Latest news with #Ariane
USA Today
3 days ago
- Health
- USA Today
Ariane da Silva's team says big UFC 316 weight miss related to pituitary tumor treatment
Ariane da Silva's team says big UFC 316 weight miss related to pituitary tumor treatment UFC women's flyweight Ariane da Silva stepped on the scale Friday morning closer to the bantamweight division, and her team has since provided a shocking explanation. Da Silva (17-10 MMA, 6-7 UFC) is scheduled to face Wang Cong at UFC 316 (pay-per-view, ESPN, ESPN+) in a preliminary bout at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., but the fight was in jeopardy of not going forward after the official weigh-in session. Weighing in at 132 pounds, da Silva came in six pounds over the flyweight limit. Cong (7-1 MMA, 2-1 UFC), who made 125 pounds on the nose, would have been justified in refusing the fight, but decided to keep the bout alive. Renato da Silva, Ariane's husband, told MMA Fighting that a poor treatment plan for a benign pituitary tumor led to complications with the weight cut. According to Ariane's coach, the tumor was discovered during further examination after a blood test during fight camp showed abnormal levels of prolactin and cortisol. The team brought in a new nutritionist to deal with the weight cut for UFC 316, but the plan did not work. "We wanted to get the cortisol levels down so it wouldn't affect her health," Renato told MMA Fighting in Portuguese (translated by MMA Fighting). "By controlling the cortisol levels, we wanted to cause as little stress as possible to her body. And the nutritionist opted for a strategy that would have her hold as much as weight as possible until the end, and it was too much for the final days. He doesn't know her as much as I do, and he thought she would be able to do that. "There was a moment this morning she wasn't feeling good. I know her body. There was still something left there to cut, but at the same time, her reactions weren't normal. She wasn't walking right, she was blinking too slow, she had double vision, and couldn't focus, her voice sounded weak. She was giving us dangerous signs as she dropped weight." After contacting the UFC's medical staff, it was determined that attempting to cut the remaining six pounds would be too dangerous, so the weight cut was stopped. The team places some blame on the nutritionist's plan to get Ariane to the flyweight limit. "It was too much (weight) for such a short amount of time," Renato said. "I think that was the mistake by the nutritionist. We trusted the process, and unfortunately, it didn't work. It's a mistake we made. I also made that mistake as a coach, to have believed and tried something different, but my goal is always to take care of the health of Ariane, an athlete and also my wife. I'll always put her health first." Cong accepted the new terms of the fight after weigh-ins, which included 30 percent of da Silva's purse, and the fight changed to a catchweight at 132 pounds.
NDTV
6 days ago
- Politics
- NDTV
After 50 Successful Years, The European Space Agency Has Some Big Challenges Ahead
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the European Space Agency (Esa). It has launched spectacularly successful missions, but is different to other space agencies which generally represent one country. Esa is funded by 23 member states and also has cooperation agreements with nations such as Canada. Esa operates cutting edge spacecraft designed to monitor the Earth, as well as space telescopes that study the distant cosmos. It has launched robotic spacecraft to other planets and to objects such as comets. It is also involved in human spaceflight – training European astronauts to work on the International Space Station (ISS). These are hugely successful achievements. But the agency now faces challenges as competition heats up among newer space powers such as China and India. The history of Esa can be traced to events immediately after the second world war, when many European scientists moved to either the US or to the Soviet Union. Many of them realised that projects supported only by a single nation could not compete with those supported by the two big geopolitical players at the time. This motivated the physicists Pierre Auger, from France, and Edoardo Amaldi, from Italy, to propose a European organisation that would carry out space research and would be 'purely scientific'. In 1962, two agencies were created. One of these, the European Launch Development Organisation (ELDO), would concentrate on developing a rocket. The other, the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), would focus on developing robotic spacecraft. Both were joined together in 1975 to form the European Space Agency. The push to build a European rocket would eventually yield the Ariane launcher, which is operated by the French company Arianespace. The first satellite to be launched under the banner of the newly formed European Space Agency was Cos-B. This spacecraft was designed to monitor a high energy form of radiation called gamma rays, being emitted from objects in space. In 1978, Esa cooperated with Nasa and the UK on the International Ultraviolet Explorer mission. This space telescope was designed to observe the cosmos in ultraviolet light, something that cannot be done from Earth. The agency would later collaborate with Nasa and the Canadian Space Agency on one of the most successful space telescopes of all time: Hubble. Launched in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope helped confirm the expansion rate of the universe and showed that black holes are at the cores of almost all galaxies. Hubble's stunning images also changed the way that many people saw the universe. Esa funded one of the original instruments on the space telescope, the Faint Object Camera, and provided the first two solar arrays. The space agency is also a partner on the revolutionary James Webb Telescope, which launched in 2021. Esa contributed two of the telescope's instruments: the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NirSpec) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (Miri). Solar System Missions Esa has also launched pioneering missions to other planets and objects in our solar system. The first of these was the Giotto comet explorer. This robotic spacecraft flew past Halley's comet in 1986 and was successfully woken up in 1992 to study a comet called Grigg-Skejllerup. A second successful cometary mission followed when the Rosetta spacecraft entered orbit around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. Rosetta despatched a lander called Philae to touch down on the comet's surface. Rosetta has been my favourite of all Esa achievements, simply due to the pure audacity of attempting to land on an object whose shape and composition was until then only sparsely known. In order to 'land' on an object with low gravity, Philae was to have deployed harpoons that would attach the lander to the surface. These systems did not work, but the overall mission was a success, leading to high levels of engagement from the public. Besides comets, Esa launched one of the most successful missions to the red planet: Mars Express. The spacecraft entered orbit around Mars in 2003 and has played a key role in enhancing understanding of our planetary neighbour. It is expected to continue working until at least 2034. Mars Express also carried the ill-fated British Beagle 2 spacecraft to Mars. This was supposed to land in 2003, but contact was never established with the probe, which is presumed to have been damaged while touching down. In 2005, Esa's Huygens spacecraft landed on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. This was the furthest from Earth that a spacecraft has ever landed. These are all outward facing missions, but Esa has also had major success with projects to study what's going on here on Earth. These include the Envisat satellite, which operated from 2002-2012, and the Sentinel series of spacecraft, which have operated from 2014 to the present. These have helped map agriculture and forests, understand the Earth's climate, track ice, and monitor atmospheric ozone. In addition, the Galileo navigation satellites are providing a high precision alternative to GPS. Esa is also a major player in human spaceflight, having been a partner in the International Space Station project since 1993. It has built sections of the ISS, including the Columbus laboratory, launched in 2008, and the Cupola viewing window, which gives astronauts panoramic views of Earth. The agency's astronauts regularly spend time on the ISS as crew and could even fly to the Moon under Nasa's Artemis programme. Since the 1990s, Esa has frequently collaborated with Nasa – often very successfully. However, this relationship has also faced challenges. In the wake of the financial crisis, for example, Nasa cancelled its participation in several collaborative missions with Esa. Under a proposed Nasa budget this year, the US space agency may again cancel its involvement with the joint Nasa-Esa Mars Sample Return mission. Esa's Future Times have changed in the space industry since Esa's founding 50 years ago. Major countries such as China, India and Japan all have their own space programmes. Esa faces considerable financial pressures to compete with them. Nevertheless, Esa is working on strengthening its space exploration and launch capabilities through the use of a commercial space port in Norway. It has also put together a long-term strategy for 2040. This document highlights important areas where Esa can play a major role, including protecting Earth and its climate, continued missions to explore space and also efforts to boost European growth and competitiveness. All this should strengthen and secure the agency for the future. Through a mixture of developing its own missions and collaborating with other agencies and commercial partners on others, Esa should be a major player in space exploration for decades to come. (Author: , Lecturer in Astronomy, Nottingham Trent University) (Disclosure statement: Daniel Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.)
Spectator
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
French Guiana is the perfect place for a supermax prison
So that you don't have to, I've conducted a reconnaissance of French Guiana where the French justice minister is to build a strict regime, maximum-security prison to warehouse France's most dangerous criminals. I've been there a couple of times as a guest of the French space agency, which occasionally conducts launches of the Ariane rocket from Kourou. You fly in from Paris over virgin rainforest and can see the enormous space base on the descent. It's the hand of man on the face of God. French Guiana has a veneer of French civilisation. You can buy decent baguettes. There's a Carrefour supermarket. But it's essentially an anachronism of French colonialism. Europeans run the spaceport and local government. There are industrious Indochinese, descendants of the families who were exiled there after the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, who run much else.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Neonode Announces Changes to the Composition of Its Board of Directors
STOCKHOLM, April 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Neonode Inc. (NASDAQ: NEON) (the "Company" or "Neonode") today announced changes to the composition of its Board of Directors. Didier Schreiber will be appointed to the Board as a Class I Director and Cecilia Edström will, due to other commitments, resign as a Class I Director of the Board of Directors. Didier Schreiber currently serves as Owner and Chief Executive Officer of Rondiné Consulting. He has extensive experience in operations and executive management positions in the automotive industry. Previously, he was the Senior Vice President and a member of the Executive Management Team at ZEEKR Technology EU AB/ CEVT, China Europe Vehicle Technology AB where he held various roles since 2014. Mr. Schreiber holds a PhD in the field of Combustion Technology, with applications on the Ariane rocket engine from Ecole Centrale de Paris - Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg. "I am very pleased to be joining the Board of Directors at Neonode. With a team of skilled professionals, a strong focus on technology and innovation, and a portfolio of advanced solutions, Neonode is well-positioned for future profitable growth. I am genuinely excited to contribute to its development and success," said Didier Schreiber. "Mr. Schreiber's extensive experience in the automotive industry will be a significant asset to Neonode during this pivotal phase, and we look forward to a close and productive collaboration," said Ulf Rosberg, Chairman of the Board. "We also want to thank Mrs. Edström for her dedicated and professional work as director from 2022 to 2025." For more information, please contact:Chief Financial OfficerFredrik NihlénE-mail: +46 703 97 21 09President and Chief Executive OfficerPierre Daniel AlexusE-mail: +46 767 60 29 90 This information was brought to you by Cision The following files are available for download: Neonode Announces Changes to the Composition of Its Board of Directors Didier Schreiber View original content: SOURCE Neonode Sign in to access your portfolio
CBS News
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
For nearly 20 years, school run by San Francisco pair connects people to dance
A San Francisco husband and wife have been connecting people to cultural music and dance traditions in the Mission District for 18 years. For Jesus Cortes, dancing is a gift that he and his wife, Ariane Cortes, share at their Cuicacalli Dance Company. In the Aztec language, "Cuicacalli" means "house of culture." "We were so happy to found it and bring it to the community," Jesus said. The pair has run the Cuicacalli dance program for 18 years. They find their rhythm as a team. "I'll come up with these musicial ideas, and he'll have the steps to go with them," Ariane said of their partnership. "That's something really golden and very hard to find." The pair offers beginning to advanced dance lessons to students, aged 5 to 22 years old at the Brava Theater. Cuicacalli is not only a resident artist at Brava, but also at the San Francisco Unified School District, where 900 students learn from the dance program every year. Artistic director Jesus Cortes admits this is not what he planned, growing up in Mexico. "I really was looking for a way to play soccer, but my Mom said I need to learn a discipline," he chuckled. So he took free lessons from his great grand uncle, a professional dancer. I did fell in love with dance because I found my identify," Cortes said. And when Jesus came to the U.S. in 2007, he wanted to make that cultural heritage accessible to children in the Mission District, so Cuicacalli Dance Company was born. He and Ariane - a music educator - teach about 80 students at Brava Theater, most of them on scholarships funded by grants and donations. She explained, "The arts make our children thoughtful and have souls and be creative and work as a community." Students step into Mexican folk dance, hip hop, even a fusion of classical and contemporary. Laura Padilla enrolls her two kids for the connection. "It's about embodying who they are through dance," Padilla said. Years of dance lessons have helped American-born Tifanny Romero wrap her arms around her culture. "I don't think I'm very close to my heritage but throughout my experience here at Cuicacalli, I've been able to learn new dances from new places that I haven't visited," the 17-year-old said. And 18-year-old Leopoldo Paniagua said the Cortes family helps him keep a firm footing in life. "They push me to do better, become a better person, stay out of the streets, from doing bad things, they've kept me on the right pathway," he said. This year, the students will perform in the parade at SF Carnaval for the first time. They're raising funds to build their float. Registration is also open for their summer camp, which also includes jazz and Afro Latino music. Whether performing for an audience or practicing in the studio Ariane and Jesus Cortes create a community to learn and grow. "I want them to not only become great artists but better people," he said. She added, "You see them as more than just a dancer. They're really part of your family, and you're going to be there for them through whatever they're doing through." For enriching the lives of students through Cuicacalli dance lessons, this week's CBS News Bay Area Icon Award goes to Jesus and Ariane Cortes.
