The AIA sent ten students to the field this summer with $2000 Jane C. Waldbaum Field School Scholarships This year’s cohort brought a wide variety of archaeological interests and academic backgrounds Field School: Vesztö-Mágor Conservation and Exhibition Program Miles Traveled: 5155.45 miles (about 8296.89 km)  Bio: Emma Iracondo is a junior at the University of Georgia studying Anthropology and Classical Archaeology She plans to attend The Vésztő-Mágor Conservation and Exhibition Program in Hungary and is excited to learn how site preservation and conservation can impact archaeological excavations The multi-year conservation and mitigation program focuses on the Vésztő-Mágor tell in southeastern Hungary The site is the largest prehistoric tell on the Great Hungarian Plain with about 7 m of stratified cultural layers dating to the Neolithic and is part of an archaeological and historical park – the Vésztő-Mágor National Historical Park (henceforth in situ exhibition of an excavation trench into the tell with stratigraphic profiles and exposed features and objects an archaeological museum in a wine cellar dug into another portion of the tell and a partially reconstructed medieval monastery on top of the site The 19-x-4.5-m in situ trench was opened in 1986 in the central part of the tell that later was covered with a permanent closed structure to facilitate public access.   The Park is an integral part of the local community and the program will help ensure that it will be preserved as a thriving center for local identity and regional congregation the Time Will Tell: The Vésztő-Mágor Conservation and Exhibition Program will promote and encourage the preservation and conservation of tells and their presentation to the public elsewhere in the world and will establish best practice guidelines for conservation procedures in similar in situ contexts Copyright © 2025, Archaeological Institute of America. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Yelling Mule - Boston Web Design 2025 — StakeStone is set to reshape the landscape of decentralized finance (DeFi) by introducing an omnichain liquidity infrastructure that bridges fragmented liquidity across different blockchain networks one of the industry’s greatest challenges is liquidity fragmentation where assets are siloed across separate blockchains making access to capital inefficient and costly StakeStone solves this problem by offering a seamless enabling users and protocols to move liquidity across chains effortlessly StakeStone recognizes that liquidity alone is not sufficient for long-term success Effective governance and incentive alignment play vital roles in maintaining sustainability This is where StakeStone’s governance tokens STO (StakeStone Token) and veSTO (voting-escrowed STO) further enhancing the platform’s robustness and commitment to its community They serve as a core element of StakeStone’s decentralized governance through aligning incentives across the ecosystem providing liquidity providers with rewards and governance rights while supporting a dynamic sustainable economic model for the entire community liquidity is fragmented across various blockchains and protocols This fragmentation leads to inefficiencies as capital is spread thin and often inaccessible without navigating cumbersome Users face the challenge of seeking liquidity across disparate networks while protocols struggle to tap into the deep liquidity pools they need to thrive StakeStone eliminates these barriers with an innovative solution that enables seamless liquidity movement across multiple chains By providing an interconnected liquidity layer StakeStone ensures liquidity providers can maximize their yield and capital efficiency StakeStone guarantees that liquidity is always accessible and can flow freely STO and veSTO are not just tokens—they form the foundation of StakeStone’s governance and incentive framework Designed to align the interests of liquidity providers these tokens drive StakeStone’s sustainability by rewarding long-term commitment and active engagement StakeStone ensures that all participants are incentivized to contribute to the platform’s long-term growth and success STO is the Governance token that powers StakeStone’s ecosystem Think of veSTO as StakeStone’s version of “dividends.” This token is designed to reward long-term holders and active participants by unlocking higher rewards and governance power: StakeStone isn’t just about liquidity—it’s about creating an ecosystem that works for its community Here’s how StakeStone ensures sustainable value for STO holders: StakeStone’s incentive model is built on the principles of sustainability and value creation for users The platform generates incentives in the following ways: The Power of Governance: STO & veSTO Holders Holders of STO and veSTO tokens enjoy several benefits that go beyond just governance rights Expanding into PayFi: The Future of Payments StakeStone’s innovations don’t stop at liquidity infrastructure a new frontier that combines DeFi’s liquidity solutions with real-world payment systems PayFi will make it easier for businesses and consumers to adopt crypto for day-to-day transactions all while benefiting from yield-generating assets StakeStone is ushering in a new era of decentralized finance—one where liquidity is omnichain STO and veSTO serve as powerful incentives and developers are motivated to cultivate a long-term its focus remains clear: reward long-term commitment and pioneer innovative solutions like PayFi that bridge the gap between DeFi and real-world applications driving mass adoption and transforming the future of finance —————————————————————————————————————————— StakeStone is an omnichain liquidity protocol revolutionizing liquidity provisioning and capital efficiency in crypto Through its adaptive staking network for liquid ETH and BTC StakeStone offers innovative yield-bearing assets enabling staking beyond the consensus layer StakeStone equips projects with tools like LiquidityPad to unlock and deploy liquidity efficiently By bridging Ethereum’s liquidity to other blockchains StakeStone eliminates cross-chain friction and fosters interconnected blockchain economies Visit stakestone.io or follow us on Twitter @Stake_Stone for more information This press release is brought to you by EAK Wire, the leading Web3 PR Newswire Brave New Coin reaches 500,000+ engaged crypto enthusiasts a month through our website, podcast, newsletters, and YouTube. 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Become a part of our Community!  >> Visit Now Most people associate the discovery that faraway galaxies are receding from us — and thus that the universe is expanding — with Edwin Hubble It was one of the most fundamental discoveries in the history of science a Lowell Observatory astronomer named Vesto Slipher found that spiral nebulae are “fleeing” from us at what were then unheard-of speeds This was the first observational evidence of the expanding universe Hubble’s paper established a linear relationship between Slipher’s nebulae velocities and the distances Hubble had measured — a relation that later became known as Hubble’s law — but failed to cite Slipher’s own publications containing his indispensable measurements or even to mention his name It was only after Hubble had secured worldwide recognition and lasting fame that he acknowledged his use of Slipher’s data But by then the damage had been done: Slipher had been eclipsed and has never been properly commemorated for his critical contribution astronomers continue in the footsteps of both Hubble and Slipher measuring the velocities of receding galaxies and their distances These crucial observations tell us how quickly the universe is expanding the famous mathematical parameter that defines the relationship between Slipher’s velocities and Hubble’s distances bears a single name: the Hubble constant Modern science has made many strides in setting the historical record straight we suggest the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally rename the Hubble constant to the Hubble-Slipher constant in long overdue recognition of Slipher’s historic achievement Vesto Melvin Slipher joined Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff under the leadership of the flamboyant Percival Lowell and he made good use of Lowell’s 24-inch Alvan Clark refracting telescope with its brand-new Brashear spectrograph Within a few years he began reaping important results such as confirming the rotation periods of Mars Slipher became a virtuoso in the new art of acquiring and interpreting spectra — the data obtained when light from astronomical objects is spread out into its constituent wavelengths revealing details about composition and motion And there were spectroscopic surprises everywhere he looked Among his subsequent discoveries were methane and ammonia in the giant planets’ atmospheres; interstellar gas throughout the Milky Way; and the first known reflection nebula which led to the discovery of interstellar dust But his next challenge tested his skills more profoundly he started to photograph spectra of the faintest of all objects: spiral nebulae These nebulae were the subject of an ongoing debate among astronomers in the early 20th century Were they baby solar systems forming within our own Milky Way Or were they instead remote “island universes,” each like the entire Milky Way floating loose in the cosmic void?Spectroscopes attached to large light-gathering telescopes held the best promise of providing an answer they could determine an object’s radial velocity — its motion toward or away from the observer — through subtle shifts in the object’s spectral features compared to a stationary reference Displacement toward the red end of the spectrum (a redshift) means the object is receding from us; a blueshift signifies that it is approaching Slipher knew that long exposures would be required to produce detailed high-quality spectra of the vexingly faint spirals Switching out the slow spectrograph camera lens for a faster one enabled him to cut exposure times more than 30-fold obtaining a single spectrum often required dozens of hours The obvious target for a first effort was the biggest and brightest spiral nebula of all majestic M31 in the constellation Andromeda An exposure over several nights in December 1912 produced a stunning surprise: M31’s spectral lines were shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum The Andromeda Nebula was approaching our solar system at some 186 miles (300 kilometers) per second the highest celestial velocity ever measured at the time Encouraged by Lowell to continue the effort Slipher turned his instrument in April 1913 to the Sombrero Nebula (M104) a dramatic edge-on spiral in the constellation Virgo This time the lines were shifted immensely toward the red end of the spectrum suggesting an extraordinary recession speed of 684 miles (1,100 km) per second Slipher continued his survey and in August 1914 traveled to Northwestern University in Evanston to present his findings at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society he had gauged the velocities of 15 spiral nebulae: Three were approaching Earth The historic manuscript from which Slipher read is not well known and has never been published It now resides in the Lowell Observatory Archives The conclusions he pitched to his audience were powerfully worded: “The striking preponderance of the positive sign [meaning recession] indicates a general fleeing from us or the Milky Way.” Moreover Allowing that the data were not yet definitive he nonetheless felt that “they do strongly indicate that the spirals are leaving the Milky Way which fits in with their non-galactic distribution.” In other words Slipher’s findings gave strong evidence for the controversial island universe hypothesis Although no one appreciated it at the time — including Slipher — he in effect had staked his claim for the observational discovery of the expansion of the universe this realization would fundamentally transform our idea of the cosmos and our place in it When Slipher finished delivering his news of the great recession his fellow astronomers rose to their feet and gave him a resounding ovation — an unprecedented spectacle at an astronomical meeting attending the meeting just before he began his Ph.D that fall at the University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay It’s possible that witnessing this momentous reaction inspired Hubble to choose spiral nebulae as his dissertation topic he conservatively opined in a 1917 paper in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society that the island universe theory gains favor in the present observations.” By 1922 he had topped off his survey with a further 17 spiral nebulae all of which were receding — the fastest at an unprecedented 1,120 miles (1,800 km) per second Hubble nailed down the proof that spiral nebulae were separate galaxies using Cepheid variable stars These “standard candles” allow the accurate measurement of distance through an established relationship between their period and intrinsic luminosity Measuring a star’s period allows an astronomer to deduce its inherent brightness; any dimming can therefore be attributed to distance he began focusing on the nature of Slipher’s discovered cosmic exodus searching for any pattern in the redshifts of galaxies as they rushed headlong through space Hubble would continue to measure the galaxies’ distances (his specialty) Hubble had prepared his first publication on his findings that 1929 landmark paper titled “A Relation Between Distance and Radial Velocity Among Extra-Galactic Nebulae.” In it he paired the distances of 24 galaxies with their velocities jumped off the page: The velocity of galaxies steadily increased in a linear fashion as one looked farther into space astronomers were coming to refer to the slope of Hubble’s graph — the rate at which this recession increases with distance — as Hubble’s constant his partner Humason was only getting started on his velocity measurements He was primarily focused on getting redshifts of previously unmeasured targets that had been too faint for Slipher to determine with his smaller telescope Nearly all the redshifts that Hubble used in calculating the rate of recession were Slipher’s measurements half of the data that went into formulating the original Hubble constant came from Slipher Yet anyone perusing Hubble’s paper would not have known this Hubble used Slipher’s measurements without direct citation or acknowledgment — a serious breach of scientific protocol Hubble later made partial amends: In his next big paper on the redshift law he inserted a sentence praising “the great pioneer work of V Slipher at the Lowell Observatory.” And two years later the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in England presented Slipher with its highest award seven years before Hubble would earn the honor RAS President Frederick Stratton announced that “if cosmogonists today have to deal with a universe that is expanding in fact as well as in fancy at a rate which offers them special difficulties a great part of the initial blame must be borne by our medalist.” Although Hubble again praised Slipher’s work in his 1936 book The Realm of the Nebulae Hubble’s law and the Hubble constant became entrenched among astronomers while Slipher’s contribution was nearly forgotten Slipher was never a showman and preferred publishing in his observatory’s Bulletin rather than well-known journals He was simply too humble and reserved to demand his share of the glory far more accomplished in garnering publicity and protecting his legacy Hubble’s initial failure to cite Slipher was a major slight but his jealous hegemony over the velocity-distance relationship extended beyond Slipher Hubble warned the Dutch cosmologist Willem de Sitter who had innocently commented in a review article that several other astronomers had previously looked at the relationship that he considered it “a Mount Wilson contribution and I am deeply concerned in its recognition as such.” Colleagues also long complained that Hubble engaged in “selective referencing,” such as when he failed to mention Belgian cosmologist Georges Lemaître’s work in The Realm of the Nebulae or to specifically cite Harvard University’s Harlow Shapley in the same book for his early look at the velocity-distance relation And when Hubble in 1941 again failed to cite Slipher — this time over Slipher’s priority in determining that a spiral nebula’s arms trail as it rotates — Slipher was compelled to pen an irritated note to Science in 1944 to correct the record Slipher shares some blame for the lack of appreciation for his contribution In 1915 and 1917 publications reporting his accumulating galaxy redshifts instead of describing the galaxies as “fleeing,” “receding,” or “leaving” the Milky Way he substituted the more diffuse term “scattering.” Although astronomers understood its meaning (and Hubble subsequently used it) A deeper problem was that Slipher’s results appeared in second-tier journals rather than premier outlets like The Astrophysical Journal he generously allowed his final list of 42 redshifts to be published in 1923 and 1925 but under other authors’ names!Yet Slipher’s data were unique His findings were communicated to the scientific community and his work spoke for itself His lack of visibility is no reason to deny him priority for his discovery Astronomers have made progress in undoing Hubble’s hegemony — though not yet to Slipher’s benefit by vote after its 30th General Assembly in Vienna adopted a resolution to rename the Hubble law to the Hubble-Lemaître law to honor Lemaître for his 1927 dynamic solution to Einstein’s general relativity equations predicted that the universe is expanding in such a way that galaxy redshifts are proportional to their distances Lemaître even computed what came to be known as the Hubble constant based on Hubble’s galaxy magnitudes and Slipher’s redshifts The decision to rename the Hubble law without including Slipher was met with pushback cosmologist Emilio Elizalde of the University of Barcelona published a meticulous historical review in the journal Symmetry: “Reasons in favor of a Hubble-Lemaître-Slipher law.” And in Astronomy magazine’s February 2020 issue Lowell Observatory’s Director Jeff Hall and Historian Kevin Schindler also advocated for the addition of Slipher’s name to the law The explanation offered at the IAU meeting was that he and others “did not use their data nor invent new theory to discover the universal expansion.” But as we have shown Slipher in fact did use his redshift data to conclude that the spiral nebulae were “receding,” or “scattering,” from the Milky Way — which amounts to the observational discovery of universal expansion.The IAU requirement that a law be derived from theory runs counter to the conventional view that a scientific law is simply a relation between observables Hubble recognized this distinction in his George Darwin lecture to the RAS in 1953: “I propose to discuss the law of red-shifts — the correlation between the distances of the nebulae and the displacements in their spectra.” But even conceding that Slipher did not “invent new theory” to explain the expansion was wary that redshifts truly represented recession and worried this interpretation might be overturned we too support renaming the Hubble-Lemaître law the Hubble-Lemaître-Slipher law But we acknowledge such a reconsideration would likely be difficult given how the newly titled Hubble-Lemaître law set a precedent in honoring the overlooked H0 — the proportionality between the recession velocities and distances of the galaxies — be renamed the Hubble-Slipher constant This proposal is similar to that of Irish physicist Cormac O’Raifeartaigh who suggested that Hubble’s famous “discovery graph” of 1929 could also be known as the Hubble-Slipher graph our proposal is best supported by Hubble’s own final accounting of events The relationship between Slipher and Hubble largely remained collegial and respectful over the years Hubble noted that his discovery “emerged from a combination of radial velocities measured by Slipher at Flagstaff with distances derived at Mount Wilson and 10 years later … had contributed 42 out of the 46 nebular velocities then available.” In a letter to Slipher that same year he cited Slipher’s first steps “as by far the most important of all” in “the combination of your velocities and my distances What better argument for accepting a Hubble-Slipher constant than the case made by Hubble himself updates and special offers via email from Astronomy.com Astronomy leads the astronomy hobby as the most popular magazine of its kind in the world Count me in Subscribers can access their digital magazine issues and registered users can participate in our Community forums and galleries Il valore ideologico di un abito «Perché vesto sempre di nero» There is this book by Alain Elkann titled La voce di Pistoletto in which the cover and the back are filled with portraits of my face I have always taken on different forms until I created a work called L'uomo nero (The Black Man) Black is not only on one side or the other; it is everywhere It represents the void within which the stars exist lifting his trouser leg to reveal yellow polka dots on a red background) I think that black itself serves as the foundation for a colorful universe the robes of monks from any religion—their black robes are non-consumerist A ceramic Dalmatian sits in front of an imposing mirror with a gilded frame; a small table is covered with trinkets and pens; a wooden desk is strewn with pencil notes; and yet another mirror If we were to define a house by the objects it contains located within the broader complex of Città dell’Arte in Biella But to associate the house with its owner might produce an off-putting effect offering a steaming moka pot and a firm handshake which we later discover to be red with yellow polka dots - is all black from the wool sweater to his tailored pants which have characterized his public image for years As he sits at the table and sips his coffee the noose drawn on the mirror behind him appears to encircle his neck in a vaguely unsettling optical illusion looming in and out of view throughout the interview We learn from Pistoletto’s words that the mirror alters our perception of reality The author of Venere degli Stracci (Venus of the rags) the man whom Germano Celant saw as the perfect representative of Arte Povera as well as the tireless environmentalist who founded Città dell’Arte to prove that a better and different social model can exist talked about his involvement with the Sustainability Awards by Camera Moda and why he only dresses in black he revealed the mystery behind the aesthetic paradox between the extravagance of his home and the sobriety of his clothing: «I am not against colors let me show you my socks (laughs),» Pistoletto admits lifting the leg of his trousers to reveal yellow polka dots on a red background You describe yourself as “a scientist who speaks through images.” I am a scientist who speaks through images and I confirm it because my artistic work is not just an imaginative or fanciful expression but a quest for knowledge It’s precisely because I want to understand that I put my emotions at the service of a rational inquiry the phenomenological dimension of existence I mean that I don’t place my own proposals in the paintings as definitive to give me every possible image of what exists I try to understand what phenomenology allows existence to exist I experience the greatest excitement because I achieve a kind of knowledge that didn’t exist before You move from a lack of something to a new creation The Venere degli Stracci and the Terzo Paradiso have become symbols of the Sustainability Awards by Camera Moda which furthers the complex discussion on the relationship between art and fashion Fashion is one of the important aspects of our social life because clothes are like our second skin The garments we wear express social and political ideas that spread throughout the world there were always distinct costumes: each country had its own attire with peculiar embroidery absolute freedom has been discovered - a fantasy expressed to the extremes in fashion And how do we deal with the concept of consumption By focusing on the superfluous rather than the necessary Many factors contribute to the situation we face today: a flood of rags that fill vast areas of land beaches are covered in meters and meters of discarded fabrics made without any necessity If I were to recreate the Venere today it would probably be made of plastic to represent the quantity of waste flooding our oceans The Venere doesn’t offer a solution but sends a message Does your choice to wear only black also convey a message There’s this book by Alain Elkann titled La Voce di Pistoletto (The Voice of Pistoletto) where the cover and back are filled with portraits of my face I’ve always taken on various forms until 1969 when I created an artwork called L’uomo nero The piece represents the game of l’uomo nero (musical chairs) with 21 chairs and 21 people seated; everyone stands up and tries to find a new seat but there’s always one person left standing the mirror represents everything that exists L’uomo nero has no image of his own and is like the blackness we see at night when looking at a starry sky Black is not just on one side or the other - it’s everywhere The universe unfolds within this great void the blackness of this game also becomes the blackness of the mirror lifting the pant leg to reveal yellow polka dots on a red background) I think black serves as the foundation for a colorful universe the garments worn by monks of any religion—their black clothing is anti-consumerist Let me ask a question that’s a bit off-topic from what we’ve discussed so far We are all immortal because we carry within us the immortality of those who came before us Nothing new exists in the physical nature of things or consciously lived because animals live through an immortality that is simply part of the universe Human beings have found a way to leave traces you are present in the way that this mark combines with all other marks in the future Get access to exclusive contents and keep yourself updated Get access to exclusive contents and keep yourself updated Select the topics in which you are interested: Every month a newsletter to receive updates from our creative media agency So you don't miss the chance to attend nss world events Every month the latest news from the French vertical of nss Benjamin Döpfner, is the CEO & Founder of Vesto a cash management platform that enable startups to put their idle cash to work can you discuss the cash management issues that came up with managing your company funds I grew up in Germany and started my first company at 15 I bootstrapped the company and scaled it to millions of dollars in revenue in a matter of months interest rates in Europe were negative at the time so we were paying our bank 0.5% on deposits and as a result I asked our bank about their cash management offerings and was immediately turned away for being a startup and not meeting sky-high minimum deposit requirements How did this then transition to the idea of launching a cash management solution for startups I set out to build my own internal cash management tool and quickly discovered just how resource-intensive this can be I realized that this was a problem businesses of all sizes face and the idea for Vesto was born How does Vesto automate investing capital for startups Our platform automates the setup and day-to-day management entirely allowing our customers to diversify and earn higher yields on their cash with an intuitive and user-friendly experience What types of investments and securities does Vesto participate in and why were these chosen as the best option we build out a custom portfolio that prioritizes safety and liquidity above all some of our most popular investment choices include short-term U.S Vesto takes advantage of what’s called a treasury ladder what is this specifically and how does it help with liquidity Treasury ladders are a way to stagger the maturity dates of your T-bills bonds or CDs to ensure that some of your cash will mature when you may need it you will want a mixture of maturities with different timescales can help startups avoid being caught off guard by rising interest rates that can cause the price of bonds to fluctuate Why is Vesto a better option than robo-advisory solutions Unlike other cash management companies that are “one size fits all,” Vesto allows its customers to use a highly customized approach tailored to their needs We recognize that what works for a pre-seed stage company is not going to work for a growth stage company with hundreds of millions in the bank Vesto works directly with companies to create a custom portfolio that matches their financial situation and takes into account their own investment restrictions Can you discuss where the funds are physically held how they are kept secure and why startups should trust Vesto we are restricted from ever having access to our customer funds and are subject to strict regulatory safeguards to entrust the safekeeping of customer assets This means that we are never in the flow of funds and our customers alone own the legal rights to their custodial account at all times A Vesto account essentially gets you the benefit of an institutional custodian with little operational effort a much friendlier product experience than most traditional banks and a completely automated investment management process What type of information and tools are available with the Vesto dashboard our customers are able to get real-time visibility into their portfolio access account statements and see what's going on with their cash we’re building a first-of-its-kind financial planning platform centered around automation and insights connecting disparate financial data from best-of-breed systems and intelligently combining data into a single view – giving businesses unprecedented visibility into their financial health Vesto makes money by taking a percentage fee on AUM (assets under management) in our customers' accounts What is your vision for the future of Vesto My long-term vision is to create one of the most powerful financial operating systems for companies I believe that Vesto could be the world’s most valuable financial software company in a decade this is what keeps me motivated and excited each day Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit Vesto Angel Investor & Mediatech Advisor – Interview Series Co-Founder & CEO of Vise – Interview Series Antoine is a visionary futurist and the driving force behind Securities.io, a cutting-edge fintech platform focused on investing in disruptive technologies. With a deep understanding of financial markets and emerging technologies, he is passionate about how innovation will redefine the global economy. In addition to founding Securities.io, Antoine launched Unite.AI a top news outlet covering breakthroughs in AI and robotics Antoine is a recognized thought leader dedicated to exploring how innovation will shape the future of finance Head of Commercial Banking at Curinos – Interview Series CEO of BlockTrust IRA – Interview Series Trading Behavior Specialist at Firstrade – Interview Series Banking & Financial Services at WNS – Interview Series Founder and CEO of Kunai – Interview Series Datasite Americas Chief Revenue Officer – Interview Series Advertiser Disclosure: Securities.io is committed to rigorous editorial standards to provide our readers with accurate reviews and ratings We may receive compensation when you click on links to products we reviewed ESMA: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage Between 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money Investment advice disclaimer: The information contained on this website is provided for educational purposes Trading Risk Disclaimer: There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities Trading in any type of financial product including forex This risk is higher with Cryptocurrencies due to markets being decentralized and non-regulated You should be aware that you may lose a significant portion of your portfolio founder and CEO at Vesto and Brandon Arvanaghi CEO of Meow Businesses that want to safely stash sums of cash above Federal Deposit Insurance Corp limits have options that don't involve juggling multiple accounts at multiple banks They can invest directly in government money market funds or Treasury bills. They can inquire about programs within their bank, such as deposit networks and reciprocal arrangements engineered by IntraFi and the like or automatic sweeps of amounts exceeding $250,000 into money market mutual funds Or they can turn to fintechs that offer a tech-forward version or combination of the above "There has been a lot of scurrying around in the last several weeks as these organizations figure out what they want to do," said Graham in a March interview "The fintechs are moving faster" than banks "They are piecing things together to come up with solutions that they expect will appeal to customers and they are not wed to a single set of tools." The safety of each investment product varies "There are lots of flavors of money market mutual funds and lots of flavors of government securities," said Graham Treasury is a different credit risk than some local sewer authority in a muni bond." Deposits Appetite for expanded FDIC insurance is strong. Will it last? IntraFi R&T Deposit Solutions and other companies help banks capture and insure the entirety of their customers' balances — a cogent need in the aftermath of SVB Mercantile which partners with organizations to create custom branded cards has been holding excess cash at Vesto the past six-plus months Vesto defines itself as a cash management platform for venture capital-backed startups and mid-market businesses It builds customized portfolios for its customers according to their risk tolerance corporate bonds and certificates of deposit The back-end custodian is BNY Mellon Pershing "With the market changing and Treasuries being a little more interesting we wanted something that was very easy to use and exposes us to a high-yield Treasury option without endangering cash at hand," said Samuel Poirier "Vesto understood the need to take cash out on a monthly basis to fund the company." because of its simplicity and its understanding that companies such as his will withdraw funds on a regular basis says he has seen an influx of new customers since SVB collapsed.  "There has been a desire to diversify their holdings and cash," he said "We found a lot of companies have almost all their cash sitting in one bank account." He says his customers choose Vesto to find a secure home for their cash and to earn high yields "Oftentimes founders and CEOs don't have the capital markets experience to do this themselves," said Döpfner Döpfner describes the company's investment style as "incredibly conservative." "We take the viewpoint that safety and liquidity are priority number one and yield is priority thereafter when managing corporate cash," he said "We only work with highly liquid 'ultra-low risk' investment products like U.S Stocktwits, a social network for traders, began investing in Treasury bills through Meow well before SVB and Signature Bank collapsed in March Meow is a banking platform that lets businesses purchase Treasury bills using partner registered investment advisors and broker-dealers so it made sense to put some of the firm's capital to work in addition to diversifying credit risk," said Philip Picariello vice president of finance and operations at Stocktwits He considers the firm's capital as being divided among three buckets: immediate liquidity for payroll and accounts payable near term liquidity to fund product development and core capital "When I started digging into Meow I liked the team and the way they built it," said Picariello "I was sold on the fact that BNY Mellon Pershing is in the back end and ladder it out." Stocktwits uses an insured deposit sweep program at its bank to protect funds that should stay liquid in the near term He allocates the rest to Treasuries through Meow based on what the company needs in the next month these accounts are not meant to hold operating cash The success of this strategy "depends on your ability to look ahead and know when you need the cash." "If a corporate treasurer or chief financial officer has a good handle on upcoming liabilities you should never have to worry about it taking a day or two to get your money," said Picariello Döpfner said almost all the investment products his company works with are highly liquid and customers can usually access their cash within one to two business days said in a March interview that it would take customers one to two business days to receive their funds after selling their T-bills Business-oriented neobanks have developed their own products they hope will entice customers to park large amounts there instead of at regular banks Brex has increased its deposit insurance from $1 million to $6 million since SVB's failure by using a sweep network Customers can choose to store funds above that limit in a BNY Mellon money market fund Mercury has increased the amount of cash it can protect per customer to $5 million in a product called Vault Deposits exceeding $5 million are placed in a money market fund that is almost entirely invested in U.S Brex and Mercury touted thousands of new customers since the bank failures in March, although it's an open question as to how many they will keep over the long term Döpfner of Vesto and Arvanaghi of Meow also report a wave of new customers in the wake of those disasters "These kinds of alternatives tend to be really effective if you know you won't need the money for X period of time and you'll get a heads up when you need it," said Graham Student loans CFPB wins rare judgement over student loan debt relief firm A federal judge has ordered FDATR a now defunct student loan debt relief provider to pay $43 million in restitution and fees bucking the trend of cases brought by the Biden administration-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau being dropped Industry News How Cathinka Wahlstrom is modernizing America's oldest bank BNY's chief commercial officer talks about AI tariffs and her efforts to help create a leaner which he thinks reinforces the case for deregulation including Early Warning's peer-to-peer money transfer app Zelle reiterates the importance of bank redundancies FORECLOSURE WARS She stopped paying her mortgage more than 15 years ago Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights analytics and innovation.Follow AuthorSep 21 10:00am EDTShareSaveCommentWoman Holding Cash The failure of Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year rightfully caused businesses to reconsider where they keep their cash And the timing was apt – with record inflation 2022 was a good year for businesses to make the most of their dollars saved new startups have emerged to tackle treasury management and deliver a new approach Gary Drenik: Tell me about your background and the journey that led you to starting Vesto I grew up in Germany and knew I wanted to build companies from a very young age – I’ve always had a strong entrepreneurial drive I bootstrapped the business with a few hundred dollars but managed to grow it to millions of dollars of revenue After continuing to scale that company for several years I was exposed to the many challenges that founders and startup finance teams face while managing their treasury One of which is figuring out how to manage idle cash so we were losing 0.5% a year on any cash sitting in a checking account which was quite painful and time-consuming I soon realized what I had built could be used by other startups and even larger businesses I moved to the US to start Vesto with the goal of completely automating the way businesses run their finances Drenik: Why do companies choose to put their idle capital in Vesto over traditional banks What typically sells them on using your service Döpfner: As of August 2023, the average checking account rate in the US is a mere 0.07%, according to the FDIC We help companies actually put their cash to work We automatically create a portfolio of highly liquid fixed-income instruments – typically consisting of short-term U.S Money Market Funds and Cash Sweeps – always prioritizing safety and liquidity with the goal of delivering great yields for our customers traditional banks oftentimes only offer custom treasury services to multi-billion-dollar enterprises which leaves most companies with limited options for a great treasury approach the process of setting up an account and managing a treasury portfolio with traditional banks tends to be a frustrating and unpleasant experience We’ve seen companies who had to wait months just to open up accounts with some of these larger banks We built Vesto from the ground up with the goal of making the experience as easy and painless as possible Our platform automates the setup process and day-to-day management entirely – providing an enterprise-grade service Our onboarding process typically takes customers about 10 minutes or less Drenik: Bank failures (like what we saw with Silicon Valley Bank) have clearly eroded consumer trust in our financial institutions how should the public and private sector be addressing this Döpfner: The issue of eroding trust in financial institutions is a serious concern that deserves attention. According to a recent Prosper Insights & Analytics survey only 34.4% of adults feel confident in the U.S I think it’s important to develop a multi-pronged approach that involves collaboration between both the public and private sectors – transparency and technological innovation working together Prosper - Consumer Confidence September 2023 financial institutions should be transparent about their practices Clear communication with customers about how their funds are being managed and safeguarded is essential to build trust We’ve seen a lot of regulations come into play that actually do very little to protect customers but simply make it much harder for smaller financial services and fintech startups to grow Drenik: How do you see technology impacting how people and businesses are able to optimize and maximize their cash particularly in a world where inflation is at an all-time high Döpfner: We're living in a time when technology is reshaping nearly every aspect of our lives – our financial systems in the US are no exception we can help individuals and businesses find more ways to make the most of their cash We have more data and information readily accessible than ever before The abundance of real-time data and analytical tools should be used to make smarter We should be able to quickly identify market trends we can craft financial strategies that are tailored to individual circumstances Automation offers the potential to assist people in maximizing their investments automation can also democratize access to smarter financial decisions so they’re no longer just reserved for individuals with the very best advisors or businesses with access to hands-on advisory support from massive global banks Drenik: What's the vision for Vesto long term Döpfner: Our long-term vision is to be the global financial operating system for companies and in doing so build the most valuable financial software and services company We want to completely transform how businesses run their financial operations with the goal of completely automating day-to-day financial tasks We’ve started with treasury management and plan to build on this foundation over time Drenik: Thanks for taking the time to meet Benjamin and for sharing thoughts around how people and businesses can think about idle cash in a new way that takes into account our complex Starting in 1912 the American astronomer Vesto Slipher discovered that the spectra of “spiral nebulae” (now called galaxies) displayed large redshifts This was different from the spectra of stars which showed an even mix of red and blue shifts By 1917 he had measured the Doppler shifts of 25 spiral nebulae that the spiral nebulae were outside of the Milky Way and moving away at great speed Slipher had laid the groundwork for soon-coming important discoveries in astronomy Georges Lemaître and Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding By comparing the distances to galaxies with their redshifts (from Slipher) they determined the rate at which the universe is expanding the initial estimate led to a puzzling contradiction Assuming that the expansion of the universe has been slowing down since the Big Bang due to the attractive force of gravity the first estimate of H0 implied that the universe was only 1.5 billion years old evidence from Earth’s geology suggested that our planet was much older than that more precise measurements of H0 reduced this discrepancy but a tension remained between the “Hubble age” of the universe and the age of individual objects within our galaxy spherical collections of hundreds of thousands to millions of stars that are believed to be among the oldest objects in our galaxy They likely formed early on from the same gas cloud that later collapsed to form the Milky Way The low abundance of heavy elements like iron in globular cluster stars sometimes less than 1 percent of what’s found in the Sun suggests they formed before significant star formation had occurred age estimates for the oldest globular clusters ranged from 16 to 20 billion years again conflicting with the Hubble age which was then estimated at 10 to 15 billion years This discrepancy motivated scientists to reconsider the idea of a cosmological constant is an extra term in his equations that counteracts the attractive force of gravity causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate it would have been expanding more slowly in the past meaning it would have taken galaxies longer to reach their current separations This would make the universe older than the Hubble age calculated assuming a constant expansion rate as estimates of globular cluster ages were revised downward due to improved understanding of stellar evolution the discrepancy with the cosmic expansion age diminished including observations of the cosmic microwave background (the afterglow of the Big Bang) and the large-scale distribution of galaxies began to support the idea of a universe with a cosmological constant Over the last couple of decades measurements of H0 have become ever more precise determined from the cosmological distance ladder using cepheid variables and supernovae is about 5-sigma (5 standard deviations) from the value determined from the background radiation for the early universe there is only one chance in 3.5 million that the two measurements really do agree.  I don’t pretend to know the solution to the H0 constant tension One thing I am fairly certain about: overthrowing the Big Bang theory is not in the offing both of which point to an earlier era when the universe was much smaller the estimates of H0 don’t really differ from each other that much in absolute terms: 73 km/s/Mpc for the local value and 67 km/s/Mpc for the early value (note: the units are read as “kilometers per second per megaparsec”) You can also turn the problem around and ask how the ages of the oldest objects constrain the H0 constant Cimatti and Moresco (2023) calculate that the ages of the oldest stars constrain H0 to be <73 km/s/Mpc This is compatible with both estimated values of H0 with the fainter ones generally moving more quickly working in conjunction with his brother Earl Slipher His process was to look back and forth between paired photos of the same section of sky a technique called "blinking": If a planet was orbiting along among the stars it should appear to blink from one spot to another in the two photos He tried to tackle this incredibly subtle and tedious job while working as the observatory's director He spent several weeks touring through the stars of Gemini before giving up and turning the project completely over to Tombaugh so that he could keep exploring new stretches of the sky he realized that Slipher had been going too fast; spotting a dim distant planet required more attention than Slipher had been able to muster Tombaugh circled back to the original patch in Gemini and re-photographed it It was near where Slipher had begun his search Slipher had looked right at Pluto without recognizing it Register or Log In Want more?Keep reading for as low as $1.99 Subscribe Save up to 40% off the cover price when you subscribe to Discover magazine Edwin Hubble revolutionized astronomy in 1923 when he discovered that the “Andromeda Nebula” was actually a distant island galaxy full of stars That breakthrough helped set the cosmic distance scale and the overall nature of the cosmos But fewer astronomy enthusiasts know that a decade before Hubble’s discovery a little-known astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Vesto Melvin Slipher was born on a farm in Mulberry Slipher,” he had an unspectacular childhood in the American Midwest with few details of his youth ever recorded Certainly growing up on a farm kept Slipher in robust shape astronomers remarked on his ability to climb mountain peaks staying well ahead of those who were much younger who would also grow up to be an astronomer and work at Lowell Observatory and then enrolled at Indiana University in Bloomington who had worked as an astronomer at Lowell in 1896 and 1897 an astronomer who later became director of Sproul Observatory in Pennsylvania It was Miller who turned Slipher’s interests toward the heavens and Cogshall who introduced him to the idea of moving west to work at an observatory Lowell Observatory was a fledgling institution less than a decade old the wealthy Boston adventurer-scientist Percival Lowell Lowell was reluctant to seek Slipher’s help but Cogshall persuaded him to bring on the young astronomer Slipher would stay at the observatory for 53 years Slipher became acting director and then director by 1926 He served as the observatory’s chief until retiring in 1954 at age 79 Slipher began to use this spectrograph exhaustively He also studied the spectra of the giant outer planets Uranus and Neptune Attempting to determine the rotation periods and detection of various substances — such as chlorophyll on Mars — took up much of his research Slipher used the spectrograph to discover the presence of dust — or “pulverulent matter,” as he termed it — between the stars of the famous Pleiades Cluster Proving that the dust near the star Merope in this cluster was shining only by reflected light demonstrated the existence of stuff between the stars; that stuff came to be called the interstellar medium The discovery of matter among the stars of the Pleiades was a big one with a legitimate claim to a major discovery in astrophysics He then turned toward solving the biggest mystery of the age diffuse objects had remained mysterious for a century and a half The German natural philosopher Immanuel Kant had suggested they were separate large “island universes” of matter as early as 1755 But the evidence of their nature was slow in coming Some thought they were within the Milky Way embryonic planetary systems in their early stages of formation Slipher recorded a plate of the “Andromeda Nebula” that he felt was sufficiently good to obtain its radial velocity No radial velocities of nebulae were known at that time He recorded better plates in November and December 1912 and still a better result on the nights of December 29 and into the predawn hours of New Year’s Day 1913 He measured the plates over the first half of January finding that the nebula was moving three times faster than any previously known object in the universe Slipher next went after what we now call the Sombrero Galaxy (M104) in Virgo He found its spectral lines shifted far toward the red indicating that it is receding from Earth at 620 miles per second (1,000 km per second) By the 1914 American Astronomical Society meeting in Evanston Slipher was able to announce results for 15 spirals Nearly all were receding at high velocities Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter theorized that the universe is expanding It was Slipher’s observations of the so-called spiral nebulae that established this fact In addition to discovering that the spiral nebulae were receding at great velocities Slipher found that radial motions existed within the spiral nebulae themselves These first discoveries again included what we now know as the Andromeda and Sombrero galaxies This finding contradicted what astronomer Adriaan van Maanen of Mount Wilson Observatory had reported earlier that the spiral arms of these objects were unwinding This would suggest they were close and not at great distances and most astronomers took the side of van Maanen rather than Slipher Another decade passed before the realization came that Slipher was right and van Maanen wrong other astronomers reinforced Slipher’s work on spiral nebulae with their own observations And then in 1923 came Hubble’s discovery of the nature of galaxies Hubble derived his crucial velocity-distance relationship for galaxies “your velocities and my distances.” Slipher and Hubble had together uncovered the expanding universe and a way to measure extragalactic distances He also made spectral studies of unusual objects like the Crab Nebula He supervised the search for a new outer solar system planet But Slipher will be remembered for his discoveries relating to spiral nebulae and the expanding universe When he received the Royal Astronomical Society’s Gold Medal in 1933 the president said: “In a series of studies of the radial velocities of these island galaxies he laid the foundation of the great structure of the expanding universe … If cosmogonists today have to deal with a universe that is expanding in fact as well as in fancy a great part of the blame must be borne by our medalist.” His associate Slipher gave us universal expansion 3Science🚀The future of bacon? Gene-edited pigs get US FDA approval for human consumptionMrigakshi Dixit16 hours ago 7Culture🚀2,000-year-old rice recipe brought back to stunning life by Chinese studentsMaria Mocerinoa day ago 3Culture🌟Trump’s secure messaging app hacked, deportation airline also hit by cyberattackAamir Khollam4 hours ago 4Energy🌟US scientists end 70-year fusion struggle, paving way for better reactorsAamir Khollam5 hours ago 6Science🌟In a first, protons in biological system seen following quantum rules: Study Mrigakshi Dixit6 hours ago 8Space🌟US orders NASA to build first lunar time zone to guide astronauts on the MoonAamir Khollam7 hours ago Donovan Alexander geralt/Pixabay If there’s one thing a layperson knows about the physical universe Also called the inflation model of cosmology consensus holds it as the most viable explanation for the origin of everything many scientists think the idea of a single colossal explosion of light doesn’t hold up to snuff for a theory of universal origin Part of this is because science is an evidence-based empirical process of amassing knowledge of the objective world which means accepted theories will always go where the evidence points Current estimates for the age of the universe place it at about 13.8 billion years with homo sapiens (us) showing up a mere 200,000 years ago After building a fire and inventing civilization it took us until 100 years ago to theorize the Big Bang But while evidence supports the Big Bang model while also casting doubt on rival theories a new model may someday arise capable of besting consensus NASA this singularity suddenly expanded in an unimaginably violent explosion Bang’s old rival theory is the Steady-State Universe model This one denies the possibility of beginning and end for the universe — opting instead for a continually expanding universe that nonetheless maintains the same overall density a steady-state universe is forever identical In this model, galaxies, planets, and other forms of matter are locked in continual recreation old astronomical objects become unobservable as new creations take their place This theory was initially proposed by Sir James Hopwood Jeans in 1928 and was further developed in the late-1940s by Hermann Bondi The late cosmologist Geoffrey Burbidge championed steady-state cosmology early in his career and was one of the last serious cosmologists to eventually abandon the theory — even after new evidence directly falsified it Burbidge developed a new model — called the oscillating universe according to which the universe undergoes many small big bangs like the universe is on repeat the universe expanded from a single point whose gravity and density approached infinity and has continued to expand since then accounting not only for expansion but also contraction of the universe A cyclical universe shrinks to a minimum volume and then “bounces” back into a subsequent expansion Another variant proposes a cosmos that only bounced once the present-day universe came into being after an earlier contraction (extending into an infinite past of infinite dispersion) This theory was first propounded by Juliano Cesar Silva Neves in a paper published in the journal General Relativity and Gravitation Statistics & Scientific Computation Institute (IMECC-UNICAMP) of the University of Campinas In the Electric Universe model gravity takes a backseat to plasma and electromagnetism plasma takes up an integral role in cosmological events and the fundamental order of the universe proposing electric currents that flow along plasma filaments — capable of shaping and powering galaxies NASA The Electric Universe theory was first proposed by Nobel-winning physicist Hannes Alfvén in the 1930s. Alfvén argued that if plasma pervaded the universe it could carry electric currents capable of generating a galactic magnetic field He later won a Nobel Prize for his work in magnetohydrodynamics it’s gained popularity via a number of lay scientists and YouTubers in search of a simpler way to explain the Universe The Black Hole theory suggests the universe popped out of a black hole from another universe we’re living beyond its event horizon we could say every black hole is a doorway to a new universe But since we can’t cross the event horizon (alive) there’s likely no way to confirm or falsify the theory NASA Scientists later researched this idea in 2017, but results suggest our universe is not the creation of a computer program The study was done by theoretical physicists from Oxford University in the U.K The Oxford researchers looked into the possibility of creating a computer capable of computing everything in this universe But such a hypothetical computer would need to be powerful enough to calculate the motion of every particle For the computer to record the data of even a few electrons its memory needs more atoms than there are in the entire universe and with the addition of only a few more particles it’s probably safe to say we’re not the product of an alien Playstation The Big Bang theory remains the most widely accepted explanation for the origin of the universe The scientific model of the universe is constantly changing as advances in fields like quantum mechanics and gravity struggle to unify theories about the fundamental laws of the universe. But while the Big Bang model isn’t completely proven, for now, it’s the best possible explanation, using all available scientific evidence 0COMMENTABOUT THE AUTHORDonovan Alexander After 5 years in the start-up world collaborating with companies like Google and Skoda Auto the award-winning marketer Donovan Alexander restarted his career He has combined his passion for artificial intelligence and technology to begin a new journey as an aspiring multidisciplinary designer and technology writer worked on 34 advertising campaigns for international brands Donovan is fascinated with how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and 3D printing are changing the way we design and engineer our everyday products With a creative studio based in the heart of Europe Donovan loves sharing the stories of the people and organizations engineering change around the world By clicking sign up, you confirm that you accept this site's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Premium One of the most mind-blowing facts in our existence is that space itself — the very fabric of the Universe itself — doesn’t remain the same Masses curve and distort it; masses in motion change its nature; ripples flow through the cosmos at the speed of light but are linked together into a single entity known as spacetime One of the biggest cosmic surprises came in the 1920s when a number of scientists put forth a radical new idea: that space could fundamentally change by expanding or contracting over time This wasn’t some pie-in-the-sky theory but was overwhelmingly supported by the data which showed that the more distant a galaxy was To be compatible with Einstein’s General Relativity this simple rule — that the average speed a distant object appeared to move away from us was proportional to its distance from us — was known as Hubble’s Law The constant that relates the recession speed to the apparent distance is that Edwin Hubble himself wasn’t the first to figure this out Although Hubble published an extraordinary paper in 1929 detailing the redshift-distance relation and the proportionality constant that links them the Belgian scientists Georges Lemaître working with only a fraction of Hubble’s data astronomers now call this relationship the Hubble-Lemaître law But the story behind just who discovered the expanding Universe is even murkier who first put forth his theory of General Relativity in 1915 Einstein’s theory of gravity reduced to Newton’s laws when distances were large and masses were small and provided unique predictions that agreed with experiments and observations — in contrast to Newton’s — when they weren’t The orbit of the planet Mercury was the first puzzle to yield followed by the prediction of bent starlight during a solar eclipse Yet Einstein realized that his theory predicted that a static Universe was unstable he introduced his cosmological constant to compensate leading to what he later referred to as his “greatest blunder” in all of physics there were the observations of Vesto Slipher which were instrumental in the actual discovery of the expansion of space Slipher was observing what were then known as “spiral nebulae” with a new device on his telescope: a spectrograph By breaking the light from these galaxies up into their individual wavelengths he could identify spectral lines coming from the atoms inside we could measure a systematic shift of those lines to different wavelengths: redder ones if they were moving away from us These spirals had speeds that were too great to be bound to our own galaxy; most were redshifted; some were moving much faster than others His results implied that these nebulae were galaxies of their own But Slipher never put the whole puzzle together The next person to make a significant contribution was Willem de Sitter who in 1917 showed that if you imagined a general relativistic Universe dominated by Einstein’s cosmological constant What was more alarming were the properties of the expansion: it would be relentless meaning the farther away an object was from us the faster it would be pushed away from us Although there was not yet sufficient observational evidence to prove that the Universe was expanding the type of expansion de Sitter described seems to be present in our Universe today: in the form of dark energy.) the physicist Alexander Friedmann put forth an incredible publication: solving General Relativity for the case of a realistic Universe there was a solution for a Universe that was uniformly filled with “stuff.” That stuff could be matter What he found was, in all cases, the Universe must be either expanding or contracting. If your Universe is filled with stuff — or even if it was completely empty, Friedmann showed — a static Universe was unstable. Given the observations of Slipher and the recent arguments of Heber Curtis at the 1920 Great Debate an expanding Universe had both theoretical and observational support behind it was turned on its head 95 years ago: when Edwin Hubble made perhaps the most important observation in all of astronomy’s history 1887 photography had revealed Andromeda’s spiral structure and Hubble was measuring these novae in an attempt to understand the distance to Andromeda And then the remarkable happened: he found a fourth Knowing it was impossible for a nova to recharge so quickly he excitedly crossed out the “N” for nova and wrote “VAR!” in red pen and capital letters Because of Henrietta Leavitt’s prior work on variable stars he was able to calculate a distance to Andromeda concluding it was far more distant than anything in the Milky Way This was the key piece of evidence putting it all together went on to collect more data of variable stars in spiral galaxies allowing them to determine the distance to these objects they had enough galaxies that any scientist who paid close enough attention to all the work out there and synthesized the proper pieces of evidence could have put together the relationship between distance and redshift for galaxies could have concluded that the Universe itself was expanding Georges Lemaître was the first to get there But his publication was in French and in an obscure journal; few people found out about it at the time American scientist Howard Robertson also independently put the pieces together in 1928 concluding the Universe was expanding and calculating a primitive expansion rate Hubble published his breakthrough work in 1929 getting the lion’s share of the credit what was known for generations as “Hubble’s Law” has now been renamed the Hubble-Lemaître law But the point shouldn’t be to give credit to individuals who’ve been dead for generations but rather for everyone to understand how we know the rules that govern the Universe would be just as happy to drop all the names from all the physical laws out there and simply to refer to them as what they are: the redshift-distance relation It wasn’t the work of just one or two people that led to this breakthrough in discovering the expanding Universe but of all the scientists I named here and many others as well it’s our fundamental knowledge of how the Universe works that matters and that’s the ultimate legacy of scientific research Everything else is just a testament to the all-too-human foible of vainly grasping at glory The aim of the touring exhibition is to present the outstanding members of the Hungarian Gypsies community who through their professional and public activities contributed to building a self-conscious and proud Hungarian Gypsy community to the cultural development of Hungary and to making Hungary a more colourful country some may have even sacrificed their lives for the freedom of their country More than thirty years after the regime change this touring exhibition pays tribute to the heroes of the Hungarian Gypsy community The travelling exhibition was first presented in Pécs on 4th February 2022 and has since been displayed in 27 venues across the country (Pécs Tihany) and has been seen by tens of thousands of visitors free of charge The House of Terror Museum and the Foundation for Research on Central and Eastern European History and Society are committed to commemorating Roma heroes and raising public awareness of their efforts and to show that Hungarian Gypsies have served both their communities and Hungary through their activities and by embracing Gypsy causes and supporting their communities the Foundation has made it a priority to trace Roma heroes to document their stories and to honour their historical achievements through exhibitions commemorative stamps and various publications Legal Disclaimer Privacy Policy Press Contact Copyright © Foundation for Research on Central and Eastern European History and Society – All rights reserved The first suggestion of the Big Bang was in 1912. Astronomer Vesto Slipher “conducted a series of observations of spiral galaxies (which were believed to be nebulae) and measured their Doppler Redshift. In almost all cases, the spiral galaxies were observed to be moving away from our own,” according this phys.org article Edwin Hubble used the world’s largest telescope and showed that the distant galaxies all appeared to be receding from us The first and most confident evidence we have came from 1964 when scientists at the Bell Labs discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation Scientists have come up with several possible explanations for what happened before the Big Bang and it is entirely possible that there was no previous era What happened immediately after the explosions is called the Planck Era: the earliest known period of time the heat of the universe caused atoms to collide with enough force to create a ten billion degree soup of neutrons cosmic inflations created a soup of sub atomic particle plasma It appears that this is what gave rise to dark matter and likely the phase in which matter gains superiority over anti matter Space agencies have launched three missions to study this cosmic background radiation taking baby pictures of the universe only 400,000 years after its birth The first two probes map the primordial hot and cold spots in cosmic background radiation measuring temperature differences that are nearly uniformly distributed across the universe with instruments sensitive to temperature variations of a few millions of a degree made the most accurate maps of the microwave background radiation yet About one million years after the Big Bang, we enter a period call the Dark Ages which are known as the final frontier of cosmology except that is was the period before the first stars were born The Dark Ages are thought to have lasted about 100 million years the oldest object we can see are at a time when the universe was only several hundred million years old Two future projects that have already begun construction are specifically designed to shed some light on this era and hopefully bring the Dark Ages to an end The ultimate fate of the universe all hinges on dark energy If the universe continues to grow at about the same pace all the galaxies would be pulled from our view and all the evidence of the Big Bang would be completely lost forever This would result in all the last stars burning out in about 100 trillion years Dark energy could also intensify resulting in a Big Rip scenario This would happen in approximately 50 billion years from now Dark energy would effectively tear everything apart then this would give gravity the upper hand and lead to a collapse 30 billion years from now ultimately resulting in a Big Crunch.  Why Sign In? Subscribers can access their digital magazine issues, and registered users can participate in our Community forums and galleries. Play Duration: 9 minutes 24 seconds9m Brought to you by One hundred years ago, in 1912, the American astronomer Vesto Melvin Slipher made measurement of galaxies which opened up a completely new field of science. Using infra red light, he was able to show that most galaxies were receding from our galaxy at great speed. The universe was expanding. Slipher spent his career at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona from where Diane Hope reports. This picture is a computer-simulated view of a cluster of galaxies in the distant cosmos. A large, elliptical galaxy dominates the central region and is surrounded by a swarm of member galaxies. Other galaxies which lie far behind the cluster are seen as numerous visible concentric arcs -- lensed by the enormous gravitational field dominated by dark matter within the cluster itself.(NASA, ACS Team, Rychard Bouwens UCO/Lick Obs.) AstronomyTranscriptRobyn Williams: Who is VM Slipher, and what is the centenary they're celebrating in Flagstaff, Arizona? Let's join Diane Hope. Diane Hope: Flagstaff, Arizona, is home to the historic Lowell Observatory where Perceval Lowell thought he'd found those infamous canals on Mars, and Clyde Tombaugh the mysterious ninth planet Pluto, subsequently demoted to minor status. But there's one universe-changing discovery made here 100 years ago which has stood the test of time. And the audible Doppler shift in each passing freight train's horn is a clue to what that was. Diane Hope: David DeVorkin is senior curator of science history at the Smithsonian. He was just one of a group of science historians and astronomers who gathered here recently to celebrate the discovery of the expanding universe. The astronomer who made the ground breaking observation, on our neighbouring Andromeda galaxy, was Vesto Melvin Slipher, and modern astronomers are still hugely influenced and impressed by Slipher's work. Karl Glazebrook: My name is Karl Glazebrook, I'm an astronomer at Swinburne University in Melbourne. Slipher's measurement of the first redshift was one of the most significant cosmological measurements ever. That was the start of the process of understanding that nebulae galaxies were receding from our galaxy at thousands of kilometres per second, and that was the start of the whole idea of the expanding universe, that was the basic observational factor where it all began. I should say that Andromeda itself is actually a negative redshift, it's coming towards us. By the time Slipher had measured 25 galaxies he'd found around 23 redshifts and only two blueshifts, so it's clear that most galaxies in the universe are rushing away from us. But the person that became the standardbearer for these discoveries was Edwin Hubble, who we have a space telescope named after. So while Slipher's discoveries are extremely important and opened up a completely new field of science, the irony is that he's almost completely forgotten by most people. Diane Hope: And the impact of Slipher's discovery still dominates a large chunk of modern astronomy. Chris Impey is an observational cosmologist at the University of Arizona. The discovery of when the first galaxies in the universe formed will be a natural bookend to Slipher starting off measuring galaxy redshifts. Because at that point you've seen so far back in time that it is the very first stars and galaxies. There's a pretty active chase to try and find the highest redshift galaxy. Of course you never know when you found the highest redshift, there might always be one a little bit earlier or a little bit further away. Diane Hope: But continuing that chase to the universe's origins is making the astronomers' task a lot more challenging. Diane Hope: So with all this data and the search for the oldest galaxies almost over, you'd think astronomers would be feeling pretty confident about their understanding of the universe, right? Diane Hope: Ken Freeman's current research is focused on decoding some of the mystery surrounding dark matter. Diane Hope: One big advance that has been made in recent years is that cosmic expansion isn't constant, a discovery with profound and somewhat disturbing implications for the long-term future. Ken Freeman: The exciting thing that Brian Schmidt and his colleagues and competitors found in the late '90s was that the universe is in fact accelerating, and Brian and his colleagues used a particular kind of exploding star, it's called a supernova 1A, as a distance indicator. They showed that in fact the universe is now in an accelerating phase. This is in some ways a rather dismal prospect because on very long timescales, the universe will basically go out. The microwave background photons will be redshifted to the point where they will be difficult or perhaps impossible to see. And finally, because of the continued stellar evolution over the next millions and millions of years, it will be increasingly hard to see the signature of Big Bang nucleosynthesis. So in that sense it becomes harder and harder to do cosmology as the cosmos itself ages. Diane Hope: It's a mark of how mysterious the universe still is, that around 96% of what forms the galaxies Slipher measured 100 years ago still isn't understood. But as Adams points out, Sllipher's first redshift measurement remains a giant leap. Fred Adams: That's the measurement that has stood the test of time. He did it 10 years earlier than everyone else, he was ahead of the game and he did it right. So that's huge. All of us should be so lucky as to make a contribution that important. Robyn Williams: Diane Hope in Flagstaff, Arizona, and you heard Dr Ken Freeman there from the ANU, winner of last week's PM’s Prize for Science. Published: 29 Apr 2025Tue 29 Apr 2025 at 2:25am Published: 26 Apr 2025Sat 26 Apr 2025 at 2:00am Published: 22 Apr 2025Tue 22 Apr 2025 at 2:25am Download the ABC listen app to hear more of your favourite podcasts Hungary's central bank is pulping wads of old notes into briquettes to help heat needy humanitarian organisations a gesture that has warmed many bodies and hearts amid a deadly cold snap a vital aid for our foundation because we can save part of our heating costs," said Krisztina Haraszti the head of a centre for autistic children in the impoverished northeastern town of Miskolc which also provides aid to autistic adults save between 50,000 and 60,000 forints (180 and 200 euros/ $238 and 265) a month which is a "considerable sum in this time of crisis," she told AFP The central bank has been converting unusable notes into briquettes for the past four years The centre and another association dealing with handicapped children in the south-eastern town of Veszto are the institutions chosen to receive the briquettes this year There was palpable excitement when a truck from the central bank's cash logistics centre arrived Tuesday to unload four tons of compressed old notes at the centre for autistic children which has been receiving them since September The monthly delivery is due to continue until March or April Since the briquettes have a high calorific value "one only needs to add a few bits of wood and the rooms are really warm," said Haraszti The head of the central bank's cash logistics centre said: "Our examination showed that the heating properties of these shredded currency briquettes are similar to brown coal so they are pretty useful for heating .. They can be used in boilers that use mixed fuel Then the centre decided to compress them into briquettes for better heating efficiency and got machines to transform the unusable cash 200 billion Hungarian forints are turned into briquettes that is useful for heating in poor regions corporate social responsibility is an important thing That's why we thought that since we destroy approximately 40 or 50 tons of currency every year this thing can be useful for charities that have a problem finding fuel for burning." It takes about 5 million forints (€17,000) to make a single one-kilogram briquette The notes are cut into pieces of 1 to 5 millimetres and then the paper is compressed without any chemicals being added the central bank withdraws about a quarter of the notes in circulation and prints new money to replace the unusable and old currency The process of turning old cash into briquettes is held under tight security People working here have to wear pocketless clothes The institutions are chosen they make bids for the briquettes The central bank just has one criterion: that the organisations chosen have no public debt please register for free or log in to your account.