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City-Sized, Secure Quantum Network...

Physicists Create City-Sized Ultrasecure Quantum Network

Quantum physics experiment has demonstrated an important step toward achieving quantum cryptography among many users, an essential requirement for a secure quantum Internet. Credit: ÖAW and Klaus Pichler Getty Images

Topics: Cryptography, Futurism, Internet of Things, Modern Physics, Quantum Computer, Quantum Mechanics

Quantum cryptography promises a future in which computers communicate with one another over ultrasecure links using the razzle-dazzle of quantum physics. But scaling up the breakthroughs in research labs to networks with a large number of nodes has proved difficult. Now an international team of researchers has built a scalable city-wide quantum network to share keys for encrypting messages.

The network can grow in size without incurring an unreasonable escalation in the costs of expensive quantum hardware. Also, this system does not require any node to be trustworthy, thus removing any security-sapping weak links.

“We have tested it both in the laboratory and in deployed fibers across the city of Bristol” in England, says Siddarth Koduru Joshi of the University of Bristol. He and his colleagues demonstrated their ideas using a quantum network with eight nodes in which the most distant nodes were 17 kilometers apart, as measured by the length of the optical fiber connecting them. The team’s findings appeared in Science Advances on September 2.

Physicists Create City-Sized Ultrasecure Quantum Network, Anil Ananthaswamy, Scientific American

 
 
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Oumuamua...

Mystery of Interstellar Visitor 'Oumuamua Gets Trickier

A 3D illustration of the interstellar object known as ‘Oumuamua. Credit: Getty Images

Topics: Astrophysics, Space Exploration, Spaceflight

Oumuamua—a mysterious, interstellar object that crashed through our solar system two years ago—might, in fact, be alien technology. That’s because an alternative, non-alien explanation might be fatally flawed, as a new study argues.

But most scientists think the idea that we spotted alien technology in our solar system is a long shot.

In 2018, our solar system ran into an object lost in interstellar space. The object, dubbed ‘Oumuamua, seemed to be long and thin—cigar-shaped—and tumbling end over end. Then, close observations showed it was accelerating as if something were pushing on it. Scientists still aren’t sure why.

One explanation? The object was propelled by an alien machine, such as a lightsail—a wide, millimeter-thin machine that accelerates as it’s pushed by solar radiation. The main proponent of this argument was Avi Loeb, a Harvard University astrophysicist.

Most scientists, however, think ‘Oumuamua’s wonky acceleration was likely due to a natural phenomenon. In June, a research team proposed that solid hydrogen was blasting invisibly off the interstellar object’s surface and causing it to speed up. 

Now, in a new paper published Monday (Aug. 17) in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Loeb and Thiem Hoang, an astrophysicist at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, argue that the hydrogen hypothesis couldn’t work in the real world—which would mean that there is still hope that our neck of space was once visited by advanced aliens—and that we actually spotted their presence at the time.

Here’s the problem with ‘Oumuamua: It moved like a comet, but didn’t have the classic coma, or tail, of a comet, said astrophysicist Darryl Seligman, an author of the solid hydrogen hypothesis, who is starting a postdoctoral fellowship in astrophysics at the University of Chicago.

Mystery of Interstellar Visitor ‘Oumuamua Gets Trickier, Rafi Letzter, Live Science, Scientific American

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Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc...

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Image from GoComics.com and SpaceAndTime.com

 

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, COVID-19, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights

 

Public-opinion polling shows that Trump’s low opinion of American elections has practically become Republican Party orthodoxy. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday, Republicans have an “unprecedented” level of “concern and mistrust in the system.” Roughly 70 percent of Republican voters believe that if Hillary Clinton wins the election, it’ll be due to fraud. In both this poll and an NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll, only half of Republicans say they’d accept a Clinton victory. (In the latter poll, by contrast, 82 percent of Democrats said they would accept a Trump victory.)

 

This suspicious Republican electorate is joined by growing ranks of conservative politicians, pundits, and intellectuals. They’re all increasingly willing to say that the existing American political system is hopelessly flawed and needs to be rolled back to the days before blacks and women could vote. On the most obvious level, this can be seen in moves by Republican governors all over America to make voting more difficult, through stringent voting ID laws, new hurdles to registration, and the curtailment of early-voting options. Equally significant has been the gutting of key provisions of the Voting Rights Act by conservative Supreme Court justices in the 2013 Shelby Country v. Holder ruling.

 

Suspicion of the democratic system is so pervasive on the right because it’s driven by the fear that white Christian America is facing demographic doom. The evidence is right there in the election results: Republicans have lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, and if current polling trends hold, the GOP will be batting one for seven when the results come in on November 8. Thanks to gerrymandering, Republicans may hold on to a U.S. House majority for a while, and they’ll remain competitive in state capitols in the near future. But a whites-only party can’t win national elections. And over time, the GOP’s congressional and state fortresses will crumble if the party doesn’t change dramatically. Or if the democratic system doesn’t change dramatically.

 

The Right Is Giving Up on Democracy, Jeet Heer, The New Republic, October 24, 2016

 

The 2008 electorate was on-record as the youngest and most diverse in Pew Research history. It's why I think the right had a visceral reaction to President Barack Obama. He was the seventh African American to run for president in the modern era, and the first one to actually win. The trial balloon of a "post-racial" society was floated (see? We're not racist, you finally have a negro president). The 2012 re-election sent them over a cliff of brief self-reflection with the post-election GOP Autopsy, officially the Opportunity and Growth Project. That revelation was short-lived, and with past indicative revelations as prologue, quite reasonable and sane. State media/Fox propaganda and other conservative outlets couldn't help themselves. The faux "controversies" from Michelle Obama's bare arms (but not Melania Trump's bare behind), Grey Poupon mustard on hot dogs and tan suits seems delirious, hilarious, and deranged. It was a parade of the insane.

 

There are a pro and con to whether racism qualifies as a mental disorder. To those recipients of its attacks and largesse, it seems to fit the bill. I was the victim of a "Zoom bombing" recently, pornographic materials, and the n-word repeated to an online crowd of African Americans in a Sunday School meeting studying the Book of James: We'd lean "pro."

 

This demographics time bomb was set off by the aftermath of 1865: no longer having free slave labor, many legal machinations were attempted to re-enslave previously free African Americans using vagrancy laws, see "Slavery By Another Name," by Douglas A. Blackmon. The American Prison System exploits a loophole in the 13th Amendment: anyone arrested by the system - state, federal or for-profit - according to The Constitution is technically a slave of the state. We have Asian citizens because Chinese immigrants were imported to replace freed slaves on plantations. ICE likes to raid Hispanics/Latinos at food processing plants, but are missing the bonanza of brown targets at home builders, who probably couldn't offer their great home prices without company owners paying undocumented immigrants cash off-the-books, so as not to incur tax liabilities. Not a single home builder, for example, has done a perp walk.

 

*****

 

Excerpt from "Black Labor, White Wealth: The Search for Power and Economic Justice," (August 1, 1994) Claude Anderson, Ed. D., Chapter 2: Power and Black Progress:

 

Chapter 2, page 33, subsection titled: Numerical Population Power 

 

In a democratic society, the numerical majority wins, rules, and decides. The theoretical rights of a minority, may or may not be respected, especially if they are a planned minority. Numerical population power is the power that comes to those groups that acquire power through their sheer size. The black population peaked in the 1750s when slaves and free blacks accounted for approximately 33 percent of the total population. The high numerical strength of blacks caused fear and concern among whites. They feared the loss of their own numerical power. Word of black Haitians successful slave revolt in the 1790s had spread across America and reportedly ignited several slave revolts in Southern states.

 

The First U.S. Congress enacted the first naturalization law that declared America to be a nation for "whites only." The naturalization act and other income incentives attracted a mass influx of legal and illegal European ethnics, followed by Asian and Hispanic immigrants a century later. The immigration quota for blacks remained zero until their total percentage of the population declined to nine percent. By making blacks a planned numerical minority, white society assured its dominance in a democratic society where the majority always wins.

 

 Source: Sample chapter

 

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (Latin): after this, therefore because of this. It is an informal fallacy, meaning the fallacy originates in an error of reasoning rather than a flaw in the logical form of the argument. (Wikipedia) So, what WAS the original "argument"?

 

American mythology teaches that the early United States was founded by men of conscience who came to the "new world" in order to practice their religious convictions in peace and freedom. John Winthrop (1588–1649), the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in particular, has been quoted as a source of inspiration by U.S. presidents from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan.

 

Yet Winthrop did not represent a tradition of either democracy or religious tolerance. He hated democracy with a passion. The state he created did not hesitate to execute people like the Quakers and even brought to the "new" world the very popular tradition of medieval Europe, the trial and execution of witches.

 

"A Shining City on a Hill": Troubling information about a famous quote. The Puritan tradition of intolerance and John Winthrop, World Future Fund

 

We've taken The Constitution, our founding document, through historical apotheosis. Strict constructionists will say it is without flaw, and we should look for "original intent"; "breathing document" aficionados want constant change and continuous improvement, ever-becoming a "more perfect union."

 

The story we tell ourselves becomes muddled over time. This is similar to the game of "telephone," where my teacher whispered instructions to the first student in a line of fifth-graders from a 3 x 5 index card. Twenty-students deep, what we said and the meaning of what they said has irrevocably changed, similarly through essentially a 232-year relay.

 

We are here from Crispus Attucks to George Floyd, from sacrifices in revolts from England to knees-on-necks, no-knock raids, and killing teenagers carrying Arizona Tea and a bag of Skittles. We are here from Manifest Destiny, Trail of Tears, Black Wall Street-like genocides to Coronavirus pandemic. We are here because the original story of this country has become horribly distorted. That's not to say the original picture was perfect. For this republic's continuance, we desperately need to be honest with ourselves.

 

We're here because the country was based on slavery: the wealth of the nation built on the backs of free, uncompensated, kidnapped-from-Africa labor for generations.

 

We're here because those persons were described as a fraction, 3/5th's, and their children sold away like so much cattle.

 

We're here because the same slave owners defining us as inferior beings had unsolicited sex with us, siring Mulatto children in heterosexual rape of African women and "buck breaking" in homosexual encounters meant to emasculate African males in front of their females and families. Sally Hemings was not Thomas Jefferson's "lover": the relationship (or, the rape), started when she was fourteen. That is BY definition, pedophilia, and like all the aforementioned sexual acts above, sadistic.

 

We're here because the slaves, nor their descendants received reparations for years of enslavement, murder, and terrorism by the KKK, "sundown towns" requiring a Green Book to navigate around, and white citizen's councils.

 

We're here because such wealth exchange as reparations would dismantle the current biased system of white supremacy, and the reason it is opposed so strongly.

 

We're here because to justify the system, this nation built-in mythologies of superiority and inferiority, socially-engineered the society to self-fulfill the delusion, and codified it into laws. African Americans can be prejudiced, but they cannot be racist. Racism = prejudice + political power; the ability to codify your hatred with the strength of judiciary. Hitler did not "overthrow" the Weimar Republic: he won the election, seized control, and cloned Jim Crow on steroids in Europe, the only lesson the United States refuses to take ownership of.

 

We are here because unlike the logical fallacy: our current "this" is logically followed by the obvious "that." For us to have a new tomorrow - "[Built] Back Better," we're going to have to admit the sins of the nation's past, and in the vernacular of scripture: repent.

 

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Fit...

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Reflective markers are attached to blue 3D-printed apparatus above and below the user’s knee as well as two metal plates on the exoskeleton leg. Researchers track and compare the movement of the markers to gain insight into how well the exoskeletons fit. In this composite photo, the bottom plate has been added after the original image was taken to show the entire configuration.
Credit: N. Hanacek/NIST

Topics: Applied Physics, NIST, Research, Robotics

A shoddily tailored suit or a shrunken T-shirt may not be the most stylish, but wearing them is unlikely to hurt more than your reputation. An ill-fitting robotic exoskeleton on the battlefield or factory floor, however, could be a much bigger problem than a fashion faux pas. 

Exoskeletons, many of which are powered by springs or motors, can cause pain or injury if their joints are not aligned with the user. To help manufacturers and consumers mitigate these risks, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a new measurement method to test whether an exoskeleton and the person wearing it are moving smoothly and in harmony. 

In a new report, the researchers describe an optical tracking system (OTS) not unlike the motion capture techniques used by filmmakers to bring computer-generated characters to life. 

The OTS uses special cameras that emit light and capture what is reflected back by spherical markers arranged on objects of interest. A computer calculates the position of the labeled objects in 3D space. Here, this approach was used to track the movement of an exoskeleton and test pieces, called “artifacts,” fastened to its user.

Exoskeleton Research Marches Forward With NIST Study on Fit, NIST

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Remnant...

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Image Source: Link Below

Topics: Astrophysics, Interstellar, Plasma, Supernovae, Radiation

Scientists have found new evidence that Earth has been moving through the remains of exploded stars for at least the last 33,000 years.

In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of Australian researchers describes how they extracted a special isotope of iron called iron-60 from five deep-sea sediment samples using mass spectrometry.

That’s illuminating because as the researchers wrote in their paper, the isotope is “predominantly produced in massive stars and ejected in supernova explosions.” In other words, iron-60 is left over after a star explodes.

And because iron-60 is radioactive and decays in 15 million years, the theory is that our planet is continuously being dusted with the stuff as it’s moving through the “Local Interstellar Cloud,” a region of unclear origins made up of gas, dust, and plasma.

Scientists: Earth Moving Through Radioactive Debris of Exploded Stars, Victor Tangermann, Futurism

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Gothic Fantasy Short Stories
Black Sci-Fi Anthology

The Black Sci-Fi Short Stories anthology is due to be published in April 2021 (UK) and June 2021 (US), in our Gothic Fantasy series, joining existing titles such as A Dying Planet, Time Travel, Alien Invasion, Endless Apocalypse, Robots & Artificial Intelligence, Dystopia Utopia and more.

As always, we are keen to encourage new writers, without prejudice to age, background or previous publication history. It’s the story that matters, and the quality of writing. Please read through the details for submissions carefully before submitting your stories and make sure to include the project name in the subject of your email.

Diversity in all aspects of publishing still has a long way to go, especially the presentation of black voices. So, as well as offering great but neglected stories that deserve to be more widely read, this latest book in our Gothic Fantasy series will be a long-overdue step for us towards pro-actively rectifying the imbalance, by devoting a whole volume to work by black writers in science fiction, new and old. Of course, science fiction sits at the core of our own publishing, and offers an invaluable forum for exploring social issues past, present and future.

With a foreword by Alex Award-winning novelist Temi Oh, an introduction by Sandra M. Grayson, author of Visions of the Third Millennium: Black Science Fiction Novelists Write the Future (2003), and invaluable promotion from Tia Ross and the Black Writers Collective and more, this latest offering in the Flame Tree Gothic fantasy series focuses on an area of science fiction which has not received the attention it deserves. Many of the themes in Sci-fi reveal the world as it is to others, show us how to improve it, and give voice to the many different expressions of a future for humankind.

Dystopia, apocalypse, gene-splicing, cloning, colonization and much more can be explored here – in fantastic stories, whether informed by the black experience or not. The selected submissions will be combined with writing of an older tradition (by authors such as Martin Delany, Edward Johnson, Pauline Hopkins and W.E.B. Dubois) whose first-hand experience of slavery and denial created their living dystopia.

Word count is approx. 2000–4000 and submissions will be accepted between 24th August and 21st September – please send to 2020@flametreepublishing.com, ensuring ‘Black Sci-Fi’ is in the subject line. Payment will be 8 cents/6 pence for each word (SFWA qualifying market rate) and 6 cents/4 pence for reprints. If your story is a reprint please let us know in your submission email. Multiple submissions are accepted.

We will aim to read each story and confirm its status within 4 months of the submission deadline.

Key partners in this publication include:

Temi Oh graduated with a BSci in Neuroscience. Her degree provided great opportunities to write and learn about topics ranging from ‘Philosophy of the Mind’ to ‘Space Physiology’. While at KCL, Temi founded a book-club called ‘Neuroscience-fiction’, where she led discussions about science-fiction books which focus on the brain. In 2016, she received an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. Her first novel, DO YOU DREAM OF TERRA-TWO?, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2019 and won the American Library Association’s Alex Award. She has loved and gifted Flame Tree's beautiful books for many years and is thrilled to be part of this project.

Dr. Sandra M. Grayson is a tenured Full Professor in the English Department at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her numerous publications include the books Visions of the Third Millennium: Black Science Fiction Novelists Write the Future; Symbolizing the Past: Reading Sankofa, Daughters of the Dust, and Eve’s Bayou as Histories; A Literary Revolution: In the Spirit of the Harlem Renaissance; and Sparks of Resistance, Flames of Change: Black Communities and Activism.

Tia Ross is the Founder of the Black Writers Collective (BlackWriters.org), the Founder/Managing Editor for Black Editors & Proofreaders, Editor for ColorOfChange.org and more. She is a polymath entrepreneur who is passionate about great writing, as well as forging successful businesses as an information architect and event organiser.

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Bright, Tiny, Powerful...

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The fin LED pixel design includes the glowing zinc oxide fin (purple), isolating dielectric material (green), and metal contact (yellow atop green). The microscopic fins, which the research team arranged into comb-like arrays, show an increase in brightness of 100 to 1,000 times over conventional submicron-sized LED designs.

Credit: B. Nikoobakht, N. Hanacek/NIST

Topics: Light-Emitting Diode, Nanotechnology, Solid-State Physics

A new design for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) developed by a team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) may hold the key to overcoming a long-standing limitation in the light sources’ efficiency. The concept, demonstrated with microscopic LEDs in the lab, achieves a dramatic increase in brightness as well as the ability to create laser light — all characteristics that could make it valuable in a range of large-scale and miniaturized applications.

The team, which also includes scientists from the University of Maryland, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, detailed its work in a paper published today in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances. Their device shows an increase in brightness of 100 to 1,000 times over conventional tiny, submicron-sized LED designs.

A Light Bright and Tiny: NIST Scientists Build a Better Nanoscale LED

B. Nikoobakht, R.P. Hansen, Y. Zong, A. Agrawal, M. Shur and J. Tersoff. High-brightness lasing at submicrometer enabled by droop-free fin light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Science Advances. August 14, 2020. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba4346

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Family Portrait

 

Beloved daughter dear of mine
Chosen by the Three Divine
Precious being at your birth
Will you ever know your worth...?

They tell me to let you go,
That you were born for such, and so
All onlookers say to me:
"What a blessing this child be!"

One day, just as is foretold,
I won't have your hand to hold.
You will go to Far Away
And I will ever mourn that day.

Ages pass before you'll see
How much you had meant to me.
But until then, with tears to trace,
I'll keep you in my embrace

And try to stave the hands of time,

Most beloved dear of mine.

 

(A poem from the heart of Kina's mother, in my coming "A Mikal's Child" series.)

 

If you gave birth to a child who you *knew* would randomly leave home on their own before they were five years old based on a prophecy, would you fight against that prophecy or agree with others in society to simply accept what will happen?

 

Exclusive art downloads from new releases, peeks at coming titles, and insight into no less than 5 parallel realities are being woven together in my new Patreon Page. 

patreon.com/chronicler9

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Lissa's Choice (New Release!)

Hello, everyone!

I've published a new short story set in my worlds of T'vanna. They can be found in the Tales of T'vanna series on Amazon.

Everything within me is a storyteller. I've been creating worlds since I was 7 years old, complete with their cultures, languages, foods, and religions. My goal is to bring people together in a unified concept of "human" and what it means. We all deal with a great many trials, and aren't exactly handed individual manuals for how to process what we'll experience. So the best we can do is offer stories. Engaging in others' stories allows us to better ourselves by gaining new perspectives and expanding our horizons. I hold great storytellers in very high esteem... and I desire to one day be counted among them.
 
As a person of color, I agree that we absolutely need more depictions of more colorful races and backgrounds. Coming up, I will be publishing tales about Airi, Mikal, Kina, Pikoul, Elu - and Mur and Docus, who are red-skinned and blue-skinned respectively - to name-drop just a few. But I also write about those with Asian looks, red-heads, blonds, etc - like Lissa in my latest publication.
 
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(Image above is of Filin, Lissa, Meidalai (the "fish"), and Lydi. Art is by Alba Lugo, an artist from Mexico, who can be found on Instagram @Gelbekunst ^_^ We anticipate working together on MANY more projects to come!)
 
 
Here are short descriptions of my current publications!
 
Each short story I write is uniquely designed with its own voice and intended impact, but all are crafted to expand vocabulary and comprehension skills.
 
** If you want a warmhearted kid's book with pictures, loving siblings, and fuzzy characters, check out "Miki's Dream." This story is about being allowed to develop at one's own pace, and the beauty of being different. I recommend reading this story to 6-10-year-olds.
 
** For fantasy children's literature that deals with deeper thought-topics - like life, death, healing, and empathy - "Desmond Deathflores" is an incredible fable about overcoming the boxes and stereotypes we are born into. Reading-comprehension level for this story is higher, recommending 8-12.
 
** And my latest book, "Lissa's Choice," is a short story about a very unlikely friendship, and discovering (and creating) one's own inner happiness. This book is also recommended for ages 8-12.
 
 
As I *am* a New Author, please remember to leave a review on Amazon if you check out any of my books. Even one review greatly increases the chances of my books being seen by others.
Thank you for supporting me! And please look forward to more tales to come.
 
Stay gorgeous, people. 💗 
(visit patreon.com/chronicler9 to support my vision of having my own animation studio)
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CdTe and IoT...

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The thin-film materials being tested during development. Courtesy: I Mathews

Topics: Alternate Energy, Internet of Things, Materials Science, Solar Power

Photovoltaic cells made from cadmium telluride (CdTe) – already widely used in solar energy generation – also excel at harvesting ambient light indoors, making them an excellent energy source for the fast-growing Internet of Things (IoT). This is the finding of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US and the Tyndall National Institute at the University of Cork, Ireland, who fabricated low-cost CdTe cells and measured their photovoltaic response when exposed to light from various sources, including LED bulbs.

At present, indoor IoT devices such as wireless sensors are typically powered by batteries.  However, study lead author Ian Mathews says that photovoltaic cells would be better because of they require less maintenance and are cheaper and easier to make. In his view, these characteristics present a “significant market opportunity” for CdTe cells in particular, yet researchers have rarely tested their effectiveness at converting ambient light (from incandescent, compact fluorescence, or LED bulbs, for example) into electrical energy. Instead, previous studies of indoor-light energy generation have mainly focused on rival photovoltaic technologies, such as silicon, III-V semiconductors, organic PV devices, and perovskite materials.

Thin-film solar cells make champion harvesters of ambient lightIsabelle Dumé, Physics World

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Ceres...

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Occator Crater and Ahuna Mons appear together in this view of the dwarf planet Ceres obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on February 11, 2017. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/Handout via REUTERS.

Topics: Asteroids, Exoplanets, Space Exploration, Spaceflight

"Ceres was the Roman goddess of agriculture, grain, and the love a mother bears for her child. She was the daughter of Saturn and Ops, the sister of Jupiter, and the mother of Proserpine. Ceres was a kind and benevolent goddess to the Romans and they had a common expression, "fit for Ceres," which meant splendid." Source: Ceresva.org

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is an “ocean world” with a big reservoir of salty water under its frigid surface, scientists said in findings that raise interest in this dwarf planet as a possible outpost for life.

Research published on Monday based on data obtained by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which flew as close as 22 miles (35 km) from the surface in 2018, provides a new understanding of Ceres, including evidence indicating it remains geologically active with cryovolcanism - volcanoes oozing icy material.

The findings confirm the presence of a subsurface reservoir of brine - salt-enriched water - remnants of a vast subsurface ocean that has been gradually freezing.

“This elevates Ceres to ‘ocean world’ status, noting that this category does not require the ocean to be global,” said planetary scientist and Dawn principal investigator Carol Raymond. “In the case of Ceres, we know the liquid reservoir is regional scale but we cannot tell for sure that it is global. However, what matters most is that there is liquid on a large scale.”

Dwarf planet Ceres is 'ocean world' with salty water deep underground, Will Dunham, Reuters Science

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Pig Slop...

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A fan-made cover for George Orwell's novel. "Animal Farm" is one of Orwell's most well-known works and gained unlikely popularity with Ukrainian refugees. (Photo from Flickr user Ben Templesmith.) PRI.org

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Fascism, Human Rights

Farmers feed their pigs slop, a messy, wet mix of various leftovers—and when they do, they can say they slop the pigs. A derogatory way to talk about food that doesn't look very tasty is to call it to slop. And you can call sticky, overly sentimental music, writing, or film slop as well. Source: Vocabulary.com

When President Obama used an executive order for deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA), that was considered constitutional overreach and tyranny from the executive branch. That was likely the executive at the time and the children in question are both brown. This was due to the GOP-dominated Congress not passing a DREAMS Act for those same children's path to citizenship. Immigration reform used to be a thing with republicans: Saint Ronald Reagan made a whole bunch of illegal immigrants citizens, and that might have contributed to the high numbers his republican successor, George W. Bush enjoyed for his 2004 reelection. That compassionate conservatism advantage has been dwindling ever since, at least until our current moment of discontent.

Ben Sasse called Orange Satan's executive orders unconstitutional slop, which it is. His clap back to the middle school mean-girl tweetstorm from Mango Mussolini is an admittance: "I don't need you to get reelected, you need me." He like a lot of other Republican senators had their constitutional duty to remove a criminal from office. They are the beneficiaries of Jim Crow, the Southern Strategy, Voter Purging, and Suppression. They shirked it because they are criminals themselves. Conditional integrity is still cowardice.

HuffPost senior White House correspondent S.V. Dáte asked the president during Thursday’s coronavirus task force briefing if, after 3½ years, “do you regret at all the lying you’ve done to the American people? All the dishonesties?”

“That who has done?” Trump replied. 

“You have done,” said Dáte, who wrote at length about Trump’s “Ministry of Untruth” earlier this year. 

Trump paused and then moved on to the next question.

In his report, Dáte noted that Trump’s stream of falsehoods across nearly every topic and in any setting is corroding America’s democracy as it normalizes lies coming from the nation’s highest office.

Trump's Response When Asked If He Regrets All The Lies He's Told America: None, Josephine Harvey, HuffPost

We have a view of history that fascism doesn't need competency. Hitler was quite literally a shit show, and the mythology of Nazi efficiency is...just that.

It's poignant that Senator Kamala Harris is African Diaspora through her Jamaican father and Indian Diaspora through her mother - both immigrants who met in Oakland, California where she and her sister were born as American citizens. Both marched and shouted for Civil Rights for all its citizens, especially their daughters, as civil rights have never had a hue, simply for and of humans. America, India, Germany have had and have caste systems that assign portions of humanity to either the apex of the pyramid where all riches are siphoned to or the base where all the weight of society crushes pariahs beneath it. She's a woman that self-identifies with black culture through her HBCU - Howard University and her Sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha. She married another human that happens to be of European descent. She is above all, an earthling, and Oakland isn't a crater on Mars. Her fraternity brother, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr - found himself in an inflection of revelation.

Caste (Oprah's Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabelle Wilkerson

In 1935, Nazi Germany passed two radically discriminatory pieces of legislation: the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor. Together, these were known as the Nuremberg Laws, and they laid the legal groundwork for the persecution of Jewish people during the Holocaust and World War II.

When the Nazis set out to legally disenfranchise and discriminate against Jewish citizens, they weren’t just coming up with ideas out of thin air. They closely studied the laws of another country. According to James Q. Whitman, author of Hitler’s American Model, that country was the United States.

“America in the early 20th century was the leading racist jurisdiction in the world,” says Whitman, who is a professor at Yale Law School. “Nazi lawyers, as a result, were interested in, looked very closely at, [and] were ultimately influenced by American race law.”

In particular, Nazis admired the Jim Crow-era laws that discriminated against black Americans and segregated them from white Americans, and they debated whether to introduce similar segregation in Germany.

Yet they ultimately decided that it wouldn’t go far enough.

How the Nazis Were Inspired by Jim Crow, Becky Little, History.com

Fascism, like its cousin racism, doesn't need rationality over "us" and "them." It allows one group to dominate another without guilt, or blame for the consequences. It allows you to long for mythological glory times where Germany and America were "great again."

Fascism in Germany or America just needed enablers, and frankly, intellectuals that underestimate how a cornered animal - hog, rodent or narcissist - is its most dangerous and cunning when it figures it's going to die in prison and has nothing - other than its freedom - to lose.

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Holographic Microscopy...

Figure

FIG. 1. (a) Schematic of an inline digital holographic microscope. In a typical setup, a collimated laser (light red) illuminates a sample, which scatters light (dark red wavefronts). The transmitted and scattered light passes through an objective and tube lens, which focuses the light onto a digital camera. (b) A hologram of a polystyrene particle obtained from an inline holographic microscope.

Topics: Holography, Optical Physics, Microscopy, Modern Physics

In the past few years, the venerable field of holographic microscopy has been revitalized by computational data analysis. It is now possible to fit a generative (forward) model of scattering directly to experimentally obtained holograms of complex microscopic objects. This approach enables precision measurements: it allows the motion of colloidal particles and biological organisms to be tracked with nanometer-scale precision and their optical properties to be inferred particle by particle. In this Perspective, we discuss how the model-based inference approach to holographic microscopy has opened up new applications. We also discuss how it must evolve to meet the needs of emerging applications that demand lower systematic uncertainties and higher precision. In this context, we present some new results on how modeling the optical train of the microscope can enable better measurements of the positions of spherical and nonspherical colloidal particles. Finally, we discuss how machine learning might play a role in future advances. Though we do not exhaustively catalog all the developments in this field, we show a few examples and some new results that spotlight open questions and opportunities.

 

Precise measurements in digital holographic microscopy by modeling the optical train, Ronald Alexander, Brian Leahy, Vinothan N. Manoharan, Journal of Applied Physics

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Dave's Special

 
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Flash Fiction by Thaddeus Howze
500 Words
 
"Are you going to eat that? I'm starving." The voice, like caged thunder, rumbled as Harold held his head in his hands.
 
"Knock yourself out."
 
A pair of twisted tentacles composed of degenerate exotic matter reached across the dimensional divide and hefted the Dave's Special. Surprised by the effort necessary, one tentacle removed the lumpy Kaiser roll to peer into the confines within; heaped with fixings, sporting an array of meats, sauces, twisted slab bacon, with tiny poppy seeds scattered across the top.
 
Amen-mat, with his one enormous eye, grew dizzy staring at the huge sandwich. It took several tugs to drag it across the dimensional boundary into his four-dimensional space. Between bouts of enthusiastic chewing, Amen asked "What's wrong, old man?"
 
Harold sat up. "I can't pay the rent." The corner he was looking into was filled with newspapers. Harold was a hoarder. No, not the kind that lives with fifty cats. He was worse than that. Harold was the neat and reasonable kind. Piles, organized with tabs, dates, and locations; a clean and functional chaos. Yet it still disturbed people when they came to see him. After a while they just stopped.
 
It left more time for him to focus on his conflict with Amen-mat, inter-dimensional invader and game aficionado. The two moved through the apartment engaged in multiple forms of warfare across the centuries; chess, Go, Parcheesi, backgammon and Mastermind. No game was too small or strange. Alone for decades, a shut-in, Harold played chess alone until Amen-mat, during an invasion to subjugate the Earth, manifested in his loft to play chess.
 
"We talked about this a few years ago," Amen offered.
 
"No. I am not coming to live with you."
 
"Why not? You'd have an entire dimension to yourself."
 
"Because I know what you are."
 
"A soul-devouring monster feasting on Human greed and suffering."
 
"Yes. There's that."
 
"That's not the deal-breaker?"
 
"No. People who make deals with monsters get what they deserve."
 
"Then, what's the problem?"
 
"What about my stuff? What about Dave's? You don't have a Dave's there, do you?"
 
"No. And after eating that last one, I understand why you would be slow to leave. But I have an idea. Let's start moving your stuff." Harold twitched involuntarily as multiple tentacles appeared all over the room and began to size up the task.
 
"Don't worry, I won't change a thing. I promise." By the end of the day, the house was empty, walls scrubbed sporting a light lavender scent; security deposit reclaimed, Harold Turner moved out of his flat an into an entire dimension of his own, separate from Amen-Mat's.
 
Meanwhile, at Dave's, a corner light blows and can't be repaired. Sandwiches disappear. Minutes later, money appears to pay for the purloined hoagie. A pragmatic man, Dave never questions. The tentacle was, for all of its strangeness, a generous tipper.
 
On rainy evenings when business is slow, he occasionally hears the word 'checkmate', followed by free-rolling thunder which sounds suspiciously like laughter between old friends.
 
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WRITING PROMPT: HUMOUR/COMEDY
Your story must include a sandwich.
Your story cannot be longer than 500 words
Your story must include the following five words:
DIZZY, EXOTIC, LUMPY, TINY, TWISTED.
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