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Taking 8,600 steps a day will prevent weight gain in adults, while already overweight adults can halve their odds of becoming obese by adding an additional 2,400 steps — that’s 11,000 steps a day, according to new research.

Take whatever action you think is appropriate.

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In case you haven’t seen or heard of digital plates from Reviver before, know that they use a monochromatic HD display that can be swapped between light or dark modes (black or white background). They’re battery-powered — Reviver claims a five-year battery life — but if you’re a commercial customer, Reviver offers a hardwired solution that uses power from the vehicle’s 12-volt battery.

See how many of the ways this is a bad idea that you can come up with.

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The novel cement-free process will help remove 330 lbs (150 kgs) of Co2 for every ton of concrete produced.

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Just a couple of years ago, it seemed that space mining was inevitable. Analysts, tech visionaries and even renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson predicted that space mining was going to be big business.

Space mining companies like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, backed by the likes of Google’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, cropped up to take advantage of the predicted payoff.

Fast forward to 2022, and both Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries have been acquired by companies that have nothing to do with space mining. Humanity has yet to commercially mine even a single asteroid. So what’s taking so long?

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The Supreme Court will hear “the bacon case” on Oct. 11. National Pork Producers Council v. Ross challenges California’s Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act, also known as Proposition 12. It’s an ill-conceived and unconstitutional 2018 law that attempts to use the Golden State’s enormous market power as leverage to regulate pig farming nationwide.

California lawmakers often presume they know what’s best—in this case for pigs and pig farmers across the country.

State regulators are currently training inspectors to disperse across the nation to enforce California’s rules. Out-of-state farmers must certify that their products are compliant with Proposition 12 to be sold in California.

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You can’t make this stuff up.

I’m waiting for someone to discover that smoking pot cures COVID.

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The team started with the most widely produced plastic in the world, namely polyethylene (PE), which accounts for around 29% of the world’s plastic consumption. A catalyst was then used to remove hydrogen from the material and create a reactive location in the chain of molecules, and then another catalyst to split the molecules at this location and cap the exposed ends. A third catalyst then shifts this reactive location along the chain so the process can be repeated. This leaves behind molecules of propylene, which serve as the building blocks for the world’s second most widely used plastic, polypropylene (PP).

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Scientists discovered traces of fungi lurking in the tumors of people with different types of cancer, including breast, colon, pancreatic and lung cancers. However, it’s still not clear that theise fungi plays any role in the development or progression of cancer.

Two new studies, both published Sept. 29 in the journal Cell, uncovered DNA from fungal cells hiding out in tumors throughout the body. In one study, researchers dusted for the genetic fingerprints of fungi in 35 different cancer types by examining more than 17,000 tissue, blood and plasma samples from cancer patients. Not every single tumor tissue sample tested positive for fungus, but overall, the team did find fungi in all 35 cancer types assessed.

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The autonomous 8R is the culmination of Deere’s nearly two decades of strategic planning and investment in automation, data analytics, GPS guidance, internet-of-things connectivity and software engineering. While a good deal of that R&D has been homegrown, the company also has been on a spree of acquisitions and partnerships with agtech startups, harvesting know-how as well as talent.

…

For the time being, Deere is creating value and profits with well-established automated systems that can be retrofitted to its existing tractors, such as GPS-based self-steering and precision seeding that measures how deep and far apart to plant. Those steps have to be in place, Volkmann said, before you can put full autonomy around them.

UPDATE: John Deere Just Swindled Farmers out of Their Right to Repair

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My kid brother John runs a small television, antenna, cable, and dish installation business in New Mexico. He’s been doing it for many years and he’s really good at it. He sends me pictures sometimes of huge flatscreen televisions he’s mounted on tile walls above fireplaces in extraordinarily expensive Santa Fe homes, stuff like that. He does nice work.

Lately, he’s been busy — really busy — doing Starlink installations. Starlink, as everyone probably knows, is Elon Musk’s space-based internet service provider. New Mexico is a huge, wide-open, mostly empty state with lots of mountains and pockets of wealth. It’s a booming market for Musk’s high-speed, low-latency, low-Earth-orbit service.

Starlink interests me. Not because I want it: I have inexpensive cable internet that does a great job for me. It interests me because it’s innovative, beautifully engineered, and one of the drivers of SpaceX (Starlink’s parent company) and Musk’s rocket business.

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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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We have the technology.

Now–if it can carry a bomb….

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Not sure I’d be sufficiently interested in this feature of a phone to spend that kind of money, but hey….

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Everything’s better with an Irish accent.

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Europe’s unelected authoritarian ruler, Ursula von der Leyen, is not going to be happy: according to early exit polls out of Italy’s national election, the right-wing bloc of Giorgia Meloni – which the ultra-left wing press just can’t stop comparing to Mussolini – is set for a historic, if largely expected, victory and a clear majority (if, however, not a super-majority) which will propel Meloni to the top of the Italian government as the country’s next prime minister, ushering in a historic right-wing shift for a country that – like Sweden until two weeks ago – has traditionally been very left-wing.

UPDATE: Leftists Announce They No Longer Support Strong, Independent Women (Babylon Bee)

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The German authorities are preparing for civil unrest in the coming winter. What’s interesting about this report is the role that the extreme Left is expected to play in the disturbances. The proximate cause of the crisis is an extreme shortage of natural gas due to the sanctions against Russia, which means that the climate-change zealots will be poised to raise trouble if more coal plants are fired up to try to cope with the dearth of electric power, or other uses of fossil fuel are proposed as a way to mitigate the crisis. That must not be allowed, no matter how many people freeze or starve, because we must save the planet!

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Mice get all the best stuff.

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Well, sort of.

I read an SF book once, don’t remember the name, where construction was effected by putting a pile of materials on site and having drones assemble them in a predefined order–each component had an ID, and the drones knew where each piece was and where it fell in the assembly process. That would be useful. This … not so much. But I suppose it’s a step in the right direction.

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It may be possible to develop superconductors that operate at room temperature with further knowledge of the relationship between spin liquids and superconductivity, which would transform our daily lives.

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We have the technology … if it works.

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A Norwegian yards group, Westcon, has put in place an agreement with Sweden-based company SeaTwirl to deploy 1MW vertical axis wind turbines in the North Sea by next year, Recharge News has reported. This commercial scale vertical axis turbine could kick off a new era in offshore wind farms delivering cost competitiveness very soon.

…

The vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) offer a slew of advantages over conventionally used horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs). The latter relies on sophisticated instruments that tell them in which direction the breeze is flowing in and where to point themselves for maximum power generation. The turbines of a VAWT can harness power from all directions, so they can work without such equipment.

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Founder Yvon Chouinard structured the transfer of his firm in a way that keeps control within the family and avoids taxes.

Somehow that doesn’t get mentioned in all the gushing about ‘climate change’.

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And who could blame them?

I’d live to live in Switzerland and work in the U.S.

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A number of financial institutions in and around New York City are dealing with a rash of super-thin “deep insert” skimming devices designed to fit inside the mouth of an ATM’s card acceptance slot. The card skimmers are paired with tiny pinhole cameras that are cleverly disguised as part of the cash machine. Here’s a look at some of the more sophisticated deep insert skimmer technology that fraud investigators have recently found in the wild.

…

These skimmers do not attempt to siphon chip-card data or transactions, but rather are after the cardholder data still stored in plain text on the magnetic stripe on the back of most payment cards issued to Americans.

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I’ve shipped a supply to the White House. I only hope it’s in time.

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There are some things the Japanese do that are just incomparable.

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Ecocapsule® is smart, self-sustainable micro-unit, which utilizes solar and wind energy. It allows you to stay in remote places out of reach of infrastructure, with the luxury of a hotel room. Ecocapsule® is your design way to independent living. It can become a cottage, pop-up hotel, mobile office, research station or anything you want it to be. We have engineered the product from scratch to be as self-sufficient, practical and functional as possible. Join us and change the world – starting with yours!

Price: Don’t ask.

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Instead of migrants waiting in Denmark for their asylum request to be processed, the country’s left-wing government will now begin deporting them to Rwanda after the African country agreed to accept them in a bilateral agreement.

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Or maybe not. Check it out.

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A pilot and two passengers are okay after the Cirrus Vision Jet went down after deploying the CAPS (Cirrus Airframe Parachute System), apparently while on approach to Kissimmee Gateway Airport (KISM) in Florida on Friday.

The scene following the deployment was reported by a local news affiliate as a marshy area in the “area of Lake Tohopekaliga,” where the pilot and a boy walked away and a second passenger, a woman, sustained “no life-threatening injuries.”

Read it. And certainly watch the video.

The idea is that an owner will be able to store the vehicle in their garage and then drive to a local airport. With the push of a button, the car’s wings will swing out from under its cabin, while a tail unfolds from the rear — a process that takes just three minutes.

The owner will then be able to fly the hybrid gas/electric vehicle to another airport, transition it back into car mode, and drive right off the runway to their final destination.

Scott Johnson at Power Line.

Yesterday we noted how West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has played the fool for the Democrats’ tax, climate, and spending bonanza in the absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act. You can’t help but get the feeling that the Democrats are conducting a social science experiment. They are testing voters to ascertain if they’re paying attention.

West Virginia voters appear to be paying attention. Drawing on a recent Triton poll, RedState’s Mr. Bonchie declares “Manchin’s political career appears to be over.” The poll shows Manchin losing to any of three possible opponents. Unfortunately, Manchin’s Senate seat isn’t up until 2024.

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Researchers from MIT and China have developed a solar desalination device that could provide a family of four with all the drinking water it needs — and it can be made from just $4 worth of materials.

So obviously companies are rushing to implement this tremendous idea! Right?

Uh, no.

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It immediately comes to life and goes on a hunt for Alec Baldwin. (Just kidding….)

Construction workers employed in road building near the Onon River in the Khentii province of Mongolia, have discovered a mass ???v? containing the remains of many ?oz??s of human co??s?s lying upon a large rudimentary stone structure.

Forensic experts and archaeologists were called to the site, which was revealed to be a Mongolian royal tomb from the 13th century that the scientists believe to be Genghis Khan’s.

The team of scientists affiliated with the University of Beijing has concluded that the numerous skeletons buried on top of the structure were most likely the slaves who built it and who were then massacred to keep the secret of the location.

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According to a paper published on September 6 in the journal Nature Communications, this “green hydrogen” is produced by electrolyzing the humidity in the air, rather than the traditional liquid water, which may allow the provision of hydrogen fuel to dry and remote regions, with minimal environmental impact, especially if using renewable energy. The paper’s authors have been able to electrolyze the air’s water in humidity as low as 4 percent.

“We have developed a so-called “direct air electrolyzer” in short, DAE,” Gang Kevin Li, a senior lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Melbourne, and co-author of the paper, told Newsweek.

“This module uses a hygroscopic electrolyte exposed to the atmosphere constantly. Such electrolyte has a high potential to extract moisture from air spontaneously (without external energy input), making it readily available for electrolysis and hydrogen production once coupled with a (renewable) power supply,” he said.

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While reading up on architecture in Japan recently, I came across a technology that I hadn’t heard of before: the Ene-Farm. It’s a domestic energy system that is being used in Japan and so far doesn’t seem to be available elsewhere, and it makes me curious. What is it, and why doesn’t anyone know about it?

First – what is an Ene-Farm? It’s a unit about the size of a refrigerator that provides heat and power. It draws on the gas grid, turns the gas into hydrogen, and then provides electricity from a hydrogen fuel cell. The heat generated in the conversion is captured and used for heating or for hot water.

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University of Chicago data and social scientists have developed a new algorithm that forecasts crime by learning patterns in time and geographic locations from public data on violent and property crimes. It has demonstrated success at predicting future crimes one week in advance with approximately 90% accuracy.

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Sea Wave Energy Ltd (SWEL) has been working for more than a decade on a floating wave energy device it calls the Waveline Magnet. With several prototypes tested on- and off-shore, the company claims it delivers “ultra low cost,” with high output.

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Scientists have discovered a shocking fact about a material called Vanadium dioxide (VO2). According to research published in Nature Electronics, VO2 can remember previous external stimuli. It’s an interesting discovery, and one that researchers say could completely change the future of computer and storage devices.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a material bring new properties to light, or the first time we’ve heard about researchers finding new uses for older materials. Back in 2014, researchers and engineers began looking at graphene as a way to make smartphones even thinner. Perhaps Vanadium dioxide would provide a similar evolution for computational storage devices.

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Due to a rare genetic mutation, Aliria Rosa Piedrahita de Villegas should have had Alzheimer’s disease in her 40s and passed away from it in her 60s.

Her brain is now providing important information on the pathology of dementia and potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease since she lived dementia-free into her 70s.

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A new way of 3D printing wood that takes advantage of warping could change how we build things in the future — an innovation that could potentially save us all time and money.

The challenge: Wood is made of fibers that absorb moisture like a sponge. If lumber isn’t dried properly, the wood will eventually shrink — bending or twisting in different directions depending on the orientation of the fibers.

That’s called “warping,” and it’s usually something we try to avoid — a warped door won’t close properly, and a warped floor will look wavy rather than flat.

The idea: A team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) has now developed a new technique for 3D printing wood that turns warping into a tool rather than a nuisance.

By mixing superfine, filtered sawdust with binding agents, they created an ink that could be extruded from a 3D printer. By printing the ink at various speeds and along different pathways, they discovered that they could control the shape the wood warped into after drying.

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Since the pandemic began, there has been a boom in the number of cloud kitchens in the country. A lot of the restaurants I see on Swiggy and Zomato nowadays are cloud kitchens. They can even run multiple restaurant brands on food ordering platforms from the same kitchen.

For instance, Rebel Foods, a cloud kitchen company, owns and operates 11 different cloud kitchen brands like Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Oven Story, etc. All from a single location.

But there are a few cloud kitchen restaurants that deliver food that is so shit that I want to know which other brands are being run from the same kitchen so that I can avoid them all. This information is not visible on either Swiggy or Zomato.

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The guide you’re about to read will not only share the best tactical umbrellas you can get, but also explain what makes these such powerful tools for keeping you safe.

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The study of animals in the wild has been a lifelong pursuit. I grew up with tribal people and in 1953-4 commanded a platoon of African soldiers from nine tribes, who taught me to sleep on my side without a pillow so that I could listen out for danger with both ears. I have organised over 14 expeditions all over the world to meet native peoples and study their sleeping and resting postures. They all adopted similar postures and exhibited few musculoskeletal problems. I must emphasise that this is not a comparison of genes or races but of lifestyles. I tried to carry out surveys to collect evidence but they were meaningless, as tribespeople give you the answer they think you want. They often object to having their photographs taken, so I have demonstrated the postures.

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We have the technology.

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U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, a fierce Republican critic of Donald Trump who has played a prominent role in the congressional probe of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger in Wyoming on Tuesday.

Good.

But Senator Lisa Murkowski, another Republican who has defied the former president, cleared a hurdle in Alaska. She was set to face Trump-endorsed challenger Kelly Tshibaka in the Nov. 8 congressional election, as the two candidates advanced in that state’s nonpartisan primary.

Shucks. I’d rather we got rid of Murkowski than Cheney. Ah, well. One step at a time.

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The challenge: The cornea is a tough, transparent layer of tissue that covers the front of the eye. It helps focus light on the retina, and if it’s damaged by disease or injury, a person’s vision can suffer — worldwide, nearly 13 million people are blind due to problems with their corneas.

For people with keratoconus — a disease that causes the cornea to thin and bulge out — the only way to correct severely impaired vision is with a cornea transplant from a human donor.

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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

(I wonder whether it would be possible for a YouTube video to go ‘bacterial’?)

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Why people develop the autoimmune disorder has been a long-standing question. Studies have pointed to certain gene variations and environmental factors. For decades, a common virus called Epstein-Barr virus has also been high on the list of culprits.

Now recent studies paint a clearer picture that Epstein-Barr virus instigates MS when the central nervous system gets caught in the cross hairs of an immune response to the virus’s attack. This recognition opens new options for treatment, or even vaccines. Perhaps therapies that target Epstein-Barr itself — or remove the cells in the body where the virus camps out — could jettison the virus before damage is done.

In modern ‘journalism’, it is somehow mandatory to start off even a ‘news’ story with a bit of narrative, as if the old who-what-when-where-why isn’t enough; we have to have a ‘story’ to anchor it. Everything has to be a narrative. Feh.