#05-2020 Science News

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Linkrot

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

Here's an underrated cognitive virtue: "object permanence" – that is, remembering how you perceived something previously. As Riley Quinn often reminds us, the left is the ideology of object permanence – to be a leftist is to hate and mistrust the CIA even when they're tormenting Trump for a brief instant, or to remember that it was once possible for a working person to support their family with their wages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/27/six-sells/#youre-holding-it-wrong

The thing is, object permanence is hard. Life comes at you quickly. It's very hard to remember facts, and the order in which those facts arrived – it's even harder to remember how you felt about those facts in the moment.

This is where blogging comes in – for me, at least. Back in 1997, Scott Edelman – editor of Science Fiction Age – asked me to take over the back page of the magazine by writing up ten links of interest for the nascent web. I wrote that column until the spring of 2000, then, in early 2001, Mark Frauenfelder asked me to guest-edit Boing Boing, whereupon the tempo of my web-logging went daily. I kept that up on Boing Boing for more than 19 years, writing about 54,000 posts. In February, 2020, I started Pluralistic.net, my solo project, a kind of blog/newsletter, and in the four-plus years since, I've written about 1,200 editions containing between one and twelve posts each.

This gigantic corpus of everything I ever considered to be noteworthy is immensely valuable to me. The act of taking notes in public is a powerful discipline: rather than jotting cryptic notes to myself in a commonplace book, I publish those notes for strangers. This imposes a rigor on the note-taking that makes those notes far more useful to me in years to come.

Better still: public note-taking is powerfully mnemonic. The things I've taken notes on form a kind of supersaturated solution of story ideas, essay ideas, speech ideas, and more, and periodically two or more of these fragments will glom together, nucleate, and a fully-formed work will crystallize out of the solution.

Then, the fact that all these fragments are also database entries – contained in the back-end of a WordPress installation that I can run complex queries on – comes into play, letting me swiftly and reliably confirm my memories of these long-gone phenomena. Inevitably, these queries turn up material that I've totally forgotten, and these make the result even richer, like adding homemade stock to a stew to bring out a rich and complicated flavor. Better still, many of these posts have been annotated by readers with supplemental materials or vigorous objections.

I call this all "The Memex Method" and it lets me write a lot (I wrote nine books during lockdown, as I used work to distract me from anxiety – something I stumbled into through a lifetime of chronic pain management):

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

Back in 2013, I started a new daily Boing Boing feature: "This Day In Blogging History," wherein I would look at the archive of posts for that day one, five and ten years previously:

https://boingboing.net/2013/06/24/this-day-in-blogging-history.html

With Pluralistic, I turned this into a daily newsletter feature, now stretching back to twenty, fifteen, ten, five and one year ago. Here's today's:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/21/noway-back-machine/#retro

This is a tremendous adjunct to the Memex Method. It's a structured way to review everything I've ever thought about, in five-year increments, every single day. I liken this to working dough, where there's stuff at the edges getting dried out and crumbly, and so your fold it all back into the middle. All these old fragments naturally slip out of your thoughts and understanding, but you can revive their centrality by briefly paying attention to them for a few minutes every day.

This structured daily review is a wonderful way to maintain object permanence, reviewing your attitudes and beliefs over time. It's also a way to understand the long-forgotten origins of issues that are central to you today. Yesterday, I was reminded that I started thinking about automotive Right to Repair 15 years ago:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/05/right-repair-law-pro

Given that we're still fighting over this, that's some important perspective, a reminder of the likely timescales involved in more recent issues where I feel like little progress is being made.

Remember when we all got pissed off because the mustache-twirling evil CEO of Warners, David Zaslav, was shredding highly anticipated TV shows and movies prior to their release to get a tax-credit? Turns out that we started getting angry about this stuff twenty years ago, when Michael Eisner did it to Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911":

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/05/us/disney-is-blocking-distribution-of-film-that-criticizes-bush.html

It's not just object permanence: this daily spelunk through my old records is also a way to continuously and methodically sound the web for linkrot: when old links go bad. Over the past five years, I've noticed a very sharp increase in linkrot, and even worse, in the odious practice of spammers taking over my dead friends' former blogs and turning them into AI spam-farms:

https://www.wired.com/story/confessions-of-an-ai-clickbait-kingpin/

The good people at the Pew Research Center have just released a careful, quantitative study of linkrot that confirms – and exceeds – my worst suspicions about the decay of the web:

https://www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/2024/05/17/when-online-content-disappears/

The headline finding from "When Online Content Disappears" is that 38% of the web of 2013 is gone today. Wikipedia references are especially hard-hit, with 23% of news links missing and 21% of government websites gone. The majority of Wikipedia entries have at least one broken link in their reference sections. Twitter is another industrial-scale oubliette: a fifth of English tweets disappear within a matter of months; for Turkish and Arabic tweets, it's 40%.

Thankfully, someone has plugged the web's memory-hole. Since 2001, the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has allowed web users to see captures of web-pages, tracking their changes over time. I was at the Wayback Machine's launch party, and right away, I could see its value. Today, I make extensive use of Wayback Machine captures for my "This Day In History" posts, and when I find dead links on the web.

The Wayback Machine went public in 2001, but Archive founder Brewster Kahle started scraping the web in 1996. Today's post graphic – a modified Yahoo homepage from October 17, 1996 – is the oldest Yahoo capture on the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/19960501000000*/yahoo.com

Remember that the next time someone tells you that we must stamp out web-scraping for one reason or another. There are plenty of ugly ways to use scraping (looking at you, Clearview AI) that we should ban, but scraping itself is very good:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/how-to-think-about-scraping/

And so is the Internet Archive, which makes the legal threats it faces today all the more frightening. Lawsuits brought by the Big Five publishers and Big Three labels will, if successful, snuff out the Internet Archive altogether, and with it, the Wayback Machine – the only record we have of our ephemeral internet:

https://blog.archive.org/2024/04/19/internet-archive-stands-firm-on-library-digital-rights-in-final-brief-of-hachette-v-internet-archive-lawsuit/

Libraries burn. The Internet Archive may seem like a sturdy and eternal repository for our collective object permanence about the internet, but it is very fragile, and could disappear like that.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/21/noway-back-machine/#pew-pew-pew

[darkmaga-returns]

Professors Norman Fenton and Martin Neil take an in-depth look back at the Covid crisis in their new book “Fighting Goliath: Exposing the flawed science and statistics behind the COVID-19 event”.

Hannes Sarv

Nov 05, 2024

It is somewhat ironic that although Fenton and Neil are mathematicians, their new book quickly reached the top of the Amazon sales charts in the 'Immunology' and 'Physician and Patient Medical Ethics' categories. Less surprisingly, the same happened in the 'Science and Maths Ethics' chart.

Fenton is Professor Emeritus of Risk, while Neil is Professor of Computer Science and Statistics at Queen Mary University of London. They began to analyse the Covid issues at the very beginning of the crisis in 2020 and published their findings consistently on their Substack publication Where Are The Numbers? as well as in other publications that would publish them – at one point, due to widespread censorship in mainstream science journals and other media, recognised scientists were no longer welcome. As they quickly came to understand that the virus was being portrayed as being dozens of times more dangerous than it actually was, and they also criticised the Covid vaccines – especially their efficacy but also harms related to them – they have understandably had to endure everything that scientists and other activists who opposed the governments' mindless Covid coercion and who represented the voice of reason in those hysterical times had to endure – censorship, cancelling, smear campaigns, government spying after them, etc. We have written extensively about Neil and Fenton's work before here and here.

An unfair struggle

The unfair struggle that they and others like them had to fight deserves to go unchallenged in the biblical parallel drawn in the title of Neil and Fenton's recent book, of David struggling with Goliath. However, as we well know, in his unequal battle, David killed the giant Philistine warrior Goliath with a single well aimed stone that struck his opponent on the forehead. While we can look at the Covid crisis from different angles now, it remains undeniable that this unemotional network of actors – the medical junta which can be represented by Goliath – that engaged in intimidation, abuse of power, vaccine coercion, spreading of lies, etc., was never really held accountable. It is difficult even to find people involved in spreading propaganda who would honestly admit to the mistakes that were made, let alone that the authorities as a whole would have drawn any meaningful conclusions. It is noteworthy that there have also been very few ex-post judgments from the courts in the world that really condemn the unreasonable and harmful path taken back then.

[ghelgheli]

Stuff I Read In February 2024

bold indicates favourites

Books

The Mantle of the Prophet, Roy Mottahedeh

Serious Weakness, Porpentine Charity Heartscape

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

Pamphlets, Zines, etc.

Queer Fire: The George Jackson Brigade, Men Against Sexism, and Gay Struggle Against Prison [link]

Reform or Revolution? Rosa Luxemburg

Armed Joy, Alfredo M. Bonanno [link]

Designing Freedom, Stafford Beer [link]

Yuri/GL

Kill Switch, 1172

Immortal Parody, Kim Jong Geon

Her Tale of Shim Chong, Seri & Biwan

There's Weird Voices Coming from the Room Next Door! Suzuki Senpai

An Easy Introduction to Love Triangles (To Pass the Exam!) / Goukaku no Tame no! Yasashii Sankaku Kankei Nyuumon, Canno

Gentle Flutters, One Useless Dogggg

What Does the Fox Say? Gyeomji & Gaji

Our Dreams at Dusk / Shimanami Tasogare, Yuhki Kamatani

There Is No Love Wishing Upon a Star / Kono Koi wo Hoshi ni wa Negawanai, murasakino/Shinoa

Short Fiction

Serious Weakness but with Girls, Porpentine Charity Heartscape [link]

Dirty Wi-Fi, Porpentine Charity Heartscape [link]

Bist-o-chār sā'at dar xāb o bidāri / 24 Restless Hours, Samad Behrangi [link]

Yek hulu o hezār hulu / One Peach and a Thousand Peaches, Samad Behrangi [link]

Palestine

What Does It Mean To Be Palestinian Now? Noura Erakat, Ahmed Moor, Noor Hindi, Mohammed El-Kurd, Laila Al-Arian 01/25/2024 [link]

"If You Say Anything to Anyone, a Zaka Van Will Run You Over", Brad Pearce 10/18/2023 [link]

The Epistemicide of the Palestinians, Abdulla Moaswes 02/02/2024 [link]

Manufacturing Content, Nora Barrows-Friedman & Matt Lieb [link]

Comparison is the Way We Know the World, Masha Gessen 12/19/2023 [link]

The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé, Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, Daniel Boguslaw 02/28/2024 [link]

Queer &c

Hands off our lives, our stories, and our bodies, AC 06/10/2022 [link]

Trapped in the Wrong Theory: Rethinking Trans Oppression and Resistance, Talia Mae Bettcher [doi]

A Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway

Why Are "Gender Critical" Activists So Fond of Gametes? Julia Serano 02/13/2024 [link]

Pol

Why I Left the PSL… or the DSA or Socialist Alternative or whatever, filler kid 07/20/2021 [link]

Allies Not Accomplices: An Indigenous Perspective & Provocation, 05/02/2014 [link]

Basic Program of the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism, Attila Kotányi & Raoul Vaneigem 1961 [link]

Abolition, Nsámbu Za Suékama 06/06/2020 [link]

The Eye Upon Us Has Turned Upon Them, Nsámbu Za Suékama 07/16/2023 [link]

The Hindu Nationalists Using the Pro-Israel Playbook, Aparna Gopalan 06/28/2023 [link]

Ram Mandir and Hindutva Fascist Myth of Decolonisation, Rida Fathima 02/07/2024 [link]

How the United States Crippled Haiti's Rice Industry, Leslie Mullin [link]

A Talk to Teachers, James Baldwin [link]

Stranger in the Village, James Baldwin [link]

Other

no good alone, Rayne Fisher-Quann 04/03/2021 [link]

Everyone's A Critic, Richard Joseph 01/13/2022 [link]

Neoplatonic kingship in the Islamic world: Akbar’s millennial history, Jos Gommans & Said Reza Huseini [link]

Is `Race Science' Making a Comeback? Angela Saini 07/10/2019 [link]

you’ve been traumatized into hating reading, Ismatu Gwendolyn 02/15/2024 [link]

[bumblebeeappletree]

This was aired back in 2020. In time of posting this it’s 2024. This is a very fascinating documentary about the climate of the planet in the past, and what it might look like in the future. I highly suggest everyone watch this.

Paleontologist Kirk Johnson explores the dynamic history—and future—of ice at the poles. (Aired February 5, 2020)

Official Website: https://to.pbs.org/3EUn0KC | #novapbs

In this two-hour special, renowned paleontologist Kirk Johnson takes us on an epic adventure through time at the polar extremes of our planet. Following a trail of strange fossils found in all the wrong places—beech trees in Antarctica, hippo-like mammals in the Arctic—Johnson uncovers the bizarre history of the poles, from miles-high ice sheets to warm polar forests teeming with life. What caused such dramatic changes at the ends of the Earth? And what can the past reveal about our planet’s climate today—and in the future?

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction

00:05:49 Hunting for Fossils on Islands near the North and South Poles

00:22:52 Fossil of New Dinosaur Species Found in Patagonia

00:29:04 Was Death Valley Always the Hottest Place on the Planet?

00:37:32 How Have Carbon Dioxide Levels Changed on Earth Over Time?

00:49:18 How Do Ice Sheets Form in Antarctica

00:56:47 How Did Life Persist Through the Ice Age?

01:11:29 Impacts of Rising Temperatures on Ice Cycles of the Planet

01:31:30 What Was the Warm World Like Before the Ice Age

01:43:04 This Cave Has Been Frozen for 100,000 Years

01:50:30 Conclusion

© 2020 WGBH Educational Foundation

All rights reserved

This program was produced by GBH, which is solely responsible for its content.

This program is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: https://pbs.org/donate/

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Stay up to date on the latest science discoveries, full episodes, articles, videos, and more by signing up for NOVA's newsletter here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/newslet...

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#paleontology #paleontologist #antarctica #antarctic #northpole #southpole #iceage #arctic #dinosaur #dinosaurs #deathvalley #deathvalleynationalpark

Where is the north pole, north pole temperature, ellesmere island, is antarctica the south pole, new dinosaur discovered, new dinosaur documentary, patagonia chile, what is the carbon cycle, death valley weather, death valley temperatures, snowball earth, ice sheet, drake passage

[usafphantom2]

China's mysterious reusable space plane lands after 276 days in orbit

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 05/08/2023 - 09:48am Space

China's reusable secret space plane completed its second mission on Monday, landing after 276 days in orbit.

China's state media and the manufacturer of the spacecraft, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), announced that the spacecraft landed at the end of May 8, Beijing time.

The seemingly successful mission was considered an important advance in the country's research on reusable spacecraft technology. No image, landing time or location was revealed by the developers.

The project will provide a more convenient and cheaper way to access the space for the peaceful use of the space in the future, according to the statement.

Artistic conception of the Chinese spacecraft.

The reusable test spacecraft was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on August 4 (UTC) 2022.

The spacecraft launched an object into orbit, according to U.S. Space Force tracking data revealed at the end of last year. The small satellite operated very close to the space plane.

U.S. Air Force X-37B spacecraft.

This apparent second flight in the secret spacecraft differs from its first mission in 2020. This flight saw the space plane orbit for four days in an orbit of 331 to 347 kilometers inclined by 50 degrees. The recently completed mission lasted 276 days, with the spacecraft entering an initial orbit of 346 to 593 kilometers inclined by 50 degrees, then circularing the orbit from 597 to 608 kilometers.

The spacecraft performed numerous small and much larger orbital maneuvers during its flight, with adjustments made in recent weeks in preparation for landing.

The mysterious track near Lop Nor. (Photo: 2020 PLANET LABS)

It is likely that the landing took place at the military base of Lop Nur, in Xinjiang. Information about the spacecraft's orbit suggests that an orbital trail over the installation around 0020 UTC provided the opportunity for landing, according to Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist and spaceflight activity tracker.

An image of an Umbra synthetic aperture radar satellite suggests recent activity at the Lop Nur site.

China has released little information about the project. The size and mass of the spacecraft are, however, limited by the use of the Long March 2F rocket, which can transport just over 8 tons to low Earth orbit.

Clues about the dimensions and shape of the ship appeared soon after launch, when apparent images of the cargo fairing for the mission appeared online.

The spacecraft seems to be related to the development of an orbital segment of a two-stage space transport system for fully reusable orbit. A suborbital segment - with vertical takeoff and horizontal landing - had a second flight in September 2022.

The CASC reusable space plane project last year obtained national funding from the China Natural Sciences Foundation.

CASIC, a giant sister defense and space contractor, is working on her own space plane, called Tengyun.

Images that emerged in 2007 of a possible prototype of a Chinese reusable space plane, known as Shenlong, under an H-6 bomber.

Meanwhile, a trading company called Space Transportation raised more than $46.3 million for its hypersonic spacecraft plans in 2021. Several Chinese rocket companies have also created presentations, including small space planes launched on liquid rocket concepts.

China has sought to increase its access to space in a variety of ways in recent years, including the promotion of a commercial space sector that now features a variety of solid and developing reusable liquid propellant reusable launch vehicles.

CASC, the country's main space contractor, is developing new super-heavy reusable launch vehicles that allow the country to try to land astronauts on the moon and a eventually fully reusable rocket to conduct large-scale space infrastructure missions.

Tags: ChinaSpace

Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Daytona Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work around the world of aviation.

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[daily-coloring]

Best of 2022 - Movies

Including morbid social criticism, soon-to-be cult thrillers, and unconventional fairy tales.

01. Triangle of Sadness - Dir: Ruben Ostlund - 2022 - Watched it twice so far but I’ll watch it again soon, that’s for sure. It’s just genius. He is a genius director. So far all of his films are my favorites. 

02. Everything Everywhere all at Once - Dir: Dan Kwan - 2022

03. Parrallel Mothers - Dir: Pedro Almodovar - 2022 - I never cry in the cinema almost ever, but I did when I watched this. 

04. Riders of Justice - Dir: Anders Thomas Jensen - 2020 - Laughed so much and so loud, everyone were looking at me on a plane and they couldn’t figure out what’s wrong with me. 

05. The Lost Daughter - Dir: Maggie Gyllenhaal - 2021

06. The Father - Dir: Florian Zeller - 2020

07. Good Luck To You, Leo Grande - Dir: Sophie Hyde - 2022

08. House of Sand and Fog - Dir: Vadim Perelman - 2003

09. Spencer - Dir: Pablo Larrain - 2021

10. Help - Dir: Marc Munden - 2021

11. Licorice Pizza - Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson - 2021

12. Knife + Heart - Dir: Yann Gonzales - 2018 - Gay porn and murder in ‘70s Paris with Vanessa Paradies? Sold. Also dildo knives are scary as fuck!!!

13. Great Freedom - Dir: Sebastian Meise - 2021

14. After Love - Dir: Aleem Khan - 2020

15. Rainbow - Dir: Paco Leon - 2022 -  Paco Leon, delivers a new fresh concept of Dorothy. Dora (maybe like Marco) is looking for her mother whom she has never met. Definitely not for everyone’s taste. Some people call it “pure art” others “wasted time”. Which one are you? 

16. The Mitchells vs The Machines - Dir: Michael Rianda - 2021

17. Another Round - Dir: Thomas Vinterberg - 2020

18. The Nest - Dir: Sean Durkin - 2020

19. Catherine Called Birdy - Dir: Lena Dunham - 2022

20. The Worst Person in The World - Dir: Joachim Trier - 2021

21. The Wonder - Dir: Sebastian Lelio - 2022

22. I’m Your Man - Dir: Maria Schader - 2021

23. As Far as I Know - Dir: Lorincz Nandor & Nagy Balint - 2020

24. 15 Years - Dir: Yuval Habadi - 2019

25. By The Grace of God - Dir: Francois Ozon - 2018

26. Rams - Dir: Grimur Hakonarson - 2015

27. All My Friends Hate Me - Dir: Andrew Gaynord - 2021 - You sometimes sympathise with Pete, you sometimes hate him. But you're always thinking about what is going on!

28. All The Old Knives - Dir: Janus Metz - 2022

29. Swan Song - Dir: Todd Stephens - 2021

30. The High Note - Dir: Nisha Ganatra - 2020 - Loved it. It's not rocket science but it's thoroughly enjoyable. Easy to watch, some great one-liners, excellent performances... Haters gonna hate no matter what. 

[gook54-blog]

I

have ave three master one in chemistry ( explosives) one in Wildlife mgt ( wildlife economics) and one on Metaphysics ( energy healing) 18 years as an intelligence investigator/ analyst and profiler..I learnt idiots scoff mainly because the brainwashed by mainstream media bullshit ..and font even know it ..studied at Tavistock and worked for 5412 ..

this it proganda  only 0,1% of co2 is anthropogenic  Forest are increasing because of Co2  without coz  youbwoyld oxidase and die Oxygen destroys everything .

The proximity to the sun cause the poles to move the poles 135 km in a decade This caused polar shift Ice melted  but glaciers are multiplying faster ever before

Petrol.coal and petrochemical  cone from bacteria and are not fossil fuels  you can make ceued in days in a factory..

plastic cam beaten by bacteria in weeks

all the people running the climate change agenda at IPPC are petrochemicals tycoons including the Director  Tgey made the money fto petroleum and are now owners of cobalt Lthuiin batteries are ineffricutmt and dangerous but need cobalt.  A monopoly again

Did you see the huge  dairy farm destroyed in Texas nt hail  now there are tons of toxic waste to clean up 80% not recyclable. Windmills break blades about four a year The composites are  unryclable and get buried .Tge cold requires tons of fuel to melt ice on blades .The only profits are from those erecting the farms.

143 protocols on climate modifying systems and geoengeinering and yet jdiots cant see the agenda

Covid narrativewas tg ge first try they failed 7400 noe in jail . You did not hear? why 84000 media outlets printed

/ digital/ internet  84 people 8 corporations or 7 seven families . They own them  all facts  ho look it up  dont  use google it has paid several fines amounting to $11 billion in fines over the years for controlling agendas.  The www is only 0,1% actually information

use science Gate  or duck duck go

https://www.sciencealert.com/navigation-systems-finally-caught-up-with-the-mysteriously-north-pole-shift

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/the-earths-magnetic-north-pole-is-shifting-rapidly-so-what-will-happen-to-the-northern-lights

https://opentheword.org/2022/03/24/arctic-ice-cap-growing-again

https://eos.org/science-updates/new-perspectives-on-the-enigma-of-expanding-antarctic-sea-ice

https://www.thoughtco.com/does-oil-come-from-dinosaurs-1092003

https://newatlas.com/bioengineers-rebuilding-bacteria-to-produce-crude-oil/7723

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106261

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/environment/japanese-scientists-discover-plastic-eating-bacteria-53191

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/28/plastic-eating-bacteria-enzyme-recycling-waste

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/10/759376113/unfurling-the-waste-problem-caused-by-wind-energy

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/28/world/wind-turbine-recycling-climate-intl/index.html

https://yankeeinstitute.org/2020/12/03/department-of-public-health-concerned-about-pfas-in-solar-panels-near-drinking-water

https://yankeeinstitute.org/2020/12/03/department-of-public-health-concerned-about-pfas-in-solar-panels-near-drinking-water

https://www.dw.com/en/why-is-potential-new-cop28-head-also-boss-of-one-of-worlds-biggest-oil-companies/a-64403298

you been BBB

bullshot baffles brains

So many people do not understand the relationship between climate change and cold weather.

[lordprophet]

Political Sleight of Hand and Remember, Remember, Remember Reality, Please, Before It's Too Late 

— a pre-voting, final-hours updated vitally-important read for voters in today's US presidential election of Tuesday, 11-05-2024

Political Sleight of Hand and Remember, Remember, Remember Reality, Please, Before It's Too Late

— a pre-voting, final-hours updated vitally-important read for voters in today's US presidential election of Tuesday, 11-05-2024

Why would an individual pollster and political analyst among many accuse the many others of pressing a finger down on their consensus polling data on the candidates in the US presidential election competition to the favor of Kamala Harris by one point within the margin of error or to show a virtual tie between the candidates and himself contrarily claim a landslide win for Trump? He would do so to get mass attention-grabbing reads of his written election news commentary in major part to temper down the harsh and negative rhetorical attacks, the bad news and bad publicity, against Trump and to have his Trump-favorable commentary and nudging of cautious silence toward Trump viralized. It makes sense that he would be doing this with the ultimate goal in mind of getting the adoption of his controversial, contrarian commentary as belief by much of the public that is followed by its/their sudden mass spread of this maverick conclusion as an expectation that could and might, as a matter of caution and self-concern by others en masse, hush bad publicity and vote-losing rhetorical attacks and endorsements against Trump by socially high-profile figures and organizations of influence otherwise critical of Trump, to a desired significantly beneficial political effect for him in a close election, according to a consensus of the major election polls, in the last few presidential campaign days leading up to the US presidential election of 11/05/2024.

However, it has newly come to my attention in my listening to radio broadcast interviews of objectively-minded political science professors and reputable professional political analysts that other minor, known-MAGA-partisan pollsters have been making the same claim online and in the pro-MAGA broadcasts as that of the hereinabove referred to mainstream election pollster-analyst of a landslide presidential election victory for Trump, a wrong MAGA-partisan private-pollsters polls-based previous election forecast which they (the interviewees) said the same or like folks made in advance, via same communications media channels, of the 2020 US presidential election actual defeat of Trump and win of current POTUS Joe Biden on election day then of 11-03-2020. In essence, they proposed that these dubious private polls of the past may have been the strategic, fallback plan-B, motivational groundwork that set the stage in advance of that election for MAGA-movement attempts to overturn it, if it resulted in a defeat of Trump’s reelection bid, which it did, by various means, such as mass mobilization action of aggressive MAGA political activists, legislatively and administratively within GOP-dominated state legislatures and GOP-MAGAs in the houses of Congress and judicially, by state and federal courts, including the GOP-membership-dominated US Supreme Court, all tried but comprehensively failed means to overturn the election of Biden as US president and retain the Trump Presidency. They say, in overall effect, that the Trump-MAGA team have probably learned from this previous thorough failure to alternatively win the US presidency in contravention of traditional federal Constitutional- and statutory-law institutional protocols and means and this time may be using such partisanly private and dubious election polls and bogus forecasts disseminated on online social media platforms and in right-wing mass media broadcasts, such as Fox, etc., as a same fallback strategy in the event of another defeat of Donald Trump in his current 2024 presidential election bid to overturn a win of that election by current US Vice President Kamala Harris but one with a much improved, better and more effective overturn or insurrection “game.”

All the while the Trump campaign and its compatriots on the sidelines, including those in the mass communications media, illusorily misrepresent the former Trump Presidency as having been an economic success story in which business and households were better off then economically than they are now under the Biden Presidency. It is a fallacious good-old-days mirage of a Trumpian national economic success story in that in less than half way into the second two years of Trump's four-year term as US president, our nation, and the nations of almost the whole of humanity worldwide was/were stricken by the Covid-19 pandemic, which was mismanaged by Trump and his presidential administration by first delaying announcing it publicly, then downplaying its significant danger and delaying taking societal action to contend with it nationally until the casualties from it soared, which resulted in a nationwide economic shutdown, a national shortage of toilet paper, the emptying of and lasting shortage in supplies of groceries in grocery stores, comprehensive spikes in the prices of groceries, extending to soaring price inflation, often seller-gouging price push inflation, of nearly all goods and services and retention of increased prices, and in mass job losses and unemployment, all the product of the soaring-inflation, economically failed Trump Presidency, like his past 6 business bankruptcies.

The Biden Presidency has been the rescue and clean-up crew of the dream economy inherited, and trashed, by former POTUS Trump from the Obama Presidency, in which Biden was vice president, and has restored record-level high employment to our nation, competently managed its takeover in handling the national Covid-19 pandemic and phased our nation out of its crisis status, and it, together with the Federal Reserve Bank, has substantially reduced the rate of inflation it inherited from the Trump Presidency.

However, the economist Paul Krugman explained that never following periods of soaring price inflation have prices returned to what they were before the periods of soaring price inflation, which is the way economic history works. Prices returning to what they were before a period of soaring price inflation would not happen (with the somewhat exception of modestly volatile gasoline prices for automobiles in the short term) if our economy were managed by the economic titans of the past Adam Smith, Alexander Hamilton, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman, as well as by the financial titans Mansa Musa, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

It is the deplorables and garbage brains of the Trump team and cult who blame the Biden clean-up crew for the mess the gaslighting, mind-wiping Trump Presidency and political team created by dereliction, mismanagement and incompetent governance and for impossibly not returning the economy's post-inflation higher prices to pre-inflation lower prices. Don’t hold your breath hoping and waiting for the latter to happen.

[jcmarchi]

Nuh Gedik receives 2024 National Brown Investigator Award

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/nuh-gedik-receives-2024-national-brown-investigator-award/

Nuh Gedik receives 2024 National Brown Investigator Award

Nuh Gedik, MIT’s Donner Professor of Physics, has been named a 2024 Ross Brown Investigator by the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech.

One of eight awarded mid-career faculty working on fundamental challenges in the physical sciences, Gedik will receive up to $2 million over five years.

Gedik will use the award to develop a new kind of microscopy that images electrons photo-emitted from a surface while also measuring their energy and momentum. This microscope will make femtosecond movies of electrons to study the fascinating properties of two-dimensional quantum materials.  

Another awardee, professor of physics Andrea Young at the University of California Santa Barbara, was a 2011-14 Pappalardo Fellow at MIT in experimental condensed matter physics. 

The Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech was established in 2023 through a $400-million gift from entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Caltech alumnus Ross M. Brown, to support fundamental research in chemistry and physics. Initially created as the Investigator Awards in 2020, the award supports the belief that “scientific discovery is a driving force in the improvement of the human condition,” according to a news release from the Science Philanthropy Alliance.

A total of 13 investigators were recognized in the program’s first three years. Now that the Brown Investigator Award has found a long-term home at Caltech, the intent is to recognize a minimum of eight investigators each year. 

Other previous awardees with MIT connections include MIT professor of chemistry Mircea Dincă as well as physics alumni Waseem S. Bakr ’05, ’06, MNG ’06 of Princeton University; David Hsieh of Caltech, who is another former Pappalardo Fellow; Munira Khalil PhD ’04 and Mark Rudner PhD ’08 of the University of Washington; and Tanya Zelevinsky ’99 of Columbia University.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Demon-haunted computers are back, baby

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

As a science fiction writer, I am professionally irritated by a lot of sf movies. Not only do those writers get paid a lot more than I do, they insist on including things like "self-destruct" buttons on the bridges of their starships.

Look, I get it. When the evil empire is closing in on your flagship with its secret transdimensional technology, it's important that you keep those secrets out of the emperor's hand. An irrevocable self-destruct switch there on the bridge gets the job done! (It has to be irrevocable, otherwise the baddies'll just swarm the bridge and toggle it off).

But c'mon. If there's a facility built into your spaceship that causes it to explode no matter what the people on the bridge do, that is also a pretty big security risk! What if the bad guy figures out how to hijack the measure that – by design – the people who depend on the spaceship as a matter of life and death can't detect or override?

I mean, sure, you can try to simplify that self-destruct system to make it easier to audit and assure yourself that it doesn't have any bugs in it, but remember Schneier's Law: anyone can design a security system that works so well that they themselves can't think of a flaw in it. That doesn't mean you've made a security system that works – only that you've made a security system that works on people stupider than you.

I know it's weird to be worried about realism in movies that pretend we will ever find a practical means to visit other star systems and shuttle back and forth between them (which we are very, very unlikely to do):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

But this kind of foolishness galls me. It galls me even more when it happens in the real world of technology design, which is why I've spent the past quarter-century being very cross about Digital Rights Management in general, and trusted computing in particular.

It all starts in 2002, when a team from Microsoft visited our offices at EFF to tell us about this new thing they'd dreamed up called "trusted computing":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/05/trusting-trust/#thompsons-devil

The big idea was to stick a second computer inside your computer, a very secure little co-processor, that you couldn't access directly, let alone reprogram or interfere with. As far as this "trusted platform module" was concerned, you were the enemy. The "trust" in trusted computing was about other people being able to trust your computer, even if they didn't trust you.

So that little TPM would do all kinds of cute tricks. It could observe and produce a cryptographically signed manifest of the entire boot-chain of your computer, which was meant to be an unforgeable certificate attesting to which kind of computer you were running and what software you were running on it. That meant that programs on other computers could decide whether to talk to your computer based on whether they agreed with your choices about which code to run.

This process, called "remote attestation," is generally billed as a way to identify and block computers that have been compromised by malware, or to identify gamers who are running cheats and refuse to play with them. But inevitably it turns into a way to refuse service to computers that have privacy blockers turned on, or are running stream-ripping software, or whose owners are blocking ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

After all, a system that treats the device's owner as an adversary is a natural ally for the owner's other, human adversaries. The rubric for treating the owner as an adversary focuses on the way that users can be fooled by bad people with bad programs. If your computer gets taken over by malicious software, that malware might intercept queries from your antivirus program and send it false data that lulls it into thinking your computer is fine, even as your private data is being plundered and your system is being used to launch malware attacks on others.

These separate, non-user-accessible, non-updateable secure systems serve a nubs of certainty, a remote fortress that observes and faithfully reports on the interior workings of your computer. This separate system can't be user-modifiable or field-updateable, because then malicious software could impersonate the user and disable the security chip.

It's true that compromised computers are a real and terrifying problem. Your computer is privy to your most intimate secrets and an attacker who can turn it against you can harm you in untold ways. But the widespread redesign of out computers to treat us as their enemies gives rise to a range of completely predictable and – I would argue – even worse harms. Building computers that treat their owners as untrusted parties is a system that works well, but fails badly.

First of all, there are the ways that trusted computing is designed to hurt you. The most reliable way to enshittify something is to supply it over a computer that runs programs you can't alter, and that rats you out to third parties if you run counter-programs that disenshittify the service you're using. That's how we get inkjet printers that refuse to use perfectly good third-party ink and cars that refuse to accept perfectly good engine repairs if they are performed by third-party mechanics:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

It's how we get cursed devices and appliances, from the juicer that won't squeeze third-party juice to the insulin pump that won't connect to a third-party continuous glucose monitor:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

But trusted computing doesn't just create an opaque veil between your computer and the programs you use to inspect and control it. Trusted computing creates a no-go zone where programs can change their behavior based on whether they think they're being observed.

The most prominent example of this is Dieselgate, where auto manufacturers murdered hundreds of people by gimmicking their cars to emit illegal amount of NOX. Key to Dieselgate was a program that sought to determine whether it was being observed by regulators (it checked for the telltale signs of the standard test-suite) and changed its behavior to color within the lines.

Software that is seeking to harm the owner of the device that's running it must be able to detect when it is being run inside a simulation, a test-suite, a virtual machine, or any other hallucinatory virtual world. Just as Descartes couldn't know whether anything was real until he assured himself that he could trust his senses, malware is always questing to discover whether it is running in the real universe, or in a simulation created by a wicked god:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/28/descartes-was-an-optimist/#uh-oh

That's why mobile malware uses clever gambits like periodically checking for readings from your device's accelerometer, on the theory that a virtual mobile phone running on a security researcher's test bench won't have the fidelity to generate plausible jiggles to match the real data that comes from a phone in your pocket:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/google-play-malware-used-phones-motion-sensors-to-conceal-itself/

Sometimes this backfires in absolutely delightful ways. When the Wannacry ransomware was holding the world hostage, the security researcher Marcus Hutchins noticed that its code made reference to a very weird website: iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com. Hutchins stood up a website at that address and every Wannacry-infection in the world went instantly dormant:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/10/flintstone-delano-roosevelt/#the-matrix

It turns out that Wannacry's authors were using that ferkakte URL the same way that mobile malware authors were using accelerometer readings – to fulfill Descartes' imperative to distinguish the Matrix from reality. The malware authors knew that security researchers often ran malicious code inside sandboxes that answered every network query with fake data in hopes of eliciting responses that could be analyzed for weaknesses. So the Wannacry worm would periodically poll this nonexistent website and, if it got an answer, it would assume that it was being monitored by a security researcher and it would retreat to an encrypted blob, ceasing to operate lest it give intelligence to the enemy. When Hutchins put a webserver up at iuqerfsodp9ifjaposdfjhgosurijfaewrwergwea.com, every Wannacry instance in the world was instantly convinced that it was running on an enemy's simulator and withdrew into sulky hibernation.

The arms race to distinguish simulation from reality is critical and the stakes only get higher by the day. Malware abounds, even as our devices grow more intimately woven through our lives. We put our bodies into computers – cars, buildings – and computers inside our bodies. We absolutely want our computers to be able to faithfully convey what's going on inside them.

But we keep running as hard as we can in the opposite direction, leaning harder into secure computing models built on subsystems in our computers that treat us as the threat. Take UEFI, the ubiquitous security system that observes your computer's boot process, halting it if it sees something it doesn't approve of. On the one hand, this has made installing GNU/Linux and other alternative OSes vastly harder across a wide variety of devices. This means that when a vendor end-of-lifes a gadget, no one can make an alternative OS for it, so off the landfill it goes.

It doesn't help that UEFI – and other trusted computing modules – are covered by Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it a felony to publish information that can bypass or weaken the system. The threat of a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine means that UEFI and other trusted computing systems are understudied, leaving them festering with longstanding bugs:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Here's where it gets really bad. If an attacker can get inside UEFI, they can run malicious software that – by design – no program running on our computers can detect or block. That badware is running in "Ring -1" – a zone of privilege that overrides the operating system itself.

Here's the bad news: UEFI malware has already been detected in the wild:

https://securelist.com/cosmicstrand-uefi-firmware-rootkit/106973/

And here's the worst news: researchers have just identified another exploitable UEFI bug, dubbed Pixiefail:

https://blog.quarkslab.com/pixiefail-nine-vulnerabilities-in-tianocores-edk-ii-ipv6-network-stack.html

Writing in Ars Technica, Dan Goodin breaks down Pixiefail, describing how anyone on the same LAN as a vulnerable computer can infect its firmware:

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/01/new-uefi-vulnerabilities-send-firmware-devs-across-an-entire-ecosystem-scrambling/

That vulnerability extends to computers in a data-center where the attacker has a cloud computing instance. PXE – the system that Pixiefail attacks – isn't widely used in home or office environments, but it's very common in data-centers.

Again, once a computer is exploited with Pixiefail, software running on that computer can't detect or delete the Pixiefail code. When the compromised computer is queried by the operating system, Pixiefail undetectably lies to the OS. "Hey, OS, does this drive have a file called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope." "Hey, OS, are you running a process called 'pixiefail?'" "Nope."

This is a self-destruct switch that's been compromised by the enemy, and which no one on the bridge can de-activate – by design. It's not the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last.

There are models for helping your computer bust out of the Matrix. Back in 2016, Edward Snowden and bunnie Huang prototyped and published source code and schematics for an "introspection engine":

https://assets.pubpub.org/aacpjrja/AgainstTheLaw-CounteringLawfulAbusesofDigitalSurveillance.pdf

This is a single-board computer that lives in an ultraslim shim that you slide between your iPhone's mainboard and its case, leaving a ribbon cable poking out of the SIM slot. This connects to a case that has its own OLED display. The board has leads that physically contact each of the network interfaces on the phone, conveying any data they transit to the screen so that you can observe the data your phone is sending without having to trust your phone.

(I liked this gadget so much that I included it as a major plot point in my 2020 novel Attack Surface, the third book in the Little Brother series):

https://craphound.com/attacksurface/

We don't have to cede control over our devices in order to secure them. Indeed, we can't ever secure them unless we can control them. Self-destruct switches don't belong on the bridge of your spaceship, and trusted computing modules don't belong in your devices.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/descartes-delenda-est/#self-destruct-sequence-initiated

Image: Mike (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/stillwellmike/15676883261/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[laparoscopicsurgeondramitajain]

Sudden Stomach Pain? A Guide to Acute Abdominal Pain

In the fast-paced life of modern day, prioritizing health often takes a backseat. However, sudden abdominal pain, often dismissed as “stomachaches,” can originate from various organs or areas including the digestive system, abdominal wall, chest, pelvis, or back. Abdominal pain can be of various types.

Today, we will learn about acute abdominal pain, from Dr Amita Jain, a top laparoscopic and abdomen surgeon in India.

Abdominal pain can occur anywhere between the ribs and the pelvis and is often not a cause for concern, as most issues can be easily diagnosed and treated by a doctor.

However, acute abdomen refers to a sudden, severe abdominal pain often accompanied by nausea…

Read Here: https://www.dramitajain.com/blog/2024/05/30/laparoscopic-abdomen-surgeon-doctor-delhi/

Dr Amita Jain

Dr Amita Jain is a surgeon with highest degree of professional competence, precision and surgical craftsmanship. Performed all complicated general surgery procedures with in depth knowledge of invasive and few minimal invasive and onco surgical techniques. Underwent special training in trauma, executed various trauma-related complex life-saving neurosurgical procedures, reconstructed injured mangled limbs and performed vascular and reconstructive procedures with critical care.

Dr Amita Jain holds 28 plus years of rich experience in Trauma and General Laparoscopic Surgeries (including Gallbladder stone removal, appendix removal, hernia repair surgery, piles and fissure surgeries). She was the Professor Surgery of at the Army College of Medical Sciences and Base Hospital Delhi Cantt. In 1994 she was commissioned as Surgeon under the United Nations Mission in Congo. From 2020 to 2022, she worked with Bansals Hospital. Currently, Dr Amita Jain is the Senior Consultant, (Speciality: General and Laparoscopic Surgeon) at Artemis Lite Hospital, New Delhi

[krystalklear21]

2215-05-06 

Di Mercurio, Vincent Xin

Medical/Scientific

150th Anniversary Project

My name is Vincent Di Mercurio. I am the Medical Lieutenant of the Gemini Voyager, where I provide medical, biological, and other scientific expertise to the crew on board. 

I am a Vampire. One of the reasons why I was the perfect candidate for this project is because of my immortality. Iron is fairly easy to generate in the laboratory, and that was all that I needed to maintain sustenance. 

In 1995 I was born in California, to my Chinese-American mother and Italian-American father. My parents’ love of education and knowledge passed on to me, and I seemed to have an unyielding eternal amount of curiosity. 

In 2020 the existence of Vampires and Werewolves was discovered. Everyone was surprised to find that vampires weren’t exactly what was in the old tales and fables. There was some truth in the fiction though. While Vampires drink and enjoy the flavor of human blood, they don’t need it to survive, just merely need transfusions to obtain iron and other nutrients that amplify their abilities. They can exist without iron for a long time but will get grumpy, corpselike, and emaciated.  The sun didn’t burn them to a crisp, just gave them severe sunburns and made them very sleepy. 

In 2025 I decided to stay 30 years old forever. When I made a decision to be infected with vampirism, I implore you that there was no malicious intent. I didn’t care about finding someone and getting laid, or gaining superpowers, or that I thought it was cool. 

I wanted to unearth the truth forever, and so I feared death.

We had a deathday party. That was a thing back then, when humans knew you could become a vampire. My family and friends attended, and we had a great time. It was common to portray our deathday parties as a wedding. I was marrying myself for all of eternity. We didn’t want to use the campy, stereotypical motifs of black bats, coffins, and gothic metal bands. Just celebrated my life. Contrary to losing their only son, my parents were very happy to support me, and my eternal vows to pursue knowledge. 

I started out as a university professor teaching biology. In fifty years of my eternal existence, where I should’ve been made 80 years old, I’ve achieved 20 doctoral degrees, 48 master’s degrees, and 369 bachelor’s degrees. I’ve made over 5,000 new discoveries, patents, and inventions. I’ve been a university president for about 14 universities and founded the Order of Scientific Pursuits. It hadn’t been 100 years yet. 

My vows weren’t unique. Many people became vampires. Some did so as they joined my Order and vowed to continue to pursue science. When the World Space Organization decided to launch a major project to send humanity to Kepler, the nearest Earth-like planet several trillion light years away, I was the first they suggested to be a part of the voyage. This adventure will be my greatest and most groundbreaking achievement. 

Signed: Dr. Vincent Di Mercurio, Ph.D.

[evoldir]

Fwd: Job: WashingtonStateU-Vancouver.LabTech.PlantMicrobes

Begin forwarded message: > From: evoldir@evol.biology.mcmaster.ca > Subject: Job: WashingtonStateU-Vancouver.LabTech.PlantMicrobes > Date: 20 March 2024 at 04:12:05 GMT > To: rdmpage@gmail.com > > > > Research Technician > > Washington State University - Vancouver > > The Porter Lab in the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State > University - Vancouver is searching for a Research Technician. Research > in the lab investigates the evolution and ecology of plant-microbe > cooperation in both wild and agricultural systems. > > SCOPE: To reveal whether symbiosis between plants and microbes has > shifted over the course of crop domestication, the technician will > help design and conduct manipulative experiments in the greenhouse > and laboratory (see research questions in Porter & Sachs (2020) TREE: > https://ift.tt/UtOrbmI). Our lab has a large > collection of wild and domesticated legume seeds and rhizobia bacteria > ready for plant-microbe growth experiments to compare symbiotic outcomes > for crops and wild species. Successful applicants should be experienced > in cultivating plants under controlled conditions and interested in using > microbial inoculations in experiments. Experience with the collection, > analysis, and curation of experimental data, and training in plant > science/horticulture and/or microbiology are preferred. > > POSITION DETAILS: We will be working in a new, state of the art greenhouse > facility with automated climate and irrigation controls, as well as > an adjacent new Life Sciences Building on the Vancouver campus. This > position is open until filled with potential start dates in Spring > 2024. The successful applicant will be compensated with benefits and > a salary commensurate with WA state guidelines (likely starting around > $36,000). The position is funded by a grant from the National Science > Foundation and will initially be for one year, with the possibility of > renewal for a second year based on satisfactory performance. > > COMMUNITY: The Porter Lab is committed to creating a diverse, equitable, > and inclusive working environment. All members of the group are expected > to share in this commitment. Candidates from groups historically > underrepresented in biological science research are especially > encouraged. The Natural Sciences community at WSUV is collaborative, > supportive and conducting research on a wide variety of topics across > ecology and evolution across several PhD-granting departments. > > LOCATION: Vancouver, WA is located in the Portland, OR metro area and > is a beautiful place to live and work. As the only public four-year > educational institution in Southwest Washington, WSU Vancouver is > dedicated to its land-grant tradition for openness, accessibility > and service to people. Situated on 351 scenic acres, WSU Vancouver > is in the homelands of the Chinookan and Taidnapam peoples and the > Cowlitz Indian Tribe. Employees and students alike value the beauty of > campus. Recognized by Insight Into Diversity magazine as a top college > for diversity, WSU Vancouver is committed to advancing equity, diversity, > inclusion and belonging in all that it does. > > > > TO APPLY: Interested applicants, please send a cover letter, CV, > and contact information for 3 references to stephanie.porter@wsu.edu > Informal email inquiries are also welcome. > > > Stephanie S. Porter > Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences > Washington State University, Vancouver > https://ift.tt/eZwE6C0 > > > stephanie.porter@wsu.edu > > (to subscribe/unsubscribe the EvolDir send mail to > golding@mcmaster.ca

[spacenutspod]

Recent challenges with weather concerns and the movement of key flights such as USSF-52 and Axiom-3 have impacted Falcon 9 launch dates, not least Starlink Group 7-11 which scrubbed three times and is now awaiting launch on Tuesday. SpaceX had two drone ships and the two fairing recovery ships in port for maintenance last week and is looking to launch nine Falcon 9s by the end of this month. This falls a little short of the target of 12 per month to make its ambitious goal of 144 flights this year, but there is plenty of time for cadence to increase. With Starlink Group 6-38 being added late last week to the schedule from LC-39A, likely the final Falcon 9 launch of the month is expected the following day on Jan. 29 from the neighboring LC-40 pad.  This significant launch is for the NG-20 cargo mission — the first time a Cygnus spacecraft will fly aboard this launcher. This is the first of three missions purchased with SpaceX to fulfill Northrop Grumman’s Phase 2 contract to supply the International Space Station (ISS) until the new Antares 330 vehicle becomes operational. Northrop Grumman is currently readying the Cygnus cargo module for launch. On board will be several experiments including 3D printing of metal parts and semiconductors in microgravity, remote control robotic surgery, and three new capsules which will gather data on different heat shields as they re-enter the atmosphere. The week ahead will also see Virgin Galactic send VSS Unity suborbital with another four paying customers.  This is potentially the penultimate flight before operations pause and the company turns its attention to developing and testing its new Delta class vehicle. Rocket Lab’s Electron will launch four space situational awareness satellites for its customer Spire which will deliver critical, and timely data for the first time to the satellite community including orbit tracking, collision avoidance, and proximity warnings. Kinetica 1 | Third flight A six-hour launch window is currently expected for a third launch of the Lijian 1 rocket, also known as Kinetica 1, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China, starting on Jan. 23 at 04:05 UTC. Developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), this four-stage solid propellant light launch vehicle has a first stage which seems to be derived from the DF-31 long-range intercontinental ballistic missile. It is capable of placing about 2,000 kilograms into low-Earth orbit.  The payload is currently understood to be five observation satellites made by Minospace heading for a Sun-synchronous orbit. VSS Unity after the Galactic 05 mission. (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF) SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink 7-11 Starlink 7-11 was set for launch on Jan. 18 at 8:04 PM PST (04:04 UTC Jan. 19) from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base but SpaceX stood down from the launch, for reasons not stated. The launch had been rescheduled for Friday, Jan. 19 at 6:15 PM PST (02:15 UTC Jan. 20). See AlsoSpaceX Missions SectionL2 SpaceX SectionClick here to Join L2 However, the launch aborted at T-59 seconds, just after the Falcon 9’s computers took control of the countdown, in what is known as startup. The booster for this flight is B1063-16, and it would land on Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific when it does fly. Another attempt had been scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 23 at 4:35 PM PST (00:35 UTC Jan. 24). B1063 made its launch debut on Nov. 21, 2020, with the launch of Sentinel-6A Michael Freilich, and has also flown the Starlink V1 L28, DART, Starlink 4-11, 4-13. 3-1. 3-4, 4-31, and 2-5, Transporter 7, Iridium-9/OneWeb #19, Starlink 5-13, Transport & Tracking Layer Tranche 0 Flight 2, Starlink 7-4, and Starlink 7-7. All but one flight has taken place from Vandenberg, with Starlink V1 L28 flying from Cape Canaveral. This flight is due to carry up to 22 Starlink v2 Mini satellites to an orbit inclined 53 degrees to the Equator and would be the seventh SpaceX launch in 2024 barring unforeseen delays and manifest changes. SpaceShipTwo | Galactic-06 Having achieved six suborbital spaceflights in six months during 2023, Virgin Galactic is opening its new year with its eleventh spaceflight to date. The company announced late last year that it will now fly every quarter and only two or three more times. VSS Unity is scheduled to launch from Spaceport America in New Mexico on NET Jan. 26 carrying four more customers on what could yet be its penultimate mission. Following this mission, a Galactic-07 flight is then expected in Q2 and it has not yet been determined if there will be a Galactic-08 mission before Virgin Galactic pauses flights this summer to pivot and focus efforts on developing and testing their new Delta class vehicle. This new craft will be able to fly six rather than four passengers up to twice a week from 2026 following a test flight which is currently anticipated in mid to late 2025 and is expected to increase monthly revenues tenfold. Electron is prepared for the Four of a Kind mission. (Credit: Rocket Lab) Electron/Curie | Four of a Kind Electron’s first mission of the year has been rescheduled as a precaution to avoid an incoming weather system and to allow for additional pre-launch checkouts. It is now expected to lift off on Jan. 27 at 06:15 UTC from Pad B at Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula during a 45-minute launch window. The payload is four Low Earth Multi-Use Receiver (LEMUR) space situational awareness (SSA) satellites which have been built and will be operated by Spire Global Inc. for their customer NorthStar Earth & Space. These satellites will be placed into a 540-kilometer circular orbit inclined at 97 degrees. Spire will be the first to simultaneously monitor all near-Earth orbits and is making this precise and timely data available as a service to the global satellite community.  This data will include tracking and orbit determination, collision avoidance, and proximity alerts. As with previous missions, the Electron first stage will be recovered by a Rocket Lab marine recovery vessel after a parachute splashdown. Rocket Lab assesses and repurposes certain components, such as reusing its first recovered Rutherford engine last year, and is still working towards re-flying a recovered stage. The company plans to fly 22 missions this year — over double the nine missions flown last year. This Electron includes a silver thermal protection system (TPS) to help the carbon composite structure survive the extreme forces of re-entry from space, as well as an extended carbon-composite shield over the Rutherford engines. Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 6-38 This final Starlink mission of the month has been recently added to the schedule for NET Jan. 28 at 6:04 EST (23:04 UTC), launching from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center.  This four-hour launch window needed the pad to be clear of the Axiom-3 launch and is next scheduled to be used for the IM-1 flight on Feb. 10. The booster and recovery methods are not yet confirmed. KREPE-2 capsule re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. (Credit: Northrop Grumman) Falcon 9 Block 5 | CRS NG-20 This is the first time a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft is flying on a Falcon 9, having previously flown on the now-retired Antares 230+ rocket. Three Falcon flights have been purchased for these cargo resupply missions to the ISS to bridge the gap until the new Antares 330 becomes operational. This launch is expected to lift off from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Jan. 29 at 12:29 EST (17:29 UTC) with new SpaceX booster B1072 on its maiden flight, returning to land on the pad at LZ-1 approximately eight minutes following launch. Dubbed the S.S. Patricia “Patty” Hilliard Robertson, the NG-20 craft celebrates the life and achievements of Dr. Robertson who was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1998 and was due to fly to the ISS in 2002 before an untimely death the year prior from injuries sustained in a plane crash. This will be the 20th flight of the Cygnus cargo ship, which is comprised of the US-built service module (based on the GEOStar platform) and a pressurized module by Thales Alenia which is manufactured in Italy and France. As part of the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) Phase 2 contracts, these three Falcon missions could include some late loading of payloads. As we move to a higher launch rate, we are adopting more of a factory model where the equipment is always running except for planned and unplanned maintenance. In this case, JRTI is going through a planned dry dock while pad 40 also undergoes a planned maintenance period. The… https://t.co/s230wbWccx — Kiko Dontchev (@TurkeyBeaver) January 18, 2024 Experiments on board this craft include a miniature surgical robot with two “hands” that will help the team to test the process in microgravity and any time delays of performing remote surgery in space with an operator on the ground. This experiment benefits from advances in miniaturization as well as NASA’s research dating back more than 15 years.  It will pave the way for longer-duration missions where the likelihood that crew members may require medical procedures increases. The cargo also includes a couple of manufacturing experiments. A metal 3D printer will test the additive printing of small metal parts in microgravity, while a new platform will test thin film semiconductor production in space. The former could enable the manufacture of parts for spacecraft on long-duration missions, avoiding the need to pack or even predict the parts they might need. The experiment is also expected to benefit manufacturing back here on Earth. Additional experiments include a 3D cell culture which will enable the astronauts to study cartilage degeneration diseases, while the Kentucky Re-entry Probe Experiment-2 (KREPE-2) will further test thermal protection systems during atmospheric re-entry. Building on the KREPE-1 mission, several heat shields will be tested using three different capsules armed with various sensors that will capture data as they go through actual re-entry conditions. The experiment will also inform steps to protect people and structures back on Earth from wildfires. (Lead image: Cygnus craft, the S.S. Patricia “Patty” Hilliard Robertson, is prepared for the NG-20 mission by the Northrop Grumman team.. Credit: Northrop Grumman) The post Launch Roundup – Northrop Grumman prepare the first Cygnus to fly on Falcon 9 appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.

[infosnack]

STAT: FDA weighs animal data ethical dilemmas at panel on artificial wombs

STAT+: FDA weighs animal data, ethical dilemmas at panel on artificial wombs https://www.statnews.com/2023/09/19/fda-artificial-wombs-safety-premature-babies/?utm_campaign=rss The Food and Drug Administration’s advisory panel of pediatric experts met on Tuesday to discuss advances in artificial womb technology, which aim to save the lives of premature babies. The goal of the meeting was to discuss measures for evaluating the safety and efficacy of an artificial womb. The group grappled with the limits of current animal data, as well as the ethical difficulties in running human trials. On Wednesday, the committee’s meeting will be closed to the public in order to protect trade secrets. Extremely premature babies, defined as infants born at less than 28 weeks, rarely survive. About half of infants born at 23 weeks survive, according to a 2022 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and at 22 weeks just 10% survive. This population represents less than 2% of all premature babies, but the problem is growing; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the preterm birth rate rose by 4% between 2020 and 2021. Continue to STAT+ to read the full story… via STAT Health - Science, medicine and healthcare news https://www.statnews.com/category/health/ September 19, 2023 at 05:45PM

[brasilconspiracao]

The guys behind Google - CIA, NSA BlackRock and Vanguard

Google’s true origin partly lies in CIA and NSA research grants for mass surveillance https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance

This type of public-to-private innovation system helped launch powerful science and technology companies like Qualcomm, Symantec, Netscape, and others, and funded the pivotal research in areas like Doppler radar and fiber optics, which are central to large companies like AccuWeather, Verizon, and AT&T today. Today, the NSF provides nearly 90% of all federal funding for university-based computer-science research.

[...]

By working with emerging commercial-data companies, their intent was to track like-minded groups of people across the internet and identify them from the digital fingerprints they left behind, much like forensic scientists use fingerprint smudges to identify criminals

[...]

The CIA and NSA funded an unclassified, compartmentalized program designed from its inception to spur something that looks almost exactly like Google.

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Civil-liberty advocacy groups have aired their privacy concerns for years, especially as they now relate to the Patriot Act. “Hastily passed 45 days after 9/11 in the name of national security, the Patriot Act was the first of many changes to surveillance laws that made it easier for the government to spy on ordinary Americans by expanding the authority to monitor phone and email communications, collect bank and credit reporting records, and track the activity of innocent Americans on the Internet,” says the ACLU. “While most Americans think it was created to catch terrorists, the Patriot Act actually turns regular citizens into suspects.”

How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-google-interferes-with-its-search-algorithms-and-changes-your-results-11573823753

The internet giant uses blacklists, algorithm tweaks and an army of contractors to shape what you see

Google reportedly manipulates search results to hide controversial subjects and favor big business https://www.businessinsider.com/google-manipulates-search-results-report-2019-11

Google whistleblower claims tech giant's Developer Studio division has been infiltrated by 'pedophilic religious doomsday cult' Fellowship of Friends that was featured in a Spotify podcast series called 'Revelations' last year https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10947885/Google-whistleblower-claims-Developer-Studio-infiltrated-pedophilic-doomsday-cult.html

Google worker was fired for exposing a ‘spiritual organisation’ inside company, lawsuit claim https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/google-worker-fired-religious-cult-b2103428.html

The Fellowship of Friends believes it will create a new civilisation following a prophesised doomsday event

'ABUSIVE SEX RITUALS' ‘Google cult leader who tried to bed 100 male followers in a DAY gives chilling warning to betrayers,’ member claims https://www.the-sun.com/news/5863671/google-cult-leader-robert-earl-burton-warning/

Why Google loves China? Google is banned in China, but it gets big dollars as ad revenues from Chinese firms https://tfipost.com/2020/05/why-google-loves-china-google-is-banned-in-china-but-it-gets-big-dollars-as-ad-revenues-from-chinese-firms/

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and censorship go hand-in-hand. The Xi Jinping regime is infamous for undertaking massive censorship drives which are aimed at culling anything that is anti-China. Joining them now in the censorship crusade is the global search-engine giant Google, as reports have emerged suggesting that YouTube- a Google-owned company is automatically deleting comments that contain certain Chinese phrases related to criticism of the country’s ruling Communist Party.

[...]

Google’s ties with the CCP have long been under suspicion. The search engine was banned from China in 2010 but it has found a workaround-model to generate huge revenues from the communist country.

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Advertisements from TikTok also explain why Google had deleted over 5 million negative reviews from the Google play store when TikTok’s rating had nosedived to 1.3 stars in India

[...]

Emboldened by such huge revenues from advertisements only, it was reported that Google was developing a secret ‘censored version’ of its search app to launch in China. However, after the news broke out in public about the project, which was nicknamed “Project Dragonfly”, and Google faced massive backlash. This is when it shelved the entire plan to save its face.

Top Google (Alphabet) Shareholders https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/011516/top-5-google-shareholders-goog.asp

Alphabet Inc. (GOOG, and GOOGL) is a holding company and parent of Google. The company provides software and Internet-related services including web browsing and search, cloud computing, streaming entertainment, and mobile operating systems, among others. The parent also is involved on a broad array of businesses, including cloud computing, software and hardware, advertising services, and mobile and desktop applications.

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The top individual insider shareholders of Google are Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Sundar Pichai, and the top institutional shareholders are Vanguard Group Inc., BlackRock Inc. (BLK), T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., and FMR LLC.

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In total, Vanguard holds more than 44 million Alphabet shares.

T. Rowe Price Associates owns 14.0 million class C shares of Alphabet, representing 4.4% of total class C shares outstanding, according to the company's 13F filing for the period ending June 30, 2021.

FMR LLC owns 13.1 million class A shares of Alphabet, representing 4.4% of total class A shares outstanding, according to the company's 13F filing for the period ending June 30, 2021

From Google to Alphabet: a business adventure https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/08/google-alphabet-business-adventure/

Companies not relevant to Google’s internet products will be spun out into their own companies under the Alphabet umbrella.

Google And The United Nations Are Joining Forces, And It Could Mean Big Things For The Environment https://www.sciencealert.com/google-united-nations-partnership-provide-free-open-access-environmental-data

Google is teaming up with the United Nations to change the way that we understand our planet. The goal of the partnership, which was announced today, is to provide unprecedented access to anyone who wishes to use Google's extensive environmental data.

[...]

"UN Environment is excited to be partnering with Google, to make sure we have the most sophisticated online tools to track progress, identify priority areas for our action, and bring us one step closer to a sustainable world."

Google teams up with UN for verified climate information https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/google-search-information

In addition to organic search results, Google is surfacing short and easy-to-understand information panels and visuals on the causes and effects of climate change, as well as individual actions that people can take to help tackle the climate crisis.

gmail icon looks familiar... freemasonry?

Google https://www.weforum.org/organizations/alphabet

Yuval Noah Harari: "Listen to Google" From Theism to Humanism to Data-ism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw2jBiqZ4N8

'Google BRAIN' chip could mean future school pupils won't need to memorise facts https://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/google-brain-implants-could-mean-14183717

Future school pupils won't need to memorise anything, because "Google brain" implants will answer all their questions instantly, an artificial intelligence expert has claimed. Nikolas Kairinos, founder and chief executive of Fountech.ai , believes that rote learning will disappear completely in schools, because " Google will be in your head".

The CIA's Relationship With Silicon Valley Explained https://www.grunge.com/640295/the-cias-relationship-with-silicon-valley-explained/

Technology companies like Amazon, Google, and IBM, have ties to Silicon Valley. [...] Quartz writes the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) began reaching out to research scientists developing supercomputers in the 1990s with research grants. The government and technologists have worked together before. Work on the internet first started as a project for the CIA and other intelligence offices. One of the grants, called the Massive Digital Data Systems, was given to a pair of Stanford graduate students exploring web searches and tracking, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Other grants helped fund research into fiber optics and radar.

Yet, the CIA was not satisfied with funding university research that eventually became some of the biggest companies in the world; they wanted a more direct link to them. The Wall Street Journal reports the venture capital fund In-Q-Tel, which continues to invest today, is backed by the CIA. In-Q-Tell claims it is wholly independent of the CIA, but the Wall Street Journal notes it still makes many of its investing decisions with the agency. As a company funded by public money, In-Q-Tel is a nonprofit, unlike other venture capital firms. Just like its funder, the company tends to be very secretive. It never announces how much it invests, and rarely reveals which start-ups it invested in. So it's not a surprise that the CIA turned to Silicon Valley for its cloud project.

Business: The Economy CIA invests in Silicon Valley http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/461574.stm

The company will work openly, seeking partners to develop new Internet technologies; improve security and privacy technologies; nurture data mining techniques; and improve the CIA's computer systems.

Google selling users’ personal data despite promise, federal court lawsuit claims https://www.tampabay.com/news/2021/05/07/google-selling-users-personal-data-despite-promise-federal-court-lawsuit-claims/

Inside Alphabet’s Jigsaw, the powerful tech incubator that could reshape geopolitics https://qz.com/846836/inside-google-jigsaw-the-powerful-tech-incubator-that-wants-to-reshape-geopolitics

And then there is the $550-billion elephant in the room. Jigsaw fights against the abuse of power, but its parent company is enormously powerful in its own right. Setting aside its economic resources and political influence, Alphabet has acquired a near-monopoly over internet search, a necessity in modern life.

Inside the offices of Jigsaw, an elite think tank created by Google where employees sample food from around the world and take naps in rooms named Narnia and Mordor https://www.businessinsider.com/google-jigsaw-office-tour-alphabet-2017-11

Just like Soros and Open Society...

Google Just Donated Millions to LGBTQ+ People https://www.advocate.com/news/2021/6/03/google-just-donated-millions-lgbtq-people

Elon Musk’s SpaceX inks satellite connectivity deal with Google Cloud https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/13/22433982/elon-musk-spacex-internet-connectivity-deal-google-cloud

Elon Musk Is a Former Klaus Schwab WEF Young Global Leader https://www.americaoutloud.news/elon-musk-is-a-former-klaus-schwab-wef-young-global-leader/

Top 10 Ways Google Is Censoring Free Speech https://listverse.com/2020/04/23/top-10-ways-google-is-censoring-free-speech/

Google Foundation https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/google-foundation/

The Google Foundation has given at least $70 million in grants to numerous left-leaning advocacy organizations.

Google https://www.influencewatch.org/for-profit/google/

In 2018, Google announced that it would not renew a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense after employees protested partnering with the American military.

[...]

Google has faced claims that it manipulates its search results for political and business ends

Sergey Brin - WEForum agenda contributor

Sergey Brin Family Foundation https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/sergey-brin-family-foundation/

Brin has also made donations directly to Democratic causes, including gifts to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and former President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. Brin also supports left-of-center causes through donations from the Google Foundation and the Sergey Brin Family Foundation.

Sergey Brin https://www.influencewatch.org/person/sergey-brin/