Defund Police

 

Constitution

 

China's Mars Rover Zhurong

China's first-ever Mars rover was on the move earlier this month, imagery by a NASA spacecraft shows.

The rover, named Zhurong, is part of Tianwen-1, China's first fully homegrown Red Planet mission, which arrived in orbit around Mars in February. Zhurong separated from the Tianwen-1 orbiter on May 14 and touched down on the vast plain Utopia Planitia a few hours later.

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) photographed Zhurong on June 6 using its HiRISE ("High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment") camera, which is capable of resolving features as small as a coffee table on the red dirt far below.

The HiRISE team released a second image of Zhurong taken on June 11, which shows the rover and its tracks extending noticeably farther away from the mission's landing platform.

"The landing site remains distinctly colored from removal of Martian dust during landing, and movement of the Zhurong rover toward the south can be seen when comparing the two images," HiRISE team members wrote in a description of the photo.

MRO has been circling Mars since 2006, studying the planet's geology and climate, hunting for signs of water ice, scouting out good potential landing sites for future missions (both crewed and robotic) and serving as a communications relay between Mars rovers and landers and their controllers on Earth.

As the Zhurong images show, MRO also keeps tabs on the Red Planet's surface robots from time to time as well. Over the years, HiRISE has photographed NASA's Phoenix and InSight landers and the agency's Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance rovers — and Zhurong as well.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Just Politics

 

Being A White Oppressor

 

In 1947, I was born white and in 2021 at the age of 73, I am still white, and I supposed that I will continue to be white for the rest of my life...  and, it does not make any difference if I like or dislike rap music.

I married twice and both times they were white females and with the first wife, I had a white daughter who he in her 40's and is still white as well.

PERSONALLY, I like the idea of saying that ALL WHITE PEOPLE are oppressive and have oppressed the blacks...  but, I am not sure why I like that other than being white.  I also like the idea of teaching school children (as young as possible) that whites are the oppressors and that blacks are the ones being oppressed.

I like this idea because over time, it will divide this country worse than it has ever been divided before...  and, it will cause most blacks to hate whites and vice versa...  which I also think is good for this country...  especially if we want to be controlled by CHINA down the road.

AMERICA NO LONGER NEEDS TO BE UNITED...

Prevent Murder

 

Airplane RV

The owner of a vintage World War II-era transport plane decided to do something radical—but still practical—to the big prop plane: he turned it into an RV. The result is the "Fabulous Flamingo," a traveling camper that boards like a real airplane, but drives like a recreational vehicle.

Aviation fan and Air Force veteran Gino Lucci purchased the old Douglas R4D airplane in 2019. Damaged in a tornado, the plane no longer flew. So by the time Lucci purchased it, he bought it "for the cost of a used car," according to an Insider report.

To make the conversion from plane to RV, Lucci purchased parts from Bontrager's Surplus in Michigan, which specializes in RVs and RV parts. Then, he began the year-long renovation process at his home in Nashville, Michigan.

Lucci's RV incorporates as many parts of the original plane as possible. He bolted the front fuselage of the plane to a delivery truck frame. The air stairs, which unfold from the right side of the fuselage, are the only way in and out of the vehicle. The original plane intercom still works. And he turned the engine cowlings into wheel guards.

The airplane, which Lucci renamed "The Fabulous Flamingo," offers 300 square feet of internal living space, and even features a play area for his youngest son. As Bontrager's describes it on their Facebook page:

The seats from the old airplane were used for the driver & front passenger seats in the RV. They added a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom - complete with a stove, sink, fridge, microwave, cabinets, sofa, dinette booth, toilet and even a tub!

The southern California-based Douglas Aircraft Company (now a part of Boeing) built and delivered the first DC-3 plane—called the Douglas Sleeper Transport—to American Airlines in June 1936. It was the "height of luxury" at the time, according to Boeing, and could accommodate 14 overnight passengers or up to 28 on shorter daylight flights.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Opinions

 

When Stars Had Light

Astronomers have worked out when the first stars began shining.

They say that this period, known as the "cosmic dawn," occurred between 250 to 350 million years after the Big Bang.  The results indicate that the first galaxies will be bright enough to be seen by Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to be launched later this year.

The study is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.  Discovering when the cosmic dawn began has been the life's work of Prof Richard Ellis, from University College London, UK.

He told BBC News: "The Holy Grail has been to look back far enough that you would be able to see the very first generation of stars and galaxies. And now we have the first convincing evidence of when the Universe was first bathed in starlight."

Webb telescope's golden mirror in final test
Scientists detect oxygen legacy of first stars
Planck telescope puts new date on first stars

The team analysed six of the most distant galaxies. They were so far away that even with the world's most powerful telescopes they appeared as just a few pixels on the computer screen. They are also among the earliest to have emerged in the Universe and so, by the time their images are captured by telescopes on Earth, they are seen not long after the Big Bang.

By working out their age, the team calculated the start of the cosmic dawn - when the first stars formed. Dr Nicolas Laporte, from the Kavli Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge led the analysis.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

The Mall

Today, I spent in Knoxville at the Mall, and while I was there got myself some vanilla cappuccino from Starbucks and watched the most recent Fast and Furious movie which was a little more hard-to-believe than some of the others, although, the special effects were not so spectacular as they were well done...

As I walked around the inside of the Mall, I realized that I was mixed in with a group of visitors, none of which had their facemasks, and none of whom I saw as any particular color other than Americans...  yet, I am sure that there were plenty of black, Hispanics, and Mexicans all around me.

Nobody looked out-of-place or that they did not belong there...  I saw males, females, families, and people who were by themselves.  I saw people that were well dressed and those who looked like they had spent the morning at the lake.

The whole time that I was at the Mall, I was thinking about why I did not want to be WOKE and why I did not particularly care for Critical Race Theory...  because the ones I was around were just a bunch of different people who wanted to spend some time at the Mall on Sunday.

While we were walking my wife was surfing the web and all of a sudden blurted out, "did you know the richest actor in Hollywood is a black person?"  My first thought was brought brought that about...  but, all I said was, "no shit" and continued walking?

But to myself, I was wondering why all this fuss about blacks being suppressed by whites...  and, then I wondered how I would have done my job if I had spent my career in law enforcement...  but, I was a teacher and spent my career in front of all kinds of people...  some were smarter than others and some did not want to talk, and some could not write well, but they were all students trying to make a better life for themselves.

Since my coffee was gone, we decided to leave the Mall and return home and spend the evening enjoying whatever it was that we wanted to do...  like watch a Korean movie with sub titles or post articles to a blog.

Isn't this the way is supposed to be in America?

Predictions

 

Blue Whales

Scientists have discovered an entirely new population of pygmy blue whales in the Indian Ocean, which have managed to evade detection for decades despite their enormous size.

Researchers uncovered the secretive cetaceans by analyzing acoustic data collected by an underwater nuclear bomb detection array, which revealed a unique song scientists had never heard before.

The new population of pygmy blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus brevicauda) — a smaller subspecies of blue whale that reaches a maximum length of 79 feet (24 meters) — is now called the Chagos population, after a group of islands in the Indian Ocean near the group's lair.

"We are still discovering missing populations of the largest animal that has ever lived," senior author Tracey Rogers, a marine ecologist at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, told Live Science. "It's a testament to the difficulty of studying life in the ocean."

Bomb detectors
"Blue whales are generally hard to find," lead author Emmanuelle Leroy, a postdoctoral fellow at UNSW, told Live Science. "They were brought to the edge of extinction by industrial whaling and they are recovering very slowly."

Currently, about 5,000 to 10,000 blue whales exist in the Southern Hemisphere, compared with the pre-whaling population of about 350,000 there, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. The few that remain are often solitary and are spread across large geographic areas, making them easy to miss, Leroy said.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Another View

 

Shining Light

Fast Radio Bursts are relatively new on the astronomy scene, having really emerged over the last 10 or so years. Scientists have determined that they can also be used as powerful cosmic flashlights that can tell us more about the Universe. Now, two Australian scientists have written an excellent review paper about this mysterious phenomenon and how it can help us better understand our place in the Universe.

Often we hear that the Universe works in mysterious ways, and yes, this is very true and a great starting point for science. There are things about the Universe that we observe and are yet to understand, which are then theorised, modelled, investigated and analysed by scientists to help make them mysteries no more.

Sometimes, space-based objects or phenomena can lie in the fascinating waters between something we are yet to understand vs. something that has come through our established systems of science, being peer-reviewed and accepted into becoming the most up to date fact.

Of course, new data might come through and change these facts, tweaking them to represent further observations and confirmed results, and so science continues to progress in these recognised steps over time.

In the last 15 years a relatively new, not-yet-fully understood phenomenon has emerged, fuelling excitement and a race to learn more by global radio astronomers. What began as a discovery in the archival data of the CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope that was several years old, has now bloomed into a research field with an army of astronomers around the world working around the clock to turn mystery into fact.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

US Divided

President Biden in a speech given in North Carolina said that the US was more divided than it was during the CIVIL WAR and blamed former President Trump for this problem...

LOGICALLY...  President Biden is saying that in only a 4 year period of time, that ONE MAN was able to divide the country worse than it has been divided since the CIVIL WAR.

HOW STUPID DOES PRESIDENT BIDEN THINK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE???

It is impossible to divide a country that fast unless the country was basically already divided between CONSERVATIVES and LIBERALS and thanks to former President Trump, people had the courage to stand up for what they believed.

It is somewhat IRONICAL that the country is divided along political lines because one would think that the country is divided because of:

• Wealth/Middle Class
• Educated/Not Educated
• White/Black
• Male/Female
• Old/Young
• North/South
• Married/Not Married
• Religious/Non Religious
• For Gun/Against Gun
• For Abortion/Against Abortion

Friday Funnies

 

Chinese Jets

Some 28 Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan's air defence zone on Tuesday, said its defence ministry, the largest reported incursion so far.

Fighters and nuclear-capable bombers were among those in the so-called air defence identification zone (ADIZ).

The incident comes after Nato leaders on Monday warned of the military challenge posed by China.  While democratic Taiwan sees itself as a sovereign state, Beijing views the island as a breakaway province.

According to Taipei, the Chinese mission included 14 J-16, six J-11 fighters, four nuclear capable H-6 bombers as well as anti-submarine, electronic warfare and early warning aircraft.

An air defence identification zone is an area outside of a country's territory and national airspace but where foreign aircraft are still identified, monitored, and controlled in the interest of national security. It is self-declared and technically remains international airspace.

The Chinese aircraft flew close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands, as well as around the southern part of Taiwan itself.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Lost Jobs by 2030

A 2017 report by global consultants McKinsey
predicted a third of workers in the US would be replaced by automation and robots by 2030. But events like pandemics have the potential to change all the timelines and experts say it's really up to humans to decide how they want to integrate this technology in the world.

What we must realize is that 2030 is less than 9 years away...  and, no one is focused on how much of the workforce is going to be displaced by robots...  and, what they are going to be doing for work...

TWENTY MILLION WORKERS will be replaced by robots by the year 2030...

What jobs will be replaced?

• taxi driver
• travel agent
• store cashiers
• fast food cooks
• administrative legal jobs
• manufacturing 
• jobs that are repetitive

What jobs might remain?

1. Lawyer
2. IT Professional
3. Medical Professionals

Air Taxi

Archer Aviation is back on the radar with the reveal of the Maker, its first urban air mobility vehicle, at a virtual event in Los Angeles. We've already seen glimpses and renders of the Maker over the last year, but today's announcement comes with more details and the first photos of the craft. Maker is Archer's prototype for testing and certification and the first step towards a slightly larger production craft which should follow soon after.

The Maker is an eVTOL aircraft, meaning it's capable of electric vertical take-off and landing. Vertical take-off like a helicopter means that it doesn't need a runway and can be launched from space-efficient helipads. Once in the air, the Maker transitions to fixed-wing flight like an airplane, which is both quieter and more energy efficient for cruising at up to 150 mph.

Along the craft's 40-foot wingspan, you'll find a total of 12 rotors -- six large, five-bladed props that handle the bulk of propulsion and six smaller, two-blade rotors that appear to only be used during hovering and the transitional phase to cruising. By using full-electric motors and multiple small props with lower "tip speed" than a single, large rotor, Archer claims that the Maker is 100 times quieter than a conventional heli, humming along at around 45 dB when cruising at around 2,000 feet.

The two-passenger Maker should be fairly lightweight. Tipping the scales at around 3,300 pounds, it is about 700 pounds less than a 2020 Tesla Model 3, which has the same size battery, but also still about 1,000 pounds more than a conventional light aircraft of the same size.

A Cessna 172 can't land on a helipad in the middle of a city, though, which is why the Maker will see use. As an urban air mobility vehicle with just 60 miles of cruising range, Archer envisions the Maker serving as an air taxi that shuttles VIPs from, say, San Francisco Airport to San Jose in just 17 minutes, bypassing up to two hours of traffic on the ground during rush hour. A trip from Manhattan to JFK will only take 7 minutes.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Truth

 

Russia & Putin and...

 

China

I am NOT A CHEF

I have been cooking since college when I would cook soup in a popcorn popper and later progressed to emptying a can of soup into a pot, adding a can of water, bringing it to a boil, pouring in a cup of rice, putting the lid on, turning the burner down to simmer, and 30 minutes later, I had a perfectly cooked casserole...  which, I put in 4-5 plastic containers and would have a meal for the next 4-5 days.

My cooking is similar in that I cook for meals ahead but it varies with 4 or 5 or 6 based upon what I am cooking.  For instance, this morning:

I took a baking potato, cut it in half, then cut that piece into thirds, kept the parts together, cut that into third, again keeping the parts together, and cut down the length so that I would have small cubes.

I put those cubes in a frying pan to which I added diced onions, diced peppers, and diced vege sausage (round patties).  Added lots of pepper and salt along with Olive Oil, Worcestershire sauce, Mustard, and Ketchup and cooked it until the potatoes were soft.

I could have divided it into 2-3 containers and would have had enough for three meals but I decided on two meals where I would feel more than full each time.   I have no idea what I made that decision.

Mostly, I cook Turkey Burgers and a vegetable like broccoli, peas, or limas and add rice and it makes for 3 meals each of which is between 300-450 calories.  My number of containers is typically based upon keeping my calories no higher than 450 so sometimes it is 3 containers, sometimes 4...  it also depends on how filling each meal will be.

Concerns of a Retiree

I did not vote for Presidents Trump or Biden and yet I am forced to live under their administrations and how they want to manage the country and the people.

Until the Pandemic hit, Trump had the healthiest economy the US has ever seen and did not take any shit off of any foreign leader...  which pissed a lot of foreign leaders off especially since they were used to a President that was easier to manipulate.

Biden is a weak president internationally and has caused immigration, violence, and crime to increase in our major cities.  Biden has divided the country much worse than Trump had divided it.

As a result of the Democratic agenda to push blacks, I want to be just the opposite and push whites, mainly because I don't like the government or any political party telling me what to do or how I should live my life.  Plus, I don't like the movement towards Socialism and the blatant disregard for FREEDOM on which this country was founded.

I support a strong military

I support a strong public education

I support the first amendment

I support the second amendment

I support a woman's right to choose

I support a balanced, unbiased media

I support opposing views

I support the LGBTQ+ movement

I support all life both black and white

I support the American Flag

I support the Pledge of Allegiance

I support all our veterans

I support an end to wars and violence

I support the legalization of marijuana

I support a small federal government

I support low taxes

I support legal immigration

President Biden's agenda is separating this United States and it is creating a nation of blacks and a nation of whites.  He is creating a nation of laws and it is creating a nation without laws.  He is creating a nation where the government has more control over the individual than ever.  He is creating a nation where there is no will of the people and trying to destroy our free market enterprise system that will force companies to relocate overseas.

Best Places for ET Life

If you want to believe, now is the time: the hope that we might one day stumble upon alien life is greater than it ever was. No, it’s not going to be little green men speeding through space in flying disks—more likely microbes or primitive bacteria. But a discovery like that would nevertheless be a sign that we are not alone in the universe—that life elsewhere is a possibility.

Where are we going to find that life? It was once thought the solar system was probably a barren wasteland apart from Earth. Rocky neighbors were too dry and cold like Mars, or too hot and hellish like Venus. The other planets were gas giants, and life on those worlds or their satellite moons was basically inconceivable. Earth seemed to be a miracle of a miracle.

But life isn’t that simple. We now know that life on Earth is able to thrive in even the harshest, most brutal environments, in super cold and super dry conditions, depths of unimaginable pressures, and without the need to use sunlight as a source of energy. At the same time, our cursory understanding of these obscure worlds has expanded tremendously. 

Our rocky neighbors of Venus and Mars may have once been temperate and Earth-like, and some of the life might have lingered on after these planets’ climates took a turn for the worse. Several of the icy moons that hang around Jupiter and Saturn might have underground oceans that could sustain life. A couple may even have atmospheres. And still other places that seem to be too exotic for life continue to surprise us.

Unlike the myriad of new exoplanets we’re identifying every year, when it comes to worlds in the solar system, we have the ability to send probes to these places and study them directly. “We can measure things that would be impossible to measure with telescopes,” says David Catling, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington. 

They could study things up close, maybe fly into the atmosphere or land on the surface, and perhaps one day even bring back samples that could reveal whether these planets and moons are home to materials or fossils that are evidence of life—or perhaps life itself.

Here are the 10 best places in the solar system to look for extraterrestrial life, subjectively ranked by yours truly for how likely we are to find life—and how easy it would be to find it if it’s there.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Valley Rain Recollections

Rain from the Gulf Coast has finally made its way up to the Tennessee Valley after causing all sort of havoc in Alabama and Georgia which is another reason why I like living in this state because it is protected on all four sides by other states, a plateau, or a mountain range, giving us a moderate climate all year long...  but, this afternoon she rains and she rains steadily for two hours or more.

We have a little vegetable garden out back where we grow tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, peppers, and zucchini...  and just in the qualities that is perfect for two people to enjoy during the months of July, August, and September if we are lucky.

We water our garden using the water that we collect from the dehumidifier downstairs in our 6 foot wide area that travels the length of the house with cinderblocks against the outside dirt.  While that area has been sealed, we still can pull moisture out of the walls most every month during the years except for many 3-4 and while it is not a problem down there with moisture, we do not want it to become one.

Downstairs we use for the car and the outside lawn mowers and for storage although we have finished part of the basement with a living area which includes couch and television, microwave, and small refrigerator, along with a full bathroom.  However, most of our time is spent upstairs in the kitchen/living area or the bedroom with a full bath.  We have two other bedrooms, one for a guest and one we use for an office and the cat's room.

Except for all the room that we are presently using for storage knowing that 80% of that storage is stuff that we will never really use, this house is really either too big or just right if we could tear down and put up new walls.

In other words, there is just so much space that two people can use at any one point in time...  and basically that is a living room, kitchen, pantry, laundry, bedroom, full bath, closet space, storage space, and a garage.  All other space is not really needed.

We don't really need an extra bedroom.  We don't really need an extra room for the office and cats.  We don't really need a downstairs bedroom, bath, and storage area...  and yet, we have all that with this house.

We have a dining room table but we hardly ever eat there.  Mainly we eat at the counter in the middle of the kitchen or while sitting on the couch watching TV.  Our screened in back porch is only used in the fall and in the spring.  We don't need an office because the sit in the living room with our ipads and laptops.

If we had the ability to design our own home, we would have created a bigger area that would be open and include kitchen, lots of counter space, a dining area and a living area.  We would have designed a pantry and a laundry room.  We would have a bigger guest bathroom and a smaller bedroom with a large full bath and plenty of closet space not just for clothes but for all the stuff used to take care of a house.  

We would have a two car garage with storage areas and a work bench.  We don't really need either a front porch or a back porch because we seldom use either.  We like being outside so it would be nice to have a patio with a shaded area.  We don't need a lot of grass to mow but we can tolerate neighbors not too close...  like the distance of a driveway on either side.

A house should not be a status symbol of wealth but that is exactly what it has become.  A house should be functional and incorporate no more space that is absolutely needed by one's lifestyle...  for example, inviting several couples over for dinner.  One can show wealth by one's investments and not by one's toys that are seldom or infrequently used and sit around gathering dust.

We learn these lessons too late in life to implement them successfully...  typically when we retire and we realize what is really important in our lives.  We also learn these lessons when we realize our financial resources are limited and we have to really make do with what we have...

Paint me Wealthy Now

 

Machiavellianism

Manipulative individuals who endorse the belief that “the ends justify the means” are more likely to endorse technology that allows a person to upload their human consciousness into a machine, according to new research published in Personality and Individual Differences. The study indicates that there is a strong link between the personality trait known as Machiavellianism and acceptance of mind uploading.

The new findings shed light on how psychological dispositions are related to approval of futuristic technology.

“Through-out my adult life I have been hanging out with individuals who self-identify as transhumanists. These people are interesting, since their values and orientation towards the daily life are so different from others,” explained study author Michael Laakasuo, an adjunct professor of cognitive science at the University of Helsinki and principal investigator of the Moralities of Intelligent Machines research group.

“Many transhumanists are supporters and advocators for mind upload technology and this technology is being developed. Transhumanists have participated in ethical and philosophical discussions on the risks and potential down-sides of this technology. However, moral psychologists and experimental philosophers still have not picked up this baton or investigated what are the individual differences or cognitive processes (if any) that bring in support or resistance towards this technology.”

“Personally, I think mind upload is such a bizarre idea or an ideal, that I think it is important to study how ordinary people feel about it,” Laakasuo said. “This type of technology could (potentially) completely redefine what it means to be human — yet there is practically zero public discussion, politics or interest towards the ethics of creating mind uploaded entities.”

The researchers used the online Prolific Academic platform to survey 1,007 participants regarding their views on mind uploading. The participants also responded to 12 morally ambiguous dilemmas, completed an assessment of dark personality traits, and completed a measure of disgust sensitivity.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Inflation is Here

Many Democrats are pushing a FALSE NARRATIVE that inflation is not here or that it is not going to be a problem; however, most everyone who drives a motor vehicle is finding themselves paying more for a gallon of gasoline than they were a month ago...  and, that is INFLATION...

One economist says that Americans have more money to spend because of these stimulus packages and increased unemployment insurance and therefor are demanding more goods and services.

On the other side of the coin and because of COVID the supply of these goods and services is not keeping up with the demand and this causes prices to increase.

So, if you don't want to caught in the middle of all of this, then my suggestion is to watch what you spend your money on...  

• eat at home more than eating out
• use coupons whenever possible
• stock up on good deals
• buy substitutes
• cut grass less often
• drive places less often
• stop buying on credit
• eat less than before
• read books rather than pay for cable

I have been debt free for over 15 years and have never used credit cards again unless I could pay it off at the end of the month and pay no interest.

My wife and I save as often and as much as we can and just yesterday were discussing that we saved $4,000 by buying our appliances at Best Buy instead of another retail store.

We go to Myrtle Beach from Sunday through Thursday or Friday because the rates were less than over the weekends.

We purchased year old leased cars with low mileage instead of brand new and save thousands of dollars plus we pay cash for them because we saved for 5 years.

I drive the speed limit no matter where I go and leave early if I need to in order to burn less gasoline.

LIVE SMART AMERICA...

Stoicism

 

Genetic Evolution

At the mercy of natural selection since the dawn of life, our ancestors adapted, mated and died, passing on tiny genetic mutations that eventually made humans what we are today.

But evolution isn't bound strictly to genes anymore, a new study suggests. Instead, human culture may be driving evolution faster than genetic mutations can work.

In this conception, evolution no longer requires genetic mutations that confer a survival advantage being passed on and becoming widespread. Instead, learned behaviors passed on through culture are the "mutations" that provide survival advantages. 

This so-called cultural evolution may now shape humanity's fate more strongly than natural selection, the researchers argue.

"When a virus attacks a species, it typically becomes immune to that virus through genetic evolution," study co-author Zach Wood, a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Biology and Ecology at the University of Maine, told Live Science. Such evolution works slowly, as those who are more susceptible die off and only those who survive pass on their genes.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Two For You

 

Dark Matter

“Sterile neutrinos” are theoretically predicted new particles that offer an intriguing possibility in the quest for understanding the dark matter in our universe.

Unlike the known “active” neutrinos in the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, these sterile neutrinos do not interact with normal matter as they move through space, making them very difficult to detect.

A team of interdisciplinary researchers, led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Colorado School of Mines, has demonstrated the power of using nuclear decay in high-rate quantum sensors in the search for sterile neutrinos. The findings are the first measurements of their kind.

The research has been featured recently as a DOE Office of Science Highlight and will jump-start an extended project to look for one of the most promising candidates for dark matter, the strange unidentified material that permeates the universe and accounts for 85 percent of its total mass.

The experiment involves implanting radioactive beryllium-7 atoms into superconducting sensors developed at LLNL and has been nicknamed the “BeEST” for “Beryllium Electron-capture with Superconducting Tunnel junctions.” When the beryllium-7 decays by electron capture into lithium-7 and a neutrino, the neutrino escapes from the sensor, but the recoil energy of the lithium-7 provides a measure of the neutrino mass. 

If a heavy sterile neutrino with mass mc2 were to be generated in a faction of the decays, the lithium-7 recoil energy would be reduced and produce a measurable signal, even though the elusive neutrino itself is not detected directly.

With a measurement time of just 28 days using a single sensor, the data excludes the existence of sterile neutrinos in the mass range of 100 to 850 kiloelectronvolts down to a 0.01 percent level of mixing with the active neutrinos — better than all previous decay experiments in this range. 

In addition, simulations on LLNL supercomputers have helped the team understand some of the materials effects in the detector that need to be accounted for to gain confidence in potential sterile neutrino detection events.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Thank God It's Friday

I am not so much a religious person as I am a spiritual person.  I believe in a
creator, but I cannot say for sure that this creator is God, Allah, or Buddha...  however, one issue that I find strikingly interesting and curious is the fact that ALL MAJOR MYTHOLOGIES have similar if not identical stories.  For example:

1. They all have a creation story
2. They all have gods/angels coming down from the heavens (skies) story
3. They all have a great flood story
4. They all have a death and resurrection story
5. They all have some sort of heaven we go to after death
6. They all have stories about sky creatures giving them technology

There are some people around the world that believe in a COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS that is to say that all awareness, knowledge, wisdom, experiences are housed in our vast universe inside this cosmic consciousness that can be tapped into an utilized by individuals that have been given this ability to do so.  Is this where Einstein got his knowledge, or De Vinci. or Tesla, or Van Braun?

And, if our CREATOR did in fact create everything (and there is really no other logical explanation to have) then why did this Creator give us so many RELIGIONS, if he also knew that there was ONLY ONE TRUE RELIGION?  Seems rather irresponsible to me unless it was intentional in the hopes that we learn something from each one...

So, where did THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY come from?

And, are we really thanking God when many of us don't believe in God?

However, throughout my career, I have always looked forward to FRIDAYS and the two days off, but now that I am retired, Fridays no longer seem like a big deal...  And, when I was working Fridays became the day that there was always a traffic accident on the highways because someone was in a hurry to get home and begin their two days off.  I either wanted to leave early or late on Fridays but never at 5 pm.

Genome Sequencing

For the first time, researchers have successfully sequenced the entire genome from the skull of Peştera Muierii 1, a woman who lived in today’s Romania 35,000 years ago. Her high genetic diversity shows that the out of Africa migration was not the great bottleneck in human development but rather this occurred during and after the most recent Ice Age. This is the finding of a new study led by Mattias Jakobsson at Uppsala University that was published in Current Biology.

“She is a bit more like modern-day Europeans than the individuals in Europe 5,000 years earlier, but the difference is much less than we had thought. We can see that she is not a direct ancestor of modern Europeans, but she is a predecessor of the hunter-gathers that lived in Europe until the end of the last Ice Age,” says Mattias Jakobsson, professor at the Department of Organismal Biology at Uppsala University and the head of the study.

Very few complete genomes older than 30,000 years have been sequenced. Now that the research team can read the entire genome from Peştera Muierii 1 (see the fact box at the bottom of the article), they can see similarities with modern humans in Europe while also seeing that she is not a direct ancestor. In previous studies, other researchers observed that the shape of her cranium has similarities with both modern humans and Neanderthals. 

For this reason, they assumed that she had a greater fraction of Neanderthal ancestry than other contemporaries, making her stand out from the norm. But the genetic analysis in the current study shows that she has the same low level of Neanderthal DNA as most other individuals living in her time. Compared with the remains from some individuals who lived 5,000 years earlier, such as Peştera Oase 1, she had only half as much Neanderthal ancestry.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Strong or Weak?

It is no secret that the United States of America is DIVIDED...  mostly between liberals and conservatives than racially divided or income divided or intellectually divided; although those divisions are present as well... 

When one thinks of liberals, one associates weakness but when one thinks of conservatives, one associates strength...  and a good comparison of these two traits is Biden and Trump...  Nice guy Biden and Bully Trump.

However, there is a glaring contradiction here because I would suspect that there are just as many liberals as there are conservative that like the crash and bang of professional football; however, I think those traits can be traced back to the days of Roman Gladiators.

It is also interesting to note here that drug dealers and buyers are associated with liberals as well as conservatives; in fact, the Mexican Drug Cartel has become so militant that they are equal to the Mexican Army or better.

It is also true that just as many liberals as conservatives like war movies where there is a lot of fighting, and science fiction like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars where there was so much violence and killing on both sides that the viewer could no longer distinguish good from evil.

These movies originate in Hollywood which is located in one of the most liberal States in the US of A...  So, while liberals do not like the aggressive of war as displayed by Trump they still like to produce those kinds of movies and liberal actors like to star i those kinds of movies.

Which has also migrated into GANGSTER MOVIES and all the fictional violence there.

SO...  do you think President Biden has watched enough Hollywood Violence Movies to be able to stand up to PUTIN?

Quantum Microscope

In a major scientific leap, University of Queensland researchers have created a quantum microscope that can reveal biological structures that would otherwise be impossible to see.

This paves the way for applications in biotechnology, and could extend far beyond this into areas ranging from navigation to medical imaging.

The microscope is powered by the science of quantum entanglement, an effect Einstein described as “spooky interactions at a distance.”

Professor Warwick Bowen, from UQ’s Quantum Optics Lab and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS), said it was the first entanglement-based sensor with performance beyond the best possible existing technology.

“This breakthrough will spark all sorts of new technologies — from better navigation systems to better MRI machines, you name it,” Professor Bowen said.

“Entanglement is thought to lie at the heart of a quantum revolution. We’ve finally demonstrated that sensors that use it can supersede existing, non-quantum technology.

“This is exciting — it’s the first proof of the paradigm-changing potential of entanglement for sensing.”  

Australia’s Quantum Technologies Roadmap sees quantum sensors spurring a new wave of technological innovation in healthcare, engineering, transport and resources.

A major success of the team’s quantum microscope was its ability to catapult over a ‘hard barrier’ in traditional light-based microscopy.TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

CLOWN SOUP

 

Generating Electricity

MIT engineers have discovered a new way of generating electricity using tiny carbon particles that can create a current simply by interacting with liquid surrounding them.

The liquid, an organic solvent, draws electrons out of the particles, generating a current that could be used to drive chemical reactions or to power micro- or nanoscale robots, the researchers say.

“This mechanism is new, and this way of generating energy is completely new,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. “This technology is intriguing because all you have to do is flow a solvent through a bed of these particles. This allows you to do electrochemistry, but with no wires.”

In a new study describing this phenomenon, the researchers showed that they could use this electric current to drive a reaction known as alcohol oxidation — an organic chemical reaction that is important in the chemical industry.

Strano is the senior author of the paper, which appears today (June 7, 2021) in Nature Communications. The lead authors of the study are MIT graduate student Albert Tianxiang Liu and former MIT researcher Yuichiro Kunai. Other authors include former graduate student Anton Cottrill, postdocs Amir Kaplan and Hyunah Kim, graduate student Ge Zhang, and recent MIT graduates Rafid Mollah and Yannick Eatmon.
Unique properties

The new discovery grew out of Strano’s research on carbon nanotubes — hollow tubes made of a lattice of carbon atoms, which have unique electrical properties. In 2010, Strano demonstrated, for the first time, that carbon nanotubes can generate “thermopower waves.” When a carbon nanotube is coated with layer of fuel, moving pulses of heat, or thermopower waves, travel along the tube, creating an electrical current.

That work led Strano and his students to uncover a related feature of carbon nanotubes. They found that when part of a nanotube is coated with a Teflon-like polymer, it creates an asymmetry that makes it possible for electrons to flow from the coated to the uncoated part of the tube, generating an electrical current. Those electrons can be drawn out by submerging the particles in a solvent that is hungry for electrons.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Nearby Universe

Study reveals that the makeup and life cycle of star-forming clouds is dependent on location...

A team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has completed the first census of molecular clouds in the nearby Universe, revealing that contrary to previous scientific opinion, these stellar nurseries do not all look and act the same. In fact, they’re as diverse as the people, homes, neighborhoods, and regions that make up our own world.

Stars are formed out of clouds of dust and gas called molecular clouds, or stellar nurseries. Each stellar nursery in the Universe can form thousands or even tens of thousands of new stars during its lifetime. Between 2013 and 2019, astronomers on the PHANGS — Physics at High Angular Resolution in Nearby GalaxieS — project conducted the first systematic survey of 100,000 stellar nurseries across 90 galaxies in the nearby Universe to get a better understanding of how they connect back to their parent galaxies.

“We used to think that all stellar nurseries across every galaxy must look more or less the same, but this survey has revealed that this is not the case, and stellar nurseries change from place to place,” said Adam Leroy, Associate Professor of Astronomy at Ohio State University (OSU), and lead author of the paper presenting the PHANGS ALMA survey. “This is the first time that we have ever taken millimeter-wave images of many nearby galaxies that have the same sharpness and quality as optical pictures. And while optical pictures show us light from stars, these ground-breaking new images show us the molecular clouds that form those stars.”


The scientists compared these changes to the way that people, houses, neighborhoods, and cities exhibit like-characteristics but change from region to region and country to country.

“To understand how stars form, we need to link the birth of a single star back to its place in the Universe. It’s like linking a person to their home, neighborhood, city, and region. If a galaxy represents a city, then the neighborhood is the spiral arm, the house the star-forming unit, and nearby galaxies are neighboring cities in the region,” said Eva Schinnerer, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) and principal investigator for the PHANGS collaboration “These observations have taught us that the “neighborhood” has small but pronounced effects on where and how many stars are born.”  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

East Tennessee

 Sunday in the Valley...  for many of us is laid back and calm as it is typically a day off from work...  but, for those of us who do not work, Sunday is just another day and even though it follows Saturday is nothing special anymore....

I remember my college days where Sundays were the days that provided respite from school work, studying, writing papers, and reading (unless there was a test on Monday) and it also meant that no only could one sleep in but one could have a leisurely mean at the cafe across the street from the campus.

It had a bar along one side where one could sit and watch the food being cooked and then there were booths on the other side large enough for 4 adults...  maybe 8-10 of them as I recall.  The food was mainly southern style cooking as the college was located in the Piedmont of NC and away from the larger cities of Greensboro, Durham, and Raleigh...  Winston-Salem was too far west to be of any concern.

Sunday afternoons were spent sitting around the campus underneath one of the man Oak trees on campus if the weather was warm or sitting inside one's dorm room listening to music...  I was not a avid reader back then and wished that they offered books on tape as that was the best way for me to read...  was by listening...

We don't listen near enough anymore...  preferring to hear our own voices over those with whom we are having conversations, expecting them to listen.  But, what is one man's ceiling is another man's floor, so life is relative nowadays, as it has always been even though unrealized.  Still...  Sundays are the best day of the week...  some say it ends the week while others say it begins the week but whoever is right is no longer important...  as Sundays are Sundays and will never change.