” Read More Crypto rules get final approval to make Europe a global leader on regulation Is my money safe? What you need to know about bank failures Nearly 80% of APP scam cases start online, says UK Finance Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

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