Latest news with #Selva
Daily Express
21-07-2025
- Science
- Daily Express
Daily Express columnist receives Nepal award
Published on: Monday, July 21, 2025 Published on: Mon, Jul 21, 2025 Text Size: Koshi Province Chief Minister Hikmat Kumar Karki presents the prestigious award to Dr T Selva at the conference in Nepal. Dr Lokraj is looking on. DHANKUTA: (Nepal): Daily Express Vasthu Sastra columnist Dr T Selva was conferred the prestigious Vasthu Star Award at the International Astro Vasthu and Tantra Conference held at Bhedetar, Dhankuta. Koshi Province Chief Minister Hikmat Kumar Karki presented the honour for his outstanding global contribution to Vasthu Sastra and ancient pearls of wisdom. Advertisement Dr Selva has played a key role in popularising this ancient Indian science of architecture and harmony through his extensive writings, international lectures, and media outreach. World Astro Federation Chairman Dr Lokraj Poudel described Dr Selva's impact as 'pivotal' in reviving interest in Vasthu Sastra worldwide. 'His efforts have helped countless individuals apply these time-tested principles to modern living for enhanced well-being and prosperity,' he said. Dr Selva expressed his gratitude upon receiving the award: 'To be recognised in such a spiritually rich and intricate science is deeply humbling. 'This award is not just a personal milestone, but a tribute to the enduring power and relevance of ancient knowledge in today's world.' The Vasthu Star Award is among the World Astro Federation's highest accolades. It honours individuals who have demonstrated exceptional dedication and global outreach in astrology, Vasthu Sastra, and Tantra sciences. Dr Selva's recognition marks a significant moment for Vasthu Sastra's growing acceptance and relevance in contemporary lifestyles, as more people turn to traditional sciences for holistic living. At the event, Dr Selva delivered a talk exploring whether artificial intelligence (AI) threatens ancient wisdom traditions. He said traditional systems like astrology and Vasthu Sastra are intensely rooted in culture, intuition, and spiritual dimensions. AI still lacks the depth and human nuance to fully engage with them. 'Rather than replacing practitioners, AI is more likely to serve as a supportive tool, offering quick calculations, visualisations, and interpretations that enhance accuracy and save time,' he said. He emphasised that experts in metaphysical sciences often act as spiritual guides and counsellors, listening to their clients' concerns, offering emotional reassurance, and providing personalised advice informed by experience and subtle human cues. 'AI lacks empathy, intuition, and the capacity for meaningful spiritual connection. People seeking comfort, reassurance, or karmic insight will likely continue to prefer the human touch,' he said. 'While AI tools may serve the masses by offering easy access to information, they may fall short for those seeking a deeper, spiritually resonant experience. 'Serious followers are likely to view AI-generated results as superficial, unless a seasoned expert validates them,' he added. Dr Selva said the future will likely see a hybrid model in which astrologers and Vasthu Sastra practitioners work together. 'AI is much like how doctors use diagnostic technology to support, but not replace, their clinical judgment. 'AI should not be seen as a threat, but as an evolving system that will complement age-old knowledge and traditions.' He said the future belongs to those who embrace technology while preserving the sacred, intuitive, and human elements of these ancient sciences and wisdom. * Follow us on our official WhatsApp channel and Telegram for breaking news alerts and key updates! * Do you have access to the Daily Express e-paper and online exclusive news? Check out subscription plans available. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express's Telegram channel. Daily Express Malaysia
Eater
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
A Latin American Gem Lands in a Dupont Nightclub — Here's a First Look
is an Editorial Associate at Eater and a proud Washingtonian. She fell in love with food while growing up in Los Angeles, eating plenty of street tacos and Sichuan dishes. A surprise newcomer tucked on the second floor of late-night favorite Mayflower Club will start serving up Central and South American classics, like Peruvian chicken and continent-spanning ceviches, and playful takes on internationally beloved dishes, like patatas bravas made with crispy bites of yuca, on Friday, July 18. Selva, the Spanish word for 'jungle,' has the same verdant green interior of its namesake and is influenced by the tropical jungles found in executive chef Giovanni Orellana's birthplace of El Salvador (1223 Connecticut Avenue NW). Plants make up artwork above the bar. Deb Lindsey Mayflower Club owner Antonis Karagounis is behind the new restaurant, which is his first sit-down spot since opening Rewind Diner in 2018. The prolific restaurateur and club owner behind Decades and Ultrabar met Orellana back when he was working at Lima Restaurant and Lounge, where the chef fondly remembers starting as 'a salad boy' and working his way up to executive chef for six years. The two have collaborated on plenty of concepts over the past 20 years, including Barcode, Mexican taco spot Taqueria Local, and next door's Rewind. There were also gaps where Orellana worked with chefs like San Lorenzo's chef and owner Massimo Fabbri and chef Matteo Venini, who helmed many Italian restaurants around D.C. before opening the wildly successful area chain Stellina Pizzeria. Karagounis pushed Orellana to develop Selva after doing tastings for Rewind that continuously blew him away. After all these years of watching him adapt to new cuisines and develop menus for everything from sit-down spots that served lunch, dinner, and happy hour to ghost kitchens they experimented with during the pandemic, Karagounis was happy to give over the reigns to Orellana and calls Selva 'his project, basically.' 'The cooking is definitely his memories from Lima and the recipes from there,' says Karagounis. 'But also it's his, I guess, culinary journey since that time, because Lima opened in 2006 and closed in 2013 and he's done various places since then, many with me.' Gazpacho is poured over chilled crab. Deb Lindsey Just a glance over the appetizers showcases that journey, with Spanish and Italian influences appearing in spicy lamb meatballs, tequila-steamed mussels with spicy chorizo, crispy chicken croquetas, and gazpacho that is poured in a chilled martini glass filled with rich Maryland crab. Orellana jokes that Spanish diners might disavow the spicy take on gazpacho or bacalao fritters served with a zesty tartar sauce, but they can't say they aren't delicious. He adds something extra to more traditional-leaning Latin American dishes too, like potato empanadas made with a melt-in-your mouth corn dough and stuffed with more crab meat. He's excited to to cook up 'all the Central American cuisine that is not well represented yet in the area' in high-end restaurants, influenced by Peruvian, Central American, and his birthplace of El Salvador, where he grew up on a farm. Orellana's family members in El Salvador now operate fish farms, where his love for fresh seafood grew from. 'I am obsessed with ceviches … there's nothing better the next day when you have a hangover and that completely brings you back to life,' he says. The five ceviches on the menu document that obsession. The ceviche del chef includes shrimp and clams, plus the iconic Salvadoran additions of plenty of sliced radish and a dash of umami-filled Worchestshire sauce. The ceviches play with plenty of flavor profiles, from the ginger and tobiko in the Japanese-influenced tuna nikkei or the traditional Peruvian sweet potato and choclo (a type of large corn) in the ceviche de mariscos. The tuna ceviche with fish eggs and wasabi. Deb Lindsey Spanish rice filled with seafood and chorizo. Deb Lindsey Starters include empanadas and grilled sardines. Deb Lindsey The Lima influence is really seen in the larger plates, where arroz chaufa and Peruvian chicken hit the mark with nostalgic flavors and sauces like ají amarillo and rocoto that deliver pepper-filled spice. One of the dishes Orellana is most proud of is his wagyu steak, a super-rare flat iron that comes with chimichurri sauce and cilantro rice. The extensive cocktail menu from bartender Dennis Garcia, also from Rewind Diner, plays with Latin American flavors, from a passionfruit and mezcal sour to a coconut spritz that he uses his own coconut water concentrate in. His signature Coco Loco is a simple fresh coconut that comes with a shot of alcohol or your choosing. For a really fun dinner experience, he can lead diners in tastings of flights of tequila and liquors distilled across the Americas, like a Colombian aguardiente, Peruvian pisco, and, his specialty, Central American rum. He worked at Zacapa Rum in Guatemala for three years, under the tutelage of famous master blender Lorena Vasquez, and loves to tell diners more about the bottles they are tasting. In the future he hopes to have late-night, 'low-key bottle service' at Selva, where friends can split a bottle of tequila and chat above the booming music below in Mayflower Club. Fresh fruit shines on the cocktail menu. Deb Lindsey Fresh coconut becomes the vehicle for a cocktail. Deb Lindsey The food and drinks feel natural in the intimate restaurant, full of lush green hanging plants and jewel-toned couches that diners can relax into before tucking into a satisfying meal. Nail Vegas of Creative Buildr was in charge of the design, making the space distinctly different from the club below. Opening up a sit-down restaurant that spans multiple cuisines and even serves extensive cheese and charcuterie on the second floor of a bumping Dupont Circle club may seem like an odd choice, but Karagounis says he's seen a real change in D.C.'s club scene over the last few years. More people just want to 'grab a bite to eat and hang out' and end up leaving early, while the hardcore clubbers are showing up after midnight to its DJ-driven sibling spot Zebbie's Garden up top. He hopes the marriage of having Selva and Mayflower Club in one building will appease both nightlife crowds. 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Newsweek
11-07-2025
- Science
- Newsweek
Voice Assistant Tech for Spacecraft Anomaly Detection, Resolution Tested
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. A research team at Texas A&M University is studying the use of Siri-like virtual assistant technology for use in space. The technology, known as Daphne-AT, could be used to help drive decision-making that requires large amounts of real-time and previously learned data. On Earth, virtual assistants (VA) are typically humans working remotely who provide administrative, technical or creative support to executives utilizing shared technology platforms. Daphne-AT allows for less human interaction. "Daphne-AT uses a mix of logic and data-driven decision-making to help astronauts make informed decisions when a problem arises on a spacecraft," said Dr. Daniel Selva, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at Texas A&M's Department of Aerospace Engineering. "The VA uses spacecraft data in real time to detect anomalies, hypothesize what is causing the issue and give astronauts information on how to solve the problem." The VA tool uses real-time data streams of a spacecraft's environmental controls and life support systems, determining what is within and outside of baseline tolerances. When there is a level that is outside the established tolerances, Daphne-AT could alert astronauts and command, giving them the information to solve the problem. Researchers at the school used a mix of virtual reality (VR) and laboratory simulations to study the effectiveness of Daphne-AT. During VR trials, researchers tested the amount of time it took engineers to resolve five anomalies with and without Daphne-AT's assistance, finding that using the VA, participants were able to solve anomalies faster, with less mental workload. Old Glory on the Red Planet, a close-up view of the United States flag plate on NASA's Perseverance was acquired on June 28, 2025 (the 1,548th day, or sol, of its mission to Mars), by... Old Glory on the Red Planet, a close-up view of the United States flag plate on NASA's Perseverance was acquired on June 28, 2025 (the 1,548th day, or sol, of its mission to Mars), by the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) imager on the turret at the end of the rover's Mars robotic arm. More NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Additionally, researchers took their trial on the road, testing NASA engineers at the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Eight crews of four participants stayed in HERA for 45 days each and the results differed from those at the university, showing that Daphne-AT's assistance did not significantly affect the participants' timing in resolving anomalies. "Part of the difference is likely due to the differences in training and experience levels of participants," said Selva. "There are only so many anomalies we can present to participants, and the trained professionals had more time with the VA and more opportunities to resolve different anomalies." The technology is still in development, the result of Selva's lifelong fascination with space. "For the longest time, I have been fascinated by two things: space exploration, and intelligence (both human and artificial)," he told Newsweek. "I became particularly interested in human-AI teaming during my dissertation (2008-2012), when I worked on intelligent decision support systems to help NASA engineers design and plan space missions. I continued with that idea as an Assistant Professor at Cornell, where we developed our own language models to serve as natural language interfaces for our AI assistants. These were ridiculously small models by today's standards, with hundreds to thousands of parameters instead of hundreds of billions. They were very reliable for our particular problem but limited in scope and with a mechanistic feel in their responses, due to the use of pre-coded answer templates," he continued. Selva is working on the project with Dr. Ana Diaz Artiles, his wife: "We wrote the original proposal to NASA to study AI assistants to support astronauts with spacecraft anomaly resolution. Both Ana and I worked for Arianespace for several years as members of the Ariane 5 launch campaign – that is when we started dating! So we were very familiar with anomaly resolution in high-stakes operational environments. "Moreover, the environment at Texas A&M University was perfect to develop this project, as it enabled us to leverage the amazing experience of former astronaut and Professor Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar, a co-I in the project. We were also able to recruit a top-notch statistician to help us make sure we are analyzing our data correctly. It was one of those proposals where all the pieces fell together nicely. And luckily, it was funded. We started the project in 2019, and the field has evolved tremendously since then, particularly with the disruption of large language models, which have enabled immensely better interfaces for our AI assistants. The experience we have gathered over the last 6 years will help NASA develop guidelines for future development of similar AI assistants." The results of the initial Daphne-AT study were published in the Journal of Aerospace Information Systems by Selva and Diaz Artiles. Co-authors include Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar, an aerospace engineering professor at Texas A&M and former NASA astronaut and Dr. Raymond Wong, an associate professor of statistics at Texas A&M.
The Star
18-06-2025
- Politics
- The Star
PJ folk object to MRT3 alignment proposal
A PROPOSAL to bring the MRT3 alignment into parts of Petaling Jaya, Selangor, has drawn objections from some residents over health and environmental concerns. A town hall session was held in Section 14 by Bukit Gasing assemblyman Rajiv Rishyakaran to explain the proposal. Rajiv said he and Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung had worked with Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) to draw up the proposed route. According to a map displayed during the session, the proposed route cuts across Taman Jaya and Jalan Kemajuan next to Section 13 and Section 16 (refer to map). 'The proposal has been sent to the Federal Government but no decision has been made yet,' said Rajiv. 'The route will service two areas namely Section 13 and PJ Sentral, which have been seeing massive increase in commercial and industrial activities.' The assemblyman said the city needed more public transportation to cope with increased traffic and residents. 'More workers from other areas are coming into Petaling Jaya. It is better that they come by train than by car,' he stressed. However, some residents were unhappy with his explanation. Selva says the proposed alignment barely enters Section 13. Section 14 Residents Association chairman Selva Sugumaran Perumal said the proposed alignment barely entered Section 13. 'The route should go into Section 13 proper, as well as Section 17, to serve residents in those areas. 'Also, PJ Sentral is already served by (Asia Jaya and Taman Jaya) LRT stations. 'Why does it need more public transportation?' Selva also said that Rajiv, Chung and MBPJ should have consulted local communities before submitting the proposal to the Federal Government. D'Cruz is concerned about noise pollution. Another resident Andre D. D'Cruz, who lives near the Asia Jaya LRT station, expressed concern about noise. 'I have made complaints but they have not been addressed. 'Can the authorities guarantee similar issues won't recur if MRT3 is routed through this area?' he questioned. Other concerns raised were the loss of Petaling Jaya's green lung, while a suggestion was made to enhance feeder bus coverage and demand-responsive transit (DRT). Rajiv resplied that feeder buses and DRT could only go so far in alleviating traffic congestion in the city. He also stressed that there was a need to balance between environmental concerns and socioeconomic needs. On questions about the locations and sizes of the MRT3 stations, Rajiv said these would be finalised by MRT Corp later. Also known as Circle Line, the MRT3 alignment is a 51km rail loop cutting across major townships in the Klang Valley. The current alignment has 32 planned stations and does not include the locations in Rajiv's proposal. The project will be connected to 10 existing MRT, LRT, KTM and Monorail stations. It is expected to start in 2027 and be fully operational by 2032. MRT1 (Kajang Line) links Sungai Buloh and Kajang while MRT2 (Putrajaya Line) links Kwasa Damansara and Putrajaya Sentral.
New Straits Times
29-05-2025
- New Straits Times
Man fined RM1,000 for assault in jealousy-fuelled attack
SHAH ALAM: A tank piping installer was today fined RM1,000 by the magistrate's court after pleading guilty to assaulting and slashing a 47-year-old man in a case involving alleged jealousy and domestic issues last week. Magistrate Mohamed Redza Azhar Rezali imposed the fine on C. Haritharan, 30, who was charged with voluntarily causing hurt to S. Sargunaraj. The offence under Section 323 of the Penal Code carries a maximum penalty of one year's jail, a RM2,000 fine, or both upon conviction. He was accused of committing the offence at about 2.15am in an apartment unit in Taman Puchong Intan on May 24. Deputy public prosecutor Alia Anisa Khairus Masnan urged the court to impose a heavy penalty as a deterrent. In mitigation, lawyer M. Partiben pleaded for a minimal fine for his client, who is single, an orphan, and earns RM1,500 a month. "He is remorseful and apologises for his actions," he said. In a separate magistrate's court, Haritharan's uncle, N. Selva Raj, 36, claimed trial to a charge of assaulting Sargunaraj with a glass marble used as a weapon, at the same time and location. Selva, a lorry driver, entered his plea before magistrate Muhammad Syafiq Sulaiman. The charge, framed under Section 324 of the Penal Code, carries a jail term of up to 10 years, or a fine, or whipping. The prosecution proposed a RM4,000 bail. In mitigation, lawyer Mohd Safwan Saleh said the amount was too high for Selva, who earns RM2,300 a month. "His family cannot afford the suggested bail. I request bail be set at around RM2,000," he said. The court fixed bail at RM2,500 and ordered Selva not to harass witnesses. Mention was set for July 29.
