Topics: Alternative Energy, Chemistry, Green Energy, Nanotechnology, Photosynthesis
During photosynthesis, plants split water into hydrogen ions and oxygen. If researchers could devise a method to mimic nature, the hydrogen could provide a carbon-neutral energy source. A significant challenge to implementing such a technology is developing a system that separates the electrons and the positively charged holes; otherwise, the hydrogen and oxygen could react back into water. Researchers led by Jacek Stolarczyk of Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich and Frank Würthner of the University of Würzburg may have overcome the difficulty by introducing two intermediaries—an oxidation catalyst and platinum particles—to a novel semiconducting nanorod.
The researchers started with an approach that already generated hydrogen but at the nanorod’s expense. When a cadmium sulfide nanorod in water absorbs light, the energy spurs the donation of electrons to a platinum reducing agent. The free H+ can then form H2. But without an oxidation catalyst, the arrangement is unsustainable because the remaining holes oxidize the nanorod’s sulfur lattice. The figure illustrates the researchers’ solution: decorating a newly synthesized CdS nanorod with both platinum nanoparticles and an oxidation catalyst.
The process begins when the nanorod absorbs light, which mobilizes electrons. The oxidation catalyst then draws holes from the length of the nanorod. Each Pt tip attached to either end of the nanorod acts as the electron sink. The oxidation half reaction (red arrows) removes electrons from OH− to produce O2 and water; the reduction half reaction (blue arrows) uses the electrons to covalently bond hydrogen atoms to generate H2. The researchers deployed a fresh chemical group to attach the catalyst to the nanorod. With that innovation, the anchoring group was more resistant to oxidation and the holes were swiftly transferred to the catalyst. (C. M. Wolff et al., Nat. Energy, 2018, doi:10.1038/s41560-018-0229-6.)
Topics: Civil Rights, Diversity, Human Rights, Politics
Charles Blow revealed his own assault experiences on CNN. It was courageous but not hard to believe, as every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted; 15 persons per day. One in nine girls and 1 in 53 boys under 18 experience this. I apologize if this triggers anyone.
*****
I was five years old, and my mother visited her sisters in Washington, DC. He was introduced to me as my "uncle," as cohabitation in 1967 was still considered taboo. I accepted that explanation and had my trust violated by a stranger. My mother defended me with what looked like a lead pipe administered forcefully on his temple. We left on the next bus. We never discussed it.
It erupted in fits and starts after I married my wife. I argued about insane things that I didn't think important, but wanted to "win." She was at her wits end, and very close to ending our marriage. My rage was not expressed physically, but I was verbally and emotionally abusive.
My "uncle" experience came out in marriage counseling. I tried to describe it dispassionately, as if I was viewing a scene through an opaque screen. Our counselor wasn't having it: "No, Reginald. That was abuse. That was assault."
That hit me with the same blunt-force trauma as the original lead pipe planted in the asshole's head. I tried to drown my feelings of helplessness and lack of masculinity in a 1.5 liter wine bottle. I collapsed on my kitchen table. I wept. My wife embraced me. I was solidly in my thirties, decades from the event. I dreaded telling my father. When I did, we didn't speak for about two weeks. When we finally did, he was angry that my mother didn't tell him; that I didn't tell him. I just recalled to him the likely reason my mother didn't bother. My father owned a .38 caliber pistol, .22 caliber rifle, and a protective temper. We made amends as I told him I preferred him on this side of the criminal justice system...as my dad.
Time has consumed my parents and my hellish assaulter. It is a defense mechanism to construct a "screen" - opaque and dim to hide the pain. I am revealing this as a husband and a father. I am revealing this as a US Air Force veteran. I am revealing this as a martial artist of 38 years experience. I am revealing this as an example that damning a woman for not reporting an assault immediately as it happened is not taking into account the psychology of survivors and a complete lack of human empathy.
*****
Questions have lingered since shortly after Kavanaugh’s nomination was announced in July and reporters digging into his public record found that Kavanaugh’s financial disclosure forms showed tens of thousands of dollars of fluctuating credit card balances as well as a loan against his retirement account for the 12 years before 2017. All of these debts disappeared from Kavanaugh’s financial disclosures in 2017 and the forms did not indicate an obvious source of funds to repay them, prompting speculation about potential conflicts of interest.
Finances are the first lever point of influence by an adversary or a oligarch - American or Russian - to a sitting Supreme Court Justice. It's why it's front-and-center on a government SF-86 application, and why the Federal Bureau of Investigation (apparently, the teen girl tweeter-in-chief thinks "investigation" is not part of its function) looks at it. On just this alone, it turns the spirit of the court from an arbiter of the law without partisan considerations on its head. The court teeters from Supreme to kangaroo; the Federal Republic to banana. We are teetering towards collapse, which only pleases Putin.
The optics are already bad when you're putting the pressure of a deadline on a possible victim of sexual assault who has to flee her home due to death threats. For that alone, the FBI should be called. What used to be derisively referred to as cowardice or "shell shock" is now correctly Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which anyone who has been sexually assaulted are now triggered by the Neanderthal clumsiness of Senators Grassley and Hatch. The optics are already bad post the public accountability of Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, Bill O'Reilly, and "me too" that pretty much the same cadre of old, ossified white males will judge an accuser of their president*'s pick to the US Supreme Court, only to give himself a 5-4 vote in case the House of Representatives flips and "impeachment is ON the table." Grassley previously was all for an FBI investigation for Clarence Thomas, yet he and Hatch are deathly afraid now. The defense of Judge Kavenaugh, who according to former Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) may have lied under oath for his current job is "that was decades ago" and "boys will be boys"; sexually assertive girls are routinely called whores and sluts, sexually assertive p---y grabbing man-babies with toadstool penises... become president*.
The only way to get "boys" to behave is to remove the current statute of limitations most laws have on sexual harassment and predation. That Sword of Damocles is only oppressive on a certain group of men that wish to practice predation unencumbered by accountability. It should force society as a whole to think reflectively on how poorly American culture raises its men in misogynistic toxicity.
The accountability for toadstool man-babies...is The Constitution.
Apokolips is a fictional planet appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The planet is ruled by Darkseid, established in Jack Kirby's Fourth World comic book series, and is integral to many stories in the DC Universe. Apokolips is considered to be the opposite of the planet New Genesis.Wikipedia
Apokolips is an ecumenopolis with burning firepits, extant in between dimensions, occupying a 'frequency' somewhere between the physical universe and Hell; the war that destroyed the Old Gods and created New Genesis and Apokolips separated the Fourth World from the rest of the universe proper, leaving it accessible by Boom Tube.
The population is a downtrodden lot, including many kidnapped from other worlds before being 'broken.' The majority of the population are called "Lowlies", a bald and fearful race that has no sense of self worth or value. The Lowlies are subject to constant abuse that ends only with death. Slightly above them are the Parademons, who serve as the keepers of order on the planet. Higher above the Parademons are the Female Furies, who are Darkseid's personal guard. (Male Furies also exist, but are less common.) They are blessed with unnatural strength and longevity and are allowed to develop as individuals. This exposure to new concepts often results in them developing comical or garish personalities that contrast strongly with the immense sadism that is required to reach their position. The leaders of the Furies are Granny Goodness, who sports the appearance of a matronly old woman while being the most powerful of the guards, and Kanto, who enjoys a unique position as Darkseid's master assassin. The chief guard, Big Barda, had a third position under Granny, which has not been filled since her defection from the group.DC Wiki
As if the name Apokolips wasn’t foreboding enough for this place, the planet is actually just one massive city that is peppered with raging fire pits. These pits are engines of war and torture, fueled by the very fire that stems from Darkseid himself. It is where the armors and weapons of the Parademons are forged and where they learn that pain is no obstacle, merely a nuisance.Apokolips Now: 15 Crucial Facts About The Justice League Movie Villains, Comic Book Review
And now...
The Trump administration has been working to rollback rules instated by the Obama administration that would limit how much methane gas could be vented to the atmosphere at oil- and gas-drilling and processing operations. In a press release today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it is proposing to relax Obama-era rules, saving the industry $484 million in avoided energy costs.
But the EPA is expected to justify its rules with analysis. That analysis (PDF) suggests that this regulatory rollback will also come with costs in the form of 308,000 short tons of methane emitted between 2019 and 2025. For context, the Aliso Canyon gas leak three years ago represented the largest accidental release of methane in US history, and over the four months that workers struggled to plug that well, 107,000 short tons of methane are estimated to have been released.
That is a serious amount of methane with serious climate consequences in the short-run. Methane is many times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, though it decomposes in the atmosphere more quickly. Carbon dioxide sticks around in the atmosphere for a longer time, but each individual molecule of CO2 has less of a warming effect than a molecule of methane.
The EPA's own analysis also says than an additional 100,000 short tons of volatile organic compounds and 3,800 short tons of hazardous air pollutants would also be emitted, compared to keeping the existing rules in place.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered pulsars as a PhD student.Credit: David Hartley/Shutterstock
Topics: Astrophysics, Diversity, Diversity in Science, Nobel Prize, Pulsar, Women in Science
Fifty years after discovering pulsars — compact rotating stars that emit beams of radiation — astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell has been awarded one of the most lucrative prizes in science: a US$3-million Breakthrough prize. Thought by many to have been snubbed for a Nobel prize for the discovery1, Bell Burnell, 75, has been recognized by the Breakthrough committee with a special award in fundamental physics for both her scientific achievements and her “inspiring leadership” over the past five decades.
“I cannot think of a more deserving scientist to win this prize,” says Chiara Mingarelli, an astrophysicist at the Flatiron Institute in New York City. “In addition to being both a pioneer and a giant in the field, Bell Burnell is the highest calibre role model — a champion for women in science, who speaks out against the many inequities faced by women in STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] fields.”
The Breakthrough prizes were launched in 2012 and are funded by entrepreneurs including Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg. Awarded in fundamental physics, life sciences and mathematics and each worth $3 million, they are usually handed out in December, based on selections made after an open nomination process. But the selection committee can decide to make special awards, bypassing the standard nomination procedure, to those they deem particularly deserving. Previous special awards have been given to Stephen Hawking, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) collaboration for the discovery of gravitational waves, and seven CERN scientists who co-ordinated the hunt for the Higgs boson.
Image Source: AARP, which up to this moment, I didn't realize was so "woke."
Topics: Climate Change, Existentialism, Global Warming, Star Trek
The home world of the Ferengi species is Ferenginar. The Ferengi have a culture which is based entirely upon commerce. They follow a code of conduct known as "The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition." These rules ordain conduct such as "Never place family before business." Reportedly these rules are subject to interpretation depending upon the situation. Plea bargaining is a legal tradition, as is the purchasing of an apprenticeship following the Attainment Ceremony. There is no distinction between business and pleasure in Ferengi culture. Source: Star Trek (the link to Ferenginar is priceless)
In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.
Naomi Klein, though a Canadian author is a national treasure, that despite the faux-existential crisis between our nations initiated by a baboon. The Shock Doctrine came out in 2007, 6 years after 9/11; 11 years ago and her follow on books This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate and The Battle For Paradise: Puerto Rico Takes on the Disaster Capitalists follows the same theme: using the misery of others by climate, terrorism and war for profit. She is the proverbial "voice calling in the wilderness" metaphorically speaking, minus the camel's hair wardrobe and proto Paleo diet of locusts and wild honey. Quite literally, it is about the only planet the human species currently lives and exists on.
We may not be able to reverse climate change, but we can adapt to it—and climate change isn't all bad for the construction industry. Construction Business Owner tells us that climate change means warmer winters and a prolonged construction season for many states. And as the pressure grows to reduce our carbon footprint, new solutions and innovations are introduced within the construction industry each year. Source: Concentra: The Effects of Climate Change on Construction
We had literally decades to address this repeated, slow-moving catastrophe. There is only one thing that delayed any actions to mitigate it.
Profit. The crass, self-serving reason nothing about guns, climate change, terrorism or wars get any better. There are businesses that require this chaos. It's a part of their business model. Serenity and world peace are death knells to them. We see this in every American mass shooting that increases the profits of gun manufacturers, causing hand ringing and naval gazing by the news media, until the next shiny object diverts our attention. We saw it when we stumbled into Iraq on the manufactured lie of "weapons of mass destruction," the prelude to "alternative facts." Martin Paredes in Medium took a humorous stab at 47 rules of acquisition sans our twitter freak with presidential seal.
Star Trek: Deep Space 9. I had to give you the original.
Puerto Rico's death toll was raised from 64 to almost 3,000, approximating 9/11. The current resident of the executive mansion made his first tweet all about "no Russian collusion" on the 17th anniversary and a fantasy collaboration between his democratic opponent, the FBI, foreign spies and his Russian benefactors. He then denied almost 3,000 American citizens (which I doubt he knows they are) died at all. Puerto Rico is still under stress, they still have limited access to electrical power and in North Carolina, I have little confidence in the efficacy of government assistance from a raging lunatic.
The campus closed Wednesday at 5:00 pm. We await Hurricane Florence, whose eye proceeds up the Carolina coasts. An estimated 1 million people evacuated South Carolina, the highways converted to one-way lanes out. I have supplies for several days; no water's on the shelves in grocery or convenience stores. Gas stations have plastic bags on pump handles. This reminds me of Hurricane Sandy in upstate New York, when people from Manhattan drove up to gas up (get in a few fights) and drive back. This reminds me of Katrina: the citizens called "refugees" by the news media; in central Texas - grocery shelves stripped of water, food and empty pumps - the monstrous eye, the survivors on rooftops, the stratification of society before we called it by its modern nom de guerre "income inequality" and which sides of New Orleans recovered and which were purchased as distressed properties and gentrified. It would remind me of "heck of a job, Brownie," except the reality of failure would just be denied, "explained" and parroted by cult ditto heads. I have somehow been on a jury to witness the effects of climate change up close. It's something I didn't think I volunteered for.
For a very brief, shining moment, the republican presidential candidate George W. Bush talked about "compassionate conservatism." It was short-lived, as compassion led to diversity, black pres, healthcare and gay marriage. What is within the darkest bowels, hidden from view by "winks and nods" with coded language eventually erupts like a boil or a pimple; it is an infection that must emerge, and cannot be denied its day in the sun.
And, "We The People" breathlessly, daily await that rancid zit, who might actually tweet its first jumbled, insane thoughts during morning bowel movements.
At 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 UTC) on Sept. 11, the MODIS instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite looked at Hurricane Florence in infrared light. MODIS found coldest cloud top temperatures around the eye, as cold as or colder than minus 80 degrees (yellow) Fahrenheit (minus 112 degrees Celsius). Surrounding the eye were thick rings of powerful storms with cloud tops as cold as or colder than minus 70 degrees (red) Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 degrees Celsius). Credit: NASA/NRL
Topics: Climate Change, Global Warming, NASA, Stochastic Modeling, Research, Weather
Predictive Modeling: Another good reason why science is important.
NASA’s Aqua satellite provided an infrared look at powerful Hurricane Florence early on Sept. 11 that indicated it was likely undergoing eyewall replacement.
Intense hurricanes can and often undergo an eyewall replacement cycle. That happens when a new eyewall or ring of thunderstorms within the outer rain bands forms further out from the storm’s center, outside of the original eye wall. That ring of thunderstorms then begins to choke off the original eye wall, starving it of moisture and momentum. Eventually, if the cycle is completed, the original eye wall of thunderstorms dissipates and the new outer eye wall of thunderstorms contracts and replace the old eye wall. The storm’s intensity can fluctuate over this period, initially weakening as the inner eye wall dies before again strengthening as the outer eye wall contracts.
In a new study, Asst. Prof. Edwin Kite finds ocean planets could stay in zone of habitability longer than previously assumed. Copyright istockphoto.com
Topics: Astronomy, Astrobiology, Astrophysics, Exoplanet, Planetary Science, Space Exploration
The conditions for life surviving on planets entirely covered in water are more fluid than previously thought, opening up the possibility that water worlds could be habitable, according to a new paper from the University of Chicago and Pennsylvania State University.
The scientific community has largely assumed that planets covered in a deep ocean would not support the cycling of minerals and gases that keeps the climate stable on Earth, and thus wouldn’t be friendly to life. But the study, published Aug. 31 in The Astrophysical Journal, found that ocean planets could stay in the “sweet spot” for habitability much longer than previously assumed. The authors based their findings on more than a thousand simulations.
“This really pushes back against the idea you need an Earth clone—that is, a planet with some land and a shallow ocean,” said Edwin Kite, assistant professor of geophysical sciences at UChicago and lead author of the study.
As telescopes get better, scientists are finding more and more planets orbiting stars in other solar systems, called exoplanets. Such discoveries are resulting in new research into how life could potentially survive on other planets, some of which are very different from Earth—some may be covered entirely in water hundreds of miles deep.
"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters." Orange Satan, Snopes
Note: The disdain of a conman is he has no respect for his marks. If they fall for his shtick, he respects and fears them far less than the clear-eyed who won't be fooled.
Mutt without Jeff? Corn beef sans cabbage? Unthinkable. Knebel without Bailey? Well, it's hard to tell the difference. It's still the same sort of push button/panic button story about politics from the Pentagon to the Hill, only this time one of the levers got stuck close to the beginning. The one called Idea. This is, namely, that a president of the United States, and he's got his button (The Bomb), has lost his other buttons. He's mentally disabled. No one suspects that Mark Hollenbach, a figure of great rectitude and a strong drive for excellence, is paranoid. Except Jim MacVeagh, a senator, whom he has just tapped as his next running mate. Jim, young, attractive, but lazy, has a family. He also has had, on the side, Rita, ""the urgency and solace of sex."" As the F.B.I. investigates this, at Hollenbach's instigation, Jim tries to persuade others just before a private Summit meeting. They remain unconvinced, think Jim is disturbed, and only Rita can supply the evidence until the President's unreasonableness becomes apparent elsewhere, and action, sadly missing throughout the book, is finally taken...Let's see now -- it could be Fredric March, Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner. Oh, no, that was Seven Days in May. This isn't.
There has been the flourishing of a cottage industry, from "Fire and Fury" by Mike Wolff; "A Higher Loyalty" by Former FBI Director James Comey; "What Happened" by Former Secretary and presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton; "Unhinged" by Omarosa Manigault Newman and the soon-coming "Fear" by Bob Woodward. It's been a great year for authors; terrible for trees. He has been referred to as "a poor man's idea of what a rich man is like." He refers to himself in third person with the single syllable contraction of his name to invoke a Mafia kingpin. He's more a caricature of a caricature of actual mob bosses: imagining himself Vito or Michael Corleone of "The Godfather," when he's actually Fredo.
The New York Times Op Ed from a staffer that is internal to this "administration" is literally the icing on the cake. I am not sure if a five-deferment draft dodger, serial adulterer that pays off the silence of his mistresses and insults all of our allies, but routinely avoids insulting a foreign adversary with all the deference of a sex worker to a pimp can call the author "gutless." This is a Constitutional Crisis as David Frum, former speech writer for President George W. Bush (he was the "axis of evil" guy), opined such in The Atlantic. Real patriots step out of the shadows into the light. Real courageous actors don't "look the other way" and get tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation to the same Wall Street entities that caused the last Great Recessions (almost becoming a Great Depression). We appear determined to prove the definition of insanity.
Hans Christian Anderson's "The Emperor's New Clothes" has been shortened to a byword and pejorative "the emperor has no clothes," shouted originally from the mouth of a small child of his constituency in the story, saying what the more reserved adults around him dared not say. It is stating the blatantly obvious as the "Southern Strategy" grandparents of MAGA supporters once did, now parroted by their progeny:
"The Manchurian Candidate" as a movie came out in my birth year. It, like Knebel's Camp David is admittedly dystopian. It was a plausible thriller during the Cold War with the former Soviet Union that posited a hostile power could have unparalleled and unwanted influence on a political figure; the potential for controlling the office of the presidency. Plausible, but until recent events unthinkable. Life is stranger than art.
"Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over." Op Ed by Anonymous in the New York Times
The simulated radio images in this not-to-scale artist's illustration show superfast jets blasting from the black hole created by the merger of two neutron stars, a dramatic event observed in August 2017. In the 155 days between two observations, the jet appeared to move 2 light-years, a distance that would require it to travel four times faster than light. This "superluminal motion" is an illusion created as the jet is pointed nearly toward the Earth; it is actually moving at about 97 percent light speed. Credit: D. Berry, O. Gottlieb, K. Mooley, G. Hallinan, NRAO/AUI/NSF
Topics: Astrophysics, Cosmology, Einstein, Special Relativity, Star Trek
The dramatic neutron-star merger that astronomers spotted last year generated a jet of material that seemed to move at four times the speed of light, a new study reports.
"Seemed" is the operative word here, of course; the laws of physics tell us that nothing can travel faster through space than light. So, the superluminal motion was an illusion, which was caused by the jet's (still very fast) speed and the fact that it blasted almost directly at us, researchers said.
"Based on our analysis, this jet most likely is very narrow, at most 5 degrees wide, and was pointed only 20 degrees away from the Earth’s direction," study co-author Adam Deller, of the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, said in a statement from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), a facility of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).
Occasionally, I will alert fellow members to product updates by creators I have reviewed in the past year or so.
Here's what I found this week since I had extra time because it RAINED TOO MUCH!!!
Chessmasters by Insane Comics is gone. Even their back issues on Comixology are gone too. I was waiting for #6 to come out before buying the whole set. It's a shame. I think the writing crew is still active though at their facebook group Second Sight Studios.
Resistance: Battle of Philadelphia has finally past production! Releases Sept 7! Look for it at their site here. I was going to review it myself but someone else beat me to it.
Lawrence Johnson Sr. has made more stories (and audiobooks!) in the Da'quan detective story that continued in Murder on the Eros Star. They are up at Amazon and Smashwords. You can read the latest here.
Apparently, Marcus Stokes, director of The Signal, has worked on an episode of The Flash airing this winter? I think that's what his site says. You can see for yourself (and his other projects) here.
That's all I got this month. If you see a creator I've reviewed doing new stuff, post a comment down below.
As someone who recalls doing "duck and cover drills," I consider everyday a good day when this is not my sunrise.
The United States is not prepared to deal with the aftermath of a major nuclear attack, despite North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons and the increasing tensions between nations overall. That was the blunt assessment of public-health experts who participated in a meeting last week on nuclear preparedness, organized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
The gathering is “an acknowledgement that the threat picture has changed, and that the risk of this happening has gone up”, says Tener Veenema, who studies disaster nursing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and co-chaired the conference in Washington DC.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States’s research and preparedness efforts for a nuclear strike have focused largely on the possibility of a terrorist attack with a relatively small, improvised 1-kilotonne weapon or a ‘dirty bomb’ that sprays radioactive material.
But North Korea is thought to have advanced thermonuclear weapons—each more than 180 kilotonnes in size—that would cause many more casualties than would a dirty bomb (see ‘Damage estimates’). “Now that thermonuclear is back on the table, we’re back to people saying, ‘We can’t deal with this,’” says Cham Dallas, a public-health researcher at the University of Georgia in Athens.
Schematic illustration of charge carriers confined within a TMD flake comprising different thicknesses. Charge carriers in the ground state (blue) can be excited upon resonant light excitation to a higher state (pink). Credit: ICFO/Fabien Vialla
All deference to the Apostle Paul. It seemed an apropos title to the post.
Semiconducting heterostructures are key to the development of electronics and opto-electronics. Many applications in the infrared and terahertz frequency range exploit transitions, called intersubband transitions, between quantized states in semiconductor quantum wells. These intraband transitions exhibit very large oscillator strengths, close to unity. Their discovery in III-V semiconductor heterostructures depicted a huge impact within the condensed matter physics community and triggered the development of quantum well infrared photodetectors as well as quantum cascade lasers.
Quantum wells of the highest quality are typically fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy (sequential growth of crystalline layers), which is a well-established technique. However, it poses two major limitations: Lattice-matching is required, restricting the freedom in materials to choose from, and the thermal growth causes atomic diffusion and increases interface roughness.
2-D materials can overcome these limitations since they naturally form a quantum well with atomically sharp interfaces. They provide defect-free and atomically sharp interfaces, enabling the formation of ideal QWs, free of diffusive inhomogeneities. They do not require epitaxial growth on a matching substrate and can therefore be easily isolated and coupled to other electronic systems such as Si CMOS or optical systems such as cavities and waveguides.
Surprisingly enough, intersubband transitions in few-layer 2-D materials had never been studied before, neither experimentally nor theoretically. Thus, in a recent study published in Nature Nanotechnology, ICFO researchers Peter Schmidt, Fabien Vialla, Mathieu Massicotte, Klaas-Jan Tielrooij, Gabriele Navickaite, led by ICREA Prof at ICFO Frank Koppens, in collaboration with the Institut Lumière Matière—CNRS, Technical University of Denmark, Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter, CIC nanoGUNE, and the National Graphene Institute, report on the first theoretical calculations and first experimental observation of inter-sub-band transitions in quantum wells of few-layer semiconducting 2-D materials (TMDs).
More information: Peter Schmidt et al. Nano-imaging of intersubband transitions in van der Waals quantum wells, Nature Nanotechnology (2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-018-0233-9
Moving pictures: microscope image of a quasicrystal two days after release. The right half has been color coded. (Courtesy: Po-Yuan Wang and Thomas Mason/Nature)
A quasicrystal made from tiny Penrose tiles that undergo Brownian motion has been created by Po-Yuan Wang and Thomas Mason at the University of California-Los Angeles. The duo was able to track changes in the 2D structure as tiles moved around, observing a range of effects including melting. As well as shedding further light on the properties of quasicrystals, the new lithographic fabrication technique could be used to study a wide range of colloidal systems.
Until relatively recently, scientists had assumed that all crystals have translational symmetry. This means they comprise a periodically-repeating unit cell of atoms that fills space without any voids. In contrast, quasicrystals do not have translational symmetry – they possess rotational symmetry – but also fill space without any voids.
The unexpected discovery of quasicrystalline materials was made in 1984 by the Israeli materials engineer Dan Shechtman, who was later awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Although the discovery was first met with skepticism, hundreds of solid-state quasicrystals have since been discovered. Furthermore, researchers are looking at potential applications of quasicrystals that range from aerospace to coatings of surgical and kitchen utensils.
From Friday's post: “Putin’s thesis is that the American constitution is an experiment that will fail if it is challenged in the right way from within,” Mitchell continued. “Putin wants to break apart the American republic not by influencing an election or two, but by systematically inflaming the fault lines within our society. Accepting this fact is absolutely essential for developing a long-term response to the problem.”
Russian online users known as trolls are taking to social media to sow public conflict about vaccination, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.
In what sounds like a hybrid story joining Star Trek and The Hobbit, US researchers from George Washington University, the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University found that bots, trolls, cyborgs, content polluters and other actors stimulate distrust in the efficacy of vaccination to prevent diseases.
Many of these actors spread false or misleading information, but sources identified as Russian in origin produce messages that argue on both sides of the discussion, with the aim, the researchers suggest, of “promoting discord”.
“Accounts masquerading as legitimate users create false equivalency, eroding public consensus on vaccination,” the report finds.
“These trolls seem to be using vaccination as a wedge issue, promoting discord in American society,” says Mark Dredze, one of the authors of the study.
If you are among the few that don't think our elections were compromised in a directed assault, this is more personal. Vaccinations impact what the CDC refers to as herd immunity. That has helped to eliminate diseases - mostly to children - that used to prove fatal to them.
This is something that I don't think is well known. It's a good example of the power of mathematics to students that may not see its value, or practical application. Feel free to use it in class.
Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics
“Putin’s thesis is that the American constitution is an experiment that will fail if it is challenged in the right way from within,” Mitchell continued. “Putin wants to break apart the American republic not by influencing an election or two, but by systematically inflaming the fault lines within our society. Accepting this fact is absolutely essential for developing a long-term response to the problem.” The problem Mitchell was describing has a kind of heads-I-win-tails-you-lose quality to it as far as Putin is concerned: Not only has the Russian leader tried to exploit political polarization over issues like race and guns, his attempts to do so have themselves become deeply divisive—to the point where even Trump’s advisers frequently find themselves at odds with the man they serve.
Part of Mitchell’s argument—which might be viewed favorably by a president who has taken particular umbrage at the notion that Putin sought to help him defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race—was that the Russian government isn't necessarily interested in supporting a specific politician, party, or ideology. Instead, it simply wants to sow chaos in the United States to advance its own goals, which it sees as threatened by America’s preeminent position in the world. Mitchell cited the revelations on Tuesday that suspected Russian government hackers have been targeting conservative U.S. think tanks and promoting “fringe voices” on both the left and the right on social-media sites like Facebook.
often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition Merriam-Webster
Racism (noun):
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races. Dictionary.com
White supremacy (noun):
The belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially the black race, and should therefore dominate society. Oxford Dictionaries
The radical and religious right had long ago convinced themselves that Vladimir Putin and Russia were their friends. Whereas I and more sane members of the human species look upon "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood as a fanciful dystopian novel, and highly imaginative rendition on Netflix (I'll reserve my commentary on the end of season 2). Other elements of our human family, more familiar with the fearful, reptilian portion of our evolved brains, look upon it, "1984" by George Orwell and "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and Russia's methods...as blueprints.
The election of the first and only African American in the history of the republic, to that point 232 years in 2008, set up revulsion on the "white" right that culminated in racist birtherism, witch doctor bone-in-nose bigotry with respect to the Affordable Care Act; effigies of the 44th president either burned, hung (or, both) and the memorable "pray for the president" bumper stickers from a bizarre verse application of Psalms 109:8 - 10 (shortened to verse 8, but understood in total):
"8 May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. 9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. 10 May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes."
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 American 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
This is the metastasis of "The Southern Strategy" a rancid, racist tactic that was birthed on the heels of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. It was and is a desperate bid for power. It predates itself as the definition of "white" changed from excluding everyone except "Nordic stock" Europeans (the English, mostly) to eventually including the previously excluded: Italians, Jews [and ironically] Russians all had tiny quotas. The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and the nascent eugenics movement in the United States fueled and influenced immigration policy in the earlier part of the last century. Admittedly, despite its reprehensible aims, it worked remarkably well for quite a while.
A president with decidedly African features, he and his wife both educated at Ivy League schools and a pitch-perfect family did not personify the fictional "Huxtables" before the fall of Mr. Cosby to their many detractors. The continual reminder that the country is becoming browner only ignited more fear and resolve to fight a demographic shift not in their favor of continual predominance circa 2042 - 2045. Their resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue transmitted a well-worn, white supremacist trope regarding farmland in South Africa (it's returning the farmland to their original, African owners), but he needs a distraction since his former campaign manager and former personal lawyer were both found guilty on a total of 16 felony counts in a matter of minutes. Their visceral reaction to them was an existential crisis, a call to arms; a "white genocide," ironically feared by the descendants of those that caused it well before the "Trail of Tears" for Native Americans. It caused Roger Ailes to see the power of televised propaganda and cater to an audience that were well past facts post the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and the rise of listening to Rush Limbaugh on AM Talk Radio and his "ditto head" clones; well past reasoned discourse before Twitter came online. What facts can be revealed are rebuffed by an avalanche of lies, there are no "gotchas" for a party that with the help of Karl Rove started "creating their own realities" a long time ago. A sizable chunk of the electorate has been in this "post-truth" Twilight Zone for decades.
All they needed was a useful idiot avatar, and a master spy to push the republic over the precipice. Ironically, if successful, the 2nd Amendment along with all others in a theoretical fall of our republic would become meaningless as in Russia, there is no right to bear arms that "former Americans" would recognize or appreciate. The imagined confiscation by government "jackbooted thugs" may be under the flag of a foreign power that duped the gullible:
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
An artist’s impression of the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter, which operated at Earth’s moon from 2008 to 2009. A new analysis of data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard the spacecraft has found evidence of exposed water ice in dark craters around the moon’s poles. Credit: NASA/Indian Space Research Organization
Deposited in perpetually dark craters around the poles, the ice could be a boon for future crewed lunar outposts
The view that Earth’s moon is a dried out, desolate world may be all wet.
A new analysis of data from the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan 1 orbiter, which operated at the moon from 2008 to 2009, has revealed what researchers say is definitive proof of water ice exposed on the lunar surface. Gathered by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) spectrometer onboard the Indian probe, the data all but confirm extensive-but-tentative evidence from earlier missions hinting at water ice deposits lurking in permanently shadowed craters at the moon’s poles. Such deposits could someday support crewed lunar outposts while also revealing previously hidden chapters of the moon’s history. The results appeared in a study published August 20 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Based on M3’s measurements of water ice’s near-infrared absorption features at and around the lunar poles, the study’s authors concluded the ice is only exposed in around 3.5 percent of the craters’ shadowed area, and is intermixed with large volumes of lunar dust. Such sparse coverage and heterogeneity suggests this lunar ice has a substantially different history than similar deposits found on other airless rocky worlds, such as Mercury and the dwarf planet Ceres, where water ice in permanently shadowed craters is more abundant and of greater purity.
As of today Spacefans, the link above shows my new goal for my future in the 3D printing industry. 3D print farms are on the agenda for us to build our own, create our own, and own our own manufacturing methods and processes. After we meet the goal of 3D print farms, we should most definitely set our sights on using industrial articulating robots to "scale up" the manufacturing capability within the community.
A robot can cost anywhere between $25,000 and $100,000 but the industrious entrepreneur should be able to find one on the lower end of the spectrum. I'm not here to sell robots, just here to share vision with the visionaries. Stay tuned.
With that, can someone link a black owned robot manufacturer? There are a couple in the US and abroad.
Over Population Nightmare from 1960s - Star Trek's Mark of Gideon
Topics: Climate Change, Ecology, Economy, Politics, Star Trek
It's rare I do a "twofer." However, in the absence of a Starfleet/"Space Farce" or warp drive, we have to start thinking about how we're going to feed, clothe and employ the yet-to-be-born since we've yet to establish interplanetary colonies, let alone interstellar ones. Our "leaders" won't discuss the coming conundrum, hence I can only assume they've got nothing but slogans, jingoism and empty rhetoric bandied to stoke our fears and keep them in their comfortable seats.
"The world is expected to add another billion people within the next 15 years, bringing the total global population from 7.3 billion in mid-2015 to 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 11.2 billion by 2100, according to new estimates from the UN." Source: 5 ways the world will look dramatically different in 2100, Ana Swanson, Washington Post
Current assessments of climate change could overestimate the amount of carbon that plants remove from the atmosphere. That’s because models of photosynthesis often leave out a poorly-understood limit on the process. Now US researchers have calculated that if its representation is doubled, climate models predict an additional 9 Gigatonnes of carbon will still be in the atmosphere by 2100, instead of being locked away inside plants.
“Photosynthesis is the largest flux of carbon into terrestrial ecosystems, yet there is still uncertainty in our understanding of its physiological and environmental controls,” says Danica Lombardozzi from the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research. “Our findings suggest that TPU [triose phosphate utilisation] currently limits photosynthesis, and TPU limitation may become even more limiting to photosynthesis in the future. Yet TPU-limited photosynthesis is … poorly constrained by observations and is therefore not always included in photosynthesis models.”
One of Mother Teresa's favorite texts in the Bible, which she often quoted to support her ministry to the poor, is "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40, 45, NIV). Source: Timothy Lent, LinkedIn
Sadly, I think with the exacerbation of inequality; the Russian-installed occupant of the American Executive Mansion and the general disposition of self-absorbed humanity, these quotes by the author Fyodor Dostoyevsky encapsulates our current, pitiful state:
“The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground
