The War Zone.

The U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Preble used its High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system to down four drones in a demonstration last year, Lockheed Martin has shared. Earlier this month, the Navy’s top officer said his goal is for directed energy weapons to become the go-to choice for warship crews when it comes to defending against close-in threats. However, the service has continued to face significant hurdles in fielding operational laser weapon systems.

“Speaking of amazing technology, we successfully used a shipboard laser system, Lockheed Martin’s HELIOS, to knock an incoming UAV [uncrewed aerial vehicle] right out of the sky,” the company’s CEO Jim Taiclet said during a quarterly earnings call last week. “The HELIOS weapon system successfully neutralized four drone threats in a U.S. Navy-operated counter-UAS [uncrewed aerial systems] demonstration at sea, showcasing an opportunity to eliminate drone attacks using lasers, and saving U.S. and allied air defense missiles for more advanced threats.”

Read it.

Surgeons in Chicago kept a patient alive for two days by creating an artificial lung system, according to a Northwestern Medicine press release.

In Spring 2023, a Missouri resident was flown to Northwestern Memorial Hospital on advanced life support due to an influenza-associated lung failure that escalated into a rapid pneumonia and sepsis. At one point, his heart stopped, and doctors performed CPR.

“That infection caused his lungs to liquify and then continued to progress to the rest of his body,” said Dr. Ankit Bharat in the press release.

In many cases, with prolonged life support and time, the lungs recover. In this man’s case, his condition was too severe, and he needed a transplant. But he was too unstable to undergo the removal of his lungs and a transplant.

As a solution, the doctors designed a total artificial lung system, which allowed for circulation by helping maintain balanced blood flow through the heart. The patient was able to stay alive without the presence of any lungs for 48 hours before the transplant.

Read it.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) has introduced the Stop Citizenship Abuse and Misrepresentation (SCAM) Act that would strip citizenship from individuals who commit serious crimes within 10 years of their naturalization.

According to Schmitt, the legislation would expand the grounds for beginning the denaturalization process to include welfare fraud, aggravated felonies and joining a terrorist organization, including gangs and cartels.

Science Alert.

A pregnant woman’s blood sample taken in 1972 was mysteriously missing a surface molecule found on all other known red blood cells at the time.

More than 50 years later, that strange absence finally led researchers from the UK and Israel to describe a new blood group system in humans. The team published a paper on the discovery in 2024.

“It represents a huge achievement, and the culmination of a long team effort, to finally establish this new blood group system and be able to offer the best care to rare, but important, patients,” hematologist Louise Tilley from the UK National Health Service said in September 2024, after nearly 2 decades of personally researching this bloody quirk.

ScienceDaily.

Researchers have found a way to make ordinary aluminum tubes float indefinitely, even when submerged for long periods or punched full of holes. By engineering the metal’s surface to repel water, the tubes trap air inside and refuse to sink, even in rough conditions. The technology could eventually be scaled up into floating platforms, ships, or even wave-powered energy systems.

The Telegraph (UK).

A man posing as an FBI agent tried to break Luigi Mangione out of prison, police sources have claimed.

Mr Mangione, 27, has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, New York, since being charged with the murder of Brian Thompson, the healthcare chief executive, in December 2024.

On Thursday, sources told ABC News that Mark Anderson, 36, had been charged with impersonating a federal agent after allegedly showing up at the prison with forged documents ordering Mr Mangione’s release.

Court documents show that Mr Anderson is accused of pretending to be an officer for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and claiming to have paperwork “signed by a judge” authorising the release of an inmate.

The Telegraph (UK).

President Donald Trump has announced an “energy ceasefire”. For one week, Ukraine and Russia will cease attacks on one another’s cities and critical infrastructure.

Details are sparse, beyond Trump’s claims that he asked Putin “not to fire into Kyiv and various towns for a week. And he agreed to do that”. The Kremlin has yet to confirm or deny Trump’s claim. Nor has Ukraine said whether it will refrain from strikes on Russian energy and oil refining infrastructure, which have wreaked considerable damage to the Russian economy.

But in the context of a four-year war without a single day of meaningful truth, such a truce would be a landmark.

If it happens – and more importantly, holds – Trump will at long last be able to point to genuine progress from his hitherto fruitless peace-making efforts.

The Times (UK).

Sebastian Gomez-Pena, who has no movement from the neck down, is testing the Neuralink implant which allows users to control a computer using their thoughts.

Read it.

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

Read it.

Republicans could see a major shift in congressional seats to Texas and Florida, while Democrats could be facing painful losses in California and New York if redistricting projections based on the 2030 Census hold true.

Such population shifts could also translate into meaningful gains in electoral votes, potentially allowing Republican presidential candidates to win national elections without needing to carry traditional battleground states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

The projections were made by Jonathan Cervas of Carnegie Mellon University and released Tuesday on X by The Redistrict Network. They are based on 2025 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Times News (UK).

“In many cases these were pitched as senior-level roles, but they obviously don’t exist.”

A Times investigation by senior investigations reporter Shanti Das reveals how criminal networks are exploiting vulnerable migrants by selling fake job credentials which would allow them to remain in the UK for up to £20,000. The scheme uses real Home Office-approved companies to issue false paperwork for jobs that do not exist, with much of the activity taking place openly on public Facebook groups.

The Foundry.

Alex Pretti reportedly had at least one previous encounter with federal immigration officials before he was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents on Saturday.

About a week before his death, federal officers tackled Pretti, breaking one of his ribs as he was shouting and blowing a whistle while agents were attempting to make arrests in Minneapolis, CNN first reported.

Anti-ICE protesters have commonly used whistles to alert passers-by to the presence of immigration enforcement agents in the area.

The Telegraph (UK).

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was attacked by a protester as she called for the resignation of Kristi Noem during a town hall meeting in Minneapolis.

The man leapt from his seat while Ms Omar was addressing the audience and sprayed a liquid at her using a syringe, before being tackled and apprehended by security.

The incident came a day after Donald Trump said the 43-year old congresswoman was the subject of an investigation by the Department of Justice (DoJ).

Perhaps he thought she would melt, like the Wicked Witch of the East.

UPDATE: SHE STAGED IT??!

The Telegraph (UK).

Donald Trump has sacked the border patrol chief leading his immigration raids across the country after the fatal shooting of a nurse in Minneapolis, according to sources.

Gregory Bovino was removed from his role as “Commander at Large” of Border Patrol and is expected to retire soon, the Atlantic reported.

The removal of Mr Bovino, who has been the face of Mr Trump’s mass deportation campaign, is a signal that the US president is rethinking his administration’s most aggressive tactics.

I like to think that Trump has a plan but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is.

Times News (UK).

Overt comments by US representatives in support of a separatist movement in the Canadian province of Alberta are “unbecoming and troublesome,” says former deputy premier of Alberta and founder of the ‘Forever Canadian’ petition, Thomas Lukaszuk.

SciTechDaily.

“Humans possess a remarkable ability to talk about almost anything, sometimes putting words together into never-before-spoken or -written sentences,” said Morten H. Christiansen, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

According to language scientists, this flexibility comes from internal mental representations that help people recognize patterns in language and combine words into meaningful statements. While this ability is fundamental to communication, scientists are still working to understand exactly what those mental patterns look like and how they function, Christiansen said.

In a new study, Christiansen and co-author Yngwie A. Nielsen of Aarhus University present a different way of thinking about how language is represented in the mind. Their work questions the long-held belief that language depends on highly complex grammatical structures. Although the research focused on English, the authors suggest the results may apply to many languages and could influence future research on how language evolves, how children learn to speak, and how adults acquire new languages.

Watch it.

Nick Norwitz (Harfard MD, Oxford PhD in metabolism) does a deep dive.

Good evidence for not blindly trusting “experts”.

Read it.

Crowds of Canadian citizens stood in long lines across Alberta for hours this week to sign a petition for a referendum on leaving Canada – officially titled “A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence.” The petition requires at least 177,000 signatures in order to trigger the referendum, which would ultimately decide if the province will separate.

Petitions have 120 days to collect the signatures needed. Pro-separation groups say they could get as many as 1 million signatures, which would be a clear indication that Alberta will leave Canada. Alberta’s population is currently 5 million people.

Some petition locations reported as many as 10,000 signatures in a day and the public response is described as “concerning” by critics who want to remain part of Canada’s “constitutional monarchy.” Alberta is widely considered the most conservative province in the country and has been at odds with the far-left Canadian government (ruled by Ontario progressives).

Read it.

When the history of the great Net Zero climate hoax comes to be written, pride of place will be given to the terrifying sixth mass extinction scare. Mainstream media barely question the idea that human-controlled climate is wreaking havoc with the life chances of millions of animal and plant species around the world. In November 2024, the Guardian reported that “as the planet warms up, scientists predict a series of ‘extinction cliffs’”. We are in danger of forgetting what the climate crisis means: extinction, was the cheerful article headline. But a recent bombshell report from the UK Royal Society has knocked seven bells out of all this nonsense by showing that species-level extinctions related to climate change “have not significantly increased over the last approximately 200 years”.

PBS, a Voice of the Crust.

The gauze-and-cream dressing must be changed every day, a painful process. In the burn unit at Fortaleza’s José Frota Institute, patients contort as their wounds are unwrapped and washed.

Enter the humble tilapia, a fish that’s widely farmed in Brazil and whose skin, until now, was considered trash. Unlike the gauze bandages, the sterilized tilapia skin goes on and stays on.

Read it.

A new study published in Nature provides the earliest evidence that our human ancestors lived in the tropical rainforests of Africa

The study involving University of Sheffield researchers dates humans living in rainforests back to 150,000 years ago, 80,000 years earlier than found in other rainforests sites around the world

Luminescence and Electron Spin Resonance dating techniques were used to date sediments containing Middle Stone Age tools found at an archeological site in Côte d’Ivoire, Africa, to a time when tropical rainforests existed across the region

The study argues that tropical rainforests were not a barrier to the spread of modern humans and supports the theory that human evolution happened across a variety of regions and habitats.

Read it.

In what could have been the starting gun of Trump’s de-escalation, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the US President was right about security in the Arctic.

“When it comes to the Arctic, I think President Trump is right. Other leaders in NATO are right. We need to defend the Arctic,” the former Dutch prime minister said. “We know that the sea lanes are opening up.”

Rutte said that China and Russia were becoming increasingly active in the Arctic Circle, and acknowledged that this posed a problem for the alliance.

Read it.

If there’s anything Republicans and Democrats can agree on, it’s how to spend money. Both parties created the federal budget deficit and contributed to the looming $38 trillion national debt, but President Donald Trump’s administration is actively working to close it.

Since the budget is essentially financed by taxpayers, closing the gap means reduced borrowing and interest payments, lower national debt, and boosted long-term economic growth all Americans can feel.

The Monthly Treasury Statement highlights fiscal year 2025, in which the federal government spent over $7 trillion in outlays and generated $5.2 trillion in receipts. Despite including President Joe Biden’s last four months in office, the budget deficit of approximately $1.8 trillion was still down 2% from fiscal year 2024.

Early data for fiscal year 2026 (October to December 2025) shows further fiscal responsibility. The cumulative deficit of $602 billion is approximately 15% lower than the same period in fiscal year 2025.

The deficit’s closure—or at least slowed rate of growth—under the Trump administration, can be attributed to a combination of receipt (revenue) increases and targeted outlay (spending) reductions.

Read it.

Scientists at Stanford Medicine have discovered a treatment that can reverse cartilage loss in aging joints and even prevent arthritis after knee injuries. By blocking a protein linked to aging, the therapy restored healthy, shock-absorbing cartilage in old mice and injured joints, dramatically improving movement and joint function. Human cartilage samples from knee replacement surgeries also began regenerating when exposed to the treatment.

The Register.

Perhaps not helping is that datacenter firms consistently expect power to be available up to two years earlier than the utilities and power generating companies say it can be delivered, according to the report.

This is forcing operators to go where the power is, and Texas is expected to be a big winner here, thanks to its ample energy resources. Bloom Energy forecasts that, by 2028, the state could exceed 40 GW of IT capacity, nearly 30 percent of the anticipated US total, and more than double its current share.

Read it.

Epoxy resin is a clear, robust polymer that is widely used – especially as part of fiber-reinforced materials in aviation, the automotive industry, and more. Until now, however, it has not been possible to recycle it. Researchers at Empa have developed an epoxy resin that can be reprocessed and chemically recycled, in addition to being flame-retardant and easy to manufacture.

Read it.

They combined a blend of slimy and sticky proteins to produce a fast-acting, bacteria-blocking, waterproof adhesive for use in biomedical applications.

Read it.

A 2025 Intelligence Assessment by the government of Denmark highlights the long term Russian and Chinese ‘threat’ in Arctic waters, at a moment Greenland officials have rejected the US assertion that the large resource-rich island and its waters are being gradually influenced and taken over by the Russia/China ‘menace’.

Trump has recently stated, “We need that because if you take a look outside of Greenland right now, there are Russian destroyers, there are Chinese destroyers and, bigger, there are Russian submarines all over the place. We’re not gonna have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that’s what they’re going to do if we don’t.”

SciTechDaily.

For generations, scientists and food companies have been trying to recreate the taste of sugar without the health problems that come with it. From saccharin in the 19th century to newer alternatives like stevia and monk fruit in the 21st, the goal has been to keep sweetness while reducing excess calories, tooth decay, and the growing risks of obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes.

Researchers at Tufts University now report progress toward that goal. In a study published in Cell Reports Physical Science, the team describes a new biosynthetic method for producing tagatose, a naturally occurring but very rare sugar. Tagatose closely resembles table sugar in taste and could offer a way to sweeten foods with fewer negative effects. Scientists say it may also come with additional health benefits.

The Telegraph (UK).

Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, has “presented” Donald Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize as she attempted to woo the US president.

Mr Trump has made no secret of his desire to be awarded the honour, which has been bestowed on several former presidents including Barack Obama. [For no reason other that being The Magic Negro.]

Ms Machado, whose liberal Vente Venezuela party is widely believed to have won the 2024 election, was given the award for “promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela”.

It follows claims Mr Trump did not back installing Ms Machado as the country’s leader following Nicholas Maduro’s capture because she was given the honour.

Asked whether she had given Mr Trump her award during their meeting on Thursday, Ms Machado said: “I presented the president of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize.”

She said she had done so “in recognition [of] his unique commitment [to] our freedom”, although it was not clear whether Mr Trump accepted the medal.

ABC News, a Voice of the Crust.

The U.S. experienced negative net migration in 2025 for the first time in at least half a century as a result of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, according to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution.

Although the administration has undertaken aggressive removal efforts, the negative number is mostly due to a significant drop in entries into the U.S., the report said.

“We estimate net flows of -295,000 to -10,000 for the year,” the Brookings study stated. “Though a high degree of policy uncertainty remains, continued negative net migration for 2026 is also likely.”

The Robb Report.

Wouldn’t mind having one of these.

Read it.

Dick Smothers: “Take it, Tommy!”

Tom Smothers: “Take it where?”

Read it.

The Trump administration is considering sending lump-sum payments of up to $100,000 to each of Greenland’s roughly 57,000 residents as part of an effort to buy the Arctic island, media outlets reported Thursday.

The reports followed comments Wednesday from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said he told lawmakers earlier this week that the goal is to buy the semiautonomous territory from Denmark, The Wall Street Journal reported.

U.S. officials, including White House aides, have discussed figures ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 per person, according to Reuters, which cited two sources who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

“We can make you rich or we can make you dead. Which do you choose? — The Mafia

Watch it.

I am as skeptical as Ryan Inis is. But if it works out (and the company involved has a history of innovation) it could be a real breakthrough. At any rate, it will tell you more about batteries than you probably want to know.

Robert A. Heinlein, in his 1982 novel Friday, mentions a similar product called ‘shipstone’. (If you haven’t read Friday, do so. You’ll enjoy it.)

Mackey Chandler’s April series (which I also heartily recommend) use a similar energy storage device, invented by Jeff Singh, one of the protagonists, as a major plot device.

Read it.

Read it.

U.S. forces stormed into Venezuela before dawn on Jan. 3 and captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a lightning operation that punched in and out of Caracas before its air defenses could mount an effective response.

The operation resulted in no U.S. fatalities and no loss of U.S. military equipment, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. mission—code-named Operation Absolute Resolve—has quickly become more than a political shockwave. Analysts have said it was also a real-world test of U.S. military power against a country that has spent years buying Chinese- and Russian-made air-defense systems and showcasing them as proof that it could deter Washington.

The raid raised uncomfortable questions for Beijing about the limits of the Chinese-supplied systems that Venezuela has leaned on—especially “anti-stealth” radar that China advertised as capable of spotting and stopping U.S. stealth aircraft, a military analyst said.

The analyst told The Epoch Times that the most damaging takeaway for China isn’t the failure of a single piece of equipment—it’s what the operation suggested about deeper weaknesses: corruption in China’s defense industry and lack of reliability of the technology and command structure meant to tie those systems together.

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a presidential memorandum directing the U.S. to withdraw from 66 international organizations that the White House said no longer serve American interests.

The White House said the directive orders all executive departments and agencies to stop participating in and funding 35 non-United Nations organizations and 31 U.N. entities that the administration concluded operate contrary to U.S. national interests, security, economic prosperity, or sovereignty.

The White House said the action follows a review of every international intergovernmental organization, convention, and treaty that the U.S. belongs to, funds, or otherwise supports.

And about fargin time. We waste entirely too much money on this socialist crap.

Read it.

Hilton Worldwide Holdings has removed from its system the ?Minneapolis hotel that ?canceled the bookings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ?agents, the hotel operator said in a post on X on ?Tuesday.

After ICE officers booked rooms using official government emails and rates, ?Hilton canceled their reservations, the Department of Homeland ?Security said in a post on social media platform X on Monday.

“We are taking immediate ?action to remove ?this ?hotel from our systems. Hilton is-and has ?always been-a welcoming place for all,” the statement ?from Hilton said. In a previous statement, the company said the ?hotel ?in question ?is independently owned and operated.

ATQUE: Hilton’s Swift Response to DHS Snub Shows How the Left’s Institutional Power Has Faded

The Financial Times, a Voice of the Crust.

(The Financial Times is the British analog of the Wall Street Journal—if the Wall Street Journal were run by the staff of Mother Jones.)

Venezuela’s government has launched a crackdown in the wake of the US capture of Nicolás Maduro, arresting journalists and deploying paramilitary forces to suppress any show of support for the authoritarian leader’s removal.

The wave of repression comes as Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former deputy and the country’s new leader, moved to consolidate her hold over the oil-rich nation in the wake of the surprise US commando operation, which snatched Maduro from a military base to face trial.

Gun-toting paramilitaries known as colectivos have been deployed to the streets of Caracas under a state of emergency announced on Monday, which forbade Venezuelans from showing support for the US raid. Media unions said 14 journalists and media workers — 11 from foreign outlets — had been detained for hours before being released.

Most of the arrests of journalists took place around the National Assembly building as Rodríguez — whom US President Donald Trump said would lead a government open to Washington’s interests — was formally sworn in as acting president, according to the National Syndicate for Press Workers in Venezuela.

Since US commandos seized Maduro and his politician wife Cilia Flores on Saturday, the remainder of his regime has sought to stifle public celebration.

Thereby proving Trump’s point, and outing American Democrats as anti-democracy statists.

ATQUE: Venezuela detains journalists and seizes communication devices after Maduro’s removal (Sibylla Brodzinsky/The Guardian)

Read it.

They immediately qualified for an array of generous Federal and State programs….

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A treatment that blocks an age-related protein restored cartilage in aging and injured joints by reprogramming existing cells rather than using stem cells.

Researchers at Stanford Medicine report that blocking a protein linked to aging can restore cartilage that naturally wears away in the knees of older mice. In the study, the injectable treatment not only rebuilt cartilage but also stopped arthritis from developing after knee injuries similar to ACL tears, which are common among athletes and active adults. A pill-based version of the same therapy is already being tested in clinical trials aimed at treating muscle weakness associated with aging.

Human knee tissue collected during joint replacement surgeries also responded positively to the treatment. These samples, which include both the joint’s supporting extracellular scaffolding, or matrix, and cartilage-producing chondrocyte cells, began forming new cartilage that functioned normally.

Together, these findings point to the possibility that cartilage lost through aging or arthritis could one day be restored using a localized injection or an oral medication, potentially eliminating the need for knee or hip replacement surgery.

Thanks to multiple levels of government regulation, this treatment may be available to your grandchildren.

Reuters, News Service of the Crust.

And the hits just keep on comin’….

Read it.

A federal judge has granted a Lexington, Kentucky, father a preliminary injunction excusing his kindergartener from lessons featuring LGBTQ themes that conflict with his Christian values, reports Universal Hub.

“While defendants contend that implementing the notice and opt-out procedures contemplated by plaintiff’s proposed injunction would burden them to some degree, any potential harm they face does not outweigh that faced by plaintiff — particularly where defendants concede that [the parent’s son] must be opted out of at least some materials,” U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV wrote in his order Tuesday.

The father, who sued under the pseudonym “Alan L.” in mid-October, said it goes against his religious beliefs to allow his child to be instructed in content that touches on “diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, including issues of race, gender, and sexuality, taught from a secular worldview.”

Popular Mechanics.

The average adult human body contains 206 bones—the hardened mixtures of calcium, minerals, and collagen that provide the biological scaffolding that walks us through our day. While we may not think of them much, bones are incredibly resilient. But if they do break, they have this nifty trick of regrowing themselves.

Teeth, however, are not bones. Although they’re made of some of the same stuff and are the hardest material in the human body (thanks to its protective layer of enamel), they lack the crucial ability to heal and regrow themselves. But that may not always be the case. Japanese researchers are moving forward with an experimental drug that promises to regrow human teeth. Human trials began in September 2024.

Read it.

U.S. Congress quietly rewrote the rules for military service, veterans’ benefits and troop transitions in 2025, forcing legislative changes on everything from tuition bills, foreclosure protections and toxic exposure records.

Between January and late December, Congress passed 14 laws reshaping military and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits in accordance to rising costs, ongoing deployments, and pressure from veterans’ groups. The laws take effect on staggered timelines into the new years, occurring with less fanfare and without the political theater that derailed previous bigger congressional battles over issues like immigration.

The lawful measures range from automatic increases for disability and survivor benefits; in-state tuition for Selected Reserve students to new foreclosure protections; repayment guarantees for stolen benefits; and required separation counseling for troops leaving the force. Several also fold in wildfire aircraft transfers, clinic construction, and major changes to tax and border spending.

BBC, a Voice of the Crust.

On 24 October 2024, a brief post was shared on the social media network LinkedIn. In it Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s airship company LTA Research finally announced Pathfinder 1’s first if brief untethered flight at Nasa’s Moffett Field in California, part of the space agency’s Ames Research Center. “This morning, Pathfinder 1 reached another milestone: untethered outdoor flight. This successful test marks another important step in our journey, and we are excited to build on this achievement through our rigorous testing program.”

Airships are hard to hide. Despite the secrecy, one YouTuber filmed it from the road and uploaded it to the video-sharing site.

“Pathfinder 1 is a pretty amazing vehicle,” says Alan Shrimpton, editor of the Airship Journal. “It is the first fully rigid airship, certainly of that size, for a very long time, and there was a great expectation that it would fly shortly after it began its outdoor testing programme.

“But Alan Weston [founder and former CEO of LTA Research] always said the biggest fault with rigid airships was that people in the past rushed their development and they were not going to make that same mistake. They were going to check it and check it again – and they did.”

Read it.

Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp last week announced that his university has surpassed even the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology and now has the nation’s largest nuclear engineering research department.

And just in time, because Sharp also announced that Texas A&M is offering land near its RELLIS Innovation and Technology campus, located on 2,400 acres in Bryan, Texas, to several nuclear reactor companies to build small modular reactors (SMRs).

“Plain and simple,” said Sharp, a former State Comptroller and former member of the Texas Railroad Commission, “the United States needs more power. And nowhere in the country, other than Texas, is anyone willing to step up and build the power plants we need.”

Check it out.

On January 1, 2026, thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1925. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. The literary highlights range from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying to Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage and the first four Nancy Drew novels. From cartoons and comic strips, the characters Betty Boop, Pluto (originally named Rover), and Blondie and Dagwood made their first appearances. Films from the year featured Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, the Marx Brothers, and John Wayne in his first leading role. Among the public domain compositions are I Got Rhythm, Georgia on My Mind, and Dream a Little Dream of Me. We are also celebrating paintings from Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee. Below you can find lists of some of the most notable books, characters, comics, and cartoons, films, songs, sound recordings, and art entering the public domain. After each of them, we have provided an analysis of their significance.