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Now if they can just get them to focus sunlight in order to start forest fires, California will be early adopters.

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

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The Airship 2.0 is certainly a different beast from the zeppelin of 100 years ago. The latest generation relies on non-combustible helium, and bulletproof materials that like vectran, mylar and kevlar to make the balloon both lightweight and durable.

Me want.

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Researchers have demonstrated that they can make a working 3D-printed copy of a key just by listening to how the key sounds when inserted into a lock. And you don’t need a fancy mic — a smartphone or smart doorbell will do nicely if you can get it close enough to the lock.

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Hmmm. That backseat driver sure looks like Big Brother….

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As part of a sweeping, five-year defense plan costing $250 billion, Seoul plans to develop a new class of attack submarine carrying non-nuclear ballistic missiles.

Conventional ballistic missiles are a rarity on submarines. For land-attack missions, most navies arm their undersea boats with cruise missiles, as cruise missiles are more accurate—albeit slower and less powerful—than ballistic missiles are.

But Seoul has some, ahem, unique defense needs owing to the presence on its border of a heavily-armed and belligerent nuclear state. South Korea’s submarines and their hard-hitting ballistic missiles give the country some ability to prevent a North Korean attack.

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

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Using a super porous material to suck up salt from brackish, salty water, researchers were able to sustainably create nearly 40 gallons of clean drinking water per single kilogram of a metal material. Better yet, this drinking water was even cleaner than WHO’s official guidelines.

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According to a press release from ANL, researchers at the lab, working with partners at Northern Illinois University, have discovered a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired final product, and low cost. Ethanol is a particularly desirable commodity because it is an ingredient in nearly all US gasoline and is widely used as an intermediate product in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries.

This could be a game-changer. Ethanol isn’t as energy-dense as petro-fuel, but if they can get the price down low enough people will use it.

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Previous research suggests that it’s much easier for young children to pick up a new language than it may be for their parents or even older siblings. A new study offers a solution to jump that evolutionary hurdle.

Specifically it improves the ability to pick up a language’s sounds. That’s helpful, but not all that much.

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President Trump says he will sign an Executive Order to ease the suffering of those harmed by the pandemic-related shutdowns and to stimulate the economy. Congress has failed to agree on a new package to accomplish these things.

Trump’s Executive Order would include these four components: (1) a payroll tax holiday until the end of the year, (2) an extension of enhanced unemployment benefits until the end of the year, (3) an extension of the eviction moratorium for federal subsidized housing, and (4) a suspension of student loan payments until further notice.

Questions surround the legality of accomplishing at least some of these things via executive order. Trump’s response to that might be, “so sue me.”

Which they won’t dare do, because it would make them look like insensitive assholes.

I’m curious as to how the vast throng of people who look at Trump and see an aging teenager, impulsive and ignorant and bigoted who can barely make it out of bed in the morning, explain this brilliant political move, worthy of Bill Clinton at his prime. I expect that the popping sound you hear in the distance is heads exploding in D.C.

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That would do it for me.

No word as to whether she now has to sleep during the daytime.

I’m curious as to whether the bat looked like Maxine Waters. A lot of bats do.

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A top U.S. intelligence official put out a report today that U.S. adversaries China, Iran, and Russia were trying to influence the 2020 presidential election. Published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, it found both China and Iran want Joe Biden to win the election, while Russia prefers Trump. Can you guess which election meddling bothered the three evening news broadcasts the most?

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Brent Scowcroft is the perfect East Coast Establishment name

Well, except maybe Strobe Talbot….

And maybe Stensfield Turner….

But it’s certainly up there.

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I’ll bet you didn’t know that there was such a thing as competitive lockpicking.

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Sure, why not.

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An NPR report suggests the global response to COVID-19 may have been based on a flawed assumption about the volatility of COVID19. We already know that the model used to initially predict infection and death rates was completely flawed, and now discredited, along with the modeler Neil Ferguson of London’s Imperial College.

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Glucosamine is a polysaccharide that is found naturally in cartilaginous joint tissues, bones, skin, ligaments, and nails, and it is involved in protein and lipid synthesis. In the context of joints, synovial fluid contains glucosamine and occupies the space between joints, helping to reduce the friction of joint surfaces.

The evidence for its usefulness in addressing conditions such as arthritis is, however, small at best, though there is some data for its effectiveness as an anti-inflammatory, according to the results of a randomized clinical trial in 2015 [1].

However, glucosamine supplementation seems to correlate with lower all-cause mortality and other mortality risks, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, respiratory and digestive diseases. A recent analysis published in the journal BMJ showed that glucosamine supplementation conveys around a 15% reduction of all-cause mortality [2]. This is a considerable amount when compared to other lifestyle interventions as well as other supplements. The data gathered is from a large number of people, and the trend of reduced mortality is unmistakable.

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In the past few weeks, a new vocabulary has emerged in parenting groups on social media: pandemic pods, copods, microschools, homeschool pods. All describe cobbled-together groups of students who plan to study at home together this fall as the pandemic creeps into a new academic year.

Homeschooling, this is not. As local and federal governments continue to squabble over the risks of sending kids back to school, parents are frantically gathering groups of similar-age kids to be taught at home. The idea is that they band together to pay for private tuition or delegate supervision to a single parent, allowing the rest to get back to work. Pods should also supply some of the social aspect of school without the infection risk inherent in cramming dozens of kids in a room together.

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Well, shucks.

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“We make decisions based on what customers purchase, as well as the feedback we receive from our customers and Crew Members. If we feel there is need for change, we do not hesitate to take action,” the statement reads.

“Recently we have heard from many customers reaffirming that these name variations are largely viewed in exactly the way they were intended­—as an attempt to have fun with our product marketing. We continue our ongoing evaluation, and those products that resonate with our customers and sell well will remain on our shelves,” the statemtent added.

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I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

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Sometimes the old ways are best.

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Materials that can heal themselves after becoming damaged have opened up some interesting new possibilities over the past decade or so, pointing to a future of scratch-resistant car paints and space ships that can plug their own holes. A newly developed squid-inspired self-healing material is claimed to act faster than most, with the ability to repair itself in just a second.

Soon to be a major motion picture.

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They go for the headlines, the stuff that looks bad, in the hopes they can pin everything on Trump, or deflect criticism from Cuomo in New York, and generally make people afraid. But there’s a lot of stuff happening that doesn’t make it into the headlines or is ignored.

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The fact that the Czech are attempting, with some success, to make the philosophical and political case for self-defense and gun ownership is good news.

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A Chinese biology researcher has taken refuge in China’s San Francisco consulate to evade arrest by the FBI after lying about her connections to the Chinese military to obtain a visa and gain access to the United States.

The revelation came in court documents filed Monday that detailed several instances in which Chinese nationals supposedly lied to hide their military connections in order to obtain U.S. visas.

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“What we showed is: up to four years before these people walk into the hospital, there are already signatures in their blood that show they have cancer,” says Kun Zhang, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego, and a co-author of the study. “That’s never been done before.”

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Even the most expensive bike locks can be compromised in just a few minutes, and mostly serve as deterrents so your ride is a less appealing target. But researchers from Durham University in the UK and the Fraunhofer Institute have created what they’re claiming is the first man-made material that is non-cuttable, by actively destroying tools that are trying to slice through it.

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

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That would be … all of them? Except maybe Hillsdale.

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Nevertheless we still need to PANIC!

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Facebook engineers have developed a new robot that winds fibre-optic cable around existing medium-voltage (MV) power lines, enabling the cost-effective expansion of high-speed internet infrastructure.

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Engineers have developed a new type of hybrid solar energy converter, which uses energy from the Sun to create both electricity and steam. The device reportedly has high efficiency and runs at low cost, allowing industry to make use of a wider spectrum of solar energy.

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Well, that didn’t take long.

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These creatures have evolved special “nanobodies” that may have an edge over human antibodies when it comes to developing a new treatment.

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In a paper in Nature Sustainability, researchers in the laboratory of Chunlei Guo, professor of optics, demonstrate how a burst of femtosecond laser pulses etch the surface of a normal sheet of aluminum into a superwicking (water-attracting), super energy-absorbing material.

Check it out.

“Igor! Where’d I put my stapler?”

There are, of course, instructional YouTube videos.

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Not to mention constant political pressure to raise the minimum wage.

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

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The nation’s largest abortion provider’s political arm is launching ads in Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The ads contrast Biden and Trump’s leadership and highlight how each candidate approaches abortion rights, Axios reports.

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We do get good news occasionally.

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Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey is throwing some of his money at a plan to provide universal basic income for Americans. Dorsey tweeted Thursday that he is donating $3 million to Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.

I’d be more in favor of this if I didn’t know that it’s just a big step toward making taxpayers pay for the greater program if the results can even possibly be spun in that direction.

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Energy Transfer LP said it’s not making any moves to empty its Dakota Access oil pipeline after a judge on Monday ordered the conduit shut while a more robust environmental review is conducted.

The Dallas-based company run by billionaire Kelcy Warren said it’s also accepting requests for space on the pipeline in August. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had ordered the pipeline to be drained by Aug. 5.

“We are not shutting in the line,” Energy Transfer spokeswoman Vicki Granado said in an email when asked if the company had begun emptying the pipeline. Judge James E. Boasberg “we believe exceeded his authority and does not have the jurisdiction to shut down the pipeline or stop the flow of crude oil.”

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That’s going to chap some buns.

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The swine!

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Let’s hope to God it works better than their cars.

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Well, I’m glad that’s settled.

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n a rare unanimous decision for the US Supreme Court, on Monday the nine Justices ruled unanimously that states can require presidential electors to back their states’ popular vote winner in the Electoral College. The ruling arose out of a case from Washington state, essentially gives states the right to outlaw so-called “faithless electors” who cast their votes for people other than those chosen by their voters.

Of course, that wasn’t the system the Founders set up, but hey, nobody cares about that any more.

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If the Democrats were hoping that the pandemic would trash Trump’s performance on the economy, this will come as a bitter pill.