Daily Archives: March 31, 2022

Dana Wilde: Lives of the stars – Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel

Posted: March 31, 2022 at 2:41 am

So youve signed up for a course in astronomy. Conscious of your responsibilities as a student, and sort of interested in the sky, you read the syllabus. Under Day 4, you spot the phrase The Life Cycle of Stars.

Life cycle? Are stars alive?

Wary of the instructor possibly chortling at such a question, you keep quiet, but vigilant for an answer.

At every turn, the instructor talks as if stars are alive. She speaks of stellar evolution, as if whole species of stars were living up there. She speaks of star birth, which occurs in stellar nurseries where gas and dust twine together, accumulate more gas and dust, and grow to a mass that starts to create heat.

She speaks of the lifetimes of stars, because it turns out most stars mature into certain kinds of stability lasting a few million or billion years, depending on their size. Then in their old age (according to the prof) their bodies go through changes that for some include enormous expansion; these stars are called red giants. The death of some stars occurs in a spectacular explosion called a supernova, and the death of others amounts to a process of burning out and fading away. Sounds familiar.

Other weird things apparently happen to large stars, where they collapse and disappear from sight as black holes and singularities. A black hole is a region of space where a large mass, probably left over from a star explosion, has contracted to a few miles or less in diameter and its gravity is so concentrated that even photons of light cant escape from it. Physics predicts a point, called a singularity, at which the star material has contracted so much that the contracting cant stop the star has shed its natural physical form and seems to disappear into itself. This does not sound very familiar unless you think about it too much, or read Buddhist sutras.

Smaller stars in their old age also shrink, and different metals, such as iron or lead, are about all thats produced during the burnout. In some cases, though, carbon can be supercompressed in the contraction until the interior of the star becomes, essentially, a diamond. It takes billions of years to make a star a diamond.

This was just a theory born from physics equations until some years ago when astronomers found a star, BPM 37093 in the constellation Centaurus, which gives off most of the readings predicted in the equations indicating carbon compression. The core of BPM 37093 apparently is a massive diamond weighing about 10 billion trillion trillion carats. Nayutas of kotis of carats, the sutras might say.

Despite its achievement, however, BPM 37093 will not live forever. It will go the way of all the other dwarf stars before it and all those after it, and fade into the vastness of space.

The instructor stops short of using the word achievement. Somehow that got into your head by itself. Just like people, stars are born, live, and die, and just like stars, people shine, burn out, and disappear. Can a person become so crystalline she is essentially a diamond? (Or lead?)

Not really, right? The astronomy prof is just using metaphors. Stars dont actually have life cycles, right? And human minds cannot, through the stress of prodigious energies, become diamonds. Right?

Dana Wilde lives in Troy. You can contact him at [emailprotected] His book Winter: Notes and Numina from the Maine Woods is available from North Country Press. Backyard Naturalist appears the second and fourth Thursdays each month.

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Here Are The Projects Pushing Cardano’s Price To The Upside – Geeks World Wide

Posted: at 2:41 am

Originally posted here.By: Reynaldo Marquez

Cardano was pushed down in the crypto top 10 by market cap as LUNA and XRP took over its former place. However, ADAs price has been surging in the last month and could reclaim previous highs as the general sentiment turns bullish. Related Reading | Cardano Soars 13% On Rumors Of Burn Mechanism Rollout, Charles Hoskinson Reacts At the time of writing, Cardano (ADA) trades at $1.20 with a 30% rally over this period. This makes ADA the best-performing cryptocurrency by market cap. ADAs price has been recovering from a multi-month downside that saw its price drop from an all-time high at around $3 to under $1 in 2022. There are several factors contributing to the current rally. This includes the full implementation of smart contract capabilities, the increase in developer activity recorded by the network, the improvement of Cardano to make it more decentralized and scalable, according to its main developer IOG. Most importantly, the above factors have translated into an ecosystem explosion. There are hundreds of projects building on Cardano which could be re-fueling the Ethereum Killer narrative. IOG recently highlighted some of these projects. Via their official Twitter handle, the company said: The Cardano ecosystem is growing by leaps and bounds, with new players entering the ecosystem every day. Lets start this week with a recap of the latest news & announcements from projects Building On Cardano and contributing to its growth. Among these projects is Milkomeda. Created as a scalability solution for Cardano, this project is set to integrate the network with Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVM) capabilities. The project was launched on March 28 on Cardano. In the future, this network will be able to integrate with other blockchains, such as Avalanche, and Algorand. IOG also mentioned Ergo, a decentralized exchange that will be deployed in the Cardano testnet on April 4. In addition, this network will see more use cases with the future launch of a converter bridge solution, created by Singularity, and real asset tokenization with the Indigo Protocol. Announcement for Indigo x Cornucopias! Weve officially partnered with @CornucopiasGame to bring Indigo 3D Assets to the Metaverse. It is exciting to work alongside leading #Metaverse projects to offer a unique user experience for the future! Follow @Indigo_protocol pic.twitter.com/yKkGa6TWGM Indigo | Synthetic Assets on Cardano (@Indigo_protocol) March 18, 2022 Cardano Growth Beyond Expectations, Institutions Want More ADA The inventor of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, celebrated the growth of the project. In 2021, Hoskinson predicted a boom in the number of projects building on this network, and the number of assets launched on Cardano. Via Twitter, he posted that there are millions of both surpassing his expectations. In the coming months, this number seems poised to climb as the network prepares for another Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) event. Dubbed Vasil, Hoskinson believes it will trigger another surge in network activity, and potential total value locked (TVL). What most also dont understand is that many Cardano DApps are waiting for the Vasil hardfork in June to launch to benefit from pipelining. So it seems we aint seen nothing yet on TVL https://t.co/mMHxwRrF96 Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) March 12, 2022 Related Reading | Despite Rocky Beginnings with Hoskinson, Cardano Is Shaping Up to Have an Interesting Year Thus, ADAs price could have fuel for the mid to long term to sustain its rally. Data from IntoTheBlock suggest institutional investors might have caught on to this future trend as the number of addresses moving large sum in ADA trend upwards. @Cardano is experiencing increasing institutional demand The volume of on-chain transactions >$100k has increased by 50x just in 2022 Yesterday, a total of 69.09b $ADA were moved in these large transactions, representing 99% of the total on-chain volumehttps://t.co/8ME8STvRSF pic.twitter.com/aqH7hYIPiV IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) March 29, 2022

Cardano was pushed down in the crypto top 10 by market cap as LUNA and XRP took over its former place. However, ADAs price has been surging in the last month and could reclaim previous highs as the general sentiment turns bullish.

Related Reading | Cardano Soars 13% On Rumors Of Burn Mechanism Rollout, Charles Hoskinson Reacts

At the time of writing, Cardano (ADA) trades at $1.20 with a 30% rally over this period. This makes ADA the best-performing cryptocurrency by market cap.

ADA with bullish momemtum on the 4-hour chart. Source: ADAUSDT Tradingview

ADAs price has been recovering from a multi-month downside that saw its price drop from an all-time high at around $3 to under $1 in 2022. There are several factors contributing to the current rally.

This includes the full implementation of smart contract capabilities, the increase in developer activity recorded by the network, the improvement of Cardano to make it more decentralized and scalable, according to its main developer IOG.

Most importantly, the above factors have translated into an ecosystem explosion. There are hundreds of projects building on Cardano which could be re-fueling the Ethereum Killer narrative.

IOG recently highlighted some of these projects. Via their official Twitter handle, the company said:

The Cardano ecosystem is growing by leaps and bounds, with new players entering the ecosystem every day. Lets start this week with a recap of the latest news & announcements from projects Building On Cardano and contributing to its growth.

Among these projects is Milkomeda. Created as a scalability solution for Cardano, this project is set to integrate the network with Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVM) capabilities.

The project was launched on March 28 on Cardano. In the future, this network will be able to integrate with other blockchains, such as Avalanche, and Algorand.

IOG also mentioned Ergo, a decentralized exchange that will be deployed in the Cardano testnet on April 4. In addition, this network will see more use cases with the future launch of a converter bridge solution, created by Singularity, and real asset tokenization with the Indigo Protocol.

Announcement for Indigo x Cornucopias!

Weve officially partnered with @CornucopiasGame to bring Indigo 3D Assets to the Metaverse.

It is exciting to work alongside leading #Metaverse projects to offer a unique user experience for the future!

Follow @Indigo_protocol pic.twitter.com/yKkGa6TWGM

Indigo | Synthetic Assets on Cardano (@Indigo_protocol) March 18, 2022

Cardano Growth Beyond Expectations, Institutions Want More ADA

The inventor of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, celebrated the growth of the project. In 2021, Hoskinson predicted a boom in the number of projects building on this network, and the number of assets launched on Cardano. Via Twitter, he posted that there are millions of both surpassing his expectations.

In the coming months, this number seems poised to climb as the network prepares for another Hard Fork Combinator (HFC) event. Dubbed Vasil, Hoskinson believes it will trigger another surge in network activity, and potential total value locked (TVL).

What most also dont understand is that many Cardano DApps are waiting for the Vasil hardfork in June to launch to benefit from pipelining. So it seems we aint seen nothing yet on TVL https://t.co/mMHxwRrF96

Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) March 12, 2022

Related Reading | Despite Rocky Beginnings with Hoskinson, Cardano Is Shaping Up to Have an Interesting Year

Thus, ADAs price could have fuel for the mid to long term to sustain its rally. Data from IntoTheBlock suggest institutional investors might have caught on to this future trend as the number of addresses moving large sum in ADA trend upwards.

@Cardano is experiencing increasing institutional demand

The volume of on-chain transactions >$100k has increased by 50x just in 2022

Yesterday, a total of 69.09b $ADA were moved in these large transactions, representing 99% of the total on-chain volumehttps://t.co/8ME8STvRSF pic.twitter.com/aqH7hYIPiV

IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) March 29, 2022

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BeSingular to host the mind shift program this summer – Devdiscourse

Posted: at 2:41 am

New Delhi [India], March 30 (ANI/TPT): International Tech Education Company, BeSingular, is organizing a 3 Week Global Residential Summer Program starting from Wednesday, May 23 2022 till June 12, 2022. It is an immersive summer school program where the students build a mindset to evolve, adapt, and learn to solve problems. The program involves a rigorous project-based learning approach, learning to see future technology trends and how they can start making an impact on the planet from an early age. The program's objective is to provide students with exposure to technology, culture, and collaboration and build their confidence to see Global Great Challenges as Global Great Opportunities.

While the first two weeks will be in Mumbai and present its unique offerings, focusing on Sustainability, AR, Entrepreneurship, 3D printing & Robotics, the 3rd week is the program's highlight. Participants will be interacting with premium academic and industry mentors at the University of Dresden, Germany, in the final week of the Global Summer School Program. Some of the notable and renowned speakers at the program include the man himself, Nitesh Jain (Founder & CEO at BeSingular), along with Prof Rajan Nair (International award winner in Communication at Vijay Bhoomi University), Dr Venkatesh Sunkad, Kyle Nel (President at Singularity Labs), Carsten Fuchs (Managing Director at BEAS Technologies), Navyug Mohnot, Prof. Dr Thomas Kohler and many others.

"We are looking forward to having incredible young minds attend our summer school program, to meet our team of experts, navigate through new-age technologies, embrace the shifting mindset, and find their way to their dream universities", said Jain. This is one of a kind experience for children between Classes 9 and 12 to learn techpreneur skills, the concepts of entrepreneurship, critical technology skills and develop a solutioningmindset. The summer school will be a game-changer as it is a combination of education, experience, and exposure, all packed in a delightful program.

Students will also have an opportunity to go on adventurous treks & camping, play tech-enabled games, visit museums and do factory visits in Germany. This story is provided by TPT. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/TPT)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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Humans and the Quantum Experience – Scientific American

Posted: at 2:40 am

Credit: Scientific American Space & Physics, April/May 2022Advertisement

In physics, some hypotheses can take more than a lifetime to confirmas happened in 2019, when researchers saw the first image of a black hole, a cosmological phenomenon whose existence was theorized by Albert Einstein a full century before but never observed directly. Other ideas in physics have endured decades of debate, without resolution or further clarity. In this issue, reporter Davide Castelvecchi profiles the fascinating history of a landmark experiment from 1922 that recorded the quantum spin of an elementary particle, the interpretation of which is still ongoing (see Hundred Years Ago a Quantum Experiment Explained Why We Dont Fall through Our Chairs).

Elsewhere in this issue, columnist John Horgan contemplates what a radical new quantum theory means for our perception of reality (see Does Quantum Mechanics Reveal That Life Is but a Dream?). He writes that quantum researchers share a notable trait with artists who try to turn the chaos of things into a meaningful narrative. I would take his idea further and say that finding sense among lifes challenges is an inherent part of all human experience.

This article was originally published with the title "Humans and the Quantum Experience" in SA Space & Physics 5, 2, (April 2022)

Andrea Gawrylewski is the collections editor at Scientific American.Follow Andrea Gawrylewski on TwitterCredit: Nick Higgins

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A new place for consciousness in our understanding of the universe – New Scientist

Posted: at 2:40 am

To make sense of mysteries like quantum mechanics and the passage of time, theorists are trying to reformulate physics to include subjective experience as a physical constituent of the world

By Thomas Lewton

Pablo Hurtado de Mendoza

A WALK in the woods. Every shade of green. A fleck of rain. The sensations and thoughts bound in every moment of experience feel central to our existence. But physics, which aims to describe the universe and everything in it, says nothing about your inner world. Our descriptions of the wavelengths of light as they reflect off leaves capture something but not what it is like to be deep in the woods.

It can seem as if there is an insurmountable gap between our subjective experience of the world and our attempts to objectively describe it. And yet our brains are made of matter so, you might think, the states of mind they generate must be explicable in terms of states of matter. The question is: how? And if we cant explain consciousness in physical terms, how do we find a place for it in an all-embracing view of the universe?

There is no question in science more difficult and confusing, says Lee Smolin, a theoretical physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada.

It is also one that he and others are addressing with renewed vigour, convinced that we will never make sense of the universes mysteries things like how reality emerges from the fog of the quantum world and what the passage of time truly signifies unless we reimagine the relationship between matter and mind.

Their ideas amount to an audacious attempt to describe the universe from the inside out, rather than the other way around, and they might just force us to abandon long-cherished assumptions about what everything is ultimately made of.

Modern physics

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Kansas Sports Betting Heads to Conferencing after House Passage – The Action Network

Posted: at 2:39 am

Despite stalling in committee yesterday without a vote, a bill to legalize online and retail betting in Kansas passed out of the House on Wednesday.

The bill passed 88-36 after House lawmakers amended it to add more revenue for problem gambling treatment. The Senate and House will meet next for a conferencing committee, where theyll look to reach a compromise on competing tax rates.

Progress in the legislature nearly went up in flames yesterday after lawmakers in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee nearly uprooted control from the casinos to a state lottery monopoly. That would have effectively gutted the entire bill, according to committee chair Rep. John Barker (R).

The hearing unexpectedly ended without a vote, but the House later amended a competing Senate bill to include language from the House billsetting it up for todays floor vote.

The Senate bill would tax online sports betting at 8% and retail at 5.5%, as opposed to the House version that would tax each at 20% and 14%, respectively.

For the bill to be sent to Gov. Laura Kelly (D)whos been bullish on sports bettingthe Senate must pass an identical version before the legislature adjourns on May 20. Theyll meet for a conference committee in the coming weeks.

Lawmakers will also have to agree on whether or not to let sportsbooks deduct revenue tied to free play bets from their taxable revenue, as a handful of states have done. The House version would not allow it, while the Senates would.

Last year it was the Senate that passed a sports betting bill and the House that refused to compromise.

This has been a good debate that has been ongoing for years. Its nice to pass this today, said Rep. John Barker, who chairs the Federal and State Affairs committee.

His bill is estimated to raise between $6-10 million a year.

Kansas may have the edge on Missouri when it comes to their college basketball rivalry, but its lawmakers want to make sure it beats its neighbor out in sports betting as well.

Throughout the legislative process lawmakers from both states have repeatedly cited just how close their neighbors are to legalizing sports betting.

Early this week the Missouri House sent its sports betting bill to the state Senate, setting it up for a final vote before the legislature adjourns May 13. It is the furthest each state has made it towards legalizing and a lot of that may be due to the pressure theyve put on each other to get it done first.

I do not like Missouri. I want to beat them, Rep. Stephanie Clayton (D) said during a hearing earlier this week.

Online tax rates in the final bill will likely end up somewhere between 8-20%, which would be considered middle-of-the road compared to other states.

Both versions require casinos to pay $100,000 annually to the Problem Gambling and Addiction fund.

The rest of the bill passed by the House should stay the same:

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Best Ways to Capitalise on Modern US Sports Betting Options – The Sports Bank

Posted: at 2:39 am

Over the last few years, the US has exploded into one of the hottest sports betting markets in the world. For years, the industry was either held to Nevada or went completely unregulated, but now, states are reaping the benefits of taxation and licensing. The opening of the nation invited the biggest and best names in the business from around the world, with some $165 billion bets in the country, per Yahoo! Finance.

Now, many are familiar with betting lines like the spread and money line, but theres so much more to major sports betting in the modern scene. Thanks to online platforms, the markets run very, very deep for the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, MLS, and more. Still, theres one newly popular section thats well worth a look due to its odds and how it often only relies on just one event or milestone to be hit.

The rise of prop bets in US sports betting

Its commonplace for bettors to bet on outcomes of games via the money line or spread, often stacking several picks onto the pay slip to enhance the odds, but recently, more and more fans have been turning to props. Prop Bets dont require you to correctly predict a game-winner, have higher potential payouts, and with some bookies, you can request your own exotic prop bets.

You can bet on markets that have near-even odds, such as the result of the coin flip or under-overs on the length of the national anthem or number of touchdowns, or per player outcomes. These can be anytime touchdowns, the first player to score a point, the number of bases stolen, interceptions gave away, and anything else that can be quantified or tallied within the game.

Match outcome bets can leave bettors a bit detached from the sport itself when they have a multiple bet slip. Props, on the other hand, are all about the intricate parts of the game at hand, with prop bets needing certain players to get in on the action and suddenly perform as the bet predicts. A prop bet can be won in a second, while most other bets wait for the final whistle.

How to capitalise on prop betting options

While all bettors should thoroughly research teams, injuries, and news prior to placing a wager, prop betting can be the most reliably researched, thanks to modern stats sites. With one team coming against another, there are many factors that can swing the eventual outcome, but with prop bets, the research often pertains to one player, their form, preferences, and who theyll have to best to win in prop bet markets.

Due to how many goals and points are scored in ice hockey, NHL props bet markets have become rather popular particularly the anytime scorer margins. For these, TSN Stats is the easiest and most clear-cut resource to utilise. Not only can you sort by teams and point, goals, or assists counts as well as several other key stats but you can then flip to player logs to see form and over to the goaltenders to see where they rank.

Naturally, NFL betting is the biggest in US jurisdictions and certainly presents a glut of prop betting opportunities. Again, research is key, and while it can be easy to identify offensive stars, its not always clear how well theyll fare against certain defensive set-ups. For this, turn to Pro Football Reference and its defence page, paying particular attention to yards and touchdowns allowed to the pass and the rush to identify weaknesses that prop bet players can exploit.

Prop bets have opened up a new angle to engage with sports, particularly if you put in the research and can identify key players in advantageous positions.

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With Ontario Sports Betting Near, DFS Operators To Bail Over Regulation – Legal Sports Report

Posted: at 2:39 am

As Ontarioreadies for commercial sports betting, the province will likely lose most of its daily fantasy sports operators.

FanDuelwill pull its daily fantasy sports product out of Ontario on Friday because of regulatory issues, company spokesperson Kevin Hennessy confirmed Tuesday.That comes as FanDuel prepares to launch its sportsbookfor ON sports betting next week.

Following FanDuels decision, theFantasy Sports & Gaming Association issued a press release. Most DFS operators active in Ontario will join FanDuel in leaving the province, said Peter Schoenke, an FSGA board member.

When Ontario put forth their regulations, they were just not hospitable to daily fantasy sports, Schoenke told LSR. I dont think it was intentional, but our industry was caught off guard. Were hopeful [the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario] and elected officials hear from consumers and realize the need to address this issue.

DraftKings did not respond to a request for comment as of Tuesday afternoon.

The AGCO regulations require a CAD $100,000 registration fee and a 25% tax on DFS revenue. Both of those figures are nearly double the rates of any US state, according to FSGA.

Paid fantasy sports contests operate differently than sports betting, iGaming or brick and mortar casinos, with low margins and player pools from multiple jurisdictions, the FSGA statement said. Large registration fees are especially prohibitive for smaller operators and reduce competition as witnessed in US states such as Indiana and Delaware.

Fantasy contests are explicitly included in the regulated online gaming market in Ontario. That causes a problem for DFS products.

Unfortunately, games offered in the regulated market currently cannot include shared liquidity with other jurisdictions meaning Ontario players would only be able to play against other Ontario players, Hennessy said. Contests would need to be smaller, with significantly smaller prizing. FanDuel knows such a product would not be attractive to our Ontario players.

There are nearly 2 million DFS players in Ontario, according to FSGA. Hennessy said DFS accounts and wallets will still be available to customers in Ontario.

Hennessy said FanDuels DFS product will remain live in other Canadian provinces. Schoenke said he believes other operators will also stay active in other provinces.

Ontario is the first province to open up its sports betting market to private companies, while others offer single-event wagering through provincial lotteries.Schoenke said DFS regulations in other provinces are virtually nonexistent, and he hopes for more clarity in the future.

Beyond Ontario, Schoenke has yet to hear of any problems in other provinces. Still, he said there are multiple issues to work through with Ontario regulators.

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SharpLink drives conversion of NASCAR fans to BetMGM’s sports betting depositors with 225% growth – Yogonet International

Posted: at 2:39 am

Minneapolis-based online technology company SharpLink Gaming announced on Tuesday that its integrated C4 solution has resulted in a measurable improvement in the conversion of NASCAR.com fans to sports betting depositors for BetMGM for the first five weeks of the 2022 NASCAR racing season.

SharpLink, which provides targeted, data-driven user engagement and conversion solutions for the US sports betting and iGaming industries, reported its customer acquisition model has shown increased results in all key conversion metrics, including a 225% increase in qualified sports betting depositors for BetMGM.

Currently, the company is featuring a BetMGM bet slip module on NASCAR.coms homepage that incorporates C4 bet recommendation algorithms in states where online sports betting has been legalized. Once a NASCAR fan clicks on the bet slip, a BetMGM promotion offer is provided to the potential bettor.

When comparing fan engagement metrics for the first five weeks of the current racing season to the entire 2021 season averages, SharpLink found the results reflect that the percentage of NASCAR fans who engaged with promotional offers was 9.2%, and that the percentage of fans who registered with BetMGM after landing increased 72%.

Additionally, the total number of fans who deposited with BetMGM after landing was up 152%, while the percentage of fans who became qualified depositors with the sportsbook rose 225%, thus showing notable increases in all key metrics.

However, of all these results, the company says the most impressive measure of C4s value proposition is that, following a NASCAR fans interaction with the bet slip, there was a 9.2% engagement rate with the BetMGM promotion offer. According to SharpLink, this far outperforms prevailing metrics in the market.

Were eager for BetMGM to be at the forefront of innovation and SharpLinks technology has allowed us to do just that, delivering a first-of-its-kind integration that places a BetMGM bet slip on the NASCAR home page, said Kyle Wachtel, Head of Partnerships at BetMGM.

The executive further stated that the feature is helping the sportsbook to position itself directly in front of NASCAR fans, as well having contributed to increased engagement within its partnership with the league, reaching new customers and reconnecting with existing customers.

Applying the strength and capabilities of our proprietary C4 conversion engine the Bot Behind the Bet is enabling forward-thinking league clients and sportsbook partners to fully optimize and benefit from customized and engaging betting content, resulting in an increase in conversion of traditional sports fans into online sports bettors, said Rob Phythian, CEO of SharpLink.

The CEO describes NASCAR and BetMGM as enthusiastic early adopters of leading-edge technological innovations in their efforts to advance their online sports betting business strategies and optimize their marketing spending. SharpLink is very proud to be among the solution providers they are coming to rely on to deliver technologies that can help positively impact their success, the executive noted.

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Opinion | We Study Virus Evolution. Here’s Where We Think the Coronavirus Is Going. – The New York Times

Posted: at 2:39 am

By Sarah Cobey, Jesse Bloom, Tyler Starr and Nathaniel Lash

Dr. Cobey studies the interaction of immunity, virus evolution and transmission at the University of Chicago. Dr. Bloom and Dr. Starr study virus evolution at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Mr. Lash is a graphics editor for Opinion.

As scientists who study how viruses evolve, we are often asked about the future of the coronavirus. Will it go away? Get worse? Fade into the background of our lives? Become seasonal like the flu?

Heres what we know: The viruss Omicron variant was significantly more infectious and more resistant to vaccines than the original strain that first emerged in Wuhan, China. Theres no reason, at least biologically, that the virus wont continue to evolve. The coronavirus variants that have emerged thus far sample only a fraction of the genetic space that is most likely available for evolutionary exploration.

A virus like SARS-CoV-2 faces one overriding pressure: to become better at spreading. Viruses that cause more infections will be more successful. The virus can do this by becoming more contagious and by skirting the immune system. This coronavirus has undergone several adaptations that make it better at spreading in humans.

But although many scientists, including us, expected SARS-CoV-2 would be under evolutionary pressure to transmit better, its been remarkable just how well the virus has responded to that pressure. Recent variants like Omicron and Delta are several times more transmissible than the strain that first spread around the globe in early 2020. Thats a huge increase, and makes SARS-CoV-2 more contagious than many other human respiratory viruses. These big jumps in contagiousness have played a major role in driving the pandemic so far.

Chart showing properties of certain SARS-CoV-2 variants. Along the X axis, reductions in antibody effectiveness for variants is shown. Along the Y axis are figures on how much more contagious the variant is compared to the original SARS-CoV-2.

How the coronavirus has changed

Comparing coronavirus variants to early 2020 strains.

Antibodies are

less effective

Estimated reduction in antibody effectiveness

How the coronavirus has mutated

Comparing coronavirus variants to early 2020 strains.

Antibodies are

less effective

Estimated reduction in antibody effectiveness

How the coronavirus has changed

Comparing coronavirus variants to early 2020 strains.

Antibodies are

less effective

Estimated reduction in antibody effectiveness

How much more transmissible SARS-CoV-2 can become is an open question, but there are limits. Even evolution is constrained: a cheetah cant evolve to be infinitely fast, and SARS-CoV-2 wont become infinitely transmissible.

Other viruses have reached plateaus in their ability to spread. Some respiratory viruses such as measles are more contagious than todays SARS-CoV-2. Others, such as influenza, are generally not as contagious as SARS-CoV-2. We dont know when this coronavirus will hit its transmissibility plateau, but it will happen eventually.

Viruses such as this one can also spread better by escaping immunity to prior variants. Early in the pandemic, few people had immunity to SARS-CoV-2. But now much of the world has antibodies from vaccination or prior infection. Because these antibodies can block infection, variants with mutations that skirt them have an increasing advantage.

The importance of immune escape has become apparent with Omicron. Prior variants like Delta were only modestly able to sidestep antibodies, but Omicron has many mutations that reduce the ability of antibodies to recognize it. This, coupled with how contagious Omicron is, has enabled it to cause a huge wave of infections.

The fact that the virus developed the ability to infect people who had been vaccinated or previously infected shouldnt have been a surprise, but how it happened with Omicron certainly was. Evolution often proceeds stepwise, with new successful variants descended from recent successful ones. Thats why six months ago many scientists, including us, thought the next variant would descend from Delta, which was dominant at the time. But evolution defied our expectations, and we got Omicron, which has a huge number of mutations and isnt descended from Delta. Its not known exactly how the virus made the big evolutionary jump that led to Omicron, although many scientists (including us) suspect the variant may have emerged from someone who couldnt fight off the virus well, allowing it time to mutate.

Its impossible to say whether future variants will have more big Omicron-like jumps or more typical stepwise changes, but we are confident SARS-CoV-2 will continue to evolve to escape immunity.

While transmissibility of viruses does plateau at a certain point, other human viruses that escape immunity keep doing so. The influenza vaccine has been updated annually for decades to chase viral evolution, and some influenza viruses show no sign of slowing down. Immune escape is an endless evolutionary arms race, because the immune system can always make new antibodies and the virus has a vast set of mutations to explore in response. For instance, Omicron has just a tiny fraction of the many mutations that have been observed in SARS-CoV-2 or related bat viruses, which are in turn just a small fraction of what lab experiments suggest the virus could potentially explore.

Taking all this together, we expect SARS-CoV-2 will continue to cause new epidemics, but they will increasingly be driven by the ability to skirt the immune system. In this sense, the future may look something like the seasonal flu, where new variants cause waves of cases each year. If this happens, which we expect it will, vaccines may need to be updated regularly similar to the flu vaccines unless we develop broader variant-proof vaccines.

And of course, how much all this matters for public health depends on how sick the virus makes us. That is the hardest prediction to make, because evolution selects for viruses that spread well, and whether that makes disease severity go up or down is mostly a matter of luck. But we do know that immunity reduces disease severity even when it doesnt fully block infections and spread, and immunity gained from vaccination and prior infections has helped blunt the impact of the Omicron wave in many countries. Updated or improved vaccines and other measures that slow transmission remain our best strategies for handling an uncertain evolutionary future.

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Opinion | We Study Virus Evolution. Here's Where We Think the Coronavirus Is Going. - The New York Times

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