Daily Archives: February 22, 2021

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars Thursday, and the journey of hundreds of millions of miles through space and the mission ahead is in part thanks to the work of a William & Mary professor and his students.

Joel Levine is a research professor in applied science at William & Mary, as well as a consultant for the NASA Engineering and Safety Center at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton.

Levine spent 41 years working full-time for NASA and has a long history of being involved with the Mars missions and space exploration, enlisting the help of William & Mary students along the way.

Before Perseverance landed on the surface of Mars Thursday afternoon, Levine admitted earlier he would be watching nervously.

"I know what has to happen precisely at the same time, at the correct time, and the order, and it's very nerve-wracking," he said.

"The supersonic parachute that will open up, a 70-foot parachute, will slow down the spacecraft that comes into Mars at about 12,000 miles per hour. In seven minutes, it has to land. It lands between one and two miles an hour," Levine explained in an interview Thursday morning with News 3 anchor Todd Corillo.

"That seven minutes is called 'seven minutes of terror' because the spacecraft has to go from 12,000 miles an hour down to one or two miles an hour. There are probably well over a thousand things that have to work at the precise time within a fraction of a second to be successful. It is a unique procedure, and the United States is the only country in the world that successfully soft-landed on the surface of Mars," he continued.

More than just understanding what is going on during the mission, Levine played an important role in selecting what's landing on Mars with Perseverance.

"In 2014, I was asked to serve on the committee that selected the instruments that will land on Mars later today. There were probably over 50 experiments and instruments, and we had to pick the top 12 or 13."

Levine says the instruments on Perseverance will help to answer one of the most vexing questions humans have asked: Are we alone?

"The instruments will tell us whether there is any evidence for life on Mars, in the past or in the present," Levine said. "We're very interested to know whether life is widespread in the solar system in the galaxy and beyond, and this mission today will provide a lot of information to tell us about the likelihood of life presently or in the past on Mars."

Throughout the years, Levine has made it a point to include William & Mary students in his research.

In 2017, NASA asked Levine to organize a workshop on Martian dust and how it might impact robotic and human exploration. Several William & Mary students took part in the workshop at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

For years, students in the William and Mary planetary geology course have also been investigating possible landing sites for the first human mission to Mars.

"They spend almost half the term doing a geological analysis of the terrain and and where they should travel, what they should do and so on."

A year ago, Levine worked on another NASA workshop entitled "Lunar Dust and Its Impact on Human Exploration."

The proceedings book from that workshop was recently published and examines what has been learned about lunar dust, the impact on human health and how to reduce effects for future human exploration.

The work is crucial for the return of manned missions to the moon, planned for 2024.

At a conference on the subject in February 2020 at the Johnson Space Center, a number of William & Mary students participated and presented papers.

"What we're trying to do at William & Mary is to get students, both undergraduate and graduate, that have an interest in planetary exploration and NASA and give them an opportunity to do independent research...and to get involved in a meaningful way with the U.S. space program."

Levine has also been involved in the 2012 Curiosity rover mission as well as the 2014 Mars Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) Mars orbiter.

Now that he can add Perseverance landing on Mars to the list, Levine is hopeful.

"I'm very optimistic that we'll be celebrating later this afternoon," he said before the landing, adding, "I think that when we land on Mars, we're going to learn about Mars, but I think we're also preparing for the security and the future of the United States of America."

Watch Todd Corillo's full interview with Professor Joel Levine in the video player above.

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William & Mary professor continues streak of helping with Mars exploration - wtkr.com

Lifeforms from Earth could temporarily survive a Mars-like atmosphere, according to a new Nasa study, which will help scientists to further understand the possibility of exploiting environments beyond our own planet.

The joint study by Nasa and German Aerospace Centre (DLR) scientists tested the endurance of microorganisms after launching them into conditions similar to the Red Planet through balloons that floated up to high altitudes, finding that at least some of them survived the journey.

"We successfully tested a new way of exposing bacteria and fungi to Mars-like conditions by using a scientific balloon to fly our experimental equipment up to Earths stratosphere," said DLRs Marta Filipa Corteso, joint-lead author of the study.

Published in Frontiers in Microbiology, the study picked microorganisms associated with life on Earth and launched them into the stratosphere in order to create conditions closest to those on Mars and almost impossible to recreate on Earth itself.

"With crewed long-term missions to Mars, we need to know how human-associated microorganisms would survive on the Red Planet, as some may pose a health risk to astronauts," says joint first author Katharina Siems, also based at the German Aerospace Centre.

"In addition, some microbes could be invaluable for space exploration. They could help us produce food and material supplies independently from Earth, which will be crucial when far away from home," she said.

The microbes were launched inside MARSBOx (Microbes in Atmosphere for Radiation, Survival and Biological Outcomes experiment) which was maintained at a pressure equivalent to the atmosphere of Mars and filled with an artificial atmosphere throughout the mission.

"The box carried two sample layers, with the bottom layer shielded from radiation, explained Ms Corteso. This allowed us to separate the effects of radiation from the other tested conditions: desiccation, atmosphere, and temperature fluctuation during the flight.

The top layer samples were exposed to more than a thousand times more UV radiation than levels that can cause sunburn on our skin," she said.

The study found that while not all the microbes survived the trip, the black mould Aspergillus niger could be revived after it was brought back. The same mould has previously been detected on the International Space Station.

The research emphasises the importance of microbes in exploring possibilities for life and human survival outside our planet.

It also comes just after the arrival of Nasas Mars rover Perseverance on the surface of the Red Planet, a landmark in a mission that is considered one of the most ambitious ever attempted by the US space agency.

The rest is here:

Life from Earth could survive on Mars, finds Nasa study - The Independent

Grand Valley State University, in collaboration with the Grand Rapids Public Museum (GRPM), successfully held its fifth annual Roger That! conference. Called Roger That! V, GVSU noted that the V is not only meant to represent the Roman numeral for the number five, but that this year, The V is for Virtual.

Held on Feb. 19 and 20, the Roger That! conference is meant to celebrate the life of Grand Rapids native, Roger B. Chaffee, and his love for space exploration.

Chaffee was a former American naval officer and aviator aeronautical engineer, as well as a NASA astronaut in the Apollo program. He died in 1967 during an Apollo I pre-flight test when a fire broke out in the cockpit.

Although the conference began in 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of Chaffees death, Deana Weibel, event co-organizer and GVSU professor of anthropology, said the conference has become more of a way to celebrate his birthday (Feb. 15) than to commemorate his tragic death.

This year GVSU and the GRPM offered a multitude of speakers and events as well as some educational opportunities for K-12 students.

Weibel said the event being held virtually this year was actually a huge advantage, and that it expanded the opportunities of the conference by a great deal.

Typically we would bring in one or two keynote speakers, usually an astronaut as one of them, often a scientist or artist as the other, Weibel said. This year, we werent limited by the costs of transporting guests, so we reached out to friends and acquaintances in the space world for suggestions and ended up with quite a fascinating lineup.

Some of the most distant presenters this year were Katarina Damjanov and David Crouch from Australia, and Brother Bob Macke from Vatican City (a section of it in an Italian town called Castel Gandolfo).

GVSU also decided that since Roger That! was virtual this year, they should invite some masters of the virtual. So, they brought in a very special panel of special effects and space artists.

The line-up included Vincent Di Fate, Ron Miller, Robert Skotak and Rick Sternbach, luminaries whose numerous achievements include Oscars and Emmys for visual effects and Hugo awards for imagery.

Another guest speaker, Margaret Weitekamp, the Curator and Department Chair of the Department of Space History at the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum, presented on the ways that space-loving communities have been connecting with each other even when they cant be together in person for years on end.

Weitekamp said she hoped that following her presentation, people would be able to look at how they connect with others in a new way.

I hope they think a little bit differently about the ways they connect with people and how creative people can be in finding communities, Weitekamp said. Its an important message for people to hear when being polarized and thrown into our own houses. Its nice to remember that for a very long time people have been finding like-minded folks with core interests, and it gives us additional ways to think of how we connect now.

Aside from the virtual panels GVSU offered, the GRPM also offered their own virtual and in-person events.

GRPM held a special virtual Organ Concert accompanied by the 1925 sci-fi German silent film, Our Heavenly Bodies, as well as a webinar by Brent Bos, a West Michigan native and senior research physicist at the NASA Goddard Flight Center.

As for in-person activities, GRPM held showings of the new planetarium show, Incoming! exploring asteroids, comets and meteors at their Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium. A live show created by the GRPM also accompanied Incoming! in partnership with Bos.

On top of all of this, the GRPM and Bos created a set of new interactive experiences outside of the Chaffee Planetarium including a lunar crater station, meteors under a microscope, and a meteor pinball machine.

The Planetarium lobby also featured an exhibit with Roger B. Chaffee artifacts.

Christie Bender, GRPM Director of Marketing and Customer Service, said the conference and exhibit are special because of everything they encompass.

Combined with telling the story of Chaffee, this shows that kids today in West Michigan can also grow up and fulfill their dreams of becoming astronauts and more, Bender said. This event brings other professionals to the community to speak to this, as well as about space discoveries and the ever-growing knowledge base about our universe. Its fantastic to see all ages get energized around space and continue the legacy of Roger Chaffee.

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GV, GRPM gather voices from around globe to participate in Roger That! virtual conference - Grand Valley Lanthorn

Astra, the company trying to make low Earth orbital missions more affordable, has been garnering quite a lot of attention lately as it gears up to go public by merging with the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) Holicity Inc. (NASDAQ:HOL).

The market currently has a healthy appetite for space-based startups such as Astra. As an illustration of this phenomenon, Cathie Woods ARK Invest is about to launch a dedicated Space Exploration ETF, dubbed the ARKX. In a recent filing, ARK Invest described the objective of the ETF:

Xos Trucks Is Going Public by Merging With the SPAC NextGen Acquisition Corp. (NGAC) in Q2 2021

The Adviser believes that Space Exploration Companies can be grouped into four overarching categories, each of which contains relevant sub-elements. Orbital Aerospace Companies are companies that launch, make, service, or operate platforms in the orbital space, including satellites and launch vehicles. Suborbital Aerospace Companies are companies that launch, make, service, or operate platforms in the suborbital space, including drones, air taxis and electric aviation vehicles. Enabling Technologies Companies are companies that create the technologies required for successful value-add aerospace operations, including artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, materials and energy storage. Aerospace Beneficiary Companies are companies that stand to benefit from aerospace activities, including agriculture, internet access, global positioning system (GPS), construction and imaging.

As is evident from the description above, Astra fits the investment objectives of the ARKX ETF. As one of the biggest asset management firms on the planet, with an AUM of over $50 billion, the components of ARKX are likely to see significant inflows. It is perhaps due to this realization that Holicity shares have been surging lately, with the stock registering a nearly 10 percent increase just yesterday.

Source

As a refresher, Astra and Holicity are expected to merge in Q2 2021, with the deal valuing Astra at $2.1 billion. The transaction would furnish the combined company with $500 million in cash, including $200 million in PIPE investments. For those unfamiliar with Astras business model, the company has already demonstrated orbital capability. The company currently has over 50 launches in its backlog, representing over $150 million in contracted revenue. Astra aims to make low Earth orbital missions more affordable by hyperscaling launches, eventually aiming to provide daily, low-cost access to the orbit. The companys rockets are designed for mass production, featuring an all-metal (Aluminum) construction. Astras entire launch system can fit inside 4 standard shipping containers and require only 6 employees at the launch site.

Astra expects to earn $67 million in revenue in 2022. By 2025, the company expects to rake in over $1.5 billion. Moreover, the company expects to become EBITDA positive by 2024.

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Astra Likely To Be of the Biggest Beneficiaries of Cathie Woods ARK Space Exploration ETF (ARKX) as the Orbital Launch Company Plans To Go Public by...

Photo: Gay Young

Students at Kumeyaay Elementary in San Diego built 3-D models of a Mars colony, which their teacher later collected and combined to create a Mars city.

Students at Kumeyaay Elementary in San Diego built 3-D models of a Mars colony, which their teacher later collected and combined to create a Mars city.

Science teacher Gay Young has followed just about every space expedition in recent memory. This week, shes taking her elementary students on the journey with her, as NASAs Perseverance rover touched down on Mars after a seven-month flight from Earth.

California teachers have struggled with creating engaging, hands-on learning activities for students during distance learning when supplies and safe laboratory environments are scarce. But this week, students around the state gathered virtually to watch as real rocket scientists attempted to land NASAs latest Red Planet rover.

I like to tie whats happening in the news to my lessons, and we needed something positive that can give our students hope. Kids love space, and I told them You might be the first generation to send humans to Mars! said Young, who teaches science for all grades at Kumeyaay Elementary in San Diego County.

On Thursday, thousands of California students watched live as the SUV-sized rover landed on the surface of Mars with a mission to help scientists identify signs of past microbial life on Mars, collect rock samples and pave the way for future human exploration.

For Young, lessons around the rover, named Perseverance, launched back in August. Over the course of the school year, her students have learned about Earth science and climate change by making a greenhouse and coming up with ways to grow food on Mars. Other lessons included magnetic fields, force and even the emotional hurdle of being alone in space.

As part of the months-long build-up to the landing, Young also had her students build a Mars colony using household products like toilet paper rolls, cereal boxes and other scrap materials. Because students are still in remote learning, she collected their models and combined them all at the school site to share with students the space city they had designed.

Students watch live as NASA scientists shares updates and details about the Perseverance rover landing.

I was playing with my Silly Putty because I was so nervous, but Im happy that it landed, said Youngs student, Alexa Harrison, who added that the most exciting part for her was learning about the GPS technology the rover needs to land in the right spot. I would want to work at NASA to study the rock and dirt they bring back.

Across California, teachers are bringing this weeks space exploration to the classroom and aligning lessons with the states science standards. In 2013, California adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, which require more hands-on lessons that are centered around real-life scientific experiences that students may encounter in their lives and communities.

But many teachers have struggled with implementing the new standards, either due to lack of updated textbooks or now the physical constraints of online learning, which limit opportunities for hands-on experiments and field trips.

Science teaching experts at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory created a five-week curriculum called Mission to Mars Student Challenge that is aligned with the state standards in engineering, Earth science and other topics to cut down on teacher prep work. Nearly 163,000 California students signed up to follow along with the weekly updates and lessons, which had students creating their own rover designs, testing models and learning what it takes to travel in space.

Guadalupe De La O, a high school teacher at Alliance Renee & Meyer Luskin Academy High School in Los Angeles, is hoping the landing inspires some of her students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math, collectively known as STEM.

We talk a lot about how this work involves a lot of testing and revision, which requires patience and persistence to problem-solve, said De La O, who teaches STEM. One of the most challenging activities is they had to code a rover that would maneuver on Mars. For a lot of my students, this was their first time coding. But every time they had a little success they would want to try more and more.

Diving deep into the space mission also provided students with an uplifting current event to focus on as many continue to face trauma brought on by the pandemic.

This is an experience for everybody, De La O said. My students are mostly Black and Latino and their community in South Central is being really hit hard right now by the pandemic. So it was really important for me to get them involved, so they know that they can pursue this if they want, and give us a little hope this year.

In San Francisco, astronomy students at Galileo Academy of Science and Technology spent a month designing the ins and outs of their own Mars rover mission last semester and on Thursday watched the live stream together as a class.

We watched it happen in real-time, which was a nice break from what we usually do, said Emily Stollmeyer, an astronomy and physics teacher at Galileo, who added that many of her students are struggling with distance learning during the pandemic. Anything exciting is really awesome and needed right now.

Fifth-grade teacher Kimberly Franklin created a virtual escape room where students gather evidence and clues about a Mars mission.

Kimberly Franklin, a 5th-grade teacher at Bell Gardens Elementary School in Montebello Unified, created a virtual escape room that guides students through a series of questions and problems related to the Mars expedition they must research online in order to unlock new clues and successfully reach the end of the challenge.

While individual teachers like Franklin have made it a personal mission to bring space to their classroom, other schools have crafted interdisciplinary lessons around the Mars landing. At Mulholland Middle School in Lake Balboa near Los Angeles, seventh-grade teachers across subjects teamed up to create lessons through the lens of the Mars expedition.

In history, students learned about rockets and how the first people to come up with a multi-stage rocket were in China. In English, students had to write an argumentative essay about the cost-effectiveness of space travel. Students learn about force and gravity in their science classes as well as the geology of both Earth and Mars. Calculations and word problems in a math class then tie together the space-themed lessons.

Were studying Mars this week, and next week well examine rock samples from our science kits. Ill use my desk camera, so they can view it up close, said Laura Silverman, a teacher at Mulholland who is known around campus for having a mural of a Mars rover in her classroom.

Now that the landing has been successful, students are looking forward to what other space exploration might come next. Im really happy that the Mars rover landed, said Charles Bandy, a student in Youngs class. That makes history!

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California students watch and learn through hands-on projects as Mars rover lands - EdSource

This week in Washington IP news, both the Senate and the House of Representatives get back into their schedule of committee hearings with the Biden Administration starting to take shape in D.C. The Senate Committee on Armed Services gets the week in IP and tech hearings underway with a look at emerging technologies with military applications and their impacts on U.S. national security. On Thursday, the House Science Committee explores decisions lawmakers can take to rebuild U.S. research networks affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and on Friday morning the House Homeland Security and Oversight Committees explore the role that private tech firms and actors played in the federal governments data security breach that leveraged network vulnerabilities at SolarWinds. Elsewhere, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation explores the possible ramifications of Section 230 reforms while the American Enterprise Institute will look at the intersection of public space exploration programs and private space commercialization enterprises.

Senate Committee on Armed Services

Emerging Technologies and Their Impact on National Security

At 9:30 AM on Tuesday in SD-106 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Military rivalry among major foreign powers often spurs technological advancement and many emerging technologies that have yet to fully mature, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing, have major national security implications as nations on the leading edge of these systems will have a great advantage in battlefield scenarios. With the recent election cycle over and President Biden inaugurated in the White House, many pundits have focused on how the new administration can address military threats posed by technologically-advanced foreign rivals through the National Defense Strategy or the National Security Council. The witness panel for this hearing will include Dr. Eric E. Schmidt, Co-Founder, Schmidt Futures; Brad L. Smith, President, Microsoft Corporation; and Gen. Herbert J. Carlisle (Ret.), President and CEO, National Defense Industrial Association.

House Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems

Innovation Opportunities and Vision for the Science and Technology Enterprise

At 11:00 AM on Tuesday in 2118 Rayburn House Office Building.

The early days of the Biden Administration has included some Executive Branch action on elevating the role of technological innovation and scientific inquiry in the political process, including an executive order issued one week after the inauguration establishing an advisory council to the President on science, technology and innovation. This hearing, which will focus on the current innovation landscape for defense technologies and tech investment opportunities for the U.S. Department of Defense, features a witness panel including the Honorable Christine Fox, Former Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense, Assistant Director for Policy and Analysis, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory; Dr. Victoria Coleman, Former DARPA Director, Senior Advisor to the Director, CITRIS, UC Berkeley; and Klon Kitchen, Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Learn Online How Examiners Approach Petitions Practice

At 1:00 PM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

Petitions practice at the USPTO can be a crucial tool for overcoming office rejections or abandonment issues. This training webinar offered by the agency introduces patent applicants to the activities of the USPTOs Office of Petitions as well as recent updates to petitions practices, petitions that are most commonly filed by patent applicants as well as best practices in petition filing.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Trademark Basics Boot Camp, Module 4: Application Filing Walk-Through

At 2:00 PM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

This is the fourth module in the USPTOs eight-part Trademark Basics Boot Camp designed for teaching small businesses and entrepreneurs about introductory topics in trademark applications and registration. This module focuses on the agencys Trademark Electronic Application System (TEAS) including TEAS basics, pre-filing checklist for applicants and a live demonstration of a trademark filing using TEAS.

American Enterprise Institute

To the Moon, Mars, and Beyond: Space Exploration and Public Policy

At 2:00 PM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

Although many critics of space program funding feel that space exploration doesnt provide enough concrete benefits here on earth, the history of scientific research supporting human life outside of Planet Earth has led to many advancements in everyday consumer products including coffee makers, baby formula and hair curlers. In recent years, private firms have been commercializing space technologies and that activity has renewed interest among lawmakers to spur action in public programs. This event will feature a discussion with a panel including Tim Fernholz, Senior Reporter, Quartz; Sara Seager, Professor of Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Stan Veuger, Resident Scholar, AEI; Matthew C. Weinzierl, Joseph and Jacqueline Ebling Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School; and moderated by James Pethokoukis, DeWitt Wallace Fellow, AEI.

House Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems

Near-Peer Advancements in Space and Nuclear Weapons

At 3:00 PM on Tuesday in 2118 Rayburn.

Both Russia and China are at the top of the list when it comes to foreign economic and military rivals to the United States and policymakers have grown increasingly worried in recent months about deepening strategic ties between those two nations and the prospects that their partnership could threaten American dominance in space and nuclear weapons. Russia and China have been engaging in joint military exercises and this has put pressure on military officials to develop strategic responses. The witness panel for this hearing will include Gen. Robert Kehler (Ret.), Affiliate, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University; Madelyn Creedon, Nonresident Fellow, The Brookings Institution; Todd Harrison, Director, Aerospace Security Project, Center for Strategic & International Studies; and Tim Morrison, Senior Fellow, The Hudson Institute.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Noche de Ciencias 2021

At 5:30 PM on Tuesday, online video webinar.

Hosted in partnership with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Noche de Ciencias is a national program designed to introduce K-12 students to various career fields in science and engineering through hands-on activities designed to teach concepts behind innovation and intellectual property. This event, which will also take place on Thursday evening at 5:30 PM, is presented in collaboration with SHPE and Alexandria City Public Schools.

Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Building Back Better: Investing in Transportation While Addressing Climate Change, Improving Equity, and Fostering Economic Growth and Innovation

At 10:15 AM on Wednesday in G-50 Dirksen.

The transportation sector is a major contributor of carbon-based emissions into the environment and statistics released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that transportation contributes 28 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the largest percentage contribution from any industrial sector. Further, GHG emissions in the transportation sector increased more in absolute terms between 1990 and 2018 than any other sector. Electric vehicles and alternative fuels hold great promise for the future and many lawmakers are focused on supporting the advancement of those technologies to address climate change. The witness panel for this hearing has yet to be announced.

New America

Ranking Digital Rights Launches the 2020 RDR Corporate Accountability Index

At 11:00 AM on Wednesday, online video webinar.

Public advocacy groups have been increasing their calls for holding large corporations accountable for the data collection and privacy practices and the annual Corporate Accountability Index produced by Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) provides a snapshot of how well Big Tech companies are doing at protecting consumers. This year, New America hosts the release event for the 2020 RDR Corporate Accountability Index, which will include discussion of how policymakers, advocates and corporate shareholders can cooperate on issues of fundamental consumer rights in the Internet Age. Speakers at this event will include Rebecca MacKinnon, Founding Director, Ranking Digital Rights; Jessica Dheere, Director, Ranking Digital Rights; Nabiha Syed, President, The Markup; Marta Tellado, President and CEO, Consumer Reports; and Marina Madale, General Manager, Sustainability and Shared Value, MTN.

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

Building Back the U.S. Research Enterprise: COVID Impacts and Recovery

At 10:00 AM on Thursday, online video webinar.

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed great strain on all aspects of the global economy, including basic scientific research activities that underpin much of the technological advancement benefitting society and the economy. While governmental funding helped to stabilize many research activities during the pandemics early stages, disruptions to travel- and group-related research activities have raised concerns about the resiliency of research institutions as the world hopes for a return to post-COVID normalcy in 2021. The witness panel for this hearing will include Dr. Sudip Parikh, CEO, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Dr. Christopher Keane, Vice President for Research, Washington State University; Dr. Felice J. Levine, Executive Director, American Educational Research Association; and Thomas Quaadman, Executive Vice President, Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

If Congress Overhauls Section 230 to Make Platforms More Liable for User Speech, What Will Change?

At 12:00 PM on Thursday, online video webinar.

Attempts to overhaul Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which limits the legal liability faced by online platform providers for user content posted by third parties, have been supported by both sides of the political aisle. Proponents of maintaining Section 230 as is point to the incredible economic development enabled by reducing liability for companies providing Internet-based services, while critics seeking reform note that Internet technologies and their impact on society have changed greatly in the 25 years since the statute was passed into law. This event, which will discuss issues of intermediary liability, free speech and content moderation, will feature a discussion with a panel including Matthew Feeney, Director, Project on Emerging Technologies, Cato Institute; Emma Llans, Director, Free Expression Project, Center for Democracy & Technology; Matt Perault, Director, Center on Science & Technology Policy, Duke University; and moderated by Ashley Johnson, Policy Analyst, ITIF.

House Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies

Strategies for Energy and Climate Innovation

At 2:00 PM on Thursday, online video webinar.

The early days of the Biden Administration have set a much different tone on climate change compared to related policy under former President Trump. One of President Bidens first actions after his inauguration was signing an executive order that effected the United States rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change. The U.S. Department of Energy has also recently announced that it would issue $100 million in funding for innovative clean energy projects through the departments Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program. The witness panel for this hearing will include Dr. Colin Cunliff, Senior Policy Analyst, Information Technology & Innovation Foundation; Robin Millican, Director, Breakthrough Energy; Dr. Shobita Parthasarathy, Professor of Public Policy and Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program, University of Michigan; and Rich Powell, Executive Director, ClearPath.

House Committee on Oversight and Reform

House Committee on Homeland Security

Weathering the Storm: The Role of Private Tech in the SolarWinds Breach and Ongoing Campaign

At 9:00 AM on Friday, online video webinar.

In December, news reports broke the story that the U.S. federal government had been the target of a massive and ongoing data breach that was able to take root in part because of cybersecurity vulnerabilities at SolarWinds, a Texas firm that supplies the federal government with network monitoring equipment. Last week, Microsoft President Brad Smith said that the data breach, backed by foreign government actors and impacting Microsoft along with other private tech firms, was the largest and most sophisticated cyber attack that the world has ever seen. The witness panel for this hearing has yet to be announced.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

The Path to a Patent, Part VI: Learn How to Protect Your IP Abroad

At 1:00 PM ET on Friday, online video webinar.

This seminar, hosted by the USPTOs International Patent Legal Administration, is designed to teach patent owners and applicants about the benefits of international patent filings through either the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) or Paris Convention filing systems used in non-PCT countries. This seminar will discuss the basics of both systems as well as considerations and options for patent applicants interested in exploring foreign filing.

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This Week in Washington IP: Rebuilding US Research Enterprises Post-COVID, Climate Change Innovation Strategies and Examining the SolarWinds Data...