Tag Archives: challenges

Recent study challenges previous beliefs about forest resilience

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Recent research has shown that trees in humid regions are more vulnerable to drought, challenging previous beliefs about tree resilience. The study, which included analysis of more than 6.6 million tree rings, revealed that trees in arid regions are surprisingly drought tolerant. This finding highlights the widespread effects of climate change on forests and suggests that genetic diversity in drier regions may be important for adapting to changing conditions. There is. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Scientists have flipped the script and revealed that trees in humid regions are more sensitive to drought.

This holiday season brings some surprising news about Christmas trees. Scientists have found that globally, trees that grow in wetter regions are more sensitive to drought. This means that if your tree was grown in a humid climate, it has likely been damaged over generations.

Debate over drought tolerance of trees

Scientists have long debated whether arid environments make trees more or less tolerant of drought. It seems intuitive that trees living at the biological margin are most vulnerable to climate change. Because even the slightest bit of extra stress can send a tree over the brink. On the other hand, these populations may be better able to withstand drought because they are adapted to harsher environments.

The trees of this lush temperate forest in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state may be less drought tolerant than trees in drier regions of the South.Credit: Joan Dudney

Insights from new research

According to a new study published in the journal science Increased water availability could “kill” trees by reducing their ability to adapt to drought, according to researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of California, Davis. “And that’s really important to understand when we think about the global vulnerability of forest carbon stocks and forest health.” said Joan Dudney, an assistant professor and ecologist. “You don’t want to be a ‘spoiled’ tree when faced with a major drought.”

Dudney and his co-authors predicted that trees growing in the driest regions would be more sensitive to drought because they were already living on the edge of their limits. Furthermore, climate change models predict that these regions will dry out more rapidly than wetter regions. This change in climate can expose trees to conditions beyond their ability to adapt.

Methodology: Tree ring analysis

To measure drought sensitivity, the authors analyzed 6.6 million tree ring samples from 122 trees. seed World wide. They measured whether a tree was growing faster or slower than average based on the width of its growth rings. They correlated these trends with historical climate data such as precipitation and temperature.

The team then compared different regions’ responses to drought. “As you move to the drier edge of a species’ range, trees become less and less sensitive to drought,” said lead author Robert Heilmeyer, an environmental economist with the Environmental Research Program and the Bren School. he said. “Those trees are actually very resilient.”

Dudney, Heilmeyer, and their co-author Frances Moore were partially inspired by UCSB professor Tamma Carleton’s research on the effects of climate change on humanity. “This paper highlights the value of interdisciplinary scientific research,” added Moore, an associate professor at the University of California, Davis. “We applied economics methods originally developed to study how people and businesses adapt to changing climate, and applied them to ecological contexts to study the sensitivity of forests to drought. could be applied to.”

“A heat wave is likely to kill more people in a cool place like Seattle than in a hot city like Phoenix,” Heilmeyer said. It’s already quite hot in the Southwest, with a scorching heatwave occurring. But cities in the region are adapted to extreme climates, he points out. We now know that forests exhibit similar trends.

Impact on warm regions

Unfortunately, temperate regions are expected to become disproportionately drier in the coming decades. “Significant parts of the species’ ranges will be faced with entirely new climates, a phenomenon that these species do not find anywhere else in their ranges today,” Heilmeyer explained. The authors found that in 2100, 11% of the average species’ range will be drier than the driest part of its historical range. For some species, this increases to 50% or more.

“Broadly speaking, our study highlights that very few forests will be immune to the effects of climate change,” Dudney said. “Even wet forests are under more threat than we realize.”

But there’s also the other side of the coin. This species stores drought-tolerant resources in drier parts of its range and has the potential to strengthen forests in wetter regions. Previous research UCSB researchers have revealed that many species have the ability to adapt to environmental changes. But these researchers also discovered that trees move slowly from one generation to the next. This means that human intervention, such as assisted migration, may be required to take advantage of this genetic diversity.

Christmas tree and the fate of the forest

Whether the Christmas tree lives in a dry or humid region, its growth may decrease in the future. But understanding how trees respond to climate change can help secure the future of Tannenbaum and its wild trees.

Reference: “Drought sensitivity of mesic forests increases vulnerability to climate change” by Robert Heilmeyer, Joan Dudney, and Frances C. Moore, December 7, 2023. science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.adi1071

Source: scitechdaily.com

GM’s autonomous taxi division, Cruise, cuts 900 jobs as it faces challenges.

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General Motors’ cruise self-driving car unit is restructuring and cutting costs after several safety incidents in San Francisco, resulting in over 900 layoffs, or about a quarter of its workforce. The subsidiary announced the layoffs in a letter from president and chief technology officer Mo El-Shenawy to Cruise’s 3,800 employees, stating that the layoffs were not the fault of the employees.

The layoffs come after Cruise acknowledged that nine key leaders are no longer with the company as an investigation into an October accident involving one of the company’s driverless robotaxis continues. “We are first simplifying and focusing our efforts to provide great service in one city,” El-Shenawy wrote in the letter. The measures follow an analysis of the October crash and response after a Cruise robotaxi struck and injured a pedestrian.

California regulators allege that Cruise concealed the severity of the October accident, and robotaxi services are also being investigated by US auto safety regulators. The employment measures include additional pay and benefits for laid-off employees.

“Today is one of the most difficult days yet as so many talented people are retiring,” El-Shenawy wrote. Cruise has faced significant turmoil in recent months, and General Motors is absorbing huge losses while developing a driverless service. GM plans to slow spending at Cruise, which it acquired eight years ago. For the first nine months of this year, Cruise posted a pretax loss of $1.9 billion.

Source: nypost.com

Early-stage investors respond to increasing challenges in securing Series A funding

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Lightspeed Venture Partners officially moves forward with scaling efforts as other companies make similar moves

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hurdle Series A funding has increased significantly compared to a year ago, and investors in seed-stage companies are having to react.

If they want their startup to survive, they don’t have many options. When the market suddenly changed in the spring of 2022, late-stage companies were the first to feel the pain. But that downward financial pressure has also recently affected newer companies, resulting in lower valuations in subsequent rounds, up from 1.6x in the second quarter to 2013, according to Pitchbook data. This is the lowest value since the third quarter, making selection difficult. Series A investors with plenty of options.

There are countless ways VCs can get creative on this front. European venture firm Breega touts a “scaling team” to back many of its seed investments. Pear VC, a Bay Area-based seed-stage venture firm, continues to roll out new programs to support and educate the early teams it supports.

Even larger, more agnostic companies are doing more to show they’re responsive to today’s market. For example, in October, investment firm Greylock launched Edge, a three-month company-building program “aimed at taking selected pre-idea, pre-seed, and seed founders from launch to product-market fit.” It started.

VC powerhouse Lightspeed Venture Partners is also stepping up its efforts. The company has long written early (and in some cases first) checks to startups, including the messaging app Snapchat. application performance management company AppDynamics (acquired by Cisco just before his IPO); and publicly traded cloud computing company Nutanix (current market cap: $11.2 billion).

The company says it has long focused on polishing these rough diamonds. Still, given the rising standards for Series A investors overall, Lightspeed told TechCrunch that some of the mentorship the company has provided to portfolio companies for years will be extended to company-building for founders. He said that he decided to make it official through the program. launch.

The idea, led by partner Luke Betheda, is not to attract more founders to Lightspeed, but to pave the way for already-funded startups to advance to Series A rounds. It is said that Betheda explains that almost everyone faces the same questions and obstacles. “They need to know: How do I get a business up and running? How do I hire and build a core team? Build product strategy through customer interviews and build partnerships. How can we design and drive revenue?”

Going forward, Lightspeed hopes to answer these questions more systematically through expert-led workshops, seed “playbooks,” and other toolkits Lightspeed offers through new programs.

Certainly, any help, no matter how small, is greatly appreciated at this time.

While many startups simply disband, at least 3,200 According to data compiled by Pitchbook for the New York Times, venture-backed U.S. companies are expected to go out of business in 2023, but companies that focus on year-over-year growth and annual recurring revenue are realistic. Some companies think they won’t go out of business any time soon.

At this time, it also includes a Series A stage.

“In 2020, 2021 and towards the end of 2022, we went through a period of tremendous market excitement, where there was a sense that gravity was non-existent,” Benchmark VC Sarah Tavel said at TC told. At an event earlier this month, she spoke about the changing landscape of Series A funding.

“Now we’re back to the point where everyone realizes that the job of building a company is really hard. You have to have great direction for your customers. You have to have incredible direction to the fundamentals of the business you are in.”

Mr Tavel said: “It’s not just the cosmetic metrics, the top-line numbers, that get a lot of people confused. [succeed] It is what generates profits and cash flow. ”

Source: techcrunch.com

Getaround’s Third Quarter Results Encourage Investors, but the Company Still Faces Challenges

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peer-to-peer car sharing company Moving filed its first earnings report since going public a year ago Via SPAC combination. The company’s third-quarter earnings report details that while revenue is growing rapidly, it still doesn’t generate enough sales to cover expenses.

Getaround reported gross bookings of $69 million in the third quarter, resulting in revenue of $23.8 million in the period, up from $16.7 million in the year-ago period. In the first nine months of 2023, Getaround’s revenue reached his $54 million.

But while Getaround’s reported 42% year-over-year revenue growth in the third quarter has been well-received by investors, who have sent the stock up 75% in after-hours trading at the time of writing, the company is not. Still out of the forest.

Getaround’s operating expenses in the third quarter were worth $42.9 million, compared to the equivalent of $128 million for the first three quarters of this year, both numbers significantly higher than its gross profit for both periods. Still, Getaround has made some progress on the profitability front. In the third quarter, the company had a net GAAP loss of $27.3 million, an improvement of 16% from the third quarter of 2022 report. Using a more generous profit calculation, Get Around remained unprofitable in the latest quarter, with his adjusted EBITDA reported at -$11.3 million. Over the three-month period, it improved by 43% year-over-year.

Getaround is targeting gross bookings in the range of $200 million to $205 million for the full year of 2023. The company did not disclose revenue targets for this year, but third-quarter revenue reflects an annual run rate of more than $95 million. Getaround expects its 2023 adjusted EBITDA loss to be in the range of $68 million to $70 million.

Getaround ended the third quarter with $22.1 million in cash and cash equivalents. This number is a significant departure from the $64.3 million reported in cash and equivalents at the end of the third quarter of 2022. The company got some good news in the form of a $3 million infusion from Madrick Capital. Madrick Capital has an existing $15 million note with the company, which was expanded to provide a little more headroom for the getaround.

Getaround stock closed regular trading at about $0.17 on Thursday, ahead of the release of third-quarter data.

Rebuilding

Getaround is working to clean up its cost base, including reducing the company’s workforce. 10% of staff In February, the company announced that it would cut costs by $25 million to $30 million a year to achieve sustainability. The layoffs came a day after Getaround was declared a state of emergency. Delisting Notice from the New York Stock Exchange This is because the stock price was trading too low.

Now that the stock price has risen significantly following the earnings report, GetAround is still worth less than $1 per share, meaning it is still at risk of being delisted.Several SPAC combinations were executed reverse stock split This is probably why earnings per share have remained in the 100 yen range.

Getaround has also received other delisting notices for failing to timely file annual and quarterly reports. The company has not filed its 2022 annual report and just filed its third quarter earnings report. Getaround has not yet filed its first and second quarter results. The company says it will need more time to complete the audit and has now completed it.

Getaround CEO Sam Zaid told TechCrunch: Mr. Zaid would not comment on whether GetAround would seek a reverse stock split to boost its stock price.

car sharing companies too Acquires assets of startup HyreCar This will increase Getaround’s operating costs in the short term. Getaround hopes the scale provided by the acquisition will help accelerate its path to profitability.

This article has been updated with information from Getaround’s CEO.

Source: techcrunch.com

Federal Authorities Push for Introducing Drunk-Driving Prevention Technology in Cars, But Face Challenges

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The in-vehicle technology used by Ford, GM and others to ensure drivers pay attention to the road has come a long way. However, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it is still not enough to prevent or reduce the harm caused by drunk driving.

This assessment is included throughout the agency’s new 99-page Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. released Tuesday was a pit stop of sorts on the way to enacting regulations that would require in-vehicle technology to recognize when a driver has been drinking.

NHTSA is currently seeking assistance in determining what technology should be incorporated into vehicles to completely reduce or prevent this problem, in part because NHTSA has no commercially available options. states that it does not exist. After the notice is published in the Federal Register, the public has 60 days to submit comments.

NHTSA says it evaluated 331 driver monitoring systems and found no commercially available systems that adequately handle the identification of alcohol impairment. The magazine noted that there are three DMS systems that claim to detect alcohol-induced impairment, but said they are still in the research and development stage. (We did not reveal the names of those systems.)

However, driver monitoring is not the only option at NHTSA’s disposal. NHTSA embarked on this mission after President Biden ordered the agency to find a solution in 2021 with bipartisan infrastructure legislation. The act charged NHTSA with developing federal motor vehicle safety standards that could determine whether a driver is impaired by passively monitoring the driver. Or it could be by passively (and accurately) detecting whether the blood alcohol concentration is too high, or a combination of both.

Accuracy is key, and NHTSA findings suggest that blood alcohol detection technology is a more viable solution in the short term. After all, dozens of states already require breathalyzer-based alcohol ignition interlocks for repeat offenders or high-BAC offenders. However, this technology is considered ‘active’, meaning that drivers must actively engage with it, which is contrary to the law’s passive requirement.

There may be another option.

Since 2008, NHTSA has been working with the Alliance for Automobile Traffic Safety (ACTS) on a public-private partnership called Driver Alcohol Sensing Systems for Safety (DADSS). As part of that program, DADSS has developed both breath-based and contact-based methods to detect driver impairment. Breath-based methods are also considered active and therefore non-starters, while touch sensors are designed to be embedded in something the driver needs to touch to operate the vehicle (such as a push-start button). NHTSA has “preliminarily determined that such touch sensors may be considered passive.”

ACTS CEO Robert Strassberger said he believes touch sensors may be the best option in the short term, given the technology’s limitations in being passive. He wants to know what the public thinks.

“That’s going to be one of the areas of interest for me when I read the comments that are ultimately submitted. How do people feel about it? Will it ultimately be accepted by consumers? It depends,” he says. “I think one of the things we definitely want to avoid doing is asking drivers to learn a new way of interacting with their cars.”

Timing is critical. Not only does drunk driving kill thousands of people each year and cost the country billions of dollars, final regulations need to be standardized by November 2024.

Judging by the number of questions NHTSA raises in its notice, achieving this goal may be difficult. The agency is raising all sorts of thorny questions, as well as seeking further comment on driver monitoring and the definition of “passive.” For example, if the start/stop button has a touch sensor, how does it know that the driver is pressing it? If the system determines that the driver is too drunk to start the car, Should you prevent your car from starting? What if the driver is trying to escape a wildfire?

“This is very complex rulemaking,” Strassberger said. “There are a lot of details that the agency needs to get right.”

Source: techcrunch.com

SumUp secures an additional €285m in funding to weather challenges in the fintech industry

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summary The fintech company, which provides payments and related services to around 4 million small and medium-sized businesses in Europe, the Americas and Australia, is raising growth capital to navigate the current turbulent fintech market. The thumb-up itself is tilted and shaken.

The London-based startup with German roots has raised €285 million (just under $307 million). The company plans to use the funding to continue growing its business organically and launch more financial services, focusing on card readers and other POS tools, offering invoicing, loyalty, business accounts, and more. is. We also have our sights set on more regions beyond the 36 we currently operate in.

The company will also focus on inorganic growth, namely M&A. The latter is noteworthy. We are currently in a buyer’s market. Fintech startups are experiencing a significantly tighter funding environment, with funding declining 36% globally in the last quarter. According to S&P.

(M&A deals can check several strategic boxes. When SumUp acquired loyalty startup Fivestars in 2021, it gave it an edge in the U.S. and also brought new services to its platform.) (Introduced)

Sixth Street Growth is leading this latest round, with participation from previous backers Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, Fin Capital, and Liquidity Group. SumUp has currently raised approximately $1.5 billion. pitch book data.

Hermione McKee, who was appointed SumUp’s CFO earlier this year, described the round as “mostly equity” but declined to provide a more precise figure. He also declined to discuss SamUp’s specific valuation, but he did note that SumUp has raised 590 million euros (half equity and half debt) in 2022. He said it was more expensive than the dollar.

The company states that it has been “positive on an EBITDA basis since the fourth quarter of 2022” (note: this does not mean it is profitable). And, compared to the previous year, he has achieved “sales growth” of more than 30%.

But on the other hand, there are other signs that business is tough right now. According to SumUp, the company’s customer base is now around 4 million people, which is exactly the same number the company had two years ago.

And today’s funding news comes on the heels of several other volatile data points about the company. It was only a few months ago that Groupon revealed it was selling some of its shares at a valuation of $4.1 billion as part of a larger secondary transaction between existing shareholders. In other words, we were able to sell the company for less than half of its 2022 value.

Meanwhile, the $8.5 billion valuation from 2022 is a significant discount to the 20 billion euros ($21.5 billion) that SumUp was aiming to achieve, reflecting how difficult it would be to raise a large equity round. It highlighted that. (And in line with this, the last raise SumUp gave in August was $100 million credit facility. )

Payment technology companies in Europe and the United States also faced increased scrutiny and suffered weak performance.

PayPal and Square, two U.S.-listed companies that directly compete with SumUp, have seen their stock prices and market caps decline since 2022. (PayPal’s stock is now less than $60 a share, down from a peak of nearly $300 a share.) Square and parent company Block are trading at about 25% of their peak. ) Stripe’s valuation famously fell by almost half this year to $50 billion.

Closer to home, listed Adyen has also reported slowing growth and is in financial trouble. But as a measure of how volatile the current market is, and how desperate investors are for signs of good news, Adyen’s mere mention of a turnaround plan (a plan, not an outcome) suggests that the company’s ‘s stock price soared. 30% up.

So far, Klarna and Checkout haven’t been so lucky. Klarna’s valuation fell by around 85% during its last funding round. Checkout was valued at $40 billion when it raised $1 billion in January 2022, but that number has reportedly been lowered since then. 10 billion dollars Internally.

Now 11 years old and one of the largest private payments startups, SumUp relies on a track record of longevity as proof of its stability.

“For more than a decade, SumUp has consistently delivered sustained growth, boldly entering and leading entirely new product categories and markets,” said Nari Ansari, MD of Sixth Street Growth. said in a statement. “This … track record and culture of innovation, combined with SumUp’s thoughtful approach to growth and efficiency, aligns well with Sixth Street Growth’s investment strategy.”

Source: techcrunch.com

The Power of Salt and “Baking” in Addressing Environmental Challenges

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Chemists at the University of Copenhagen have made a significant breakthrough in textile recycling by developing an environmentally friendly method to recycle polyester using Harthorn salt. Polyester, which is the second most used fiber in the world, poses a threat to the environment as very little of it is currently recycled. The fabric is a combination of plastic and cotton, making it challenging for the industry to separate and recycle. However, the chemists have discovered a simple solution using a single ingredient found in households.

Polyester is found in various everyday items, such as clothing, sofas, and curtains, with an astonishing 60 million tonnes of the fabric being produced annually. Unfortunately, the production and lack of recycling have a negative impact on the climate and environment, as only 15% of polyester is recycled, while the rest ends up in landfills or incineration, contributing to carbon emissions.

Recycling polyester presents significant challenges, particularly in separating the plastic and cotton fibers without losing them. Traditional methods prioritize preserving the plastic components, resulting in the loss of cotton fibers. These methods are also expensive and complex, with the use of metal catalysts generating harmful waste.

In a revolutionary development, a team of young chemists has found a remarkably simple solution to this problem that could transform sustainability in the textile industry. The researchers have developed a traceless catalytic methodology that allows for the depolymerization of polyester into monomers in an easy and environmentally friendly approach, at a large scale.

The process requires no special equipment and only relies on heat, a non-toxic solvent, and common household materials. By cutting a polyester garment into small pieces and placing them in a container with a mild solvent and Harthorn salt (ammonium bicarbonate), the mixture is heated to 160 degrees Celsius and left for 24 hours. The result is a liquid where the plastic and cotton fibers separate into distinct layers. This simple and cost-effective process preserves the cotton fiber while breaking down the polyester.

The Harthorn salt is broken down into ammonia, CO2, and water during the process. The combination of ammonia and CO2 acts as a catalyst, selectively breaking down the polyester while keeping the cotton fibers intact. The use of ammonia in combination with CO2 is environmentally friendly and safe. Due to the mild nature of the chemical reaction, the cotton fibers remain in excellent condition.

The researchers were pleasantly surprised by the success of their simple recipe for recycling polyester. Although the method has only been tested in the laboratory, the researchers believe it is scalable and are currently exploring partnerships with companies to test the method on an industrial scale. They are determined to commercialize this technology, which has the potential to make a significant impact on textile recycling.

Source: scitechdaily.com