The peaceful occupation of Earth by the benevolent Calaar opened avenues of opportunity for Justine Mingana and hundreds of millions of other humans trapped in poverty. Mingana achieved what she never thought possible as a child: she became a starship captain. Another alien race arrived in Earth's skies, this one hostile and aggressive, offering a brutal contrast to Calaar altruism. Now, Mingana must make a show of loyalty to a new set of occupiers while pursuing a hidden agenda, one that may lead to the demise of her ship and crew. For the sake of Earth's liberation from the clutches of tyrants, Alien and human alike, Mingana is prepared to make that sacrifice...and she is just as prepared to kill.
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| Image Source: Foundations of Government, Slide Player, Slide 5 |
Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, History, Politics
I let the previous post last Friday stand without any other comment. I'm also working on reports for three projects in graduate school. I have a limited amount of hope that things will change. It is partly the subject of today's commentary.
I read "Letters at 3 AM: 'O' is for Oligarchy" in the print version of The Austin Chronicle when I lived in Austin, Texas. As in the date in the online version, I remember reading it in 2010. The premises it raised have aged very well, unfortunately.
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The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.
So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.
This is not news, you say.
Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here's how they explain it:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
In English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power. Source: BBC News, Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy, 17 April 2014
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The U.S. government does not represent the interests of the majority of the country's citizens, but is instead ruled by those of the rich and powerful, a new study from Princeton and Northwestern universities has concluded.
The report, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" (PDF), used extensive policy data collected between 1981 and 2002 to empirically determine the state of the U.S. political system.
After sifting through nearly 1,800 U.S. policies enacted in that period and comparing them to the expressed preferences of average Americans (50th percentile of income), affluent Americans (90th percentile), and large special interests groups, researchers concluded that the U.S. is dominated by its economic elite. Source: Business Insider, Zachary Davies Boren, The Telegraph, April 16, 2014
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Ganesh Sitaraman carried on this traditional observation of the obvious in The Guardian:
While the ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in power, the people must also be divided so they cannot overthrow their oppressors. Oligarchs in ancient Greece thus used a combination of coercion and co-optation to keep democracy at bay. They gave rewards to informants and found pliable citizens to take positions in the government.
These collaborators legitimized the regime and gave oligarchs beachheads into the people. In addition, oligarchs controlled public spaces and livelihoods to prevent the people from organizing. They would expel people from town squares: a diffuse population in the countryside would be unable to protest and overthrow government as effectively as a concentrated group in the city.
They also tried to keep ordinary people dependent on individual oligarchs for their economic survival, similar to how mob bosses in the movies have paternalistic relationships in their neighborhoods. Reading Simonton’s account, it is hard not to think about how the fragmentation of our media platforms is a modern instantiation of dividing the public sphere, or how employees and workers are sometimes chilled from speaking out.
Greece, the birthplace of our ideas on democracy as Rome was our ideals of a republic is an apropos historic comparison.
In my March 31 post, The Shattering, oligarchy wasn't mentioned, but implied. I observe the former head of the KGB, he and the other former members of the Politburo have abandoned the ideals of the Communist Manifesto. They don't appear at all interested in "sharing their wealth," but in its avaricious accumulation.
Perhaps their American counterparts have left the "quaint" notion of a federal republic.
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| Ventrella Quest Cartoon - Free Speech |
"We have 'given them the store' of white supremacist bigotry, and our republic. I'm concerned apathy, racism, stupidity and tribalism may well not allow us... to get it back." The Shattering, March 31, 2017
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“The really dangerous American fascist... is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective, toward which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."
~quoted in the New York Times, April 9, 1944, Vice President Henry Wallace, Good Reads
Related links:
Facebook’s General Counsel to Testify to Congress in Russia Probe, Jonathan Allen, NBC News
Twitter, With Accounts Linked to Russia, to Face Congress Over Role in Election, Daisuke Wakabayashi and Scott Shane, NY Times
We, Oligarchy...#P4TC, August 2, 2015
OK, my latest thinking. The quonset has dormers on each side which is connected to stacked shipping containers. The sea-cons can be porches or room expansion. The quonset ends are flat so you can attach dome-like extensions. I used an octagonal shaped dome in keeping with standard 90 degree building technology. And yes, you don't have to use shipping containers, but they are ready-made steel frames. And you could just as well dock your tiny house on the side of the quonset.
Someone asked me what kind of people would live in my dwellings. I am a bungalow person, smallish but bigger than a tiny house. How to live in a smallish house is living in your mind instead of living by your body. The body requires space and stuff, both of which can be costly. But you can do whatever you imagine, so make choices. Yoda could live with the Hulk (they both are green and powerful) but the Hulk (a big guy) changes into human (a tech stuff buff) who requires lots of space and Yoda ("mind" you) requires less space. If you figured it out, I'm am hooked on what can be built from available stuff today because even if you become super-human, housing design moves like a glacier. I'm just breaking the ice (for tea). You must enlist your powers and "built to suit."
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| Image Source: Cap Times, Amy Goodman, Dennis Moynihan related article |
Topics: Commentary, Politics, Research
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." Robert A. Heinlein
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre
On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on a large crowd of concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in the State of Nevada, leaving 58 people dead and 489 injured. Between 10:05 and 10:15 p.m. PDT, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada, fired hundreds of rifle rounds from his suite on the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay hotel. About an hour after Paddock fired his last shot, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His motive is unknown.
The incident is the deadliest mass shooting committed by an individual in the United States. The crime reignited the debate about gun laws in the U.S., with attention focused on bump firing, a technique Paddock used to allow his semi-automatic rifles to fire at a rate similar to that of a fully automatic weapon. Source: Wikipedia
- The claim that gun ownership stops crime is common in the U.S., and that belief drives laws that make it easy to own and keep firearms.
- But about 30 careful studies show more guns are linked to more crimes: murders, rapes, and others. Far less research shows that guns help.
- Interviews with people in heavily gun-owning towns show they are not as wedded to the crime defense idea as the gun lobby claims.
Guns took more than 36,000 U.S. lives in 2015, and this and other alarming statistics have led many to ask whether our nation would be better off with firearms in fewer hands. Yet gun advocates argue exactly the opposite: that murders, crimes and mass shootings happen because there aren't enough guns in enough places. Arming more people will make our country safer and more peaceful, they say, because criminals won't cause trouble if they know they are surrounded by gun-toting good guys.
Is there truth to this claim? An ideal experiment would be an interventional study in which scientists would track what happened for several years after guns were given to gun-free communities and everything else was kept the same. But alas, there are no gun-free U.S. communities, and the ethics of doing such a study are dubious. So instead scientists compare what happens to gun-toting people, in gun-dense regions, with what happens to people and places with few firearms. They also study whether crime victims are more or less likely to own guns than others, and they track what transpires when laws make it easier for people to carry guns or use them for self-defense.
Most of this research—and there have been several dozen peer-reviewed studies—punctures the idea that guns stop violence. In a 2015 study using data from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard University reported that firearm assaults were 6.8 times more common in the states with the most guns versus those with the least. Also in 2015 a combined analysis of 15 different studies found that people who had access to firearms at home were nearly twice as likely to be murdered as people who did not.
This evidence has been slow to accumulate because of restrictions placed by Congress on one of the country's biggest injury research funders, the CDC. Since the mid-1990s the agency has been effectively blocked from supporting gun violence research. And the NRA and many gun owners have emphasized a small handful of studies that point the other way.
"For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things." Isaiah 59:3
More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows Melinda Wenner Moyer, Scientific American
LOOKA HERE - A BLACK-OWNED TOY STORE!!!
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| Figure 1. A three-dimensional integrated circuit, made possible with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The circuit senses and classifies ambient gases using a multilayered stack of devices that are connected by platinum wires known as interlayer vias. In the top layer, roughly 1 million CNT field-effect transistors (FETs) register a change in electrical resistance when the gas molecules adsorb on a CNT. The second layer hosts memory cells that read and store the signals created by the FETs just above them. The third layer contains another million FETs that process the sensor data and implement a machine-learning algorithm to identify the type of gas picked up. Conventional silicon CMOS circuitry on the bottom acts as an interface to external devices. (Adapted from ref. 2.) |
Topics: Carbon Nanotubes, Computer Engineering, Nanotechnology, Quantum Mechanics
In 2013 graduate student Max Shulaker, his adviser Subhasish Mitra, Philip Wong, and their Stanford University colleagues built the first computer made entirely of carbon nanotube (CNT) field-effect transistors (FETs). 1 The achievement was eagerly anticipated. Even before their first incorporation into FETs in 1998, CNTs had been touted as a superior substitute for the silicon channel that shuttles current between the traditional FET’s source and drain electrodes.
The intrinsic thinness of single-wall CNTs—essentially graphene sheets rolled into hollow cylinders a nanometer wide—enables superb control over power dissipation in the transistor’s off state and allows the transistor to switch off and on with much lower energy consumption than is possible with any other material. Moreover, thanks to that one-dimensionality, which suppresses scattering, charge carriers in CNTs have a much higher velocity for a given electric field than in Si. (See the article by Phaedon Avouris, Physics Today, January 2009, page 34.)
The 2013 computer was modest: It contained fewer than 200 FETs, ran at a clock speed of just 1 kHz, and implemented a single instruction. Nonetheless, the instruction was a conditional statement that qualified the computer as “Turing complete,” able to make any calculation given enough memory and time. The achievement also reassured Shulaker, now a professor at MIT, and his Stanford colleagues that CNTs could form the foundation for a much more complex system.
The researchers have now built a prototype system that embodies a vision of a transformative computer architecture—one in which computing, data storage, and input and output technologies are each fabricated into two-dimensional layers that are built up into a 3D integrated circuit.2 Shown schematically in figure 1, the circuit consists of more than 2 million CNT FETs and more than 1 million memory cells. The components are divided among three layers—stacked on the same chip atop a layer of Si CMOS circuitry and interconnected by a forest of fine platinum wires.
The carbon nanotube integrated circuit goes three-dimensional R. Mark Wilson, Physics Today
Lexicon of the Spiral Galaxy
Lauren A. Johnson
It was a sunny hot day. It was an Alabama sunny hot day in August. I sat in the parking lot of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center debating to myself whether I should go thru with this.
After several minutes, I decided that I came this far, I might as well go all the way. So over my shorts and T-shirt, I placed the thin aluminum style suit on. Not much people noticed me. When I was done and zipped the suit up, I became very warm and unusually uncomfortable. I placed the other accessories on like an old Army pistol belt and boots. The suit was made to resemble a Mercury silver spacesuit. There were no african-american astronauts that were part of the Mercury 7 team, but a person can still dream. They fueled the imagination of many Americans regardless of race and gender.
As I proudly walked to the entrance of the Space and Rocket Center, I then noticed the stares. Little children were pointing their finger at me. All I could do was to wave back at them with a nervous grin.
About sixty years ago, other men wore similar suits like mine. The only difference is that theirs was the real McCoy and they were the real pioneers of this new frontier of space.
It started with a dream from individuals like Copernicus, Katherine Johnson and Werner Von Braun. They had a dream and their contributions helped us to the land a man on the moon.
In pursuing their wildest dreams, there are setbacks and sacrifices. Many lives were lost in the launch pad for both the United States and the former Soviet Union.
But the dream didn’t die.
They learned from their mistakes and paid homage to those we lost who dared to believe.
The dream went on. From it, it launched new innovations and sciences. From it, we built a shuttle and then a space station where human beings has spent over a year in orbit. We have sent probes to Mars and to the very boundaries of our Solar system and beyond.
Those were big dreams.
As I walked through the rocket center taking video I would use later on, people began to come up to me to shake my hand. Some employees, who never saw me thought I worked there also. Every person I saw greeted me with a smile.
Soon my nervousness went away and I did what I determined to do.
My goal is nothing to compare with landing on the moon. But it’s still worthwhile. To show those that anyone, I mean anyone, can fly on a rocket or have impossible dreams. It becomes possible when you begin to believe that you can do it.
I left with a sense of accomplishment and pride.
From the video footage I filmed, I was able to craft a science fiction short film called Opportunity 7.
Dare to Dream.
-Christopher Love
Hey guys It's been a long time coming but now its finally paying off
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kgfbzrn34iw835h/GEX%20demo.zip?dl=0
Controls: ASD/ZXC = shoot
Left, Right, Up, = move
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| Image Source: Link below |
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017 was awarded to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm".
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| Researchers at Columbia University created an evaporation engine, driven by bacterial spores that swell as they absorb moisture from evaporating water. XI CHEN |
"Caveat emptor is the only motto going, and the worst proverb that ever came from the dishonest stone-hearted Rome." Anthony Trollope
Please note I'm not quoting Trollope (an apropos name for our times as malapropism) as a critique of the study. All science is preliminary, in iterative steps. "Rome was not built in a day," and neither will sustainable energy solutions that will hopefully replace our current fossil model. It is unfortunate that our easy access to information via search engines have made us all attention deficit as a species and unappreciative of process, either political or scientific.
Technology that can tap into the renewable power of natural water evaporation could produce a huge portion of the nation's energy needs—at least theoretically (see "Scientists Capture the Energy of Evaporation to Drive Tiny Engines").
Prototype "evaporation-driven engines" generate power from the motion of bacterial spores that expand and contract as they absorb and release air moisture. If it could be done efficiently and affordably, the devices could provide more than 325 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity, outpacing coal, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
That, however, would require covering the surface of every lake and reservoir larger than 0.1 square kilometers in the lower 48 states, excluding the Great Lakes, with arrays of the devices. Obviously, that would directly conflict with existing economic and recreational uses, and raise a host of serious aesthetic and environmental concerns. Notably, interfering with evaporation on a large enough scale, across a big enough lake, could even alter local weather.
But study coauthor Ozgur Sahin says that the paper is more of a thought experiment designed to underscore the potential of the technology and the importance of advancing it beyond lab scale, rather than any sort of literal development proposal.
Evaporation Engines Could Produce More Power Than Coal, with a Huge CaveatJames Temple, MIT Technology Review
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| Image Source: Seminar link below |
I saw Dr. Oluseyi speak at the National Society of Black Physicists, Austin, Texas in 2011 (where I met Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg). I signed up to hear him speak again today, obviously scheduled as a pick-me-up for graduate students before midterms. We could all use it.
And there, at Tougaloo College, you had a breakthrough.
Yes.These three grad students from MIT and Harvard came to Tougaloo, where I was one of two physics students in 1986. They were all black physics students from the Cambridge area – and each of them thought they were the only one! They came to realize that kids from certain communities just have no idea that physics as a career exists. They decided they’d start the National Council of Black Physics Students, to help the most down-and-out kids in the country. So where did they go? Mississippi. They showed up on our campus.
Because of them, I ended up meeting recruiters from Stanford University that ended up accepting me to Stanford for grad school. In all of Stanford’s history, at that time, there were only two black professors in all of the six schools of natural sciences and mathematics. One was my PhD advisor, Art Walker, who was also the PhD advisor of Sally Ride. Just being in his presence showed me a different model of how I could be.
But in the end, Art’s support changed it for me. It was like two different lives. I ended up changing my name from James Edward Plummer to reflect how my life had changed so drastically. I wanted my middle name to reflect how I am. So my middle name is Muata and it means “He seeks the truth.” I wanted my first name to reflect what I want to become. My first name Hakeem means “wisdom.” And my last name is from the West African Yoruba people, and it means “God has done this.”
Rise of a gangsta nerd: Fellows Friday with Hakeem Oluseyi, TED BlogNC A&T Seminar link: NCAT.edu/oluseyi
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| Credit: Joshua Edel |
Note: My study group is preparing for midterms next week. I give my apologies for what will be an erratic posting schedule. I'm merging two colloquialisms: drinking from fire hoses and eating elephants one bite at a time. I should resume posting normalcy - as far as grad school goes - the 9th of October, until finals week in December.
From last Friday's posting, it's obvious what I thought of the (lack of) humanity pursuing the deaths of millions to give tax cuts for the few. I'm glad for the moment the Affordable Care Act hasn't met the zombie apocalypse. I have no doubt like the pertinacious walking dead, they will try again.
Surface plasmons—collective, light-driven oscillations of electrons in metal—have given us stained glass, flat lenses, and home pregnancy tests. Now they bring us the mirror–window, a liquid mirror whose reflectivity can be tuned, or eliminated altogether, with an applied voltage.
Developed by researchers led by Alexei Kornyshev, Anthony Kucernak, and Joshua Edel at Imperial College London, the device makes use of gold nanoparticles inside a cell filled with two immiscible electrolyte solutions—one aqueous, the other oily. Dispersed throughout one phase or the other, the nanoparticles interact negligibly with light, and the cell is transparent. But when the particles form a dense monolayer at the liquid–liquid interface, their plasmon resonances couple to each other and they become optically reflective.
The author could just be the next big thing in literature AND film
BY BRITNI DANIELLE, MARCH 30, 2017|EBONY
Tomi Adeyemi’s novel, Children of Blood and Bone, hasn’t even been released yet and it’s already headed to the big screen, thanks to a blockbuster deal with Fox 2000. Publishers clamored to snap up the 23-year-old’s novel, reportedly resulting in a “whopping publishing deal,” according to Deadline.
Children of Blood and Bone is the first book in Adeyemi’s fantasy trilogy rooted in African mythology, and has been described by some as “Avatar: The Last Airbender meets Black Lives Matter.” According to the writer’s website, the book follows the Orïshas’ struggle to survive after they’re threatened by a power-hungry king.
Here’s what’s listed so far:
With magic, Zélie’s family could stand against the royal guard.
Her people wouldn’t live in fear.
Her mom wouldn’t have hanged from that tree.
Years after the king wiped magic out of Orïsha, Zélie has one chance to bring it back. To do so, she’ll have to outwit and outrun the crown prince, who’s
hell-bent on erasing magic for good.
Children of Blood and Bone is the first book in Adeyemi’s highly-anticipated series and could set the young writer up to be the next big thing in young adult fantasy. The film adaptation is being produced by the folks who brought moviegoers Twilight, Maze Runner, and The Fault In Our Stars, and Fox 2000 reportedly paid close to seven figures for the book’s film rights.
At just 23, Adeyemi could be an important new voice in both literature and film. The Harvard grad not only gives tips to bourgeoning writers about honing their craft, but the Nigerian-American author has also said she hopes her work will inspire young Black girls.
“I want a little Black girl to pick up my book one day and see herself as the star,” Adeyemi wrote on her blog. “I want her to know that she’s beautiful and she matters and she can have a crazy, magical adventure even if an ignorant part of the world tells her she can never be Hermione Granger.” Something tells me Adeyemi is this close to reaching her goal.
**MY TAKE: Glad to read about Afrocentric book-to-film deals especially in the speculative genres.**
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| Image Source: YouTube, see embed |
Franz Kafka[a] (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-language novelist and short story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism and the fantastic,[3] typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, and has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity.[4] His best known works include "Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis"), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those in his writing. Source: Wikipedia
Kafkaesque: of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings; especially :having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality - Kafkaesque bureaucratic delays Merriam Webster
Eugenics, the set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population[2][3] played a significant role in the history and culture of the United States prior to its involvement in World War II.[4]
Eugenics was practiced in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany,[5] which were largely inspired by the previous American work.[6][7][8] Stefan Kühl has documented the consensus between Nazi race policies and those of eugenicists in other countries, including the United States, and points out that eugenicists understood Nazi policies and measures as the realization of their goals and demands.[9]
During the Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th century, eugenics was considered a method of preserving and improving the dominant groups in the population; it is now generally associated with racist and nativist elements as the movement was to some extent a reaction to a change in immigration from Europe rather than scientific genetics.[10] Source: Wikipedia
I posted on eugenics this year on 13 February featuring "The Myth of Race" by Robert Sussman. His thesis - as I remember the read - is still sound. The previous election was testament to Ta Nehisi Coates' essay observation on our current resident in Washington, that he does have an ideology: old, vile and ugly like grabbing genitals without permission; blatant in-your-face race-baiting, going from wink-and-nod dog whistles to foghorns. The 2016 election - Russian cum Facebook interference - has emboldened the darkest among us, evidenced by Charlottesville and its aftermath and the sympathies of our chief executive.
The repeal of the Affordable Care Act, known only by its pejorative, is in danger of being repealed yet again. It's to repeal, remove, replace any memory of the achievements of our first and only African American president in the history of the federal republic, all while stating the party is "not racist" with a straight faces and monochromatic instagram posts. The individual mandate in the ACA was a conservative idea originated by the Heritage Foundation - an effort to counter the expansion of Medicare-for-all (at the time called by the pejorative "HillaryCare"). The KGB/FSB saw "conditions and opportunity" that had not existed since the uprisings of the 1960s when the FBI had COINTELPRO violate the Civil Rights of Americans fighting for...their Civil Rights. Racial animus would serve their purposes of western instability far better.
The conditions were and are our own history we tend to whitewash and give "alternative facts" about. Cultural studies - African American, Hispanic/Latino, LGBT, Women - MUST be opposed, as they give a portfolio of researched facts that counters the official Pollyannaish self-delusional narrative. The only thing "conservative" is the status quo of white supremacy. The fact is, colonization results in indigenous peoples getting replaced by violence: murder, disease, "Trails of Tears." Disparate groups join the red trail, blocked from expressing their power at the ballot box and economically segregated for generations. The equivalent of Confederate generals celebrated in a war of treason would be replications on Hitler and swastikas in Germany and Israel. From cultural studies to science, it is why authoritarians oppose facts. Like Wednesday's post, these are the usual signs that points to diminution of democracy in a republic.
"Grandma-will-die-death-panels" as this repeal is a death panel, as millions of the GOP's supporters currently covered by the ACA will die. Like Hurricanes Katrina to Maria, such natural and political disasters illustrate the inequity of our society and how some well-heeled survive such changes - if you can afford healthcare with CASH, that IS your ACA! Those who cannot afford succumb to Darwinian extinction, a crass "survival of the fittest." Eugenics is what this is. It's what it's always been.
It's as clear as which group boards their property before a storm and starts consulting with architects to recover from the storm, to like many in New Orleans, stranded on roofs, figuratively and literally. Someone once told me "when you point one finger, three fingers point back at you," a hark to obvious, demonstrated hypocrisy. This nihilistic, Kafkaesque eugenics that will hurt "the least of these" should forever redefine us as not a "Christian nation," but a heartless and cruel one. Senator Cassidy has violated his Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm"; his party rejecting all claims to human decency.
Call:
Congressional Switchboard: 202-224-3121; 202-225-3121
Related link:The Republicans Aren't Even Pretending This Is About Healthcare AnymoreCharles P. Pierce, GQ
Fig. 1 Experimental schematic of the hybrid system and ToF apparatus.
(A) A schematic of the experimental apparatus, including the LQT, the high voltage pulsing scheme (shown as solid and dashed lines), and the ToF. (B) An illustrative experimental time sequence that depicts initialization of a Ba+ crystal, production of BaOCH3+ (visualized as dark ions in the crystal) through reactions with methanol vapor, and subsequent MOT immersion. (C) Sample mass spectra obtained after ejecting the LQT species into the ToF after various MOT immersion times, ti, along with an inset depicting a superimposed fluorescence image of an ion crystal immersed in the Ca MOT. (D) Mass spectra of photofragmentation products collected after inducing photodissociation of BaOCa+. The identified photofragments were used to verify the elemental composition of the product.
Topics: Atomic Physics, Modern Physics, Nanotechnology, Quantum MechanicsLA physicists have pioneered a method for creating a unique new molecule that could eventually have applications in medicine, food science and other fields. Their research, which also shows how chemical reactions can be studied on a microscopic scale using tools of physics, is reported in the journal Science.
For the past 200 years, scientists have developed rules to describe chemical reactions that they’ve observed, including reactions in food, vitamins, medications and living organisms. One of the most ubiquitous is the “octet rule,” which states that each atom in a molecule that is produced by a chemical reaction will have eight outer orbiting electrons. (Scientists have found exceptions to the rule, but those exceptions are rare.)
But the molecule created by UCLA professor Eric Hudson and colleagues violates that rule. Barium-oxygen-calcium, or BaOCa+, is the first molecule ever observed by scientists that is composed of an oxygen atom bonded to two different metal atoms.
Normally, one metal atom (either barium or calcium) can react with an oxygen atom to produce a stable molecule. However, when the UCLA scientists added a second metal atom to the mix, a new molecule, BaOCa+, which no longer satisfied the octet rule, had been formed. [1]
Abstract
Hypermetallic alkaline earth (M) oxides of formula MOM have been studied under plasma conditions that preclude insight into their formation mechanism. We present here the application of emerging techniques in ultracold physics to the synthesis of a mixed hypermetallic oxide, BaOCa+. These methods, augmented by high-level electronic structure calculations, permit detailed investigation of the bonding and structure, as well as the mechanism of its formation via the barrierless reaction of Ca (3PJ) with BaOCH3+. Further investigations of the reaction kinetics as a function of collision energy over the range 0.005 K to 30 K and of individual Ca fine-structure levels compare favorably with calculations based on long-range capture theory. [2]
1. In step toward ‘controlling chemistry,’ physicists create a new type of molecule, atom by atom, Stuart Wolpert, UCLA Newsroom2. Synthesis of mixed hypermetallic oxide BaOCa+ from laser-cooled reagents in an atom-ion hybrid trapPrateek Puri1, Michael Mills1, Christian Schneider1, Ionel Simbotin2, John A. Montgomery Jr.2, Robin Côté2, Arthur G. Suits3, Eric R. Hudson1,*1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.2 Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.3 Department of Chemistry, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA.*Corresponding author. Email: eric.hudson@ucla.edu
Did you hear? On Saturday, we're all dead meat! So, say your goodbyes, Nibiru is on a collision course with Earth and putting plywood over the windows won't help!
Relax folks, this won't happen for a few reasons.
-There is no Nibiru.
-There IS a "theoretical" 'Planet X' (aka Planet 9) but, at its closest pass, it's still about 700AU or 65,100,000,000 miles away - so far away, in fact, that we haven't visually confirmed its existence yet.
-anything THAT big lurking in our inner solar system would've been here before life on Earth, (maybe even before Earth) and noticed a long time ago. If it came from outside, we would've seen it long before it got here, and it would most likely get Deebo'd by Jupiter or Saturn's gravity on its way in.
-last time we were hit by a planet was 4 billion years ago (and from that cataclysmic one-night stand, we got the moon)
-These are just my thoughts, though. What do you guys think?
http://abc7.com/heres-why-some-claim-the-world-will-end-on-saturday/2428453/?sf115016653=1
Murder on the Eros Star, Planet of Doom and Terror on Telderan.
1. Murder on the Eros Star
Not long after hearing about the attempted murder of his assistant Da'Qaun docks aboard the luxury Space cruise ship Eros Star. Shortly after his arrival, the intergalactic detective realizes that his assistant has stumbled onto something huge. A masterful plot of vengeance and murder has already been set into motion.
With the help of his assistant Jada and a few members of the clandestine Time, Travelver's Guild Da'Quan attempts to stop a new very powerful foe from carrying out his devious plot the will drastically change life in the galaxy and beyond forever.
Will Da'Quan put the pieces together in time? Will the mastermind succeed in getting his revenge and change the lives of billions of lives across the galaxy? Listen to Murder on the Eros Star narrated by actor James Romick. Mr. Romick has been acting professionally for over 38 years.
2. Terror on Telderan
After breaking away from the Planetary Alliance the planet Otar finds it's self on the brink of ruin. In a desperate move, their leader Rotart makes a foolish attempt to terraform the planet Telderan so that he may claim it and relocate the Otarian race. Ancient oracles have been warning Alliance leaders for years that such an attempt would be made and that it would have catastrophic results for planet Earth billions of miles away. Rayna, High Ruler of the Southern Quadrant of Lazon and J'lore Chief Council of Earth's Guardians have been lifelong friends. Although Earth Guardians are considered outlaws by the government Rayna sympathizes with their cause to save the human race. Earth's Guardians is also aware of the impending disaster for earth but Rayna confirms it. Taz, son of the ruthless dictator of Otar is dispatched to clear Telderan of the handful of inhabitants so that the terraforming process can begin. His harsh and heavy-handed ways do not go down well with the settlers and his father's confrontation with leaders of the Planetary Alliance does not fair any better. Only time will tell if the Planetary Alliance's oracles were right.
After breaking away from the Planetary Alliance the planet Otar finds it's self on the brink of ruin. In a desperate move, their leader Rotart makes a foolish attempt to terraform the planet Telderan so that he may claim it and relocate the Otarian race. Ancient oracles have been warning Alliance leaders for years that such an attempt would be made and that it would have catastrophic results for planet Earth billions of miles away. Rayna, High Ruler of the Southern Quadrant of Lazon and J'lore Chief Council of Earth's Guardians have been lifelong friends. Although Earth Guardians are considered outlaws by the government Rayna sympathizes with their cause to save the human race. Earth's Guardians is also aware of the impending disaster for earth but Rayna confirms it. Taz, son of the ruthless dictator of Otar is dispatched to clear Telderan of the handful of inhabitants so that the terraforming process can begin. His harsh and heavy-handed ways do not go down well with the settlers and his father's confrontation with leaders of the Planetary Alliance does not fair any better. Only time will tell if the Planetary Alliance's oracles were right.
3.Planet of Doom
The Planetary Alliance has requested the services of intergalactic detective Da'Quan. His job is to locate the rough Deltorian warriors Dajus and Mallobo who must answer for multiple charges of crimes committed throughout the Spiral Galaxy. Before Da'Quan could locate the deadly duo his ship (Spirit) was yanked from the sky and crashed landed on a nearly deserted island. With the ship in need of repairs, Da'Quan is trapped on the planet Akanon, a small planet controlled by humanoid androids. He quickly learned that no one has ever escaped from the planet.
Will the andriods add Da'Quan to their list of kills, will he be the first to escape and complete his mission or will he be forever trapped on the Planet of Doom.
