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Moons of Jupiter...

Topics: Astronomy, Exoplanets, Planetary Science, Space Exploration

The Latest: On Jul. 17, 2018, scientists announced they had discovered 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter. That raised Jupiter’s total number of moons to 79—the most of any planet in the solar system. Fifty-three of the moons are confirmed and named; the other 26 are awaiting official confirmation of discovery before they are named.

The team first spotted the moons in the spring of 2017 while they were looking for very distant solar system objects as part of a hunt for a possible massive planet far beyond Pluto. “Our other discovery is a real oddball and has an orbit like no other known Jovian moon,” team leader Scott Sheppard said. “It’s also likely Jupiter’s smallest known moon, being less than one kilometer in diameter”.

NASA Science: Solar System Exploration

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Intellectual Property...

Image source: Link below

Topics: Applied Physics, Commentary, Economy, Education, Einstein, Research

Did Einstein "own" Special and General Relativity, the photoelectric effect (for which the Nobel Prize was awarded); Brownian Motion or Mass-Energy equivalence? Did Richard Feynman "own" his diagrams? He's also credited for being the father of nanotechnology with his seminal talk: "There's plenty of room at the bottom." Norio Taniguchi, a Tokyo Science University Professor coined the term nanotechnology in 1974: does he, or his descendents "own" it? These things are known and associated with them, but we have never asked the ultimate question of ownership.

I know, for example, any process I changed as an engineer was "owned" by the company I was working for at the time. If I applied for a patent, my name would be on it, but the company "owned" the intellectual property rights. It works the same for universities: whatever inventions you file patents for, your institution "owns" it. It's something in Pavlovian fashion I will admit, I have been conditioned to accept.

That cannot, however, stop you from "thinking" about it even if you've left your notes with the lab you worked on the invention in.

In the era of the Internet and pirating, this question has gotten even thornier.

In the late 1990s, business managers and academic researchers tried to tackle what they saw as an urgent and growing problem: When knowledge workers such as industrial physicists walked out the door in the evening, they inevitably took valuable intellectual property with them. Managers did not fear the theft of patent documents. They feared losing a collection of intangible skills, a deep knowledge of the company’s processes, relationships with other technical workers, and the general know-how that makes an experienced employee more valuable than someone fresh out of college. In other words, businesses were worried that they did not fully own scientists’ minds.

Over the course of centuries, a struggle has been playing out about who gets to own ideas. Is it the person who comes up with them? The employer who funds the research? Or should the ideas be somehow shared between them?

For the most part, that struggle has resulted in scientists slowly losing control of their discoveries, both in private industry and in academia. Patents once went to the inventor by default, but now they belong to the employer. Hands-on skill and experience with the research process—sometimes called know-how or tacit knowledge—was once the most fundamentally personal part of what a worker brought to the table, yet business lawyers have built a variety of legal tools to constrain skilled workers from offering it up on the free market. By the 1990s teams of MBAs and business-school scholars joined forces to see if advances in information technology, management techniques, law, and sociology could allow them to extract workers’ know-how so that the company could store and own it indefinitely. The resulting academic research field and management fad became known as “knowledge management.”

This article traces changes in US law, business practices, and social expectations about research and invention in order to illuminate the history of business control over scientists’ ideas. It will not be the whole history—I skip over huge amounts of history about government sponsorship of research, changing national and international economic conditions, ties between industrial and academic scientists, and many other topics that would be needed for that.1 Still, it is a slice of history that physicists would do well to remember. We live in an age of strong intellectual property rights and relatively weak protections for workers, especially in high-tech fields where unionization is low. Where once an industrial scientist had unquestioned ownership of his or her ideas, that self-determination has eroded in many ways over centuries. Knowing that past might help scientists evaluate what they hope to see in the future.

Who owns a scientist’s mind? Douglas O’Reagan, Physics Today

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Nightfall...

AZ Quotes dot com - Joseph Pulitzer

Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Politics

"And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast." Revelation 18:2 English Standard Version

We now have the distinction of kiddie concentration camps on US soil.

On the eve of the summit between the American Antichrist and Russian Beelzebub, the Manchurian Puppet with a Propecia Ferret on his head called our long-standing allies "foes." Pinocchio likely did not ask about the illegal annexation of Crimea; the chemical attacks on British soil nor the confirmed cyber attack by his own intelligence agencies on our electoral process in 2016. Our enemies used bitcoin as a cover for their deeds, reminiscent of a Bond villain. I expect a call to lift sanctions on the Russians. I expect the keys to our republic handed over to the devil.

- Russian bots stoked KKK fears (which, kind of is their raison d'être) during the protests of racism at the University of Missouri in 2015...

- 12 Russians were indicted Friday for actively hacking into the 2016 campaign...

- His party in the House want to impeach the Deputy Attorney General...

- We have NO protections against the Russians doing the same thing or worse in 2018 or 2020...

This began with the Orwellian-named Citizen's United and [dark] "money as free speech."

This began with Merrick Garland's seat stolen from President Obama; even the vow that the Supreme Court would be held 4-4 until the NEXT republican president, whether that happened in 2016 or 2020!

This began with abolishing Civics, abstinence versus safe birth control, the elevation of creationism/intelligent design in the public sphere; the war on science and the irrational fears of cultural oblivion which is the foundation of fascism, homophobia, racism, sexism, white supremacy and xenophobia.

This nightfall is the public dissolution of our federal republic. It is the unraveling of accepted norms, and you cannot have norms when your citizens are bereft of information on what those "norms" are.

This nation was founded on the twin sins of genocide of Native Americans and the systematic kidnap, uncompensated free labor and debasement of African nations and their descendants. We've tried to obfuscate, fabricate false narratives and tell ourselves outright lies to blanket this heinous history. Now we flirt with fascism, the same we fought the second world war over and became at least metaphorically Winthrop's "city on a hill." Our union was then, and is still now segregated, and far from perfect. "United States" has always teetered between work-in-progress and oxymoron. There was always some hope of a better and brighter future. It has never been so relentlessly and purposely ground to powder, prepared for tossing into the garbage furnace of history with tiny, orange and malevolent hands; aided by an entire political party so afraid of demographic changes that they callously upend the notion of who can vote, who can marry, who can live comfortably in the public commons, bent on holding power beyond the norms of democracy - which then can no longer be called a democracy.

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast."

"Our republic and its press will rise and fall together." Joseph Pulitzer

Lügenpresse - Time.com, German for "lying press," a Nazi pejorative invoked by #MAGA supporters at rallies resembling "The Two Minutes Hate*" (1984), the obvious ideological precursor to "fake news" and "alternative facts."

* pohnpei397. "What is the Two Minutes Hate and what is its purpose in the story?" eNotes, 15 Dec. 2009, https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-two-minutes-hate-124283. Accessed 16 July 2018.

"Democracy Dies in Darkness" - Washington Post
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Max Planck Institute Bullying...

MLA style: "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1918". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 11 Jul 2018. < http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1918/ >

Topics: Commentary, Diversity, Diversity in Science, Existentialism, Women in Science

Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck Born: 23 April 1858, Kiel, Schleswig (now Germany) Died: 4 October 1947, Göttingen, West Germany (now Germany) Affiliation at the time of the award: Berlin University, Berlin, Germany Prize motivation: "in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta" Field: quantum mechanics Max Planck received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1919. Prize share: 1/1

From which we get Planck's constant, Planck length, Planck time and the now infamous institute that bears his name, which I never dreamed I'd associate with bullying.

Women, LGBT, and people of color are typically attracted to STEM fields because of interest, acumen and being the unfortunate victims of bullying, cyber or otherwise.

It is usually what attracts us to science in the first place: a solace from the parts of life that's unpleasant, that results in noses being shoved in lockers (me), harassment or assault, both purely physical or sexual. Surely, this cannot happen in academia.

We convince ourselves of this by the STEM fields being inherently difficult and requiring crosscultural and oftentimes crossgender collaboration to solve complex problems. Utopias like Star Trek are envisioned on this premise: if only the species were more "logical," and not as inclined to the lesser angels of its reptilian cortex.

We were wrong...

Picture the scene: You are an enthusiastic young scientist, with, you think, the world at your feet. You have an exciting offer to join a world-leading research institute in another country. And then, to your dismay, you find yourself in a workplace where everything feels wrong. Your supervisor intimidates you and you receive upsetting e-mails, but the institute leadership seems indifferent. You are alone in a foreign culture, and you don’t know what to do. Your friends tell you to complain, but you are afraid of repercussions — and of losing the opportunity you fought so hard for. And, anyway, you don’t know who to trust.

This has apparently been the situation for years for some young researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany. Details of their struggles with alleged bullying by one of the directors — Guinevere Kauffmann — erupted in the media in the past two weeks.

According to the allegations, problems at the institute have simmered for years. The institute put in place coaching and monitoring for Kauffmann, who says: “I believe I have modified my behavior very substantially in the last 18 months since the complaints were made.” The institute also circulated an anonymous survey to young researchers, asking whether they think the problems are continuing and whether they have enough support. The results are to be presented to the institute this week, but, according to a leaked copy of the report, they show three fresh allegations of bullying against current staff, although it is not known against whom. The institute says it is investigating.

No place for bullies in science, Editorial, Nature

Related link:

Germany’s prestigious Max Planck Society investigates new allegations of abuse, Alison Abbott, Nature

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"Don't Leave Home Without It"...

Lockheed Martin’s concept, called Mars Base Camp, would need a way to replenish their fuel and air supplies. Lockheed Martin

Topics: Astrophysics, Mars, NASA, Photosynthesis, Planetary Science, Space Exploration

Note: From American Express travelers checks ads in 1975 with Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden; it was "them" instead of "it" back then. Yeah, I'm dating myself.

Spaceflight is like backpacking. If you can’t restock supplies like food and water along the way, how far you can travel is limited by how much you can carry. And in space, you also have to worry about having enough fuel for your spacecraft and breathable air for your crew.

That’s why some researchers are looking toward technology that they call artificial photosynthesis — a way of harnessing the sun’s light to generate fuel and breathable air for longer missions. This system would mimic, in a sense, the way plants perform natural photosynthesis by converting light energy into chemical energy and producing oxygen in the process.

Research published Tuesday in Nature Communications brings us one step closer to this goal. For the first time, researchers performed photoelectrochemical experiments — chemical reactions that use light and the electrical properties of chemicals — in an outer space-like microgravity environment.

Using Sunlight To Make Spaceship Fuel And Breathable Air, Erika K. Carlson, Astronomy Magazine

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dark world now t shirts available

         Hello, again. This time I am presenting a pair of gothic horror t shirt designs that I did

          for a client.

           Based on a comic book of the same name which I also did. (There is an updated version

          that I am working on for my amazon.com author page.) But for now let's just focus

          on the presentation below.

           I have seen the t shirts...they are good quality, you will not be disappointed.

                Enjoy

         

               Here's the link....

                      https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/2869604-dark-world-now-2

                      Plenty more shirts available at that link... go ahead and explore.

          

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Galactic Validation...

Scientists have tested Einstein’s theory of general relativity to new degrees of precision using the giant elliptical galaxy ESO 325-G004, the yellow ball of stars near the upper left side of this image. Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Topics: Astrophysics, Cosmology, Einstein, General Relativity

Astronomers have used a pair of galaxies far beyond the Milky Way to test general relativity with unprecedented precision

Three years ago astrophysicist Tom Collett set out to test a theory. Not just any theory, but one that sets scientists’ expectations for how the universe operates at large: Einstein’s general relativity. First published in 1915, the theory mathematically describes how gravity emerges from the fundamental geometry of space and time, or spacetime, as physicists call it. It postulates that dense objects, such as Earth and the sun, create valleylike dips in spacetime that manifest as gravity—the force that binds together a galaxy’s swirling stars, places planets around suns and, on Earth (or any other planet), keeps your feet on the ground.

Einstein’s equations underpin a host of real-world applications such as the global positioning satellites that make precise navigation and split-second financial transactions possible around the planet. They also elucidate several otherwise-inexplicable phenomena, including Mercury’s oddball orbit, as well as predict new ones, such as gravitational waves—ripples in spacetime that were only directly observed a century after general relativity’s debut. In test after test, whether here on Earth or in observations of the distant universe, the theory has emerged unscathed—a success so stunningly unshakeable it draws a certain breed of scientists like moths to a flame—each seeking to reveal cracks in Einstein’s edifice that could lead to the next breakthrough in physics.

Collett, a research fellow at the University of Portsmouth in England, is among them. “General relativity is so fundamental to the assumptions we make in our interpretation of cosmological and astrophysical data sets that we’d better be sure it’s right,” he says. With that mind-set, in 2015 Collett partnered with nine colleagues to perform the most sensitive experiment yet to test whether Einstein’s famed theory holds up at the scale of an entire galaxy. Their results, published June 21 in Science, reiterate Einstein’s theory still reigns supreme.

Einstein’s Greatest Theory Validated on a Galactic Scale, Maya Miller, Scientific American

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Republic, Lost...

Topics: Civil Rights, Frederick Douglass, History, Human Rights

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty. [1]

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July. It is the birth day of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, as what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. l am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder, and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young.-Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations. [2]

1. Washington's Farewell Address 1796

Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, The Avalon Project

2. History is a Weapon: The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro, Frederick Douglass

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Mesh and Eyes...

Schematic showing nonsurgical injection of mesh electronics into the vitreous body of the eye, allowing conformal coating of the mesh on the surface of retina for electrophysiological recording of individual retinal ganglion cells in live animals. Credit: Lieber Group, Harvard University. All rights reserved

Topics: Biology, Materials Science, Optics, Research

Mesh electronics, a macroporous network of components with mechanical properties similar to that of biological tissue, is a relatively new technology that can be used to probe activity in the brain. Now, researchers at Harvard University in the US have developed an injectable mesh that can record the neural activity of mouse eyes in vivo. The device, which does not interfere with eye movement or light-processing, could help neuroscientists study the fundamental properties of primary vision input retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and how these cells connect with other vision-related brain regions for the first time. The work could also help in the development of retinal prosthetics for restoring vision through non-surgical procedures.

“Mesh electronics is a submicron-thick, large-area macroporous network,” explains team leader Charles Lieber. “We fabricate the meshes as flat 2D sheets using standard semiconductor photolithography-based techniques and suspend them (like a colloid) in aqueous solution. Our specific design, which we first reported on back in 2015, enables mesh electronics to be rolled up into a tubular structure and drawn into a syringe needle.”

On the scale of a single neuron
“We can deliver these structures into specific brain regions with a spatial precision of 20 microns (which is on the scale of a single neuron) using the controlled injection approach we developed. This allows us to control the rate at which we withdraw the needle during injection and means that the mesh structure remains fully extended in the dense tissue of the brain during injection and does not crumple.”

In their new work Lieber and colleagues “non-coaxially” injected the mesh electronics onto the highly curved retinal cup of the eye. As the structure unrolls it forms a stable recording interface to RGCs, which process visual information received by photoreceptors (rods and cones). The researchers then did a series of experiments.

Injectable mesh electronics opens up a new window into vision research Belle Dumé, Physics World

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"You Get What You Celebrate"...

Topics: Economy, Education, Jobs, STEM, Research

An old Chinese proverb says: “If you’re planning for the year, cultivate rice; if you’re planning for the decade, cultivate trees; if you’re planning for the century, cultivate children.”

This remain as true today as it was back in the seventh century. But what it means to cultivate the next generation has changed. For young people to thrive in the modern world, a significant proportion of that cultivation must be immersion in scientific ideas. And to judge by its commitment to science and scientific education, China is making a serious investment in this long-term mission. [1]

Genetic engineering, the search for dark matter, quantum computing and communications, artificial intelligence, brain science—the list of potentially disruptive research goes on. Each has significant implications for future industries, defense technologies and ethical understandings of what it means to be human.

And, increasingly, the notable achievements in these fields are coming not from the great centers of science in the West, but Beijing, Shanghai, Hefei, Shenzhen and a number of other Chinese cities that make up China’s extensive research system. Inevitably, the question arises: How much of the future is being invented in Chinese labs? [2]

Scientific American links:

1. China's Scientific Revolution, Leonid Solovyev

2. How China Is Trying to Invent the Future as a Science Superpower, Richard P. Suttmeier

First Inspires Website

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Hate and Tweets...

Image Source: Huffington Post

Topics: Civics, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics

The election of Donald Trump introduced the American public to a number of firsts when it comes to politics, one of which is a president* who regularly communicates via Twitter. Trump’s use of social media has been unusual for a president and also the subject of sharp criticism for the inflammatory content he sometimes posts. While we know that Trump’s Twitter audience has continued to increase dramatically since his election, currently hovering at over fifty million followers, we know far less about how much influence his tweets have on the way his followers think and behave.

A disturbing new paper by researchers Karsten Müller and Carlo Schwarz of the University of Warwick suggests that Donald Trump’s Islamic-related tweets may be directly linked to an increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes over the past few years. If Trump’s tweets have, in fact, played a role in spurring hate crimes, then social media may be playing an even more powerful role in people’s lives than previously thought.

Muller and Schwarz analyzed the relationship between Trump’s tweets and anti-Muslim hate crimes by drawing upon a number of data sources, including the FBI’s hate crime data between the years 1990 and 2016 as well as Twitter usage across the country. First, they documented that the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes recorded by the FBI increased during Trump’s presidency*. In fact, anti-Muslim crimes have been more prevalent under Trump compared to any other previous president, including George W. Bush following 9/11. Second, the researchers found strong statistical correlations between the number of Islam-related tweets made by Trump in a single week and the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes that took place in the days and weeks that followed. Trump’s anti-Islam tweets were only correlated with anti-Muslim crimes and not other types of hate crimes. Therefore, it seems likely that it was the specific content of Trump’s tweets, and not growing anti-minority sentiment in general, that were linked to the uptick in anti-Muslim hate crimes.

Do Trump Tweets Spur Hate Crimes? Daisy Grewal, Scientific American

Related link:

Supreme Court upholds travel ban, Ariane de Vogue and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN

*The usage of the asterisk (*) next to president* I borrow from and attribute to Charles P. Pierce, a writer for Esquire magazine and frequent media commentator on MSNBC. He's also author of the prescient book: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free." And so, despite his and other authors' warnings to the contrary, our republic is at the stage-edge of this cliff...
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Intended Collateral Damage...

Originally from "Parable of the Talents" - Goodreads

(ironically, this and "Parable of the Sower" by Octavia E. Butler are both about a dystopian society in the aftermath of climate change)

Topics: Economy, Education, Existentialism, Research, STEM

Scientific research in the United States could become collateral damage in the country’s escalating trade dispute with China. Both countries went head-to-head in mid-June over tariffs on a long list of goods that includes lab equipment and reagents. That is likely to increase the cost of scientific research, and the impact could be felt more keenly in US labs.

The latest skirmish in the ongoing trade war between the world’s two largest economies began on 15 June, when the United States announced a 25% tax on 818 goods imported from China. The list includes equipment used by scientists such as basic electrical parts, microscopes and geological-survey devices. President* Donald Trump said the tariffs, which will start on 6 July, are intended to reduce China’s dominance in industries such as robotics, new materials and information and communications technology, and will level the playing field for US firms. The Trump administration* is considering tariffs on a further 284 industrial goods, including chemicals.

A day after the US announcement, China’s Ministry of Commerce responded with its own set of tariffs on 545 US products imported to China, which will also start on 6 July. The government will apply taxes in the future to another 114 US imports — including basic chemicals and medical devices, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines — although it has not announced a date.

US–Chinese trade war puts scientists in the crosshairs, Andrew Silver, Nature

*The usage of the asterisk (*) next to president* I borrow from and attribute to Charles P. Pierce, a writer for Esquire magazine and frequent media commentator on MSNBC. He's also author of the prescient book: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free." And so, despite his and other authors' warnings to the contrary, our republic is at the stage-edge of this cliff...
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"Tender Age" Children...

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Diversity, Existentialism, Human Rights, Politics

I will get back to posting normally...one day. Each day is an extended nightmare; each day is not "normal." We're either in the middle or the edge of a whirlwind. No one remembers Paul Manafort was arrested last Friday. I guess that was the point of this madness. He manipulates the media just as he did in New York.

I can't even remember when I've posted something with a measure of humor.

I would like to...

Related links:

The health impact of separating migrant children from parents

Jessica Lussenhop, BBC News

Video shows kids being brought to NYC immigration foster agency, NY1

Tomorrow: From Emma Lazarus to Dred Scott

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From Emma Lazarus to Dred Scott...

US CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION Image caption This image from the US Customs and Border Protection shows the foil blankets given to children - BBC News

Topics: Civics, Civil Rights, Existentialism, Human Rights

Ephesians 6:12 “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” See also Pastor John Palovitz's statements.

AMANDA VOISARD/AP Demonstrators gather to protest against the separation of immigrant families at the border in Austin.

Presidential historian Jon Meacham on MSNBC alluded to "we've gone from Emma Lazarus to Dred Scott," ironically on Tuesday, the annual African American celebration of Juneteenth.

We are housing hundreds of babies and toddlers in internment camps titled by the Orwellian term "tender age shelters." There are apparently children changing the diapers of other children because there are not enough caregivers to do it. The Attorney General announced this president's* zero-tolerance policy in April. Children and babies are being separated from their mothers with NO plans or procedures to return them to their parents. Stephen Miller - the 21st-century dead ringer for Joseph Goebbels - along with this administration* was apparently gleeful of the mayhem and chaos they'd caused. He couldn't sign an executive order until he signed an executive order. Top this with Melanie's IDGAF jacket at the Texas gulag! (Question: why is a so-called billionaire's wife in a $39 jacket on the FIRST day of summer in Texas?)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus

"In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument...They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit."

The Dred Scott decision - March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Taft's opinion of record. Mr. Scott's grave and remains are buried, coincidentally outside of Ferguson, Missouri.

My father would have been 93 years old on Tuesday. (It was also my sister's birthday.) He, like a lot of young men, got his draft card during the conflict with the Fascists in Europe. He was assigned to the United States Navy. He was a Third Class Petty Officer and became a Heavy Gunner, a Naval Boxer, and Cook. Like a lot of African American men, he thought to excel at war would "win the peace" of Civil Rights at home.

Hitler was defeated. He came home to a still-segregated America. He met my mother and married. I followed in 1962 in a still quite segregated society.

In the 21st century, at 55, I am still existing in a segregated society. Bigotry, birtherism, sexism, and xenophobia were weaponized into an effective presidential* campaign with hostile foreign assistance. We now have what amounts to concentration camps on American soil. We have a campaign chairman that openly mocks Down syndrome children. "When they go low, we go high" by First Lady Michelle Obama has been replaced by the daily, exasperated refrain: "How low can they go?"

We are the monsters now...

The Central American janitor in our facility at JSNN is distraught by the news of children screaming for their mothers. She relayed she's been threatened by some in maintenance, the same who's former member hung a noose in a lab in a school that has more diversity than the UN. The idiot was immediately fired, but his fellows threaten my Latino friend: "the president's going to send you home soon." She defiantly asks "why"? since she's a naturalized US citizen. She works just as hard as them, if not harder since their services are called when something breaks: she cleans toilets and overrunning trashcans from the second floor to the basement in every classroom; every bathroom, every lab. They have pictures of their orange god at their workstations; they wear MAGA hats.

We are the monsters now...

This is the backlash for having the "Audacity of Hope" to elect the first and so far, only African American to sit on the seat of power in 232 years of the republic. This is a continuation of the backlash that was seen at the border with wild-eyed citizens screaming at busloads of children from Central America. These are the voters of Orange Julius that wear MAGA hats and are emboldened by his bigotry. These are the modern brown shirts/red hats gang that are deathly afraid of becoming a numerical minority that the interference of a foreign power in their federal election process is of no consequence...as long as the outcome maintains white supremacy.

The site Blavity points out that separation of children from families is an American tradition, started with slavery to this current moment where brown immigrant children whose parents are seeking legal asylum have no rights the AG, nor this present darkness respects. Hoovervilles have seen a resurgence in the form of tent cities, and a government shutdown in September if there's no border wall might drive us...into an actual Hoover depression. It is a matter of time before we're not sobbing over children in cages...but wailing like Rachael's over children in graves, as tent cities in deserts - greater than 100 degrees Fahrenheit; 38 degrees Celsius - might as well be ovens at Auschwitz. Only sociopaths would cheer this vile assault on humanity.

We are the monsters now...

...or, we are the citizens that fix this November 6, 2018, Russian interference be DAMNED! The continued sovereignty of our republic is at stake. We will either be remembered as a good example or warning proverb. We will either be Winthrop's "city on a hill"... or, a shit pile (more superfluous than a "hole," that epithet itself projection)!

*The usage of the asterisk (*) next to president* I borrow from and attribute to Charles P. Pierce, a writer for Esquire magazine and frequent media commentator on MSNBC. He's also the author of the prescient book: "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free." And so, despite his and other authors' warnings to the contrary, our republic is at the stage-edge of this cliff...
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Who owns the Harlem Renaissance?

Who owns the rights to most of the material, books, and music, and  posters sold to school systems annually to expouse the values of the "Harlem Renaissance"? Are these publishers and distributors as Black as the content?  Do due royalties go to the hires or estates of the folks served up as creative or historic icons?  Or are these source of revenue leeching massive profits away from the community being educated?

This processing of "the New Negro" is still making money .....but for whom?

Not to mention how this nexus of schools, publishers and distributors, which tends to avoid indie Black owned operations, and pimps Black Culture when it comes to the money.

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Product Review Updates #2

Occasionally, I will alert fellow members to product updates by creators I have reviewed in the past year or so.

  • AfroFiTV has released an interesting trailer for Tyranny. It looks like he'll be putting up new episodes this year. Check out the trailer if you want to see some recent SFX work of his. https://youtu.be/TcvFoNohK-k
  • Iam Bennu, artist and mastermind behind The Sunhawks, has completed more works in the series that still look delightfully weird. Here's the link at Comixology
  • Arcellius Scott has a book of starship prototypes out on Amazon right now. Check it out here!
  • M. Haynes has a sequel to Legend of the Orange Scepter. You can order it here!

That's all I could find this month. Feel free to piggyback onto this post if a reviewed creator has posted an update in the past 5 months. Or if you're a creator I've reviewed, mention your newest work!

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A Step Closer...

Laser preamplifiers at the National Ignition Facility. (Courtesy: CC BY-SA 3.0/Damien Jemison/LLNL)

Topics: Alternative Energy, Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Power

Physicists working at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the US say they have passed another important milestone in their quest for nuclear fusion energy. They have shown that the fusion energy generated by the laser implosion of a deuterium-tritium fuel capsule is twice that of the kinetic energy of the implosion. By further trebling the fusion energy, they say they will be close to the long-sought goal of an overall net energy gain.

The $3.5bn NIF trains 192 pulsed laser beams on to the inner surface of a centimetre-long hollow metal cylinder known as a hohlraum. Inside is a fuel capsule, which is a roughly 2 mm-diameter hollow sphere containing a thin deuterium-tritium layer. Each pulse lasts just a few nanoseconds and the lasers can deliver about 1.8 MJ of energy. This powerful blast causes the capsule to implode rapidly, creating immense temperatures and pressures inside a central “hot spot”, where fusion reactions occur.

The long-term goal is that the energy of neutrons given off by fusion can generate electricity. Before this is possible, NIF must show that it is possible to achieve ignition – the point at which fusion reactions generate at least as much energy delivered by the laser system. This involves self-sustaining reactions, in which the alpha particles that are also emitted during fusion give off enough heat to initiate further fusion.

Giant lasers pass new milestone towards fusion energy, Edwin Cartlidge (science writer based in Rome), Physics World

#P4TC related links:

Laser Fusion...December 19, 2017

Nanowire Fusion...April 9, 2018

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General Order Number 3...

Image source: My Plain View dot com

Topics: Africa, African Americans, Civil Rights, History, Human Rights

Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

Later attempts to explain this two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news have yielded several versions that have been handed down through the years. Often told is the story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news of freedom. Another, is that the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labor force on the plantations. And still another, is that federal troops actually waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. All of which, or neither of these version could be true. Certainly, for some, President Lincoln's authority over the rebellious states was in question For whatever the reasons, conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was statutory.

General Order Number 3

One of General Granger’s first orders of business was to read to the people of Texas, General Order Number 3 which began most significantly with:

"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."

The reactions to this profound news ranged from pure shock to immediate jubilation. While many lingered to learn of this new employer to employee relationship, many left before these offers were completely off the lips of their former 'masters' - attesting to the varying conditions on the plantations and the realization of freedom. Even with nowhere to go, many felt that leaving the plantation would be their first grasp of freedom. North was a logical destination and for many it represented true freedom, while the desire to reach family members in neighboring states drove the some into Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Settling into these new areas as free men and women brought on new realities and the challenges of establishing a heretofore non-existent status for black people in America. Recounting the memories of that great day in June of 1865 and its festivities would serve as motivation as well as a release from the growing pressures encountered in their new territory. The celebration of June 19th was coined "Juneteenth" and grew with more participation from descendants. The Juneteenth celebration was a time for reassuring each other, for praying and for gathering remaining family members. Juneteenth continued to be highly revered in Texas decades later, with many former slaves and descendants making an annual pilgrimage back to Galveston on this date. [1]

*****

In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.

For years past this abolition organization has been actively sowing the seeds of discord through the Union, and has rendered the federal congress the arena for spreading firebrands and hatred between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding States. [2]

1. History of Juneteenth, Juneteenth dot com

2. DECLARATION OF CAUSES: February 2, 1861

A declaration of the causes which impel the State of Texas to secede from the Federal Union.

Texas State Library and Archive Commission

Note: A search for "slave" finds 21 references to "slave", "slave-holding" and "slavery." A search for African yields "African", "African race" and "African slavery", for which are the following associated, clear expressions that had nothing at all to do with the nebulous "states rights" dodge:
We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
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Tears for the Baobab...

GIF image from Nature. The African baobab is one of the continent’s most recognizable tree species. Credit: Hougaard Malan/naturepl.com

Topics: Biology, Climate Change, Ecology, Existentialism

Africa’s iconic baobab trees are dying, and scientists don’t know why. In a study intended to examine why the trees are so long-living, researchers made the unexpected finding that many of the oldest and largest of the trees have died in the past decade or so.

The African baobab tree (Adansonia digitata) is the oldest living flowering plant, or angiosperm, and is found in the continent’s tropical regions. Individual trees — which can contain up to 500 cubic metres of wood — can live for more than 2,000 years. Their wide trunks often have hollow cavities, and their high branches resemble roots sticking up into the air.

The researchers — who published their findings in Nature Plants on 11 June — set out to use a newly developed radiocarbon-dating technique to study the age and architecture of the species. Usual tree-ring dating methods are not suitable for baobabs, because their trunks do not necessarily grow annual rings.

The trees’ ages were previously attributed to their size, and in local folklore, baobabs are often described as being old, says study author Adrian Patrut, a radiochemist at Babeş-Bolyai University in Romania.

Africa’s majestic baobab trees are mysteriously dying, Sarah Wild, Nature

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