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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.

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Brown University researchers have developed a new material that they hope will one day swiftly deliver drugs to stop infections in wounds — but activate only when there are bacteria around to kill.

The new gel material will release its drugs only in the presence of a specific enzyme that bacteria release. Working only as-needed and with a guaranteed target may help improve patient safety, treatment efficacy, and prevent bacteria from evolving resistance.

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This creeps me out.

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We have the technology.

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Using CRISPR-Cas9, they switched off an enzyme in tomatoes that ordinarily prevents the molecular forerunner of vitamin D3 (called 7-dehydrocholesterol, or 7-DHC) from accumulating in the plant.

The result is a tomato plant that, when exposed to ultraviolet light (like from the Sun), creates massive amounts of the prized vitamin in its leaves and, more usefully for us, also a fair amount in the fruit.

Cue meltdown by Eco-Nazis.

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Pathfinder 3, a huge all-electric airship designed by LTA Research, is in the final planning stages in Akron. Prototype carbon fiber and titanium framing has been put together inside the airdock for testing. Pilots are undergoing flight training using sophisticated simulators. And the airdock itself is undergoing renovations and updating.

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Recently, a tiny group of people with rectal cancer saw their disease vanish after experimental treatment.

It was a very small trial done by doctors at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, wherein the patients took a drug called dostarlimab for six months. At the end of their trial, every single one of their tumors disappeared.

Now, in another breakthrough, a new compound synthesized by Dr. Jung-Mo Ahn, a University of Texas at Dallas researcher, has been found to kill a broad spectrum of hard-to-treat cancers, including triple-negative breast cancer, leaving healthy cells unscathed.

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Jonathan Weissman and collaborators used their single-cell sequencing tool Perturb-seq on every expressed gene in the human genome, linking each to its job in the cell.

That’s necessary but not sufficient. We also need a map of how the non-gene sequences determine how genes are expressed. Still, it’s a great step forward.

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UPDATE: NHTSA upgrades Tesla Autopilot probe, could lead to recall

UPDATE: NHTSA Upgrades Probe of Autopilot Teslas Colliding With Emergency Vehicles, Increasing Possibility of Recall

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Robots get all the good stuff.

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Researchers have crystallized the enzyme that makes the natural product stevia taste 200 times as sweet as sugar. The enzyme is a uridine diphosphate–dependent glucosyltransferase, UGT76G1, and it catalyzes the addition of branched glucosides to compounds in stevia.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

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A small NYC-led cancer trial has achieved a result reportedly never before seen – the total remission of cancer in all of its patients.

To be sure, the trial — led by doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering and backed by drug maker GlaxoSmithKline — has only completed treatment of 12 patients, with a specific cancer in its early stages and with a rare mutation as well.

But the results, reported Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine and the New York Times, were still striking enough to prompt multiple physicians to tell the paper they were believed to be unprecedented.

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source of a marine compound that had long shown promise as an anti-cancer drug — but wasn’t able to be found in enough quantities in nature or synthesized in a lab.

The source of the compound, called eleutherobin, has been vexing drug discoverers for a quarter century, until it was found in common soft corals off the Florida coast — a mile from the researcher’s brother’s apartment.

The researchers were able to take the first steps towards recreating how the soft corals produce eleutherobin, opening the door to potentially synthesizing the compound in large amounts in the future, once they figure out the rest of the “recipe.”

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A cancer trial has reportedly become the first in the world to completely remove the disease in every patient, according to a study published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study, titled “PD-1 Blockade in Mismatch Repair—Deficient, Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer” was conducted among 12 rectal cancer patients, all of which had a “clinical complete response,” according to the authors, led by Dr. Andrea Cercek of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City.

Doctors have been unable to see any evidence of tumors among the patients when using magnetic resonance imaging, fludeoxyglucose F 18 injections, physical examinations, or via endoscopic evaluations, according to researchers.

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An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but – as a bonus – apples will greet good gut bacteria with open arms. And that’s because researchers recently uncovered evidence that apples build a community of healthy bacteria in the colon. This is due to their high content of non-digestible compounds, including fiber and polyphenols. While the health benefits of eating apples have been known for years, researchers recently began evaluating the various varieties for differences in the amount of non-digestible compounds they contained, hoping the result could bring new hope to obese individuals. As it turns out, Granny Smith apples are a cut above the rest.

Take whatever action you deem appropriate.

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Everythin’ goin’ be plastic bye ‘n’ bye….

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At first glance, hypnosis seems like one of those psychological phenomena that just shouldn’t work. What makes it so interesting is that it often does. Entering a hypnotic state, focusing intently and listening to a suggestion is, for many people, enough to make that suggestion a reality.

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

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Startup Formo uses genetically modified microorganisms to produce a completely lab-grown milk that can be made into cheese.

Decide for yourself whether this is ‘real’ cheese. (I think not.)

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With all of its regional neighbors having recently either repatriated large quantities of gold (Germany and Austria), or bought large quantities of gold (Poland and Hungary), it seems that the Czech Republic has now taken note and does not want to be left out of this Central European gold rush.

The guys at MIT are rocking it.

The suitcase-sized device, which requires less power to operate than a cell phone charger, can also be driven by a small, portable solar panel, which can be purchased online for around $50. It automatically generates drinking water that exceeds World Health Organization quality standards. The technology is packaged into a user-friendly device that runs with the push of one button.

UPDATE: Lost at sea? This desalination unit fits in a suitcase

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To some, the whole notion of wireless power transmission evokes images of Nikola Tesla with high-voltage coils spewing miniature bolts of lightning. This wouldn’t be such a silly connection to make. Tesla had indeed pursued the idea of somehow using the ground and atmosphere as a conduit for long-distance power transmission, a plan that went nowhere. But his dream of sending electric power over great distances without wires has persisted.

…

Can the same basic physics be harnessed to replace wires today? My colleagues and I at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, in Washington, D.C., think so, and here are some of the reasons why.

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Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have now demonstrated a low-cost gel film that can pull many liters of water per day out of even very dry air.

The gel is made up of two main ingredients that are cheap and common – cellulose, which comes from the cell walls of plants, and konjac gum, a widely used food additive. Those two components work together to make a gel film that can absorb water from the air and then release it on demand, without requiring much energy.

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It will help decarbonise industry, produce greener concrete and make hydrogen.

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The drug candidate, called CF33-hNIS (aka Vaxinia), is what’s called an oncolytic virus, a genetically modified virus designed to selectively infect and kill cancer cells while sparing healthy ones.

In the case of CF33-hNIS, the modified pox virus works by entering cells and duplicating itself. Eventually, the infected cell bursts, releasing thousands of new virus particles that act as antigens, stimulating the immune system to attack nearby cancer cells.

Previous research in animal models has shown the drug can harness the immune system in this way to hunt and destroy cancer cells, but up until now no testing has been done in humans.

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The guys at MIT are on a roll.

According to the International Desalination Association, more than 300 million people around the world now get their drinking water from the sea. With climate change exacerbating water scarcity globally, seawater desalination is stepping in to fill the void. But whereas commercial desalination plants are designed to meet large-scale demand, there is also a need for portable systems that can be carried into remote regions or set up as stand-ins for municipal water works in the wake of a disaster.

A group of scientists from MIT has developed just such a portable desalination unit; it’s the size of a medium suitcase and weighs less than 10 kilograms. The unit’s one-button operation requires no technical knowledge. What’s more, it has a completely filter-free design. Unlike existing portable desalination systems based on reverse osmosis, the MIT team’s prototype does not need any high-pressure pumping or maintenance by technicians.

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And you’ll be amazed at what it will do to your electronic devices.

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Honey may be one of the oldest forms of natural medicine. Its wound healing and antimicrobial properties can be found mentioned in some of our oldest medical literature. The Bible mentions it in proverbs 16:24 “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine who is turning a few thousand RPMs in his grave, was convinced that honey had a variety of healing properties, and he would use it in many of his treatments. He would treat pain with a combination of honey and vinegar. He also encouraged his patients to drink Mead, one of the oldest alcoholic beverages made by fermenting honey with water grains and other spices, the Greeks would refer to it as the “nectar of the gods”.

UPDATE: Beewise.

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Cave explorers stumbled upon a prehistoric forest at the bottom of a giant sinkhole in South China earlier this month. Sinkholes such as these are also known in Chinese as Tiankeng, or “Heavenly pit.”

At 630 feet deep, the sinkhole would hide the Washington Monument and then some. The bottom of the pit holds an ancient forest spanning nearly three football fields in length, with trees towering over 100 feet high. And according to the Chinese government, it is one of 30 enormous sinkholes in the county.

Soon to be a major motion picture in the Marvel Universe?

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This is pretty slick.

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Five years ago, a startup called Semtive Energy took the concept of a wind turbine, shrank it down to the size of a garden shrub, and started marketing it directly to households; much like rooftop solar panels, the mini turbine is intended to help homeowners rely less on the grid and produce their own clean energy.

Now another startup has taken a wind turbine, shrunk it down even more, and is marketing it to people who truly are off the grid—that is, hikers, campers, climbers, and others spending time in nature. Just under a year ago, Aurea Technologies launched a Kickstarter campaign for Shine, “an ultra-compact lightweight wind turbine that offers unrivaled performance for outdoor enthusiasts who need to recharge electronic devices.”

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Since we have at least a couple more years of Sloe Joe, this might prove handy.

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A future where machines handle hard work with incredible speed and accuracy seems great. But can the labor market afford automation to this extent without skyrocketing unemployment? What will millions of people do when their labor is no longer necessary?

Many of them will have been aborted before we have to worry about it. The rest will be receiving every-more-generous welfare benefits (which is why automation is becoming increasingly popular).