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Archaeologists once believed the ancient Amazon rainforest was an inhospitable place, sparsely populated by bands of hunter-gatherers. But the remains of enormous earthworks, pyramids, and roads from Bolivia to Brazil discovered over the past 2 decades have proved conclusively that the Amazon was home to large, complex societies long before European colonizers arrived. Now, there’s evidence that another human society—the oldest yet—left its mark on the region: A dense network of interconnected cities, now hidden beneath the forest in Ecuador’s Upano Valley, has been revealed by the laser mapping technology called lidar. The settlements, described today in Science, are at least 2500 years old, more than 1000 years older than any other known complex Amazonian society.

Lidar, which allows researchers to see through forest cover and reconstruct the ancient sites below, “is revolutionizing our understanding of the Amazon in pre-Columbian times,” says Carla Jaimes Betancourt, an archaeologist at the University of Bonn who wasn’t involved in the new work. Finding such an ancient urban network in the Upano Valley highlights the long-unrecognized diversity of ancient Amazonian cultures, which archaeologists are just beginning to be able to reconstruct.

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Around the world, people celebrate Public Domain Day on January 1, the day in which copyright expires on some older works and they enter the public domain in many different countries.

In the U.S. Constitution, copyright terms were meant to be very limited in order to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” The first copyright act, written in 1790 by the founding fathers themselves, set the term to be up to twenty-eight years.

But since then, powerful corporations have repeatedly extended the length of copyright to promote not the progress of society, but their profit. The result is that today in the U.S., work only enters the public domain ninety-five years after publication—locking our culture away for nearly a century.

2019 was the year in which new works were finally scheduled to enter the public domain, ending this long, corporate-dictated cultural winter. And as that year drew closer, it became clear that these corporations wouldn’t try to extend copyright yet again—making it the first year in almost a century in which a significant amount of art and literature once again entered the U.S. public domain, free for anyone in the U.S. to read, use, share, remix, build upon, and enjoy.

Ever since then, we’ve been celebrating Public Domain Day by preparing some of the year’s biggest literary hits for you to read on January 1.

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The human brain is one of the most metabolically active organs, accounting for about 20 percent of the body’s total energy expenditure. This high level of activity generates significant waste. Smaller byproducts, such as carbon dioxide, urea, and ammonia, diffuse into capillaries and are cleared through the bloodstream. Larger neurotoxic proteins—including beta-amyloid and tau, both widely associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, cannot be eliminated through the bloodstream alone due to their size.

In the past, it was believed that the brain lacked a lymphatic system to remove waste and relied solely on internal mechanisms for clearance.

However, in 2012, researchers discovered a specialized mechanism within the brain, analogous to the lymphatic system and capable of flushing out larger waste products from deep within the brain. This system was named the glymphatic system, a portmanteau of “glial” (referring to glial cells) and “lymphatic.” It is also known as the pseudo-lymphatic system.

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One day in the near future people will look back on this era as the moment that America snatched common sense back from the jaws of unmitigated insanity. Get Woke, Go Broke is becoming a cleansing wind as thousands of companies across the US abandon DEI and social justice programs in an effort to avoid total financial collapse. That said, the last organizations you probably expected to see dumping their woke initiatives are colleges and universities. After all, these “institutions of higher learning” have been ground zero for the woke mind virus for decades.

Surprisingly, even universities are now accepting the reality that social justice is a dead ideology walking. The University of Iowa is following this trend after recently announced that it will be shutting down two social justice related departments and it will eliminate its social justice major as part of an effort to streamline and restructure some humanities offerings.

Politico, a Voice of the Crust.

With a majority of his caucus now calling on him to resign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on a ski holiday, reflecting on whether to stay or go.

Trudeau is way down in the polls and facing challenges from within his party about whether he’s the right leader to unite Canadians. His decision comes as Canada braces for a tariff war when Donald Trump returns to the White House in three weeks.

Canadians will head to the polls in 2025, a federal election that could be triggered in late January if Trudeau’s foes topple the minority government when the House returns from break.

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North Korea’s new warship design has emerged and it appears to be the largest the country has yet constructed. The vessel, which looks to be around the size of a typical modern frigate, or at the least a very large corvette, also appears to be designed to accommodate a vertical launch system (VLS) for missiles and a phased-array radar — two advanced items not previously seen on a North Korean design.

Photos of the new warship, the name of which has not been disclosed, were recently released by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central Television (KCTV). The vessel is seen being inspected by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un while under construction in a dry dock at Nampho Shipyard on the Taedong River estuary, on the west coast of the country.

Watch it.

Every day, in every way, everybody’s going keto.

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“Christmas came early” for the Little Sisters of the Poor earlier this week when the Biden administration dropped its controversial contraceptive healthcare mandate, ostensibly ending the nuns’ 14-year battle over religious liberty with the federal government, the Catholic News Agency reported.

The Department of Health and Human Services on Monday announced its decision to leave in place Trump-era guidelines that allow employers to opt out of birth control coverage over religious or moral objections. The move let stand an existing rule that permits employers to cite “non-religious moral objections” to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to cover contraception.

When Obama said, “If you like your coverage, you can keep your coverage.”, what made that a lie was the fact that, under Obamacare, it didn’t matter how much you liked your coverage — you were going to get the coverage that the government decided you ought to have, whether you could afford it or not.

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“The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world.”

That is the shocking, but true, statement issued by Nigel Farage (on X) as a digital counter on the Reform website showed its membership tally before lunchtime on Boxing Day ticking past the 131,680 figure declared by the Tories during their leadership election earlier this year.

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In something of a stunning development, China appears to already be flying a stealthy, high-performance, flying-wing, sixth-generation crewed combat aircraft, imagery of which began to emerge today. At this early stage, we have very little idea about the precise identity of the new aircraft, but many elements of its design are very much in line with what we already knew about Chinese sixth-generation airpower aspirations.

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Scientists have discovered a remarkable way to destroy cancer cells. A study published last year found stimulating aminocyanine molecules with near-infrared light caused them to vibrate in sync, enough to break apart the membranes of cancer cells.

Aminocyanine molecules are already used in bioimaging as synthetic dyes. Commonly used in low doses to detect cancer, they stay stable in water and are very good at attaching themselves to the outside of cells.

The research team from Rice University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Texas, said their approach is a marked improvement over another kind of cancer-killing molecular machine previously developed, called Feringa-type motors, which could also break the structures of problematic cells.

“It is a whole new generation of molecular machines that we call molecular jackhammers,” said chemist James Tour from Rice University, when the results were published in December 2023.

“They are more than one million times faster in their mechanical motion than the former Feringa-type motors, and they can be activated with near-infrared light rather than visible light.”

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Researchers discovered that the mRNA modification m6A triggers rapid degradation, regulating protein production. This breakthrough could inform drug development to manage protein-related diseases.

Messenger ribonucleic acids (mRNA) are like the architects of our bodies. They carry precise blueprints for building proteins, which are read and assembled by their cellular partners, the ribosomes. Proteins are essential for our survival, as they regulate cell division, bolster the immune system, and make our cells resilient against external threats.

Just like in real-world construction, some cellular blueprints require extra instructions—such as when a protein needs to be produced rapidly or when corrections are needed for a flawed design. In our bodies, this role is fulfilled by RNA modifications. These small chemical changes function like detailed annotations, offering additional guidance to specific parts of the mRNA for optimal protein production.

ZMan:

This was always part of the “invisible man” strategy. Progressive love creating an invisible man to do the dirty work so they can pretend to be observers, commenting upon the natural flow of history. “Some people say you are a polarizing figure” always turns up in whenever a normal person agrees to talk to a crazy from regime media.

Musk buying Twitter has had the unintended effect of buggering up the mechanism these people used to manufacture their invisible men. Not only can they no longer game the algo to artificially get their stuff trending, but many of the crazies also have either quit the game or shuffled off to Bluesky, which has become an isolate echo chamber. They have made themselves in a tree falling in a forest with no one around to heard it fall. Who says there is never any good news?

Nature.

A naturally occurring compound involved in digestion lengthens lifespan in flies and makes old mice more youthful.

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Earlier this week, T-Mobile announced that you can now register to beta test Starlink connectivity on your mobile phone, with actual testing expected to begin early next year – roughly two years after the initial announcement.

Back in 2022, T-Mobile and SpaceX announced a partnership to allow T-Mobile customers to utilize Starlink satellites – in an effort to eliminate deadzones for customers. This required SpaceX to design new direct-to-cell satellites, but according to T-Mobile, there are now more than 300 of them in orbit.

In the press release, T-Mobile announced that these new Starlink satellites will cover more than 500,000 square miles of land that aren’t currently served by cell towers. SpaceX will also continue to launch more of these direct-to-cell satellites over time, though a timeline wasn’t provided for when there’ll be a non-beta rollout.

During the beta, you’ll be able to send text messages – with voice and data support coming later.

Speed the day….

New York Times.

For nearly 250 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was a bookshelf-busting series of gilt-lettered tomes, often purchased to show that its owners cared about knowledge.

It was the sort of physical media expected to die in the internet era, and indeed, the encyclopedia’s publisher announced that it was ending the print edition in 2012. Skeptics wondered how Britannica the company could survive in the age of Wikipedia.

The answer was to adapt to the times.

Britannica Group, as the company is now known, runs websites, including Britannica.com and the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, and sells educational software to schools and libraries. It also sells artificial intelligence agent software that underpins applications like customer service chatbots and data retrieval.

Britannica has figured out not only how to survive, but also how to do well financially. Jorge Cauz, its chief executive, said in an interview that the publisher enjoyed pro forma profit margins of about 45 percent.

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Combining phototherapy with chemotherapy may provide a more powerful approach to combat aggressive tumors effectively.

Patients with late-stage cancer often have to endure multiple rounds of different types of treatment, which can cause unwanted side effects and may not always help.

In hopes of expanding the treatment options for those patients, MIT researchers have designed tiny particles that can be implanted at a tumor site, where they deliver two types of therapy: heat and chemotherapy.

This approach could avoid the side effects that often occur when chemotherapy is given intravenously, and the synergistic effect of the two therapies may extend the patient’s lifespan longer than giving one treatment at a time. In a study of mice, the researchers showed that this therapy completely eliminated tumors in most of the animals and significantly prolonged their survival.

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God forbid you should go through life with a fatty liver.

Read it. And watch the video.

Last week, several Russian first-person view (FPV) drones struck a U.S.-made M1A1 Abrams tank in the Kursk region, but the crew was able to survive. The vehicle’s commander lauded the American armor for saving their lives, but also highlighted some major vulnerabilities it has on today’s drone-drenched battlefield. In particular he offered important insights on how Ukraine is adapting its M1s to survive — lessons that could prove very valuable for the U.S. Army in future conflicts.

…

“Well, we got a luxurious shooting practice (around 100 rounds fired by each gunner) and some good overall knowledge about the tank,” he explained. “But the American instructors AND military were completely unaware of the modern battlefield threats. And still are unaware (I communicate with some of the American tankers and try to share information with them).”

Will Our People fix it? Don’t hold your breath….

The sleeper wakes.

The Polish government of Donald Tusk has adopted a draft law that would allow the country to temporarily suspend the right to claim asylum. The prime minister said the right to asylum “is being used today—especially on the border with Belarus—by Poland’s enemies,” and that by adopting the bill “we are taking back control of Poland’s borders.”

The bill has been in the works for a while, and is intended as a response to actions of neighbouring Belarus: the country has been flying in migrants from the Middle East and Africa in recent years, and sending them to the borders of the EU—Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania—in a bid to destabilise the region. Those three EU member states have accused Russia of complicity.

The number of migrants arriving at the borders of EU member states from Belarus has increased by 66% this year, compared with 2023. In Poland, 28,000 attempted illegal crossings were recorded by the end of October. The EU says 90% of migrants illegally crossing the Poland-Belarus border have a Russian student or tourist visa.

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DARPA’s mission was launched after a decade or so of provocative case reports and small uncontrolled studies that revealed improved mental capacities among various neuromodulation patients. These seemingly enhanced abilities included memory, verbal facility, spatial relations, and combined accuracy and speed on specialized learning tests.

The TNT, or Targeted Neuroplasticity Training program was established to test a series of different technologies to see if any could accelerate learning by enhancing the brain’s curious ability to continuously evolve based on experiences. Neuroplasticity is a fancy term that simply means changing neural connections to improve performance, and it encompasses learning, recall, and applying acquired knowledge.

SciTechDaily.

A Northwestern Medicine study has discovered that metformin, a common Type 2 diabetes medication, works by blocking a key part of the mitochondrial energy production, specifically complex I, which helps lower blood glucose levels.

This breakthrough provides insight into the drug’s mechanism which has been unclear despite its broad usage for over 60 years in treating diabetes, reducing inflammation, and slowing cancer growth.

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An antenna’s shape determines what kind of signals it can work with. So key aspects of its operations are in fact already locked in at manufacturing. However, a new shape-shifting antenna could dynamically adapt to different communications requirements allowing it to do the work of multiple fixed antennas.

The new design is the brainchild of a multidisciplinary team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and was made possible by cutting-edge 3D printing techniques. The antenna features a double spiral made of “shape-memory alloy,” which changes shape when heated or cooled, and can operate effectively at frequencies ranging from 4-11 gigahertz.

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A type of bacteria called Deinococcus radiodurans, nicknamed “Conan the Bacterium” for its ability to survive the harshest of extremes, can withstand radiation doses 28,000 times greater than those that would kill a human being — and the secret to its success is rooted in an antioxidant.

Now, scientists have uncovered how the antioxidant works, unlocking the possibility that it could be used to protect the health of humans, both on Earth and those exploring beyond it in the future.

The antioxidant is formed by a simple group of small molecules called metabolites, including manganese, phosphate and a small peptide, or molecule, of amino acids.

Ah, but can it speak with an Austrian accent?

The Register.

The Raspberry Pi is a moral hazard because it’s been far too good to us. For the past 12 years, the Pi series has bombarded the world with extremely affordable, extremely useful computers designed purely to promote education, innovation and the democratization of digital skills.

The full spectrum of geekery, from precocious prepubescents to CEOs of specialist technical companies, has grown to expect an endless stream of well-engineered hardware backed by a mainstream software stack and a thriving ecosystem. From the $4 Pi Pico microcontroller to the new $90 Pi 500 complete desktop computer, Raspberry is what an Apple run by Steve Woz instead of Jobs might have looked like.

As a result, we Pi fans have been spoiled rotten. We don’t see the profound challenge of mastering cheap, powerful and manufacturable at scale – the impossible triangle that sank most of the UK’s first generation of computer makers. We complain when consumers can’t get boards during supply chain meltdown because of the insane success of the Pi in commercial use.

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What do cryogenics, butterfat tests, and genetic data have in common? They’re some of the reasons behind the world’s most productive dairy cows. Here’s how it all started.

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A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood altered the balance of mental health in the U.S. population, making generations of Americans more depressed, anxious inattentive or hyperactive. The research estimates that 151 million cases of psychiatric disorder over the past 75 years have resulted from American children’s exposure to lead.

…

“This is the exact approach we have taken in the past to estimate lead’s harms for population cognitive ability and IQ,” McFarland said, noting that the research team previously identified that lead stole 824 million IQ points from the U.S. population over the past century.

Well, that explains Democrats.

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Different researchers have different definitions as to what classifies as a species. It is undisputed that H. sapiens and Neanderthals originate from the same parental species, however studies into Neanderthal genetics and evolution have reignited the debate over whether they should be classed as separate from H. sapiens or rather a subspecies (H. sapiens neanderthalensis).

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

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Three new species of superconductivity were spotted this year, illustrating the myriad ways electrons can join together to form a frictionless quantum soup.

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For millennia, elderberry juice played a role in homegrown medicinal treatments. As it turns out, there may be merit to the use of the juice as a therapeutic beverage that can help lower blood sugar, make weight management easier, and increase a person’s immune system.

In a 2024 trial (via Nutrients), participants were asked to drink elderberry juice for one week. Afterward, their fecal matter was examined to identify any positive gut microbiome changes. Researchers found that the participants’ blood glucose levels had dropped by 24%, potentially because of flavonoids found in elderberry juice called anthocyanins. “This is the first human clinical trial to demonstrate that daily consumption of EBJ [elderberry juice] for one week significantly increases gut microbial communities associated with health benefits for the host,” according to Christy Teets, a scientific assistant from Washington State University who worked on the project (per Nutraceutical Business Review).

This is why your father smelled of elderberries.

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Many of today’s refrigerators and air conditioners have a fundamental flaw. Most coolers operate by vapor compression, relying on a fluid to absorb heat and wick it away. Vapor compression tech is cheap and proven, but it’s also inefficient and about as downsizable as a 1950s vacuum-tube computer. Plus, its workhorse fluids—in particular, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)—often enter the atmosphere as potent greenhouse gases.

Fortunately, there are a few solid-state alternatives to vapor compression that avoid these problems. More than just cleaning up refrigerators’ acts, the alternatives could create cooling devices in miniature, small enough to fit in a pocket. One such alternative relies on solid materials that change temperature under an electric field: what scientists call the electrostatic effect.

Researchers have now created arguably the most successful demonstration yet of an electrocaloric component. Relying on a ceramic multilayer capacitor, this regenerative heat exchanger (a.k.a. regenerator) features a difference in temperature more than 50 percent greater than any electrocaloric that preceded it.

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A decade ago, thermoelectric heating—which relies on the thermoelectric effect, in which electrons are pulled from one material to an adjacent material when both are heated—still required toxic or rare materials such as lead and tellurium. Because the thermoelectric effect is reversible, it also opens the door to cooling, with none of the environmental impact of using liquid refrigerants, or requiring industrial waste heat to be recovered as electricity.

However, the thermoelectric effect is so small in most materials and for small temperature differences that its real-world use so far has been mostly in space vehicles and for precisely controlling the temperature of donated organs for transplant. Researchers use a dimensionless quantity called ZT to describe the strength of the thermoelectric effect in any combination of materials. Two decades ago, combinations such as lead and tellurium yielded ZT values of around 1. After ten years, the search for new, more complex, and more effective materials had yielded ZT values of 2. In 2009, thermoelectrics researcher Cronin Vining wrote in Nature Materials that “commercial quantities of materials and/or efficient devices…does not seem imminent.”

But since then, materials scientists have been reporting more and more materials, such as tin selenide, and half a dozen other combinations, that lend themselves well to the thermoelectric effect.

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Last week, the Biden administration passed a rule allowing for the government healthcare programs Medicare and Medicaid coverage of a class of weight-loss drugs that promises to help millions of people lose weight and become healthier. This decision by the White House begs the question: Why wait until after the election to pass a popular proposal that will help millions of working-class Americans afford weight-loss drugs they currently cannot afford to purchase themselves?

A lot of the press analysis portrays this White House decision as a shot by President Biden at the incoming Trump administration, forcing the potential new Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has cast doubt on the benefits of these drugs, to either keep this Biden era provision or take critical medical coverage away from millions of working-class Americans who rely on government subsidized healthcare.

But my clear understanding of the White House decision to cover GLP-1 weight loss and diabetes drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic/Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro/Zepbound is that this was not a shot at the incoming Trump administration, but rather, a willingness of the president and the vice president to rebuke the progressive wing of the Democratic Party which has vociferously opposed this new policy. Indeed, lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have waged a personal crusade against the makers of these drugs to reduce their profits.

New Atlas.

A self-propagating series of explosions, contained between the blades of a high-speed rotor, promises a leap in power and efficiency during hypersonic flight – provided this radical new engine can be built strong enough to withstand its own power.

SciTechDaily.

A new study on human brain evolution reveals that modern humans, Neanderthals, and other recent relatives in our evolutionary lineage developed larger brains at a significantly faster rate compared to earlier species.

The study, published in the journal PNAS, overturns long-standing ideas about human brain evolution. Scientists from the University of Reading, the University of Oxford, and Durham University found that brain size increased gradually within each ancient human species rather than through sudden leaps between species.

The team assembled the largest-ever dataset of ancient human fossils spanning 7 million years and used advanced computational and statistical methods to account for gaps in the fossil record. These innovative approaches provided the most comprehensive view yet of how brain size evolved over time.

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What do you get when the world’s third richest man buys Tolkien’s local? Oxford is about to find out.

The Eagle & Child is Oxford’s most storied inn. It was here that the Inklings met every Tuesday lunchtime – a writing group including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Hugo Dyson, a lecturer in English who infamously dismissed one plot twist in the Lord of the Rings with “Not another —ing elf!”.
Larry Ellison is the billionaire behind US database giant Oracle. He owns the sixth largest island in Hawaii, hired Steve Jobs as his wedding photographer, and was compared to a lawnmower by a disgruntled ex-Oracle engineer. He also doesn’t drink.

All this makes him an unusual candidate for an Oxford pub landlord. But then the new Eagle & Child is going to be an unusual pub.

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Imagine our early human ancestors standing in the ancient landscapes of southern Jordan, thoughtfully examining rocks before deciding which ones to use for their tools.

It turns out they weren’t just grabbing any stone that was easy to break; they had specific preferences and technical skills in choosing the right material.

Archaeologists Eiki Suga and Seiji Kadowaki have been exploring this fascinating aspect of early human behavior.

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How convenient.

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he work carried out by a team at the University of Science and Technology of China achieved a new record for storage density in diamonds, at 1.85 terabytes per cubic centimeter.

As impressive as the storage capacity is, the researchers believe this can be eclipsed by the staying power. It has been claimed the diamond system can hold data for millions of years, due to the technique used to encode information within the atomic structure of the diamond.

As published in Nature Photonics, the scientific breakthrough extends beyond the significant density capacity with marked improvement in read times. The team indicated high-speed readout showed a fidelity of over 99%

The Foundry.

According to both CBS News and The Guardian, thousands of Haitian immigrants in the city of Springfield, Ohio, are rushing to Chicago, New York City, and other “sanctuary” locations before Trump is sworn into office and initiates his pledged mass deportation program.

Springfield, a city of less than 60,000, has been crippled ever since the outgoing Biden-Harris administration imported roughly 20,000 Haitian immigrants into the municipality starting in 2021. The city has seen a drastic rise in housing costs and traffic accidents and has been forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to accommodate the immigrants, who were granted “temporary protected status” by the Biden-Harris administration.

Many Haitians in Springfield have taken Trump’s promise of mass deportations—to be enacted by his new “border czar,” former Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director and immigration hardliner Tom Homan—seriously. Trump has vowed to terminate the temporary protected status granted to the Haitians, causing many to leave the Ohio city that Trump mentioned during a presidential debate. Popular destinations for the immigrants include Chicago, New York City, Boston, Canada, and even Brazil, where many Haitian migrants had previously been granted temporary asylum before illegally entering the U.S.

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The battle against Alzheimer’s has recently taken a controversial turn. Long-held theories about its cause are being challenged, sparking heated debates.

Now, emerging research points to the possibility that Alzheimer’s is actually an immune system disorder.

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Our records of the human genome may still be missing tens of thousands of ‘dark’ genes. These hard-to-detect sequences of genetic material can code for tiny proteins, some involved in disease processes like cancer and immunology, a global consortium of researchers has confirmed.

They may explain why past estimates of our genome’s size were way larger than what the Human Genome Project discovered 20 years ago.

The new international study, still awaiting peer review, shows our library of human genes very much continues to be a work in progress, as more subtle genetic features are picked up with advances in technology, and as continued exploration uncovers gaps and errors in the record.

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New testing done at China’s Shidaowan nuclear power plant has confirmed its ability to be naturally cooled down, an industry-first milestone for achieving commercial-scale inherent safety, according to researchers.

The Shidaowan plant, a demonstration high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor with a pebble-bed module (HTR-PM), went into commercial operation last December.

Shidaowan’s twin 100-MW units house tiny uranium capsules encased in graphite shells about the size of billiard balls (dubbed “pebbles”), which make the energy density of the fuel much lower than in a traditional nuclear reactor with fuel rods. In the pebble design, the nuclear fission reaction occurs more slowly than in conventional reactors, but the fuel can withstand higher temperatures for longer and the heat resulting from the fission reaction is dispersed, enabling a passive cooling process.

The reactor doesn’t rely on large volumes of water in the cooling process—instead, a small amount of helium gas, which can withstand much higher temperatures than water, is piped through the system to naturally cool it down. If the reactor starts to get too hot, its components automatically slow down the nuclear reaction and the system cools. This setup makes such a reactor “meltdown proof,” in concept.

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My wife and I recently had occasion to watch the film The Sand Pebbles, and I was pointing out to her various aspects of how what sailors did Back Then compared to when I was in the Navy.

Newsbusters.

As they carve their turkeys this year, Republicans can be grateful for Donald Trump, mapmaker.

He’s redrawn America’s political geography — not only winning back the White House for himself but pointing the way to victory for his party four years from now.

Before Trump, the major industrial states touching the Great Lakes were out of Republicans’ reach.

Washington Poop.

The research suggests aging isn’t strictly temporal, not solely about minutes and years passing. Once considered a steady, predictable decline, affecting everything in our bodies, everywhere, all at once, aging is much more haphazard than we once thought, starting in different parts of our bodies at different times, possibly long before we’re even thinking about aging.

It’s also personal, occurring at a unique molecular level inside each of us, and the process may be partially within our control. Once we know how our own organs are aging, we may be able to brake or speed that process by how we live.

New York Post.

A movement in a myriad of rural counties across deep blue states such as Illinois and California to split off and form new states appears to be gaining some steam in the wake of the Nov. 5 election.

Conservative residents of the rural regions are taking note of their peers fleeing to lower-taxed and less-regulated red states but they are ready to stay put — pining for a divorce with the urban sectors of their state.

A group dubbed the New Illinois State has drafted a new constitution and championed plans to “Leave Illinois Without Moving.” On Election Day, seven rural counties in Illinois voted to contemplate splitting off from the state.

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The mystery of why life uses molecules with specific orientations has deepened with a NASA-funded discovery that RNA — a key molecule thought to have potentially held the instructions for life before DNA emerged — can favor making the building blocks of proteins in either the left-hand or the right-hand orientation. Resolving this mystery could provide clues to the origin of life. The findings appear in research recently published in Nature Communications.

Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes (catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions). Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acid building blocks in a huge variety of arrangements to make millions of different proteins. Some amino acid molecules can be built in two ways, such that mirror-image versions exist, like your hands, and life uses the left-handed variety of these amino acids. Although life based on right-handed amino acids would presumably work fine, the two mirror images are rarely mixed in biology, a characteristic of life called homochirality. It is a mystery to scientists why life chose the left-handed variety over the right-handed one.

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The agricultural world is witnessing a remarkable transformation, driven by groundbreaking technology. Among the most fascinating innovations is a farming robot equipped with lasers that can destroy hundreds of thousands of weeds in mere hours. This high-tech solution is not just a marvel of engineering but a timely response to persistent challenges in farming, from labor shortages to the environmental impact of chemical herbicides.

By combining artificial intelligence with precision laser technology, companies like Carbon Robotics are reshaping the way farmers tackle one of agriculture’s most labor-intensive tasks. These futuristic machines offer a glimpse into the potential of sustainable farming, where innovation meets efficiency, paving the way for a healthier and more productive future for agriculture.

Associated Press.

Working-class voters helped Republicans make steady election gains this year and expanded a coalition that increasingly includes rank-and-file union members, a political shift spotlighting one of President-elect Donald Trump’s latest Cabinet picks: a GOP congresswoman, who has drawn labor support, to be his labor secretary.

Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer narrowly lost her bid for a second term this month, despite strong backing from union members, a key part of the Democratic base but gravitating in the Trump era toward a Republican Party traditionally allied with business interests.

“Lori’s strong support from both the Business and Labor communities will ensure that the Labor Department can unite Americans of all backgrounds behind our Agenda for unprecedented National Success – Making America Richer, Wealthier, Stronger and more Prosperous than ever before!” Trump said in a statement announcing his choice Friday night.

UPDATE: Trump’s GOP Making Huge Gains With Union Voters