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also deliver treatment and allow remote monitoring of a wound. Researchers are working on smart bandages that allow healthcare providers to observe the progress of the injury and accelerating healing with bursts of light or electricity.

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At its Build conference this week, Microsoft announced it has inked an AI partnership with education nonprofit Khan Academy.

Specifically, Microsoft is enabling Khan Academy’s AI teaching assistant, dubbed Khanmigo, to run on its Azure cloud platform. The infrastructure support will let Khan Academy offer Khanmigo, which launched last March, to teachers at no cost.

Previously, it cost $4 per month, with the fees going toward enabling Khanmigo to access the large language models (LLMs) that power it. With Khanmigo now running on Microsoft’s cloud, it’s able to directly tap into the Azure OpenAI service, which provides programmatic access to a library of major LLMs.

“As your planning ally and instructional collaborator, Khanmigo leverages Khan Academy content to simplify AI for teachers,” Microsoft’s education team wrote in a blog post Tuesday. “No prompting is required. Khanmigo will help create engaging lesson hooks, provide insights on student performance, recommended assignments, and support for refreshing your knowledge.”

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Researchers hope to soon produce 66 tons of ‘electric concrete’ within just two hours. University of Cambridge

Researchers may have cracked the code on crafting practically zero-emission “reactivated cement” by recycling it with its partner-in-pollution, steel. The University of Cambridge team detailed their process in a study published on Wednesday in Nature—an “absolute miracle,” according to first author and professor of engineering and the environment, Julian Allwood.

Popular Mechanics.

• Ground-penetrating radar has helped archeologists identified buried wonders below the surface.
• Now, a new study from Japanese and Egyptian researchers reveals the discovery of an L-shaped structure along with an accompanying anomaly right next to the Great Pyramids of Giza.
• Although its impossible to know for sure what the anomaly is, the researchers guess that the L-shaped discovery could be an entrance to a deeper structure.

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There is a quickly growing trend among some of the largest grocery sellers in the US. Target (NYSE: TGT) cuts prices on thousands of items sold at its stores, including groceries. At the same time, Walmart (NYSE: WMT) said it would slash prices on nearly 7,000 items, many of which are in the grocery category. Walmart is the largest grocery retailer in America. Not to be outdone, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) also cuts grocery prices. It has far fewer stores than its bricks and mortar competitors. People who thought Amazon would crush Walmart were wrong.

According to CNN, Amazon’s grocery cuts include thousands of products. The decision is likely meant to hang onto market share. However, another incentive for the huge e-commerce company is that grocery prices are so high that Americans have cut back on shopping altogether. Prices are up over 20% since the start of the pandemic, based on data collected by the Federal Bank of St Louis.

Americans will likely cheer the cuts at these huge retailers. Research firm DriveServe polled people who shop for groceries regularly. Over half said they expect to pay more for groceries in 2024 than in 2023.

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Researchers have uncovered the properties of a rare earth element that was first discovered 80 years ago at the very same laboratory. Their discoveries open a new pathway for the exploration of elements critical in modern technology, from medicine to space travel.

Promethium was discovered in 1945 at Clinton Laboratories, now the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and continues to be produced at ORNL in minute quantities. Some of its properties have remained elusive despite the rare earth element’s use in medical studies and long-lived nuclear batteries. It is named after the mythological Titan who delivered fire to humans and whose name symbolizes human striving.

NewsMax.

On Tuesday, Crook County, Oregon, voted in support of a ballot measure to begin negotiations to secede from the state and join Idaho.

The movement known as Greater Idaho seeks to move the border between Oregon and Idaho to include 14 full eastern Oregon counties and 3 partial ones. According to the group’s website, the Crook vote now brings the total to 13 counties that have passed Greater Idaho measures. In 2023, the Idaho House passed a memorial inviting the Oregon Legislation to begin border talks.

Nature.

Genetic information usually travels down a one-way street: genes written in DNA serve as the template for making RNA molecules, which are then translated into proteins. That tidy textbook story got a bit complicated in 1970 when scientists discovered that some viruses have enzymes called reverse transcriptases, which scribe RNA into DNA — the reverse of the usual traffic flow.

Now, scientists have discovered an even weirder twist1. A bacterial version of reverse transcriptase reads RNA as a template to make completely new genes written in DNA. These genes are then transcribed back into RNA, which is translated into protective proteins when a bacterium is infected by a virus. By contrast, viral reverse transcriptases don’t make new genes; they merely transfer information from RNA to DNA.

“This is crazy molecular biology,” says Aude Bernheim, a bioinformatician at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, who was not involved in the research. “I would have never guessed this type of mechanism existed.”

Interesting Engineering.

The researchers use a phenomenon called thermodiffusion, a temperature gradient to move salt from the warmer to the colder side to bring about desalination. In this process, water remains in the liquid phase, and no energy is spent turning it into vapor and cooling it back.

In a technology demonstrator, the researchers used a narrow channel for the seawater. They sandwiched it between two plates maintained at different temperatures. The top plate was heated to over 140 Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius), while the lower plate was cooled to 68 Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius).
The channel was a little over one and a half feet long, and low-salinity water emerged from the top while high-salinity water emerged from its bottom. After a single pass, cooler and saltier water was removed, and warmer and less salty water was put back into the setup.

Each pass saw the water’s salinity decrease by three percent, and using multiple cycles, the salinity decreased from 30,000 parts per million to less than 500 ppm.

Interestingly, the heat needed to carry out the process can come directly from sunlight or even waste heat generated during industrial processes.

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Many families with children research an area’s school district before considering buying a home. Furthermore, homes in good-quality school districts tend to have higher value than those in less desirable school districts. Although all children in America have access to public education, in reality, the quality of that education can vary widely based on location.

Teachers are critical in providing students with a quality education, however, many teacher positions are left unfilled. Unfortunately, 79% of public schools with open positions reported hiring difficulties in August of 2023 (per the Department of Education.) Most recently, test scores have fallen in students. For example, the share of eighth graders who are proficient in core subjects has fallen is only 26% in math and 31% in reading, according to government data.

In response to this, Americans have less confidence in the education system than ever before in history. A 2023 Gallup poll revealed less than a quarter of Americans (23%) expressed a high level of confidence in public schools. In 1975, confidence was at a record high of 62%, and just a few years ago in 2020, it was at 41%.

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Many Americans carry a firearm for personal protection, but the laws for doing so vary drastically by state. Although the same federal laws apply to each citizen of the United States, states have additional restrictions within their borders. In fact, between federal, state, and local municipalities, there are over 20,000 gun laws on record, and in some parts of the country, gun owners are subject to far more restrictions. One of the most noticeable differences, however, is how states and localities regulate guns (especially concealed firearms) in public areas.

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Almost two centuries after California’s gold rush, the United States is on the brink of a lithium rush. As demand for the material skyrockets, government geologists are rushing to figure out where the precious element is hiding.

In September 2023, scientists funded by a mining company reported finding what could be the largest deposit of lithium in an ancient US supervolcano. Now public researchers on the other side of the country have uncovered another untapped reservoir – one that could cover nearly half the nation’s lithium demands.

It’s hiding in wastewater from Pennsylvania’s gas fracking industry.

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Doesn’t surprise me. He wants Kennedy to take votes only from Biden, so he needs to bring out the fact that Kennedy is, in the last analysis, Just Another Democrat.

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Silica glass, known for its brittleness, weight, and non-biodegradable nature, faces challenges in finding suitable alternatives. Transparent wood, made by infusing polymers into wood, shows promise but is hindered by limited availability of wood in China and fire risks associated with its use. This study explores the potential of utilizing bamboo, which has a shorter growth cycle, as a valuable resource for developing flame-retardant, smoke-suppressing, and superhydrophobic transparent bamboo. A 3-layered flame-retardant barrier, composed of a top silane layer, an intermediate layer of SiO2 formed through hydrolysis-condensation of Na2SiO3 on the surface, and an inner layer of Na2SiO3, has been confirmed to be effective in reducing heat release, slowing flame spread, and inhibiting the release of combustible volatiles, toxic smoke, and CO. Compared to natural bamboo and other congeneric transparent products, the transparent bamboo displays remarkable superiority, with the majority of parameters being notably lower by an entire order of magnitude. It achieves a long ignition time of 116 s, low total heat release (0.7 MJ/m2), low total smoke production (0.063 m2), and low peak CO concentration (0.008 kg/kg). Moreover, when used as a substrate for perovskite solar cells, the transparent bamboo displays the potential to act as a light management layer, leading to a marked efficiency enhancement of 15.29%. The excellent features of transparent bamboo make it an enticing choice for future advancements in flame-retardant glasses and optical devices.

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The largest pyramid field in Egypt is clustered along a narrow desert strip, yet no convincing explanation as to why these pyramids are concentrated in this specific locality has been given so far. Here we use radar satellite imagery, in conjunction with geophysical data and deep soil coring, to investigate the subsurface structure and sedimentology in the Nile Valley next to these pyramids. We identify segments of a major extinct Nile branch, which we name The Ahramat Branch, running at the foothills of the Western Desert Plateau, where the majority of the pyramids lie. Many of the pyramids, dating to the Old and Middle Kingdoms, have causeways that lead to the branch and terminate with Valley Temples which may have acted as river harbors along it in the past. We suggest that The Ahramat Branch played a role in the monuments’ construction and that it was simultaneously active and used as a transportation waterway for workmen and building materials to the pyramids’ sites.

UPDATE: Found at last: long-lost branch of the Nile that ran by the pyramids

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Democrats are deeply divided over President Joe Biden’s handling of both the war in Gaza and the U.S. campus protests against it, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found, fraying the coalition that he relied on four years ago to defeat Republican Donald Trump.

Watch it.

Very impressive.

Ars Technica.

Most current heat pumps rely on materials that exhibit large changes in temperature in response to changing pressures, but the energy required to pressurize them gets lost when they’re cycled back to a low-pressure state, absorbing heat from their surroundings. That has gotten people interested in electrocaloric devices, where changes in temperature are driven by storing charges in a material. Since it essentially acts as a big capacitor, much of the electrical energy involved can be pulled back out as the system cycles.

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The GM Purple Tomato was engineered by scientists at Norfolk Plant Sciences in the UK. Led by biochemist Cathie Martin and her team, the project aimed to harness the natural properties of anthocyanins, compounds found in blueberries and blackberries, to enhance the nutritional profile of tomatoes.

Check it out.

I don’t eat wog food, so it’s of no use to me, but it must be good for somebody.

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Theft and complaints are taking a toll on self-checkout. Now, Walmart wants you to pay $98 a year for Walmart+ for the self-checkout privilege at some stores.

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The depths of the river Thames in London hold many unexpected stories, gleaned from the recovery of prehistoric tools, Roman pottery, medieval jewelry, and much more besides. Yet the tale of the lost (and since recovered) Doves typeface is surely one of the most peculiar.

A little over a century ago, the printer T.J. Cobden-Sanderson took it upon himself to surreptitiously dump every piece of this carefully honed metal letterpress type into the river. It was an act of retribution against his business partner, Emery Walker, whom he believed was attempting to swindle him.

The pair had conceived this idiosyncratic Arts and Crafts typeface when they founded the Doves Press in the London’s Hammersmith neighborhood, in 1900. They worked with draftsman Percy Tiffin and master punch-cutter Edward Prince to faithfully recall the Renaissance clarity of 15th-century Venetian fonts, designed by the revolutionary master typographer Nicolas Jensen.

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Clinical trials of the world’s first “tooth regrowth medicine” are set to commence in September at Kyoto University Hospital, researchers announced here on May 2.

Once the medicine’s safety is confirmed, it will be given to patients congenitally lacking a full set of teeth to confirm its effectiveness. The researchers hope to commence sale of the medicine in 2030.

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In this case, ‘PCB’ refers to printed circuit boards, not polychlorinated biphenyls.

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Physicists have been hoping for this moment for a long time: For many years, scientists all around the world have been searching for a very specific state of thorium atomic nuclei that promises revolutionary technological applications. It could be used, for example, to build a nuclear clock that could measure time more precisely than the best atomic clocks available today. It could also be used to answer completely new fundamental questions in physics—for example, the question of whether the constants of nature are actually constant or whether they change in space and time.

Now this hope has come true: The long-sought thorium transition has been found, and its energy is now known exactly. For the first time, it has been possible to use a laser to transfer an atomic nucleus into a state of higher energy and then precisely track its return to its original state.

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Scientists are still uncovering the secrets of a compound discovered 50 years ago on Easter Island. Produced by bacteria there, rapamycin appears to be a powerful life-extender and may be a transformative treatment for age-related diseases.

SciTechDaily.

A metal alloy composed of niobium, tantalum, titanium, and hafnium has shocked materials scientists with its impressive strength and toughness at both extremely hot and cold temperatures, a combination of properties that seemed so far to be nearly impossible to achieve. In this context, strength is defined as how much force a material can withstand before it is permanently deformed from its original shape, and toughness is its resistance to fracturing (cracking). The alloy’s resilience to bending and fracture across an enormous range of conditions could open the door for a novel class of materials for next-generation engines that can operate at higher efficiencies.

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Havelar, Porto has completed the first 3D printed house in Portugal, utilizing COBOD’s 3D construction printing technology, 3D printing a modern 80 m2 2 bedrooms house in just 18 hours.
The fast execution of the 3D printed walls enables Havelar to offer new houses completely made in less than 2 months, more than twice as fast as common in the market.
Due to the use of 3D construction printing Havelar is capable of offering new contemporary design mid-market houses for just 1.500 euro per m2, well below current market prices.
Havelar’s ambitions also include reaching carbon neutrality by utilizing new materials.

New Atlas.

According to a new study, a compound found in the blessed thistle plant accelerates the regeneration of damaged nerves, restoring motor function and touch sensation.

New York Post.

A cheap drug used to treat diabetes may help you live a longer, healthier life, scientists believe.

Metformin, which helps people lower their blood sugar and treats Type 2 diabetes, could also protect against cancer, cognitive decline and heart disease.

This is due to its anti-inflammatory effects, NPR reported. It costs less than a dollar a day under some insurance plans.

Scientists are testing their hypothesis with a study called the TAME Trial to see whether metformin can slow down aging and prevent disease in older healthy adults. The six-year trial aims to enroll 3,000 people between the ages of 65 and 79.

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Epoch Times reporter Tom Ozimek recently wrote in these pages of former President Donald Trump’s encounter with Kayla Montgomery, a young Republican political consultant whose business is to “engage young, black professionals, students, and community members” in the Atlanta area. The ex-president and Ms. Montgomery met at a Chick-fil-A restaurant during an impromptu campaign stop in Atlanta. Ms. Montgomery was effusive in her praise of President Trump, saying, “I don’t care what the media tells you, President Trump—we support you!” A video of Ms. Montgomery and the former president hugging soon went viral, even as the media and Democrats quickly dismissed the interaction as “staged.”

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Details are very thin and fleeting at the moment, but it seems clear that Israel has launched its counterstrike against Iranian interests in response to the large-scale attack directly on Israeli territory that occurred over the weekend.

The news began developing around 3:00 AM local time in Israel that explosions occurred in Iraq and in towns in Iran where well-known nuclear program-related facilities are located. There was also talk on social media of jets being heard flying very low in Eastern Syria and Iranian-related targets struck in Iraq, as well.

UPDATE: Futures Tumble, Oil And Gold Soar On Reports Of “Huge Explosions” In Central Iran, Israeli Airstrikes In Iraq And Syria

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A Florida appeals court has effectively opened a loophole in the state’s long-standing law against recording telephone conversations without the permission of both sides of the call, ruling that law enforcement officers performing their official duties can be secretly recorded because they have no expectation of privacy.

The Guardian.

So what happened to the graphene revolution? Why has it not transformed our world? Sir Colin Humphreys, professor of materials science at Queen Mary University of London, has a straightforward answer: “Graphene is still a very promising material. The problem has been scaling up its production. That is why it has not made the impact that was predicted.”

…

Humphreys believes the market could soon be re-energised thanks to breakthroughs in the manufacture of graphene-based devices. A key development in this drive has been made by Humphreys and his colleagues, who realised the technology used to make gallium nitride electronic components could be exploited to make graphene on a large scale.

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Japan’s unique keitora class of compact truck has proven a hit among American imported car fanatics, and thousands of the tiny little guys have been brought into the country. Unfortunately for fans of Liliputian work machines, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators recommended states to ban non-FMVSS compliant cars, including everything keijid?sha, back in 2021. The Texas DMV has issued a ruling that these cars are now, and will remain, street legal for use on Texas roadways. Can I get a hell yeah?

Washington Poop.

Harvard College will require applicants to submit standardized test scores once again, becoming the latest Ivy League school to reinstate the requirement after making the choice optional during the pandemic.

The university had previously said it would remain test-optional through the 2025-2026 application cycle. But on Thursday, it said students applying to the college for fall 2025 admission — hoping to join the graduating class of 2029 — will now have to submit standardized test scores as part of their admissions package.

Harvard becomes the latest Ivy League school to reinstate the requirement after making the choice optional during the pandemic. Dartmouth College, Yale and Brown universities announced similar changes in recent weeks, after officials cited data suggesting that SAT and ACT scores were the best predictors of students’ academic performance at their schools — and that making the tests optional could further disadvantage applicants from more challenging backgrounds.

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When a tool came along to decisively eliminate smallpox, it was gone within a few short decades. The immense human cost of caries has to make you wonder: why haven’t we eliminated them yet? Given the conditions that were needed to drive out smallpox and rinderpest, we have to ask: do we have tools for caries?

Brush your teeth. That’s what you’re supposed to do, but does it work?

I think it significant that the teeth are the only organ in the body that has its own brand of doctor (DDS) instead of being just a specialty of MD, like eyes and bones and the brain and whatever. (I also find it puzzling that ‘dental’ is a separate type of insurance than ‘medical’.)

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French electric marine drive specialist BlueNav is preparing to put a more natural spin in its lineup. The all-new Whale Design propeller features blades that follow the contours of a whale to improve system efficiency. The unique propeller is set to debut in the company’s electric outboard and inboard drive systems to further improve upon the efficiency and versatility they add to existing boats.

Founded in 2020, BlueNav is focused on the gradual electrification of private and commercial boats. In contrast to companies focusing all their energy on pure-electric boating, BlueNav has taken a hybrid tack, developing “BlueSpin” electric propulsion solutions designed to be used in conjunction with a boat’s original combustion engine.

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Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory researchers found the promise of coating the inner surface of the vessel containing a fusion plasma in liquid lithium guides them toward the best practices for fueling their plasmas.

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A federal judge has blocked the ATF from enforcing its pistol brace rule for millions of members of the National Rifle Association (NRA) as the appeals process plays out.

It came after the NRA filed a lawsuit against the ATF, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, arguing that the agency’s rule to reclassify the brace-equipped pistols as short-barreled rifles is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay sided with the gun rights group, arguing that the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals already concluded that the ATF pistol-brace rule “fails the logical outgrowth test and violates” the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and is “unlawful” under the act.

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Scientists have developed a new solar-powered system to convert saltwater into fresh drinking water which they say could help reduce dangerous the risk of waterborne diseases like cholera.

Via tests in rural communities, they showed that the process is more than 20% cheaper than traditional methods and can be deployed in rural locations around the globe.

Building on existing processes that convert saline groundwater to freshwater, the researchers from King’s College London, in collaboration with MIT and the Helmholtz Institute for Renewable Energy Systems, created a new system that produced consistent levels of water using solar power, and reported it in a paper published recently in Nature Water

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members of the goth subculture is probably very low. Their dedication to a nocturnal lifestyle and collective fetish for ghostly pale skin is both an ideological rebuke to shiny, happy consumerism and a great way to avoid melanoma.

With another global-warming summer ominously approaching, I chopped it up with some creatures of the night to get some tips for us normies on how to protect ourselves from the accursed sun (and look fabulously ghastly doing it).

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Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic uncovered one of the mechanisms that a type of virus called Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) uses to induce cancer.

The study, published last month in Nature Communications, found that the KSHV virus activated a specific pathway responsible for cell metabolism and the way cells grow and multiply. Using current U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved breast cancer drugs, they were able to reduce the replication of the virus, stop the progression of the lymphoma, and shrink existing tumors in preclinical models.

Naval News.

American submarines will further extend their advantage in the undersea domain. In the first of a kind, the U.S. Navy has fitted a new form of propulsion, magnetohydrodynamic drive (MHD), to a Virginia class submarine. This promises to make the submarine virtually undetectable, the holy grail of naval warfare.

The Magnetohydrodynamic drive is being developed under the PUMP program by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), first reported in 2023. Water passing through it is accelerated by means of a magnetic field using superconducting magnets. This is often likened to the way a caterpillar crawls leading to the colloquial term ‘caterpillar drive’.

The first boat to be fitted with the new propulsion will be the USS Montana (SSN 794). This Virginia Class attack submarine was commissioned into the U.S. Navy in June 2022. Although still a new boat, she has been brought in to Groton, Connecticut, for the modifications.

I Tested 7 Temperature Control Mugs to Figure Out If They’re Worth It.

Our favorite temperature control mug is the Ember Travel Mug. It can be controlled via its app or the mug itself, is easy to use, and is travel-friendly. Our budget-friendly pick is the ionMug and Charging Coaster. In our tests, it worked well, but we do question its longevity.

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Now if they can just do that to fleeing felons….

UPDATE: Traffic jams, AirTags and GPS darts are ways NY, NJ are trying to stop car theft

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In a move which may force the lunatic greens to storm the White House, on Wednesday the federal government announced that it would provide a $1.5 billion loan to restart a nuclear power plant in southwestern Michigan. NJ-based Holtec International acquired the 800-megawatt Palisades plant in 2022 with plans to dismantle it, but with support from the state of Michigan and the Biden administration, the emphasis has shifted to restarting the nuclear power plant by late 2025 instead.

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Conclusion

Findings from the studies reviewed in this paper indicate that the consumption of SFA is not significantly associated with CVD risk, events, or mortality. Based on the scientific evidence, there is no scientific ground to demonize SFA as a cause of CVD. SFA naturally occurring in nutrient-dense foods can be safely included in the diet.

StrategyPage.

The Russian Black Sea fleet has disappeared from the Black Sea. Russian warships are still in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov extension in the northeast, and the more distant naval base at Novorossiysk, but rarely move out of port, even for a few days. Current ships in the Black Sea Fleet include six guided missile cruisers, one corvette, seven diesel attack submarines, seven landing ships and dozens of High-speed landing craft. sea-going minesweepers, anti-saboteur boats, missile boats and anti-submarine ships.

What keeps these Russian Navy ships from going to sea is the very real threat of attack by Ukrainian USVs (Unmanned Surface Vehicles), also known as drones. There are several models, including Sea Baby (Malyuk in Ukrainian), Mother (Mamai), and MAGURA which means Maritime Autonomous Guard Unmanned Robotic Apparatus. Sea Baby and Mother were developed by the SBU (Ukrainian secret service) and the navy. They are used by the 385th Separate Brigade which specializes in naval warfare. MAGURA was developed by GUR (translated as, Main Intelligence Directorate project) and SpetsTechnoExport, a state-owned enterprise. At the end of 2023 SBU unveiled an updated Cossack Mamai with a claimed top speed of 100 kilometers an hour. Manufacture of these drones is done in underground production facilities to avoid Russian missile and guided bomb attacks.

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Several states are making progress empowering their citizens with access to education freedom and opportunity.

Earlier this month, Alabama became the 15th state in the nation to enact a program providing education savings accounts and the 10th state to enact universal education choice.

Last week, South Carolina and Louisiana took steps to become the 11th and 12th states to make every K­-12 student eligible for education choice.

Two words: Khan Academy.