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“The main rate-limiting factor holding back global demining efforts is not the actual removal of buried landmines,” researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in Microbial Biotechnology last October, “but rather pinpointing their exact locations.”

Current landmine detection methods mostly require people to be put in harm’s way, the authors say, but they have a possible solution: glowing bacteria.

In the presence of a telltale explosive chemical, these genetically modified E. coli become like “a miniature firefly,” Hebrew University microbiologist Shimshon Belkin told the New York Times’ Elizabeth Landau.

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A team of researchers affiliated with multiple institutions in China has developed a micro-fiber based metafabric that provides wearers with daytime radiative cooling. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes making their fabric and their test results.

Arabs and Texans will be glad.

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University of California, Berkeley, chemists have discovered a way to simplify the removal of toxic metals. like mercury and boron. during desalination to produce clean water, while at the same time potentially capturing valuable metals, such as gold.

Read it.

We have the technology.

Check it out.

An amazing resource.

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As always, mice get all of the best stuff.

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The report details use of the NetWire malware, traces its installation to a specific email from February 2016, and offers evidence of extensive communication with a command-and-control server. It also identifies 14 documents that were delivered to a hidden folder by NetWire. That folder was later moved from a volume created by NetWire onto the laptop’s main Windows volume.

The documents are emails to and from Gadling, many of which detail planned operations, discuss funding those operations, identify “soft targets” to be targeted, and mention other activists who can assist in these endeavours.

Arsenal’s report states that none of the 14 documents “were ever interacted with in any legitimate way on Mr. Gadling’s computer, either in their original location on the tertiary volume or in their current location on the Windows volume.”

Nor could the firm find any evidence that the documents were ever opened!

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Cue Eco-Nazi demonstrations.

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Incorporating nanomaterials into traditional cement improves water and fracture resistance.

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Scientists have invented a product that can encourage tooth enamel to grow back, which means we could finally have a game-changing way to treat dental cavities.

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It won’t do anything about Biden, because he’s a pain in the ass, not the back.

Pity.

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West Virginian lawmakers have eliminated the sales tax on all small firearms and ammunition and are also offering weapon manufacturers tax credits in hopes of sparking an economic boom, according to local news WOWK.

…

Already, one bullet manufacturer, Ranger Scientific, recently announced it would be building an ammo plant in the state because of the new law. The new plant will provide 400 jobs to residents in Montgomery.

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I’ll bet you didn’t know that cow stomachs can break down plastic.

Nor will you ever hear this news from the Narrative Media.

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The therapy appears to be astonishingly effective, editing nearly every cell in the liver to stop a disease-causing mutation.

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Amongst the changes that “lockdowns” and “new normality” have brought, there is a revalorization of digital interactions as valuable and meaningful. Ironically, what was once regarded as isolationist or a poor substitute for “real life” (an expression used as an interchangeable semantic proxy for “in-person”) experiences, has become the glue that holds the social fabric together.

Connecting in and through digital spaces has been a staple of 2020: from work or formal education moving to online alternatives, to recreational uses of video platforms. In these virtual spaces, human ingenuity has found new testing grounds to deal with the challenges presented by the pandemic. It can be a thoughtful provocation to say that since lockdowns started, we might have been living in a proto-version of the Metaverse.

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It is not only the first time in 2,000 years that the area — described as the “heart” of the building — has been open; since the underground levels, or “hypogea,” were where gladiators and animals waited before going into combat, this is the first time in the monument’s history that the public has ever been allowed in.
Now, tourists will be able to walk through the passageways on a wooden platform and admire the corridors and archways which interconnected the hypogea between the rooms where gladiators and animals waited, before entering the elevators which would catapult them onto the arena.

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Vance, whose book was seen in 2016 as helping explain Donald Trump’s appeal to struggling white, working-class voters, plans a “special announcement” and rally at the steel fabricator Middletown Tube Works in his Ohio hometown on Thursday. ABC News reported.

Vance, a venture capitalist who became a popular TV political commentator, was dubbed “the Trump whisperer” for his ability to explain the Republican’s rise to the presidency. His book became a Ron Howard-directed movie

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A prominent conservative has finally launched a payment processor so Americans won’t have to worry about PayPal or other woke corporations blacklisting them.

The pro-free speech payment processor solves a critical problem for the conservative movement online. “Dan Bongino and I have formed an entity, Liberatio Protocol LLC. Liberatio means liberation, and our launch of AlignPay represents our first investment in our Align For Freedom ecosystem,” strategic investor Jeffrey Wernick declared on Bongino.com. AlignPay described itself on its website as a “new payment processing solution that’s built for freedom and driven by the time-tested American conviction that everyone – no matter their race, religion, gender, or ideology – has the right to pursue happiness and live the American dream.”

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The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday in a Houston case that Facebook is not a “lawless no-man’s-land” and can be held liable for the conduct of pimps who use its technology to recruit and prey on children.

The ruling came in a trio of Houston civil actions involving teenage trafficking victims who met their abusive pimps through Facebook’s messaging functions. They sued the California-based social media juggernaut for negligence and product liability, saying that Facebook failed to warn about or attempt to prevent sex trafficking from taking place on its internet platforms. The suits also alleged that Facebook benefited from the sexual exploitation of trafficking victims.

The justices said trafficking victims can move forward with lawsuits on the grounds that Facebook violated a provision of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code passed in 2009.

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

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Hint: Eat protein first.

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Don’t ever say we never have useful stuff here.

REMINDER: WD-40 IS NOT A LUBRICANT.

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he face of nuclear energy is changing, and one of the companies working to redefine what nuclear energy looks like is Oklo. The 22-person Silicon Valley start-up has a plan to build mini-nuclear reactors, powered by the waste of conventional nuclear reactors and housed in aesthetically pleasing A-frame structures.

“Microreactors are an exciting innovation that completely flips the technology story for nuclear energy,” Alex Gilbert, a project manager for nuclear power think tank the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, told CNBC.

But, of course, not everyone is happy about that: Nuclear energy isn’t a safe bet in a warming world – here’s why

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Each year, Apple becomes more involved in the health and fitness industry. It’s become a major player with products like Apple Watch and AirPods and services like Fitness+ and Research. Currently, Apple has working out, mental health, women’s health, heart health, blood oxygen measurements, and even hearing covered. But they’re missing one very important component of the healthy life story, and that’s nutrition and cooking.

To complement the Fitness app, Apple should create a nutrition-focused one. I think it’d be called something along the lines of “Apple Kitchen,” and it’d have an accompanying service called “Apple Kitchen+.”

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A new study by engineers at MIT, Caltech, and ETH Zürich shows that “nanoarchitected” materials — materials designed from precisely patterned nanoscale structures — may be a promising route to lightweight armor, protective coatings, blast shields, and other impact-resistant materials.

The researchers have fabricated an ultralight material made from nanometer-scale carbon struts that give the material toughness and mechanical robustness. The team tested the material’s resilience by shooting it with microparticles at supersonic speeds, and found that the material, which is thinner than the width of a human hair, prevented the miniature projectiles from tearing through it.

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Researchers had previously thought that a human signaling protein, called interleukin 11 (IL-11), may help livers damaged by acetaminophen toxicity — but this new study found just the opposite.

“This discovery could have implications for treating drug-induced liver failure, which can cause death if a liver transplant is not possible,” Duke-NUS professor of cardiovascular medicine and IL-11 expert Stuart Cook said in a statement.

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I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

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Let’s check out Biden.

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Graphically design your farm by dragging and dropping plants into the map. The game-like interface is learned in just a few minutes so you’ll have the whole growing season planned in no time.

And it will only cost you ten times the wage of an illegal immigrant. (When it’s actually available, of course, which it isn’t really, yet, but Real Soon Now….)

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I find this vaguely disturbing.

How long before they can 3D-print a replacement?

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A trio of boffins at the Georg August University Göttingen and Münster University have put together a low-cost yet high-resolution microscope for educational users – using smartphone parts and Lego bricks.

We have the technology.

Read it.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that a state law permitting labor union organizers to enter farmland without permission to try to organize workers was unconstitutional under the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.

The ruling was 6 to 3.

In Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, the court considered a California regulation that allowed union agents to “take access” to farmland for up to three hours a day, 120 days per year in order to try to unionize workers.

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In a landmark decision on campus free speech, the Supreme Court today ruled in an 8 to 1 vote in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. that students’ social media speech conducted off campus is protected by the First Amendment.

The high school student, identified as B.L. in the lawsuit, initially sued the Mahanoy Area School District after her school kicked her off the cheerleading squad due to a profane rant about school that she posted to Snapchat. B.L. made the junior varsity cheer team, not the varsity one, and used a four-letter word regarding her school in a Snapchat post expressing her frustration; she was off campus when posting the Snapchat on a weekend day. A lower court decided that the school overstepped by kicking B.L. off of the junior varsity squad, but the school district appealed.

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Due to an abundance of one specific type of DVD drives, plans were made to give a useful afterlife to these devices. A laser scanning microscope seemed to be the most useful project.

Be the first on your block….

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There are windows of opportunity in nature, and one of my annual favorites is “sugaring time.” In late winter, tree sap begins to flow, and from the right trees, this sap can be collected and concentrated into a very special (and very delicious) caloric resource—sweet tree syrup. Most of us focus on how to make maple syrup during this window. But maple trees are just the beginning. Here’s what you need to know about the history of tree tapping and the basics on how to tap trees for syrup.

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Thank God. I look forward to the day when I don’t need to explain what I want to a person whose first language is not English over a bad audio system.

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Cue hysteria by Eco-Nazis.

Cue shakedown by government bureaucrats.

Cue lawsuits by The Usual Suspects.

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And Oregan has SO many people who would benefit society by being composted….

For example, everybody living west of the Hood River County – Klamath County line.

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Copenhagen startup Seaborg Technologies has raised an eight-figure sum of Euros to start building a fascinating new type of cheap, portable, flexible and super-safe nuclear reactor. The size of a shipping container, these Compact Molten Salt Reactors will be rapidly mass-manufactured in their thousands, then placed on floating barges to be deployed worldwide – on timelines that will smash paradigms in the energy industry.

Like other molten salt reactors, which have been around since the 1950s, they’re designed to minimize the consequences of accidents, with a pair of very neat passive safety measures the company claims can greatly change the safety equation at the heart of any nuclear power investment.

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Silicon Valley’s most valuable startup told employees they could leave its offices in New York and San Francisco to work remotely from cheaper locales, and many took the deal — despite the catch that they’d be forced to take a 10-percent salary cut.

Stripe, an online payments company valued at $95 billion, said in September that workers who moved to work elsewhere permanently would get a one-time bonus of $20,000 but also a permanent salary cut.

Now, the company’s CEO says many of the company’s 4,000-plus workers took the deal.

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Proteins are molecular origami at its finest. Classically, a protein is imagined as a chain of amino acids that folds into a single stable configuration, one that evolution has selected over the ages for a particular function. But in the last few years, biophysicists have learned how numerous and extraordinary the exceptions to that rule are — including some two-faced proteins that can refold as needed in an instant.

Life as we know it only uses a fraction of the tools available in theory.

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

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Process developed at MIT could turn concentrated brine into useful chemicals, making desalination more efficient.

I’m astonished that they’re not already using it to make gourmet sea salt.

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O’Rourke became a national celebrity in 2018 by failing to defeat Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and a national embarrassment in 2020 by launching a presidential campaign on the cover of Vanity Fair before failing to receive a single vote in the Democratic primary. He is reportedly considering a failed run for governor.

In addition to having a teaching gig at Texas State University, the failed politician has become a community organizer of sorts, registering voters and rallying local Democrats to support the national party’s campaign against so-called Republican voter suppression.

Texas gets hot in the summer, so this line of work involves a lot of perspiration, even for the average Democrat. O’Rourke, however, is anything but average when it comes to his capacity to sweat. The opening line of a 2018 BuzzFeed puff piece described him as a “prolific, prodigious sweater.”

We do what we must, because we can.

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

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In the last few years, law enforcement has begun to cash in on modern genetic technology in a new and more powerful way, one that works on perps that have been careful enough to avoid being genotyped.

The perp’s DNA sample is matched against a large database of genome sequences, and if a moderately long subsequence is identical-by-descent, it’s clear that the perp and the matching person in the database share fairly recent common ancestry. The degree of sharing shows, approximately, how recent that common ancestry is.

It doesn’t matter whether you’ve gotten your genes sequenced — if any of your relatives have, you’re under the spotlight.

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Researchers claim to have invented an experimental breath mint that may renew tooth enamel and strengthen teeth, and it’s already headed into human trials.

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After a decade of searching, the UC San Francisco scientists who identified the only human gene known to promote “natural short sleep” – lifelong, nightly sleep that lasts just four to six hours yet leaves individuals feeling fully rested – have discovered a second.

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In a major scientific leap, University of Queensland researchers have created a quantum microscope that can reveal biological structures that would otherwise be impossible to see.

This paves the way for applications in biotechnology, and could extend far beyond this into areas ranging from navigation to medical imaging.

The microscope is powered by the science of quantum entanglement, an effect Einstein described as “spooky interactions at a distance.”

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We have the technology … presumably.