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Scientists exploring a submerged mountain range in the mid-Atlantic stumbled onto something they can’t explain: An organized series of holes punched in the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

The discovery was made July 23, and photos show the dots connect into nearly straight lines … or trails … or designs.

NOAA Ocean Exploration isn’t yet sure how to explain it.

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Russia will pull out of the International Space Station after 2024 and focus on building its own orbiting outpost, the country’s new space chief said Tuesday amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over the fighting in Ukraine.

Welcome to the new Cold War.

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I’m looking forward to it.

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We have the technology.

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While big cities across the country struggle to fully recover from the pandemic, San Francisco is on another level, as tech companies exit leases and residents bolt for more affordable locations. San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s office estimates that one-third of San Francisco’s workforce is now remote and outside of the city. Last year, that resulted in a whopping $400 million hit to tax revenue, according to the Office of the Controller.

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The Mississippi Board of Education voted today to remove a policy that barred individuals with enhanced concealed carry permits from carrying guns in the state’s elementary and secondary public schools, revising a 1990 policy that previously prohibited anyone other than “duly authorized law enforcement officials” from doing so. The board made the change as part of an ongoing review of its policies to bring them into compliance with state law.

The board said the 1990 policy prohibiting “the possession of pistols, firearms, or weapons in any form by any person other than duly authorized law enforcement officials on school premises or at school functions” is at odds with the state’s 2011 enhanced-carry law.

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Researchers designed, built and tested a system that produces kerosene fuel for flight using little more than water, carbon dioxide and sunlight.

The technology to create jet fuel quite literally from thin air has been around for a few years now; the breakthrough here is scaling the process up from the laboratory to an industrial proof of concept.

“We are the first to demonstrate the entire thermochemical process chain from water and CO2 to kerosene in a fully-integrated solar tower system,” Aldo Steinfeld, a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich), said in a statement.

A useful thing, if they can make it cost-effective.

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You first.

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A man with a rifle walked into an Indiana mall and opened fire in a food court Sunday evening. A law-abiding citizen with a permit to carry a handgun responded in seconds and was able to shoot and kill the suspect, ending the rampage.

The Greenwood Police Department said a lone suspect entered the food court area of the Greenwood Park Mall, located on Highway 31 on the south side of Indianapolis, around 1800 local time. The suspect was armed with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition and immediately began firing. He was identified as an adult male, and police have yet to release a motive.

The suspect killed three people and injured two during the rampage but was stopped short by a 22-year-old man carrying a gun lawfully. Police have not shared the man’s name, but local authorities are already calling the citizen who stopped the shooter a “real hero.”

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This looks extremely interesting. The key, of course, is whether it will wind up on our cars.

Politico.

Ruy Teixeira is one of Washington’s most prominent left-leaning think-tank scholars, a fixture at the Center for American Progress since the liberal organization’s founding in 2003. But as of August 1, he’ll have a new professional home: The American Enterprise Institute, the longtime conservative redoubt that over the years has employed the likes of Newt Gingrich, Dinesh D’Souza, and Robert Bork.

Teixeira, whose role in the Beltway scrum often involved arguing against calls to move right on economic issues, insists his own policy views haven’t changed — but says the current cultural milieu of progressive organizations “sends me running screaming from the left.”

He hasn’t, of course–he’s still On The Left. He has just realized that the other people On The Left are a bunch of assholes and (reasonably) doesn’t want to work in that environment.

But of course he refuses to wake up and smell the coffee; and that sort of willing suspension of disbelief is the very definition of the proglodyte.

My question is why the American Enterprise Institute would waste their money paying this guy for his wrong opinions.

This is yet another brick in support of the thesis that most of the people pretending to be conservatives are merely the Me-Too Wing of the political Uniparty, the Washington Generals of the reigning political class. Their job is to put up a good act but inevitably to lose.

And fools give them money. Astonishing.

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The European Union is set to again boost its funding for military arms shipments to Ukraine, expected to be agreed upon by member states at a meeting of foreign ministers on Monday.

They are expected to set aside 500 million euros ($500 million) more in military aid to Kiev, Bloomberg reports, at a moment Russian forces continue unleashing constant artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions in the Donbas.

“That would bring the total arms financing to 2.5 billion euros,” Bloomberg writes. “The bloc in recent months has agreed to several rounds of arms financing for Ukraine under the so-called European Peace Facility, which reimburses governments for military deliveries to Ukraine.”

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The Heritage Foundation filed an ethics complaint Wednesday against Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., who last month accused a Second Amendment expert with the Washington-based think tank of lying to Congress about the contents of firearms legislation.

In the complaint filed with the Office of Congressional Ethics, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts accuses Porter of “knowingly and intentionally defaming” Amy Swearer, a legal fellow in Heritage’s Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. (The Daily Signal is the multimedia news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

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Only two weeks after Italy, Denmark becomes the fourth country to sanction Google. As expected, more and more EU member countries are reaching the same conclusion: Google products violate EU law.

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I would certainly encourage them to do so. (Fortunately, voluntary sterilization is still legal.)

Think of it as evolution in action.

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For the last 12 months I’ve been using an adapted version of what seems to be the “standard” advice for cleaning camera lenses. My lenses still seem as good as new (I can’t see any abrasion at all, nor any problems at night), which suggests this is a decent approach. Caveat emptor: I have not conducted a scientific test, so some of what comes next might be placebo, or the results of good fortune, or possibly even dangerous to your health. With that in mind, here’s how I now clean my glasses (note: I don’t use affiliate links, so you don’t have to worry that I’m trying to make money off you).

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I’ll bet you didn’t know that there was a rulebook for regenerating limbs.

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

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It turns out that the price lists are incredibly unwieldy to use for a number of reasons that I mention later. I blame in equal parts both the hospitals and the lawmakers.

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The building blocks of these microrobots are iron oxide nanoparticles that have both catalytic and magnetic activity. Using a magnetic field, researchers could direct their motion and configuration to form either bristlelike structures that sweep away dental plaque from the broad surfaces of teeth, or elongated strings that can slip between teeth like a length of floss. In both instances, a catalytic reaction drives the nanoparticles to produce antimicrobials that kill harmful oral bacteria on site.

I have been waiting for this for over twenty years, as soon as I read my first story about nanotech. My dentist and I talk about it every time I go in to get my teeth cleaned.

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Governor Youngkin appears to be successful in weeding out some of the dead wood among the state bureaucracy.

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This is a story that would be getting a great deal of play if it advanced a liberal media narrative: two illegal aliens planned to “shoot up” an Independence Day parade in Richmond, Virginia, but were thwarted by an alert citizen.

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Maybe Turkey will be next after Ukraine for Russia.

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Many of us are passingly familiar with circadian rhythms as a way to refer to our sleep cycle. In 1972, scientists discovered that that cycle is mediated by an area in the brain’s hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. This structure coordinates the release of hormones — among them dopamine — that lower body temperature and blood pressure and make us feel sleepy; in the morning, cortisol and other hormones restore our alertness, make us warmer and increase blood pressure. The a.m. surge in blood pressure is believed to be one reason heart attacks occur more often then than in the p.m.

In the past two decades, however, researchers have discovered that the clock in the brain is by no means the only one in our body. It turns out that most of our cells contain a group of genes that might be thought of as gears in a mechanical watch, keeping time everywhere internally. These “clock genes” — there are at least six that are considered integral to the watch’s operation — work together the same way in each cell. And just as they cause the release of hormones in the brain, they dictate other processes in other parts of the body. In the early 2000s, advances in the ability to detect the activity of genes in various tissues revealed that the cell clocks are organized into separate organ-level clocks representing every physiological system: There’s a skin clock and a liver clock and an immune-system clock; there’s a clock for the kidney, heart, lungs, muscles and reproductive system. Each of those clocks syncs itself to the central clock in the brain like an orchestra section following its conductor. But those sections also adjust how and when they perform based on guidance they receive both from the environment and from one another, and their timing can provide feedback to the central clock and cause it to adjust the time it keeps too. The liver, for instance, determines when to rev up your metabolism based on when you eat; if you do that in the middle of the night, the liver will be receiving contradictory cues from the brain, which is telling it to rest. As a result, when the liver starts processing the midnight food, it will do so less efficiently than it would have done after a daytime meal — and it sends conflicting signals back to the brain and other organ systems.

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Polar Night Energy’s system, based on its patented technology, has gone online on the site of a power plant operated by utility Vatajankoski.

The 4×7 metre steel container contains hundreds of tonnes of sand which can be heated to a temperature of 500-600 degrees Celsius. The sand is heated with renewable electricity and stored for use in the local district heating system.

It has a particularly strong use case in Finland which sees long and very cold winters, and was recently cut off from Russian gas supplies over a payments dispute. The storage system’s developers say it is cheap and easy to build.

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The Mountain State’s Republican Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey, released a statement on June 29 detailing his continued commitment to saving the lives of babies by reinstating a 170-year-old law protecting them, according to Life Site News.

The law was crafted in 1849, but was left on the books when Roe v. Wade established a federally guaranteed “right” to abortion. But now that the recent Dobbs decision overturned that 1973 ruling, the law can be re-enacted.

“Enacted in 1849 and never repealed since,” anyone who administers or performs an abortion with the intent to destroy a child “commits a felony punishable by three to ten years in prison,” the rule states.

“The statute covers persons who perform abortions and, at least arguably, women who seek them,” Morrisey added.

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California startup Mojo Vision finally has a human being wearing its smart contact lens — bringing the future of AR, and superhuman sight, a major step closer.

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European lawmakers have given the green light to antitrust law changes targeting self-preferencing by Apple and other big tech companies, but there are fears that it will be difficult to enforce the regulations.

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Only an idiot would sell the same product to everyone at the same price.

…

A reader writes to remind me about IN-N-OUT burger, a chain that is popular on the West Coast.  They have a simplified menu, fast service, and fixed low prices.  Sort of the model McDonald’s had back in the 1960’s.  Sadly, the lady who owns the place is not only anti-gay but an anti-vaxxer as well.  She makes Chik-Fil-A look progressive.  Then again, most successful major corporations are run by heartless conservatives.  The companies run by bleeding-heart liberals all went out of business.

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It’s pretty clear that the left is organizing to dump Joe Biden when it becomes evident that he’s a certain loser in 2024. Rather that waiting for a Ted Kennedy-like figure to challenge him in the 2024 primaries, which would likely doom Democrats to certain defeat, the left will need to push him out early, and clear the calendar for one or more Democrats to organize a serious presidential campaign. (It goes without saying the Democratic Party intelligentsia knows that Kamala Harris is a hopeless candidate.)

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USING carrots to create concrete, turning wood into plastic, or even compressing it into a “super wood” that is as light and strong as titanium might sound like a series of almost Frankensteinish experiments. Yet all three are among the latest examples of employing natural fibres from plants as eco-friendly additives or alternatives to man-made materials.

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In southeast Asia, the Philippines has ordered more warships from South Korea. This time it is six OPVs (Offshore Patrol Vessels). This came after a competition involving proposals from Australia, Turkey and several other nations. The South Korean entry was the export version of the new HDP-1500 OPV. The export version is customizable but the basic features are an 81 meter (260 foot), 1,700-ton ship with a top speed of 38 kilometers an hour and endurance of 28 days. There are accommodations for 51 personnel, including the 41 crew. Standard armament consists of a 76mm cannon and four CIWS (Close In Weapons Systems) for missile defense and other threats within a few thousand meters of the ship. There is a landing pad and hangar for a helicopter. Under the helipad there is space for additional weapons or equipment in four cargo spaces. The HDP-1500 can be equipped with anti-ship missiles or to hunt and attack submarines as well for mine-clearing. The Philippines needs the OPVs to patrol the South China Sea waters that China is seeking to steal from the Philippines.

The HDP-1500 is a very clean-looking design and shows a lot of good thought.

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MIT research engineer Paul Woskov spent 14 years developing a technique to employ gyrotrons, normally used to heat plasma, to drill geothermal wells. Gyrotrons emit microwaves and have been used in physics research for decades; Woskov’s repurposing gives the venerable devices a new use case.

…

Despite their age, gyrotrons haven’t been well publicized in the scientific community, Woskov said. “Those of us in fusion research understood they were very powerful beam sources – like lasers, but in a different frequency range. I thought, why not direct these high-power beams, instead of into fusion plasma, down into rock and vaporize the hole,” Woskov said.

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Blue state judges and liberal bureaucrats caught flak for littering their states with drop-boxes and accepting mail-in ballots during the 2020 election without permission from lawmakers. The Supreme Court is poised to stop them from doing it again in 2024.

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Plant-based meat alternatives will have to come up with new terminology in France. The country adopted a measure banning plant-based products from using the same names as food from dead animals.

If it didn’t moo, it isn’t steak.

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

We have the technology.

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Airships could help speed up the delivery of aid in disaster zones, carry air cargo much more cheaply than air freighters, and cut aviation emissions. However, similar projects in the past have struggled to overcome the complex engineering challenges involved, and have either run out of money, or left potential customers disillusioned.

“Flying an airship is unlike flying any other aircraft because it’s lighter than air and floats, instead of sinks, when you put the power at idle,” says Andrea Deyling, a pilot and director of airship operations of Brin’s airship company, LTA Research. “There’s also a sense of wonder people have when they see a lighter-than-air vehicle flying overhead. LTA Research is building a unique airship and I can’t wait to get into the actual aircraft and fly it.”

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The Supreme Court’s important ruling last week on voter ID in North Carolina has been overlooked in the fervor over the high court’s spot-on decisions upholding the Second Amendment and religious freedom and overruling Roe v. Wade.

But the court’s procedural decision Thursday in Berger v. NAACP will help prevent state officials from sabotaging the defense of state election laws and other measures being attacked by their political allies and friends.

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This week, a project to build an underground freight tunnel network stretching from Geneva to St Gallen, was given a start date of 1 August 2022 by the Federal Council, reported RTS.

The Cargo sous terrain (CST) project will connect Switzerland’s key hubs starting in 2031. CST aims to take the strain off the road and railway networks, reduce the environmental impact of transport and improve the delivery of goods across the country.

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After 15 years of research, scientists at Cancer Center Amsterdam have developed a new cancer vaccine for dogs — one which they believe may potentially pave the way for similar human therapies, too.

The vaccine targets a tumor protein called vimentin, creating an immune response in dogs with bladder cancer that both fought cancer growth and helped mitigate tumors’ ability to evade the immune system.

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“This session, let’s expand school choice any way we can,” declared Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey in his State of the State address on Jan. 10, “Let’s think big and find more ways to get kids into the school of their parents’ choice. Send me the bills, and I’ll sign them.”

The Arizona Legislature on Friday night answered Ducey’s call, passing a bill to expand eligibility for the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (also known as education savings accounts or ESAs) to all K-12 students.

Arizona cements its position as a destination in The Great Demographic Sorting Hat process.

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The researchers, who published their findings in Nature Food, used a two-step electrocatalytic process to convert carbon dioxide, electricity, and water into acetate, which is the main component in vinegar.

They then applied the acetate to food-producing organisms in the dark, causing these organisms to grow. Their method could provide a much-needed food growth alternative in the face of a catastrophic climate crisis.

Absent fusion or some other source of cheap electricity, one of the more serious constraints on ‘vertical farming’ is the cost of power needed to light the plants. This could be a revolutionary way around that.

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This “odd wheel” looks simple: just six small motors linked together by plastic arms and rubber bands to form a ring about 6 inches in diameter. When the motors are powered on, it starts writhing, executing complicated squashing and stretching motions and occasionally flinging itself into the air, all the while slowly making its way up a bumpy foam ramp.

Presumably distinguishable from Miley Cyrus.

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Respiratory viruses began to propagate more easily when hunting and gathering gave way to farming and as settlements grew larger. Humans may have then evolved to use coronaviruses as a natural vaccine against deadlier respiratory diseases, like tuberculosis and pneumonia.

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Membranes made from metal–organic frameworks contain modular pores that can separate mixtures of gas. By changing the shape of these pores to improve molecular separation, we produced a membrane that could remove nitrogen and carbon dioxide from natural gas in an energy-efficient and cost-effective way.

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We have the technology.

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Congratulations on finding your way to this dusty corner of the internet. The International Institute of Not Doing Much has a deep commitment to very little. Members are expected to take it easy and slowly ponder this and that, preferably on a sofa or in the bathtub. Our sophisticated organization is only open to a select few. You, of course, are welcome to join, and so are your friends, and their friends, and friends of their friends. But for anyone else, the Institute is restricted.

My kind of place.

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Told you so.

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The prototype “particle beam cannon” recently completed by Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Modern Physics may sound like science fiction, but it is a novel new technology that promises to recycle dangerous waste produced by a nuclear reactor. A product of China’s huge investment in advanced nuclear-energy systems, the breakthrough could move the country toward energy independence and further cement its global leadership in climate-friendly technology.

In a typical fission reactor, atoms of heavy isotopes such as uranium-235 are broken apart, releasing energy. The process also releases extra neutrons, which collide with other atoms and break them apart in a chain reaction. The broken atoms are spent fuel that is cooled for a few years and then carefully stored for a few centuries. But a proposed new type of reactor built with this “cannon”—formally, a proton accelerator—could recycle this spent fuel, making it cheaper and safer to generate electricity.