#Facebook spurred central banks to study digital currencies: Former Bank of Japan executive -BB

The challenge posed by Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency likely prodded major central banks to set up a new group to study the potential for issuing their own digital currencies, a former Bank of Japan executive said on Wednesday. The central banks of Britain, the euro zone, Japan, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland on Tuesday announced a plan…

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#Ending in 2020, NASA’s Infrared Spitzer Mission Leaves a Gap in Astronomy -BB

Editor’s Note (1/21/20): On January 30, 2020, spacecraft controllers will transmit the final shutdown commands to NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, bringing the observatory’s 16-year mission to a close. This story from 2019 details the reasons for the shutdown, reflects on Spitzer’s legacy and discusses the gap in infrared astronomy that will persist until the debut of the observatory’s successor, the…

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#Infectious Disease Expert Discusses What We Know about the New Chinese Virus -BB

The first confirmed U.S. case of a traveler infected with the virus behind China’s continuing pneumonia outbreak has health authorities on alert to prevent it from spreading. The patient—a man in his 30s—returned from the country’s city of Wuhan (where the virus appears to have originated) to his home in Snohomish County in Washington State…

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