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late June 2020
Life on Mars? (Astronomy) best place to search for a second tree of life? entirely unconvincing More 'evidence' of Europa's habitability (Earth & Sky) rests on models involving chlorides A new explanation for the Moon's maria asymmetry (ELSI Japan) a concentration of radioactive elements on the maria side The case for a  hot start and an early ocean for Pluto (UC-Santa Cruz) and also for other large Kuiper belt objects? A new explanation for Tunguska: an iron asteroid passed through Earth's atmosphere-- and survived intact (Astrobites) explaining the absence of meteoritic material published article (MNRAS) suprisingly readable free In 11 years, we may have Martian rocks returned by a yet unplanned mission... but we have some on Earth right now (The Conversation) 261 Martian meteorites Titan-ic news Evidence for volcanic collapse craters on Titan (Planetary Science Institute) powered by methane or nitrogen or ? and for dry lake beds in polar regions (Science News) ------------------ New Horizons & Earth measure Proxima Centauri parallax (NASA) with a ~46 au baseline but don't tell us the results too late... you've missed it Celebrate the summer solstice: Saturday, 6/20/20, 5:43 pm EDT (Washington Post) The 6/21/2020 annular eclipse of the sun is not visible here (Time and Date) you need to go to Africa or Asia livestream it here if you're not going there beginning @ 1 am on Sunday, 6/21 ---------------------- 🔥  climate crisis 🔥 how we know the planet is warming the big picture Why it's so hot in the Arctic (Vox) 100°F+ in Siberia,  inside the Arctic circle A scorching summer to come (NY Times) after a hottest-ever-on-record May A war against climate science (NY Times) DC's rank-and-file  line up with Trump's political appointees Global carbon levels surge again (Scientific American) as countries emerge from lockdown but now is the time for a green recovery (Eos) or else it's back to fossil fuel's reign $1000+: the annual tax bill each of us pays per year to clean up climate disasters (NY Times) solutions Are clouds the key to climate modeling? (Scientific American) commentary published article (Science Advances) Sustainable Recovery (International Energy Association) a roadmap for governments to spur economic growth, create millions of jobs, & put global carbon emissions into decline 174-page report Conserving 30% of land and oceans and limiting global warming to 2°C would cut extinction rate in half (Ecography) greener energy A national U.S. power grid would make electricity cheaper and cleaner (Vox)	binary mergers Did a double black hole merger produce light? Did a binary black hole merger unexpectedly produce light? (Caltech) a 34-day-late flare produced by gas surrounding the pair in the wake of the merger ...and in the vicinity of an AGN's SMBH: the result?:  a 100+-Msun final black hole aka GW190521g? Starts with a Bang has more observational details but a lack of skepticism GW190814: neutron star or black hole? Largest neutron star or smallest  black hole?: a 2.6 Msun object in the mass gap (Earth & Sky, via LIGO) caught in a merger with a 23-Msun black hole published paper (ApJ Letters) related websites & documentation (LIGO) visualizations, audio files, artistic renditions and impressions (sic), and more 1-hour webinar on the discovery (YouTube) Astrobites commentary   A brief overview of black hole- neutron star mergers (arXiv) a vote for the lightest black hole (arXiv) based on nucleonic equation of state released 7/7/20   -------------------- solar problems, solar solutions So nanoflares are why the sun's corona  is so hot? (Astronomy) but with little/no theoretical support at the moment We're still arguing over the Sun's chemical composition? (Knowable) particularly, C,N,O will the newly-captured CNO neutrinos (see just below) help settle the argument? Borexino confirms CNO cycle is operating in the Sun (Nature) by capturing a rare, energetic neutrino emitted in Be7 decay A breakthrough in understanding the solar cycle? (Max Planck) a periodic turnover in the plasma convection currents ---------------------- huge stars Explaining Betelguese's rapid rotation and high space velocity: is it a product of a stellar merger? (AAS Nova) or maybe it's starspots covering ~60% of its surface? (Gizmodo) Mapping the atmosphere of Antares (NRAO) with radio telescopes and viewable in augmented reality on your smartphone -------------------- On the origin of pulsar emission (Simons Foundation) pair-produced particles interacting with the E/M field isn't this what we always thought?	A reminder of the brown-dwarf desert (Astrobites) why are they so much rare than planets? TESS discoveries so far: ~2000 planets; 4  brown dwarfs ET There should be ~36 intelligent & communicating  civilizations in the galaxy at present (U Nottingham) assuming that an Earth-like planet in the HZ WILL develop life after ~ 5 Gyr and that 'communicating civilizations' last  `100 years ok, 36+175          -32 but Starts with a Bang calls it 'a ridiculous claim' published article (ApJ) paywall unreviewed preprint (arXiv) nearest  ~17,000 cyr away... likely around an M dwarf free ------------------------- An audacious explanation for FRBs (Scientific American) ET an Exotica catalog (Gizmodo) a list of every type of astronomical object in the universe of interest to those looking for 'technosignatures' -- i.e.,  a list of where ET could be hiding Earth & Sky comments and  the 91-page paper (SETI) who knows where this belongs	Found: a SMBH only 700 Myr after the universe began? (U Arizona) Did galaxies result from from quantum static? (Scientific American) so inflation predicts; where's the evidence? lots of vague poetic whining on why were still years away from answering the question another day, another H0 value (arXiv) from a new improved baryonic Fisher-Tully method H0 = 75.1 +  2.3 km/s/Mpc Is the Hubble tension actually a CMB-temperature tension? (Astrobites) cosmic distance ladder Looking for type IA supernova siblings (AAS NOVA) is SN luminosity scatter due to galaxy type, evolution, or something else? spoiler alert:  "pairs of SN siblings hosted by the same galaxy were no more likely to be similar than a random pair".... and that conclusion based on  8 (!) SN pairs published article (ApJ Letters) a challenge ahead: using GRBs as standard candles (Astronomy) -------------------- A baffling 16-day period in an FRB (Nature) the discoverers comment (MIT)	All black holes should have light rings (Astronomy) Time to take dark matter alternatives seriously? (Aeon) as the WIMP window narrows this despite incomplete MOND theory (and evidence against such, unmentioned by the author) collider battle CERN proposes 100-km, 100-TeV  e+/e- ring to uncover 'Higgs secrets' (Nature) cost: $21 euro, but no funding in sight The world doesn't need a new gigantic particle accelerator (Sabine Hossenfelder, @ Scientific American) collider costs have boomed; collider relevance has declined The theoretical motivation (Nature) A small step toward a big collider (Science) Will the LHC be the last collider? (Starts with a Bang) --------------------- axions, at last? Gran Sasso XENON1T releases latest results: evidence for axions? (Kavli Japan) or just background noise? or maybe magnetic neutrinos, or tritium contamination, or ... ? LiveScience is a bit less technical if real, the axions would be solar, and not the dark matter Resonances is optimistic unduly? NY  Times brings it down to the masses Axions gaining traction? (Institute for Advanced Study) something about "kinetic mis-alignment" only among the already-convinced ----------------- Hidden neutrinos may be a link to the dark sector (Scientific American, July 2020 issue) paywall 4 reasons gravity is different from the other forces (Quanta) it has singularities, it's not been quantized, it's not renormalizable, and  it makes something out of nothing (in dark energy form) Feynman lectures on strong interactions (arXiv) just released 98 pages, from 1987-88	No Europe for you, Americans (Washington Post) EU bans Americans due to their poor control of virus the ultimate insult: travelers from China allowed sanity& insanity  in NC (Raleigh N&O) Profits over people: the NC 2020 legislative session in a nutshell (NC Policy Watch) How NC became the worst state to be unemployed (Pro Publica) as NC covid patients increase, hospitals prepare for surge   yet legislature passes to re-open gyms, again the definition of insanity is.... and legislature questions mask reality Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest is suing Gov. Cooper for exceeding his authority How many more positive covid tests before we pull the plug on college football? send the players home -------------------- inequality, black lives matter, lingering confederacy Why do we pay so many people so little money? (NY Times) especially the ones keeping the economy running right now 'essential employees' earn ~20% less than other workers How planes, trains, and autos have worsened America's racial divide (Politico) is better transportation possible? The Senate filibuster: another monument to American racism (The Atlantic) Time for reparations? (NY Times) is anything different this time? Advice to protesters (Washington Post) keep marching; demonstrate excellence; and VOTE from the president of Morehouse College A Juneteenth virtual tour (Google Arts & Culture) Is this -- finally -- the end of Confederate statues on NC Capitol grounds? (Indy Week) The pathetic excuses Southerners use to justify the Confederate flag and the statues (Washington Post) Tulsa's ugly racial history (Washington Post) ----------------- random stuff The 14 cases the Supreme Court has yet to release rulings on (Howe on the Court) and will before 6/30? The decline of the American world (The Atlantic) the rest of the world has gone from loathing us to pitying us The Best of the Triangle? (Indy Week) in polls ------------------ Trump's America Limited and pitiless (Washington Post) Ransacking the Republic (NY Books) ethics - and the lack of it - in the time of Trump A battle that will live in infamy (Rolling Stone) Lafayette Square A coterie of liars is Finland really part of Russia? Mike Pence's irresponsibility William Barr, the generalissimo a GOP that cares more about Michael Flynn than police brutality? John Bolton, treasonous hypocrite a million-$ book deal trumps a Senate impeachment inquiry so Trump asking China for 2020 election help is a national security matter? And still the statues stand (Washington Post) it's about values not history local police NC: Death by cop (Indyweek) 155 fatal shootings in 5½ years How do NC police use force? (WUNC radio) most agencies won't say and ditto (Raleigh N&O) Raleigh forms 'independent' task force to review police behavior during protests (Raleigh N&O) majority are ex-police chiefs we love 'independence' Maybe if police training lasted 2x longer than barber training (Raleigh N&O) as opposed to vice versa, as it is now Supreme Court A landmark decision on workplace discrimination (Vox) explained in 5 sentences although decision appears to apply only to businesses with > 15 employees, nor to access to healthcare, bank credit, or rental property yet some 'Americans' just can't give up discrimination (National Review) ruling rattles Christian conservatives (Washington Post) couldn't happen to a more hateful group of people and yet we allow their enablers to be tax exempt? but Court abdicates on qualified immunity for police (Washington Post) Thomas dissents How immunity is used to shield police brutality Court decisions DACA LGBTQ discrimination ---------------------- documenting inequality in America Black and white people live in two different Americas (Washington Post) in 11 charts Systematic housing inequality (Center for American Progress) displacement, exclusion, & segregation Systemic racism (Vox) in 9 charts Gaps between white and black America (NY Times) in 6 charts How moderates failed Black America (NY Times) not just the moderates policing If tear gas has been banned in war, why are police using it on American streets? (WBUR OnPoint, 1-hr podcast) Why are police ensconsed in schools? (Indyweek) Durham students protest for removal pandemic economics The 4 factors terrifying economists (The Atlantic) poor workers headed for a fiscal cliff; business dying off; state & local budgets in crisis; a continuing pandemic is a 2nd depression ahead? What economists fear most during  this recovery (538) consumer unwillingness to spend after businesses re-open but the majority now lean toward a 'reverse radical' recovery Stimulus checks and small-business aid can't rescue the economy (Vox) "the only way to drive economic recovery is to invest in public health efforts that will restore consumer confidence and spending" based on a Raj Chetty et al. published paper (Opportunity Insights) biggest  spending cuts happened in high-end businesses, yet low-wage workers suffered  the biggest job losses (70%) warning: 100 pages Retail sales rebounded in May, but future looks dim (NY Times) Pandemic insurance could have saved our economy (Wired) but we chose not to listen 'best' Trump lies of the week 'Wearing a mask could be harmful' (Vox) "I made Juneteenth famous" (Politico) sure, among ignorant people "the numbers are very minuscule compared to what it was. It's dying out" (CNN) that'd be news to the 10 states who have just set records -- and 12 more where cases are increasing Obama and Biden "never even tried to fix (bad policing) during their eight-year period" (FactCheck) elections still again Administration lies and hypocrisy on mail-in voting keeps growing (Washington Post) The facts about mail-in voting and voter fraud (NY Times) how state running mail elections track misconduct Want better elections? Choose better secretaries-of-state (NY Times) book reviews What is college worth? (NY Books) 5 books reviewed What you need to know about voting -- and why (Washington Post) a timely handbook on voting by Kimberly Wehle The Covid Catastrophe: What's Gone Wrong and How to Stop it Happening Again (Nature) the disastrous leadership of the US (accused of "a crime against humanity") and the UK Which Country Has the Best Health Care? (Nature) Germany, Norway, Netherlands, Taiwan near the top... U.S.: innovative, but otherwise near the very bottom by Emanuel Ezekiel remembrance of trips past A Ring of Fire (Stockton Record) Lassen, Shasta, Crater Lake, and Mount St. Helens Utah's National Parks (MSN) Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, & Capitol Reef or those not yet taken? Swimming with sea lions of Los Islotes (NY Times)	science So you want to be an astronomer: A paper on how to read astronomy papers (arXiv) If you had xray eyes (Max Planck Inst.) the sky would look like this Navigating the ultraviolet: hummingbirds (NY Times) meanwhile, Stonehenge still surprises: a new find of Britain's largest prehistoric structure (The Guardian) a 2-km ring centered on Durrington Wells The real story about NC teacher raises (Raleigh N&O) how GOP Sen. Harrington mis-stated the facts pandemic education Remote school is a nightmare (NY Times) but few in power care ...it seems to be a fait accompli, rather than the worst-case scenario "airlines got a bailout... parents are on their own" Are universities going the way of CDs and cable TV? (The Atlantic) the price of not going digital What GOP legislators think of teachers: a one-time $350 pre-tax bonus (Raleigh N&O) Only 25% of UNC faculty think post-pandemic precautions for fall re-opening are sufficient protective (NC Policy Watch) to return to campus Congress hears pleas for increased educational funding -- but NC House member objects (Raleigh N&O) guess which party? shame on Viriginia Foxx NC School Super-intendent Johnson: 'supporting schools is not in the Constitution' (NC Policy Watch) so no money for you once again, guess his party NCSU to require face masks for entire 1st semester (Raleigh N&O) for all inside classes, meetings, dining halls exceptions: private offices, dorm rooms Expecting students to play it safe if colleges re-open is fantasy (NY Times) the risk and rewards of being 18-24 coronavirus medical updates Masks, physical distancing, and eyewear protect against person-to-person transmission of covid-19 (The Lancet) a metastudy How the virus won (NY Times) ignored warning signs; hidden outbreaks; public response weeks/months late the cost: thousands of lives How coronavirus defeated America (Politico) partisan squabbling; an isolationist administration; lockdown aversion How conservative media misinformation worsened the pandemic (Washington Post) viz.: Media Consumption and Misinformation at the Outset of the Pandemic (Harvard JFK) Misinformation During a Pandemic (NBER) The Pervasive Effect of Fox News: Non-Compliance with Social Distancing during the Pandemic (NBER) Why people don't trust public health experts (New York) because public-health experts don't trust people an attempt to explain why the U.S. has 4% of world's population, but 26% of covid cases U.S. response to pandemic disconnected from scientists' advice (Washington Post) unlike in the EU, where U.S. behavior is watched with alarm EU infections have dropped by 6x compared to U.S. in last 2 months. Why it's important to wear a mask (Raleigh N&O) cv infects nose cells more than those in throat/lungs The ultimate covid mystery: why it kills some and spares others (Washington Post) Breakthrough: a common steroid is first drug shown to save lives (Science News) but dexamethasone may work on all the sickest patients CDC: Those with underlying medical conditions 12x more likely to die (Washington Post) Hispanics & blacks over-represented in death toll children half as likely to be infected but much more likely to be asymptomatic carriers Why are we actively trying to ignore health professionals? (Washington Post) mask & distancing recommendations ignored;  case studies rise; ⛬ 200,000 more deaths by October plus horrible good model-setting by Trump, Pence, et al. (Washington Post) not to mention constant mendacity   VP Pence falsely claims coronavirus spikes on increased testing (NY Times) contrary to evidence FDA ends hydroxy-chloroquinine  emergency use (Politico) bad tech Stop Hate for Profit Fbook boycott goes global (Stop Hate for Profit) long past due The real cost of Amazon (Recode) endangering lives of low-paid workers Zuckerberg's incestuous deal with Trump (NY Times) How Fbook, Twitter, and YouTube undermine racial justice (NY Times) despite their protestations to the contrary
limited time?  read the most interesting & important stories from  early June  2020: 1) protests against police brutality & racial inequality roil America was the Battle of Lafayette Square the turning point? is it the police or the protests? there's lots of blame to go around the roots of black-white inequality solutions?     to police brutality          to racial inequality 1968 revisited?   will things change this time? or can it get worse? 2)  coronavirus:  are we in a 2nd wave?  --  or still the 1st? medical updates post-pandemic education pandemic economics 3)  astro news rethinking the origin of type IA supernovae Jupiter news from Juno and from @AAS Astrobites@AAS 4)  climate reports final, revised North Carolina Climate Science Report NC Climate Risk Assessment  and Resilience Plan and plastic rain is everwhere 5)  virtual art:   Donald Judd, Dorothea Lange, and more and Christo passes 6)  NC news new election procedures, post-pandemic it's now easier to vote absentee by mail in NC how charter schools cheat NC
early June 2020 American Astronomical Society met  online only from June 1 - June 3, 2020 see @AAS tags below
Perseverance: what the Mars 2020 rover can do (Astronomy) launch window: 7/17 - 8/5 Science  has an answer, too collecting rocks and clues to its past climate although not posted til 6/25/20 Late Ordovician extinction tied to volcanoes, warming, and anoxia (NY Times) a 445-Myr-old murder mystery one of the big 5 published article (Geology) What we've learned about Jupiter from Juno (Knowable) polar cyclones; the missing ammonia; hybrid magnetism; and a fuzzy core and still 1 year to go Explaining Saturn's polar hexagon (Ars Technica) hidden vortices? Oumuamua: a frozen hydrogen iceberg? (Scientific American) neither comet nor asteroid The once and future ring of Mars? @AAS the source and grave of new moons Earth & Sky commentary  A 'hot springs' hypothesis for the origin of life (Astrobiology) and testing it on Mars & Enceladus from a special issue on hot springs mostly free Every Mars landing ever (Planetary Society) poster shows successes, failures, future Rocks gone wild! Constraining the formation of the terrestrial planets (Astrobites) 5 conditions 🔥  climate crisis 🔥 how we know the planet is warming the big picture The future of the carbon cycle in a changing climate (Eos) NC Climate Report (North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies) Final, Revised North Carolina Climate Science Report 236 pages 5-page plain-language summary both days and night will get hotter; hurricane rains will be become more frequent and more intense; increased coastal flooding; severe droughts will become more intense 13-page Executive Summary & Report Findings climate solutions Ocean data need a sea change (Nature) share the data! save the climate! To save the climate, look to the oceans (Scientific American) a 'Blue New Deal' is needed How to set a price on carbon pemissions (Scientific American) free NC Climate Risk Assessment  and Resilience Plan (NC Dept of Environmental Quality) 372 pages Executive Summary 30 pages --------------------- High temperatures set off major early melt in Greenland (Scientific American) Amazon deforestation soars (NY Times) enforcement during pandemic disappears Visualizing the deep carbon cycle (Eos) environment 'Forever' chemicals continue build-up in the Arctic (Scientific American) plastic rain It's raining microplastics (Scientific American) causing lung lesions, asthama, cancer... Plastic rain: the new acid rain (Wired) no place is safe not even national parks (Science) where a kiloton/yr falls published article (Science) the average person inhales 11 particles/hr paywall ---------------------- Humans are causing a mass extinction (Vox) humans can stop it Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological extinvtion and a 6th extinction (PNAS)	Molecular ingredients for life appear long before stars form (U Arizona) who's making the molecules? About that FRB inside our galaxy... (Nature) ...puny, but representative? Rethinking type IA supernovae? (Science) twin white dwarfs (colliding white dwarfs or a double detonation) now appear to be more common than accretion from a red giant companion on to a white dwarf Neutron stars show their cores (CERN) 'evidence' that cores contain free quarks no, it's not evidence, it's just one model that happens to fit observations and why not everyone is convinced (Physics World) interpolation over 2 orders of magnitude published paper (Nature Physics) free Planetary nebulae contribute molecules to the ISM (phys.org) not just atoms Unveiling the solar corona's magnetic field (U Hawaii IFA) eclipses reveal the field doesn't become radial until >  3 Rsun Classical novae are source of galaxy's lithium @AAS not the Big Bang nor cosmic rays but questions remain Starts with a Bang has a longer explanatory	Airborne dust could increase habitable-zone range (U Exeter) by cooling planets at the outer edge of habitable zone but confound biomarkers published paper (Nature Communications) A mirror image of Earth and Sun (Max Planck Institute) Kepler 160 & its planet and a longer explanatory (Earth & Sky) Proxima Centauri gets a 2nd planet (Earth & Sky) ~12 MEarth from astrometry and radial velocity ET Bad news for silicon-based life (Air & Space) lack of organic Si compounds, and free Si will quickly form silicate rock published article (Life) Defining life: are viruses alive? (The Conversation) or is that the wrong question	Have we got the universe right? (Jim Peebles, NP2019, via New Scientist) at the moment, but it's likely not the last word paywall perhaps written to coincide with his new book "Cosmology's Century: An inside history of our modern understanding of the Universe" (but a $19 Kindle ebook!?!) Water-maser distances to galaxies side with high Hubble constant (NRAO) H0 = 73.9 +3 km/s/Mpc based on just 4 galaxies? published article (Ap J Letters) paywall No evidence of first generation of stars at 0.5 - 1.0 Gyr A.B. @AAS with a new H0 measurement: H0 = 69 - 72 km/s/Mpc independent of CMB and supernovae Galaxies: bigger than we thought (Sky & Telescope) is the halo circumgalactic  or is it really just the galaxy? Did supermassive black holes form by accretion or merger? @AAS in the nearby universe, by accretion; in the distant universe, by merger so a model suggests Sky & Telescope commentary Spiral galaxies show asymmetric spin alignment @AAS was the universe spinning at the start? Cosmic rays surprise us again (CERN)	3 theorists support evidence behind 5th force (Physics World) but confirming experimental evidence still needed theorists find interaction strength is independent of nucleus Bose-Einstein condensate -- now orbiting Earth (Nature) relativity White dwarfs and neutral stars free-fall with same acceleration (Max Planck Institute) to within 2 parts per million Einstein's happiest thought: a test of GR An updated solution to the problem of Gamow's light-speed cyclist (Royal Society) ----------------------- dark matter Is dark matter hiding at low energies? (Scientific American) another day, another here's-where-the-dark-matter-is paper Surveys of galaxy distribution narrow range of dark energy @AAS ----------------------- neutrinos How do neutrinos get their mass? (Symmetry) not by interacting with the Higgs, if they're right-handed  Accelerator experiments are closing in on neutrino CP violation (Physics Today, June 2020 issue) -----------------------  Anti-hyping nonsense (Not Even Wrong) university corrects silliness about parallel universes claim but scientist credibility & public understanding of science continue to suffer due to "overwhelming amount of misleading self-serving BS about parallel universes" Physicists are still lost in math (BackReaction) but the tide is turning in younger ones?	As police killings of black men continue.... (Vox) Mr. Brooks had fallen asleep in his car at a Wendy's in a time when police are on notice, why can't they stop the shootings? How JFK paved the way for Donald Trump (Politico) turning the vote for President into a popularity contest the future isn't looking good medically The virus will win (The Atlantic) A grim vindication for medical experts (Undark) who study coronaviruses 5 reasons why the pandemic is so very far from over (Vox) Congressional Budget Office: coronavirus will haunt economy for years (Washington Post) politically   American Obanism (The Atlantic) our road to autocracy Mourning the past, and worried about the future (NY Times) while battered by a health crisis, fury about racial injustice, and lasting unemployment well, at least most of us Fears of coming eviction apocalypse grow (Axios)   a week of questions Why are ALL NC Republican legislators white? (Indy Week) so white conclaves aren't illegal?  Has your grandparent joined Antifa? (Washington Post) how to tell but where IS Antifa? (Washington Post) they keep not showing up Why did psychics not foresee the pandemic? (Skeptical Inquirer) Why are we still honoring people who fought against the U.S.? (Washington Post) Lee,  Beauregard, Pickett, A.P. Hill, ... Why does Trump lie? (NY Times) he want to be better than Nixon at something? How do clowns survive the pandemic? (LA Times) ----------------------- Activists set out to show that police brutality was pervasive... (NY Times) ... police have helped to make their case A telling statistic: 60% of Biden supporters are voting against Trump (CNN poll, page 9) only 37% are voting for Biden Defund Wall Street (Jacobin) seems preferable to Defund the police (The Atlantic) but few seem willing to defend the police at the moment Last stand of the 'Law and Order" Republicans? (Politico) Ransacking the Republic (NY Books) Trump's corruption free for a short time A tale of two suburbs: Parms vs. Shaker Heights (538) two Cleveland suburbs and the white culture class The NY Times staff revolt vs. Tom Cotton "Bring in the Troops" (Vox) the 'inside story' from the left and from the right (National Review) GOP to move nominating convention from Charlotte (Raleigh N&O) to a ballroom in Florida? Cooper chooses participants' health over money & threats 6/2/2020 primary election results from 7 states, DC (Vox) IA's Steve King is gone America at the breaking point  behaving like a 3rd world country The battle of Lafayette Square White House still not telling the truth about Lafayette Square (Washington Post) its version is contradicted by National Guard, DC public safety (including DC Police Chief), & federal law enforcement as it happened: 48 minutes of surreal violence in DC:  the Donald Trump show (Washington Post) an oral history The havoc in Lafayette park (NY Times) a timeline Battle of Lafayette Square still reverberating two weeks later (Washington Post) with 5 iconic images, including the use of *not* tear gas A.G. Barr ordered tear gas, rubber bullets, & military helicopters to disperse lawful protesters  (Vox) for Trump's church photo-op DC Bishop furious White House/park  police deny using tear gas on peaceful protesters...but then there's the evidence (Vox) Trump demands press retract stories claiming use of tear gas.... CDC says it WAS tear gas (Washington Post) smoke canisters and pepper balls are indeed 'tear gas' says CDC and this just in: "Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant" (Washington Post) the Attorney General just lied (again) a 4-Pinnochio one then there's the preening  Look at me (Donald Trump) but Ivanka's handbag was nice (Washington Post) a $1,540 Max Mara Trump "taken" to bunker for 'inspection', not safety (The Hill) "taken", along with fellow inspectors, Melania and Barron update:  Secret Service rushed Trump family to bunker as protesters breached fences (Washington Post) and a newer update:  Barr denies Trump denial (NY Times) it wasn't an 'inspection' after all hey, every snowflake needs a safe space can it get worse? History will judge the complicit (The Atlantic) why are GOP leaders behaving like the collaborators in Vichy France or communist East Germany? Is Turkish authoritarianism in our future? (Washington Post) What is this, a banana republic? (New Yorker) asks Nancy Pelosi Trump threatens use of military to quell protests (Washington Post)  and a Senator calls for the military invasion of the U.S. (NY Times)   Tom Cotton embarrasses himself and the NYT for giving it press does he get partial credit for exposing a hideous law, the Insurrection Act? (Politico) Bring on "the vicious dogs" and the most ominous weapons ...ever seen" (Vox) just like in Alabama  50+ years ago? Police increasingly target journalists (NY TImes) as Trump blames the media again Has Trump declared war on the U.S.? (The Guardian) A spotlight on U.S. hypocrisy (Washington Post) the rest of the world IS paying attention is it 1968 again? The worst year in American history? (The Atlantic) an exaggeration... probably or This isn't as bad as 1968 (Politico) so far actually, it's 1969 (Washington Post) 1968 vs. 2020: the differences (Washington Post) The greatest U.S. uprising since 1968 (The Guardian) Is it different this time? (Politico) many say 'yes' Americans think America is in bad shape (Politico) the fault is not in our stars... it's elsewhere William Barr, high-school & college bully (Washington Post) some things don't change A Presidency is a terrible thing to waste (Politico) by Rich Lowery, of all people With malice toward all, and charity toward none (NY Times) Trump is not responsible for our problems, but his continuing presidency is preventing healing & solutions Trump, the destroyer (The Guardian) Trump berates governors: "most of you are weak... take back the streets" and "dominate" the protests (CNN) Thousands of complaints do little to change police ways (NY Times) union resistance, a public unwilling to second-guess How police became paramilitaries (NY Books) A President who wants you to be misinformed (The Nation)   but FBI finds no evidence of Antifa involvement in protests (The Nation) another day, another lie and a President who has  fanned the flames of violence for political or personal gain (Politico) instead of being a peacemaker Republican senators: it's not too late to save your country (Washington Post) protests or police violence? 96 cities where protesters were tear-gassed (NY Times) Charlotte and Wilmington in NC Police promised reforms.  So why are they still killing 1000+ people each year? (Washington Post) Protests of police brutality met with ... police brutality (The Guardian) It's not just bad apples... it's a diseased tree (Washington Post) CIA veterans compare U.S. police crackdown to authoritarian force used by despots in China, Iraq, Syria, Libya (Washington Post) Attacks on journalists surge in the U.S. (The Guardian) Policing is the U.S. is not about enforcing the law... (The Guardian) ..it's about enforcing white supremacy In America, protest is patriotic (NY Times) The rebellion in defense of black lives is rooted in American history (The Intercept) so is Trump's authoritarian rule So NFL thinks kneeling protests are good? (The Guardian) How racist policing took over big cities (Vox) root causes of black/white inequality Documenting the black-white wealth gap (Brookings) The black-white divide is the same as in the 1960s (Washington Post) 'We're tired of waiting for a  dream deferred' (Raleigh N&O) Alma Adams, D-NC The staggering U.S. black-white inequality (CNN) in 6 charts The question isn't 'why are they looting?'... it's 'why have so many so little to lose?' (Vox) In America, Black deaths are not a flaw in the system ....they are the system (The Guardian) solutions? to police violence Policing in America is broken (NY Times) 5 'experts' discuss how to fix it It's time to judge police by their actions (Politico) state laws give police too much leeway to act on their fears or beliefs Defund the police (NY Times) 'Defunding the police' means defunding the punishment bureaucracy (American Prospect) Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill mayors call for police reform (Raleigh N&O) Some schools to drop police (Raleigh N&O) but not Wake Co. it's inconceivable they were there in the first place How to stop police brutality (LiveScience) 5 things, according to science 15 things to do right now to stop police brutality (Popular Democracy) to racial inequality a much more difficult issue... with fewer solutions Ringing hollow?: Bank of America, Walmart, Morgan Stanley, ... (Washington Post) after marginalizing black customers and employees for decades, corporate America now claims Black Lives Matter Corporate America's Black Lives Matter pledges fall short (NY Times) tweets are not enough Give money to neighborhoods (NY Times) rather than descendants of slaves how to do 'reparations' right Not talking about it is *not* the solution (Indy Week) elections continued New NC election law oriented toward pandemic relief revives voter-ID (NC Policy Watch) Text of the new law (NC Legislature) The 91 still-unresolved about the November election in the midst of the pandemic (Election Law Blog) 3 of which are in NC Georgia's 6/09 election meltdown (Atlanta Journal Constitution) worse than expected -- and it's not like they weren't warned (Washington Post) on the other hand, what voting by mail looks like when it works (Washington Post) in Colorado The worst Supreme Court decision of all time: Shelby County v. Holder? (New Yorker) the state of voting rights in America 5 reasons why elections should not be online (Politico) yet some states are moving ahead the internet will be voting-ready in 10 years? A security analysis of the OmniVote on-line voting system (Internet Policy, MIT) Preparing for cyberattacks and technical issues during the pandemic (Brennan Center) a guide for public officials election abuse 5 ways Trump could discourage voting this November (Politico) Trump tried to register in FL with an out-of-state address (Washington Post) enemy of fraud gives fraudulent address luckily for him, since address wasn't accepted, fraud wasn't completed The many varieties of voter suppression (American Prospect)  books Homewreckers (NY Books) the housing vultures responsible for 2008 recession are trying to dictate the bailout of this one free for a short time Tree Story (Science News) what tree rings can tell us by Valerie Trouet art/trips/museums Colorado's 12 best rock formations (Colorado Springs Gazette) Garden of the Gods and beyond The new normal of visiting America's National Parks (Smithsonian) it's complicated 11 great alternatives to crowded national parks (NY Times) Donald Judd (MOMA) the complete virtual experience history, discussions, reading, virtual views, & more Dorothea Lange: words & pictures (MOMA) the complete virtual experience history, discussions, reading, virtual views, & more What damaged Munch's The Scream? (Science Norway) the 1994/2004 thefts, the pigment (volatile yellow), and poor storage The Rothko room murals (Tate Modern) 6-minute video   Natural history museums fight for survival (Science) Christo  The end for Christo (NY Times) the wrapper's visions were fleeting bu unforgettable and finding beauty in the temporary (The Atlantic) A life in pictures (The Guardian) "Gorgeous abstractions that make you gawp with disbelief" (The Guardian)	King and Conqueror (Smithsonian) how Philip of Macedon paved the way for his son  Alexander to become a legend Lidar technology reforming our understanding of early Mayan sites (Nature) sites for astronomical observations were constructed earlier than thought UFO journalism without skepticism (Neurologica) Astrobites @AAS Day3@AAS jets & superflares; mysteries of the Milky Way; he solar neighborhood; galactic winds and feedback Day2@AAS life's astrochemical origins; the Milky Way's Center; the Starlink mess; a once and future Mars ring; dealing with big data; new telescopes for the CMB Day1 @AAS habitable worlds; galaxies weird and wonderful; cosmic whimpers and bangs; journey to the center of the Milky Way NC cheated by charter schools Double dipping by charter schools (NY Times) taking pandemic money meant for businesses as well as education aid plus money from billionaire backers as well Choice overload (IndyWeek) the NC voucher program is a mess... the GOP want to expand it Why NC needs to hit the pause button on school choice (NC Policy Watch) the pandering to charter schools has been a disaster for student learning   education after the pandemic What we're learning about on-line learning (NY Times) "it's generally harder to keep students engaged with virtual lessons" and no thought given to hands-on science labs, unsurprisingly 3 plans to open NC schools (Raleigh N&O) and the entire 116-page plan 5 pre-college teachers on teaching post-pandemic (Vox) rethinking grading, inequities, and just talking Masks and fewer parties?: college in the fall? (Washington Post) dream on The only way to save higher education is to make it free (NY Times) public funding of colleges has dropped by 30% over 30 years, and tuition costs are up by 2.6x that of other consumer spending charging tuition at public colleges  is a political decision Students in masks? Sick kids staying home? (Washington Post) teachers wary of school plans ~18% of teachers are 55 or older... other school workers are even older, on average College will never be the same (NY Times) Universities will never be the same (Nature) A day in the life of a college faculty (Inside Higher Ed) this fall How the pandemic will change teaching on campus (Chronicle of Higher Education) it's difficult to know what teaching in person will be like until it happens group work?  peering over a student's shoulder? reading facial expressions behind a mask?  stress? paywall science after the pandemic (Nature) in 6 parts Scientists' world will shrink Challenging China's rise to the top of science Permanently altering scientific publishing? How scientific conferences will survive? virtual meetings Altering research funding? Sputnik moment or budget breaker? Universities will never be the same ------------------------- coronavirus medical updates Forget the 2nd wave... NC is still in the 1st (Raleigh N&O) CDC's 'new' guidance on large gatherings & rallies (CDC) wear the damn masks! Shutdown prevented 60 million covid-19 cases in U.S. (Nature) and save 3 million lives in 11 European countries (Nature) 2 studies show shutdown astonishingly effective (Vox) at blunting the pandemic Racism -- not genetics -- explains why black Americans are dying of covid-19 (Scientific American) When to fly, hug, get a haircut, etc. (NY Times) according to 511 epidemiologists We still don't know how deadly Covid-19  is yet (Scientific American) but deadly enough mortality rate in U.S ~6% The biggest mystery: the origin of coronavirus (Nature) likely bats, but ruling out other animals (or a lab) won't be easy The science is clear:  Trump bungled the pandemic response (Salon) and a detailed timeline of Trump's failure to respond to coronavirus (Vox) 57%-37%: most Americans favor controlling the pandemic vs. restarting the economy (Washington Post) despite the widespread economic toll The CDC waited "its entire existence for this moment"... what happened? (NY Times) a damning indictment of both the CDC and Trump where cv isn't Nunavut at high altitudes from the Andes to Tibet pandemic economics Local black businesses to support (Raleigh N&O) bad tech Big tech's pandemic power grab (The Atlantic) Who moderates the social media giants? (New York U) a call to end outsourcing Zuckerberg really just doesn't get it (Washington Post) a person so ignorant of racial injustice, discrimination, and voter suppression has no business owning a media company it's no surprise that Fbook's track record on civil rights issues is so poor
limited time?  read the most interesting & important stories from  late May 2020: 1)  America under siege at the breaking point the fault is not in our stars.... it's elsewhere whose violence?  protesters or police? Facebook fails again, Twitter less so 2)  coronavirus hasn't gone away pandemic politics pandemic effects on education pandemic effects on carbon emissions 3)   universe news the Sagittarius dwarf and the Milky Way have had a long-term relationship evidence (finally?  or again?) for most of universe's baryons an unexpectedly early disk galaxy an unexpectedly early ring galaxy 4)  solar system news increasing doubts about Planet 9 Mars:  lakes?  mud flows?  Earth:  the asteroid, the dinosaurs, and the cauldron that followed Jupiter:   forming the Galilean moons & a trapped comet  Bennu & Ryugu:  up from the rubble watching planetary birth in other systems
late May 2020
Doubting Planet 9 (The Conversation) Hunting meteorites in the Antarctic (New Scientist) where ⅔ of all meteorites are found paywall around Jupiter Europa: an alien world in our backyard (Scientific American) 3 clues to whether it could harbor life Jupiter traps a Centaur comet (U Hawaii) no longer thought to be a Jupiter Trojan with a tail and with a more explanatory picture (Sky & Telescope) will there be fireworks in 2063? Making Jupiter's moons (Astronomy) a new simulation produces promising results and NY Times explains it with beer bottles, steep hills, & vacuum cleaners ------------------ on Earth Dinosaur-dooming asteroid struck Earth at deadliest possible angle (Imperial College) and maximized release of climate-changing gases published article (Nature Communications) and a steaming cauldron followed the asteroid's impact for 150 kyr (USRA) due to creation of hydrothermal vents published article (Science Advances) No asteroid needed: end-devonian extinction tied to ozone loss (Science) and a uv-caused warming climate The Earth's core is a reservoir of water? (Nature) but given the uncertainties, maybe it's just a reservoir of hot air paywall -----------------------   Mars Maybe those ancient lava flows are actually mud flows? (Earth & Sky) More evidence for ancient ice-covered Martian lakes (Earth & Sky) oxalates and carbonates support alternating past warm/humid and cold/icy climates caused by volcanoes or axial-tilt change?  ...but implications for past Martian life are unclear NASA re-explains Is Mars "still" volcanically active? (Earth & Sky) based on 'evidence' (once-flowing convective magma) from one Martian meteorite: maybe "still" here means ~0.6 Gyr ago! ----------------------- small bodies  Bennu & Ryugu were formed from the destruction of a larger asteroid (CNRS France) say simulations such oblate spheroids can form through gravitational reaccumulation published article (Nature Communications) 5/16/20 update on Comet Swan (Earth & Sky) although it's probably best to use the Stellarium skymap Pluto's atmosphere is shrinking (Astronomy) a drop by 20% in 4 years --------------------   ruining space NASA invents new rules for lunar & space exploration (Scientific American) after Trump's Covid-19 blunders, who looks for American to lead anything? Principles for a Safe, Peaceful, and Prosperous Future (NASA) 🔥  climate crisis 🔥 how we know the planet is warming the big picture Unusual warmth jumpstarts Arctic ice melting (Washington Post) 3/14/2020 and 1 week later, it's in the 80s in the Arctic (Gizmodo) Antarctic ice sheet retreated more rapidly during last deglaciation than today (Science) from seafloor mapping paywall pandemic effects The impact of the cv pandemic on atmospheric CO2 (Carbon Brief) CO2 emissions fall 17% due to pandemic (Washington Post) ~½ the drop due to transport decreases and why that's dispiriting news (Scientific American) it shows how hard it will be to sustain the annual decrease needed to stop global warming published paper (Nature Climate Change) but likely only a 4 - 7% drop for the year How the pandemic slashed carbon emissions (Nature) in 5 graphs and how it's likely to ramp back up climate solutions A climate policy plan to unite us? (Vox) are climate activists actually about to agree on something? and some big climate plans Green New Deal (Vox) overview Green New Deal (Sunrise Movement) supported by the Green Party with likely nominee Howie Hawkins Solidarity for Climate Action (BlueGreen Alliance) Vision & Principles Platform pdf Equitable Climate Action Platform overview Platform pdf Equitable & Just National Platform vision & agenda Platform pdf Kelp is on the way (New Scientist) to clean up the atmosphere and save us from catastrophic climate change paywall The end of meat? (NY Times) sadly, not even close "if cows were a country, they'd be the 3rd largest GHG emitter in the world" Why the Democrats didn't have a climate-focused debate (American Prospect) DNC corporate lobbyists	The 7 (relatively rare) exceptions to 'normal' stellar evolution end states (Starts with a Bang) e.g., pair-instability supernovae, white dwarf mergers, kilonovae, and more Thorne-Zytkow objects?? The strange hearts of neutron stars (Scientific American) are still unknown (free quarks & gluons?  hyperons? Bose-Eisntein condensate?) despite wild speculation, including that here although better masses, radii, and magnetic field info are narrowing things down 'The COW is not alone' (Keck Observatory) 2 additional examples found FBOTs: a new class of cosmic explosions? (NRAO) this supernova's  engine is likely circumstellar Wandering stars pass by (through?) the solar system surprisingly often (Astronomy) last close encounter: 70,000 yrs ago next: Gleise 710, 1.4 Myr from now Understanding the music of δ Scuti stars (Astrobites) follow-up to earlier announcement	An Earth-like planet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri (U Geneva) 1.2 MEarth with orbital period 11 days around M6 star more commentary (Earth & Sky) Watching the disintegration of a planet? (AAS Nova) a small, close-in planet with variable transit depths Are cosmic rays respsonsible for chirality? (AAS Nova) aka the handedness of Earth life Quanta has a longer story A new Bayesian analysis suggests ET life is common (Columbia U.) and that its rise likely happens rapidly, not slowly but whether the life is intelligent & complex is a tossup published article (PNAS) assuming you understand Bayesian statistics Watching planet birth (Scientific American, June 2020 issue) entire issue is free to download and images of the latest two (Sky & Telescope) PD370 & AB Aurigae A 'twist' marks the spot of planetary formation? (Science News) more details on AB Aurigae dynamics A climate decoder -- for exoplanets (Cornell U) published article: How surfaces shape the climate of habitable exoplanets (MNRAS) Earth & Sky commentary	Universe's baryons found (finally? again?) using FRB dispersion (IRCAR Australia) with a 7-page "media backgrounder" lead authors' commentary claim 'finally' not 'again' (The Conversation) gee.... published article (Nature) Ωbary  =  0.51 + 0.02, consistent with CMB and Big Bang nucleosynthesis paywall The Sagittarius dwarf collided with Milky Way at least 3 times (ESA) inciting a burst of star formation @ 5.7, 1.9, & 1.0 Gyr ago with a simulation showing the Sgr- dwarf/Milky-Way interaction Nature Astronomy commentary with a diagram showing why our solar-system's formation 1 Gyr later is not unreasonable Physics World has the flashiest title: Colliding galaxies created the solar system Andrew Fabian awarded 2020 Kavli prize in Astrophysics (Kavli Prize) for ground-breaking work in x-ray astronomy focused on galactic centers An unexpected ring galaxy early in the universe (Science In Public) evidence for thin-disk galaxies  2.9 Gyr A.B. Nature Astronomy commentary Galaxies with a warmer interstellar medium have larger SMBHs (U Hawaii) and a warmer ISM might be due to an interaction with other galaxies An early start for galactic disks (Nature) a gas disk already formed 1.5 Gyr A.B., unexpectedly early do all galaxies form this way? and a much superior commentary by one of the authors (Max Planck Inst.) support for the cold accretion model of galaxy formation and commentary on the birth of disk galaxies Astrobites eldest sibling of the Milky Way A supermassice black hole duo gets confirmation (Sky & Telescope) with the prediction of a periodic flare How to explain the Big Bang to kids (Starts with a Bang) or the average adult How GAIA measured the mass of the Milky Way (Astrobites) using globular clusters an oldie but goodie	The biggest ideas in the universe (Preposterous Universe) on topics from field and forces to quantum entanglement 10 videos (30 - 60 min) Will anti-deuteron production help in search for dark matter? (CERN) The U.S. bets it all on neutrinos (Gizmodo) May the 5th force be with you (New Scientist) the universe increasingly seems to be telling us there is an unexplained presence paywall read with caution What 'banged' in the Big Bang? (Scientific American) Alan Guth speculates but beware... there's still no proof of 'his' inflation, consequent 'pocket universes', or primordial black holes Black hole paradoxes link energy and entropy? (Quanta) maybe they should turn their efforts instead toward actual finding evidence that black holes can evaporate and that Hawking radiation exists? before piling on more speculation on top of it 'Milestone' evidence for a 3rd kingdom of particles? (Quanta) if you have a low threshold for 'milestone', that is fantasy and then there's the parallel universe that's been spotted going backwards in time (New Scientist) read while laughing? paywall they should be paying us to read it with commentary by Starts with a Bang but which seems to have its origin in the mirror universe stuff says Space a month later 'Explaining' Many Worlds (MIT Press Reader) is the non-scientific ever 'explainable'? written by a supposed 'agnostic'	protests or violence? Violent protests are not the story (Vox) police violence is Across America, police react to peaceful protest with violence (The Guardian) Facing protests over use of force, police respond with more force (NY Times)  Is it OK *not* to protest the violence after police killings? (Vox) or does this 1967 MLK quote still have relevance? 'A riot is the language of the unheard' (USA Today) Scenes from a protest (Vox) America in crisis (Washington Post) gripped by disease, unemployment, and outrage at the police and yet Trump tweets about Twitter Viewing America's disintegration (Washington Post) the revolution will be televised ...52 years later ------------------ Trump called Cooper on 5/29 to argue for no masks and no distancing @ July GOP convention (Washington Post) Cooper demurred... talks continue No masks?  No physical distancing? No convention in Charlotte! Life as we know it....after the pandemic (Washington Post) pessimistic and optimistic views and the truth in between? The unluckiest generation? (Washington Post) millennials in 9 charts Will the coming fall economic recovery re-elect Trump? (Politico) the nightmare scenario The future of flying (Vox) forever changed? ready to get on a planet again? (NY Times) foreign policy How the Taliban outlasted the U.S. (NY Times) the war in Afghanistan Mike Pompeo: worst Secretary of Stae ever? (NY Times) Trump and his presidency and his malignant cruelty (The Atlantic) Why does he get away with egregious behavior? (Washington Post) Why are so many Republicans remaining silent? (The Atlantic) Trump's presidency: the one George Wallace never had (Washington Post) Trump's bluster & hollow threats (Politico) should be ignored pandemic politics The pandemic has hit Democratic counties harder than GOP ones (NY Times) primarily due to differences in population density and largely responsible for the polarization in pandemic responses What kind of country do we want? (NY Books) ruled by justice or by profits? that we'd rather pay cheap workers in China -- who live in factory dorms -- than pay American workers a livable wage says something about us The sickness in our food supply  (NY Books) we sacrifice workers but love monopolies it's no surprise that Trump re-opened meatpacking plants via DPA despite widespread worker infection Will $7 trillion more be enough? (The Atlantic) to prevent a great depression but right now, the GOP is holding out for 0 The worst predators have persuaded the worst Republicans to end the shutdown (American Prospect) Why do Trump & McConnell want liability protection for businesses bringing workers back? (NY Times) if it's not a danger to workers? so their next idea: bribe them to go back to work (Politico) The worst is yet to come? (NY Times) teetering on the edge of pessimism and optimism Liberals' safety fears vs. conservatives' mask cowardice (NY Times) covid-19 polarization strikes again but Who's more afraid of coronavirus, liberals or conservatives? (Vox) is more interesting with 3 theories Why immunity passports are a bad idea (Nature) 10 reasons  Ranking every country's coronavirus impact (Politico) The U.S.: worse-than-average public health and economic outcomes but, hey, we're doing better than Iran Pandemic exposes America's hollowed-out government (Washington Post) The stupidity of not expanding Medicaid in NC (NC Policy Watch) the uninsured rate will soar including for the nearly  ~1 million who have just lost jobs bad news Bad news for old people (Washington Post) Bad news for the millennials (Vox) in 14 charts   Bad news for 2020 college graduates (The Atlantic)  Bad news for the young and un-immunized (Vox)  Bad news for workers in the gig economy (Washington Post) ------------------ non-pandemic politics The Decade of Democracy's Demise (SSRN) Citizens United, overturning of the Voting Rights Act, legislative gerrymandering, .... a very very long read Midwestern states -- the last bastion of pension plans (Washington Post) the home of well-educated workers with a desire to work as opposed to, say, the South Barton Gellman is still watching his back (The Atlantic) a follow-up to reporting the Snowden story elections Bipartisan NC election bill filed (WRAL) containing much of what State Board of Elections asked for but rejects giving SBoE Director more say over elections the bill itself what it does do: allows absentee ballot request by email; reduces witnesses from 2 to 1; allots money for cybersecurity, covid-related safety measures & extra equipment what it doesn't do: mail absentee ballot request forms to every voter;  make Election Day a holiday;  pay postage for mail-in ballot return bill expected to pass, as is meanwhile, another election lawsuit filed (Raleigh N&O) asking to overturn much of NC election law as unconstitutional for failure to adjust procedures in the face of the pandemic but  25 states have already changed their elections procedures this year (Washington Post) Twitter FINALLY fact checks a false Trump tweet as false (Washington Post) will wonders never cease? June runoff in Western NC previews election problems for Nov. (Raleigh N&O) election officials there are expecting a pollworker shortage not to mention money for plexiglass shields, masks, cleaning crews, ... Texas GOP fights to keep voting unsafe (Washington Post) GOP will be watching you vote (NY Times) hiring 50,000 activists in 15 states to monitor polls now that 4-decade ban on GOP pollwatching (aka harrassment) expired in 2018 The clock is ticking: deadlines start now for avoiding November chaos (Axios) and what deadlines need to be met when (Brennan Center for Justice) for running a safe election What happens if a presidential candidate dies (or withdraws) before the election (Washington Post) part 1 part 2 A guide to (almost) all the remaining congressional primaries (Washington Post) Each state's electoral preparation in response to covid-19 (Vote At Home) NC gets 2★ out of 5 Only Congress can change the date of a presidential election (Washington Post) the Constitution says so Grading the Electoral College: C for Chaos (Washington Post) Elections during a pandemic 50-min audios WBUR OnPoint or WAMU the 1A or Free & Fair economics A death sentence for restaurants (NY Times) and suggestions for overturning it Crumbs for the hungry, but zillions more for the rich (NY Times) retroactive tax breaks for real estate developers for periods long before coronavirus arrived once again, what kind of country do we want? books Let them Eat Tweets (W W Norton) how the right rules in the age of extreme inequality Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an uncertain world (Physics World) essays on how physicists grapple with cutting-edge issues a review of David Kaiser's book Trumpocalypse: is there a way out? (Washington Post) it's not so much the millions he's personally extracted from government, it's the moral turpitude by David Frum	bad tech Restaurants are barely surviving  --  delivery apps will kill them (Washington Post) an exhaustive takedown Twitter confronts Trump... Fbook abdicates (NY TImes) Fbook still can't won't tell truth from fiction (The Guardian) although a few Fbook employees chastise Zuckerberg for his silence (Washington Post) on Trump's divisive tweets Trump is doing his all for Fbook (The Atlantic) why are thoughtful people still using it?  ----------------------- pandemic education Memo to NC Charter schools:  stop lying about being underfunded! (NC Policy Watch) they spend more $ per student than traditional public schools and have less to show for it NC Senate isn't interested in funding pandemic help for schools (NC Policy Watch) unlike the Governor and the NC House What college will be like in the fall in NC (Raleigh N&O) what we know; what we don't UNC system's Roadmap to 2020 (UNC) but  faculty & students skeptical and  faculty push back (NC Policy Watch) Universities overcome bumps in transition to online teaching (Physics Today, June 2020 issue) assessing students, preserving privacy, suppressing cheating, minimizing anxiety The future of college is online -- and it's cheaper (NY Times) so what if it's not anywhere near as good? How America sabotaged the pandemic higher-ed crisis (The Atlantic) the deprioritization of community colleges which are now left totally unprepared The longest summer vacation ever (Politico) why it's a bad thing for low-income students How to find your life passion work (The Atlantic) a college graduation speech? ----------------- science Carbon dating gets a major re-calibration (Nature) magnetic field reversals, nuclear bombs, & fossil-fuel use have changed carbon levels in atmosphere In search of life's smoking gun (Nautil.us) a journey to underwater volcanoes where life may have erupted Do civilizations collapse? (Aeon) good television? or bad archaeology? Rethinking Easter Island's collapse (Sapiens) people Harmeet Dhillon, apparently learned little science while at NCSSM (c/o '85) (Politico) A John Conway retrospective (NY Times) written by a worshipper Conway died of coronavirus in April grad studnet solves lingering Conway map problem (Quanta) Rosenkrantz, Tycho, & Kepler: a most excellent adventure (Brick) the thin line between oblivion and immortality so who IS the most famous? tech Estonia lives online. Why can't the U.S.? (The Atlantic) bank, get health care, order prescriptions, apply for sick leave or government assistance The confessions of Marcus Hutchins (Wired) the hacker who saved the internet a very very long read for computer geeks only paywall perhaps which is why you should read How to stop a cyberattack (Washington Post) because now is the perfect time to start one? ----------------------- coronavirus, medical The epic battle against coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories (Nature) Covid-19 modeling is fraught with uncertainties (Physics Today) which political leaders are quite poor at dealing with CDC defends failure (Washington Post) to spot virus spread early and to develop a reliable test Social distancing is not enough (The Atlantic) we need to covid-proof restaurants, offices, and public entertainment Why coronavirus is worse than the flu (Washington Post) it attacks blood-vessel linings in the lungs Why immuno-passports are not a good idea (Nature) 10 reasons but a vaccine and contact tracing are Earlier lockdown would have prevented tens of thousands of deaths (medarXiv) assuming people would have behaved appropriately 36,000 fewer deaths if lockdown had started just 1 week earlier Scientific American, July 2020 issue is mostly devoted to  the cv pandemic free to download but may require registration Good news on the human immune response to coronavirus? (Science) but Moderna didn't release sufficient vaccine evidence (Stat) so it's hard to draw conclusions Nature  agrees A visual guide to how various coronavirus vaccines might work (Nature) Why contact tracing won't work in America (MIT Tech Review) high caseloads, lack of testing, attitudes toward government surveillance, lack of workers, and more How coronavirus destroys the human body, one organ at a time (Wired) Lockdowns worked (Vox) the evidence for flattening the curve Animal source of coronavirus still eludes researchers (Nature) bats?  pangolin? and still no evidence it originated in a lab The proof that social distancing save lives (CDC) and  here's your chance to explore the models (Washington Post) Where chronic health conditions and coronavirus (could) collide (NY Times) and documenting the poor health of Southerners Why the Navajo Nation is one of the worst covid-19 hot spots (NY Times) decades of bad federal government behavior Anti-vaxxers are gaining ground (Nature) pandemic polarization helps
limited time?  read the most interesting & important stories from  early May 2020: 1) coronavirus still tops the charts medical updates education updates election updates are cities dead? economics updates  2) more bad news about climate climate moving out of human comfort levels reaching new heights of heat and humidity visualizing Antarctic ice loss a warning about sea-level rise:  an exponential increase in flooding and 6 new climate books 3)  is the Sun normal? 4)  a Ryugu update 5)  A new cosmological tension?:   the universe's clumping of mass 6)  a Milky Way FRB 7)  art to watch instead of visit 8)  and here and there ..... how the Snowden spying story broke NCSSM astronaut returns home Fbook's continuing truth problem
early May 2020
volcanoes Long-dormant Mauna Kea has been g(rumbling) (Science News) for decades small periodic earthquakes no cause for alarm? Mt. St. Helens, at 40 (Science) New simulation 'evidence' that Europa's plumes are water (Max Planck Inst.) and more from Astronomy --------------------- How a collision on one side of Pluto ripped up terrain on the opposite side (Scientific American, June 2020 issue) free for a limited time Sky Guide 2020 (Astronomy) free downloadable  month-by-month guide to mostly the planets Moon One step closer to mining the Moon? (Popular Mechanics) sadly, one more crack in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty a long read and how to do it (MIT Tech Review) but it's a long road ahead New carbon data at odds with impact origin of the Moon (Science Advances) maybe the Moon isn't volatile-depleted after all? free for a limited time --------------------- Ryugu Touching Ryugu (The Conversation) what Hyabusa-2 has learned How long ago did the Sun redden Ryugu? (Sky & Telescope) with implications for Ryugu's age a definitive age will be pinned down when Hyabusa returns to Earth with samples in December published article (Science) --------------------- Will Comet SWAN make up for Comet Atlas? (Sky & Telescope) with a white-on-blue finder chart ... white-on-black finder chart here Venus and Earth got their water during their main accretion? (Nature Astronomy) and not delivered later b/c atmospheric escape can remove only a limited amount of water free to read but not save Giant underwater volcano rewrites seafloor formation (Scientific American) Tamu massif, 50x larger than Hawaii Mars Martian magnetic field dynamo present earlier -- and later -- than thought (Planetary Science Institute) Mars needs money (Scientific American) current White House budget implies retreat from Mars goodbye Mars Odyssey, Curiosity, ...? 4-Gyr organic molecules found in Martian meteorite (ELSI) Earth & Sky has better graphics 🔥  climate crisis 🔥 how we know the planet is warming the big picture  The foods to avoid if you care about climate change (Vox) beef tops the list... by a lot... then lamb & dairy, chocolate & coffee April 2020: warmest April on record (Washington Post) Europe & Asia have warmest first quarter ever 2020 on track to surpass 2016 as world's  warmest year on record... and there isn't an El Niño Global warming to push billions outside of humans' 6000-yr comfort range (Washington Post) within 50 yrs -- and change human geography 2 billion+ SE- Asians will soon live in regions hotter than 84°F (The Guardian) based on published article: Future of the Human Climate Niche (PNAS) and Extreme humidity & temperature events now 2x as common as 40 years ago (Scientific American) published article: The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance (Science Advances) free for a limited time Celestial mechanics and Earth's ice ages (Physics Today, May 2020 issue) have they affected human evolution? Visualizing Antarctica's ice melt as never before (NY Times) and the published article: Atmosphere vs. ocean: and the pervasive ice loss that is a result (Science Advances) free for a short time Washington Post wins Pulitzer Prize for  '2°C: Beyond the Limit' climate reporting Sea-level rise exponentially increases coastal flood frequency (Nature Scientific Reports) repeat, 'exponentially' Signs of the coming climate-caused drought in the Missouri basin (Washington Post) coronavirus-climate 'good news' (Carbon Brief) Europe CO2 emission drops by  ~40% China's CO2 down by ~25% Coronavirus impact on CO2 6x larger than during 2008 financial crisis No mask?  You probably don't worry about climate change either (Eos) making a masquerade of science environment A medieval dark lunar eclipse helps date ice cores (Sky & Telescope) and volcanic eruptions How global warming and wildlife habitat destruction contribute to skyrocketing infectious disease (Pro Publica) bats, rats, and other rodents thrive in degraded environments Study links coronavirus death rate to air pollution (Washington Post) although not yet peer-reviewed, DC takes sides of course The sustained undermining of science by EPA leaders is a travesty (Nature) Trump undermines environmental protections under the guise of coronavirus (Nature) 5 examples: emissions rollbacks, inaction on particulates, & more	Inside δ Scuti stars (Nature) astroseismology shows regular high-frequency pulsation modes and commentary from one of the co-discoverers (U Central Lancashire) and NASA Goddard has nice graphics Signs of neutron-star collisions to come? (AAS Nova) radio and/or γ-rays? The Sun is less active that similar stars (Max Planck Inst.) and The future of the Sun (Science) is its magnetic activity headed up or down? with implications for Earth's habitability paywall Spins point to how black-hole binaries formed (AAS Nova) formed separately and met up later in life, or together from the beginning? spoiler alert: slightly more of the former except: a slightly older article seems to say the opposite??	ET life Mars' climate model suggests Earth life could not presently survive in Martian salt water (SWRI) ok, but so what? Living the hy(drogen) life? (Sky & Telescope) on the viability of living in H2-rich exoplanet atmospheres	new commentary on last month's claim of a discrepancy in the universe's mass clumping density (Scientific American) & a new tension: σ8 hints of new physics? Is the Big Bang in crisis? (Astronomy, May 2020 issue) nagging questions about dark matter, dark energy, & H0 Classification of galaxy morphology solved? (UC-Santa Cruz) with a new AI tool First Milky Way FRB is a known magnetar (Sky & Telescope) but it doesn't mean all are	Quark theory still disagrees with experiment (Quanta) not exactly explanatory Lost chapters (Science 2.0) chapter 1 chapter 2 chapter 3 of Anomaly! (Amazon) reviewed by Not Even Wrong for particle-physics insiders Is dark matter hiding in existing data? (LBL) looking in the MeV range instead of the keV read with caution searching for non-existent black holes? Naked singularities (Scientific American) and how to search for them and one in the outer solar system? (Gizmodo) instead of Planet 9 read with caution and treat with irrelevance? Anti-deSitter space (AdS) shown to be unstable (Quanta) good thing we don't live in AdS	Durham/Raleigh restaurants doing takeout (Raleigh N&O) please don't waste money on deliver apps An indictment of the CDC and how it was marginalized (The Lancet) a medical journal's rare op-ed Which 'American way of life' will win out? (NY Times) the one for or against workers? The conspiracy mongers are winning (The Atlantic) Is a President above the law? (NY Times) and a pre-hearing listener's guide (Washington Post) to the battle before the Supreme Court An annotated commentary  to the live Court hearings (NY Times) Secrets, surveillance,and Snowden (Washington Post) the inside story of the exposure of NASA's massive spying program a very long read What paid for America's  land-grant universities? (NY Times) in many cases, wealth stolen from indigenous peoples Quarantine reveals we don't need more sports in our lives (Washington Post) we need less Whose freedom counts? (Slate) what the anti-lockdown protesters forget about 'freedom' and 'liberty' Admitted liar Michael Flynn given get-out-of-jail-free card (NY Times) Trump suppresses new CDC guidelines (Politico) 8 miles can decide whether you live to 90 ... or 60 (NY Times) the politics of poverty 9 other disasters we're unprepared for (Politico) from the experts who knew a pandemic was coming the death of cities? Forever changing the world's cities? (Washington Post) The spaces that make cities fairer and more resilient (NY Times) Time to embrace density? (NY Times) America's cities could house everyone (including the homeless) (NY Times) if they chose to   The cities we need (NY Times) a long read Open the streets! (The Atlantic) ban cars now... and keep parks open! Restaurants remain shuttered (NY Times) the economic lifeblood disappears How will the pandemic shape urban life? (Thinking City) City life after the pandemic (Foreign Policy) 15 thoughts (Sightline) ------------------ Guns & protests don't mix (Washington Post) and are likely illegal A nail in the coffin of American exceptionalism (Vox) a polarized nation is not a nation... and  the rest of the world pities us The problem with Biden's defense (New York) by his own standards, he's guilty Congress needs to be way way bigger (The Atlantic) so that they're not responsible for 740,000 people the first congressmen were responsible for 60,000 Pence staff threatens reporter who broke story of VP's mask-less visit to clinic (Washington Post)   will his shameful behavior never end? coronavirus fallout education Some states are taking the 'public' out of public education (NY Times) source of the story's data (State Higher Education Assoc.) student share of education costs has risen from 20% - 47% since 1980 Colleges aren't giving refunds. Why not? (NY Times) some answers Colleges' Hobson choice: opening with risk or face financial ruin (Politico) with different outcomes for rich and poor ones Will coronavirus alter the college experience? (NY Times) permanently? 2020 poll of civic literacy (American Bar Association) showing mostly that 20-40% of Americans know nothing quite little about their government elections Best practices for registering and voting in the era of Covid-19 (Fair Elections Center) 8 falsehoods about voting & fraud (Brennan Center for Justice) that could undermine the 2020 election The fraud of 'voter fraud' claims (The Hill) and fraud is higher in states requiring an excuse to vote absentee than those that don't What it could cost NC to run a primarily mail-in-ballot election (Raleigh N&O) and NC isn't getting ready Voter groups sue for easier mail-in ballots (Raleigh N&O) What NC can learn from WIsconsin voting chaos (NC Policy Watch) Why we need postal democracy (NY Books) voting in a pandemic free for a limited time Will NC House Speaker Moore follow through on his threat to stop widespread mail voting in November? (Raleigh N&O) preventing fraud, or just preventing votes? Supreme Court unintentionally liberalized ballot counting in its Wisconsin decision? (Washington Post) by requiring ballots to be postmarked by Election Day rather than received economics U.S. airlines: they took public money -- and now are reducing jobs & worker hours (American Prospect) There is no plan (Washington Post) the fantasy of life returning to normal Demographics of economic pain (Washington Post) worse for the less educated, people of color, teenagers, and women The absurdity of blanket corporate immunity (American Prospect) McConnell surrenders to the rich and powerful again Workers are first casualties again (Washington Post) they lose their jobs while their employers funnel money to shareholders 34 days of pandemic: the inside story of Trump's desperate attempts to re-open America (Washington Post) the deceit, the dysfunction, & the lying laid bare a long read Moral hazard: who is deserving of bailout money? (NY Times) no one (libertarians); not states & cities (conservatives); not banks & airlines (liberals) Economic relief for fossil fuels, but not for solar/wind (Washington Post) you can guess why Billions of clean energy loans are going unused (NY Times) books 6 new books explore climate change and solutions (Science News) Indecent Assembly (BlueNC) Gene Nichol documents NC's lurch toward right-wing extremism or at least its legislature's Republicans despised Gene Nichol for his columns... Wait 'til they read his book (IndyWeek) Politics among Nations (NY Times) the influential 1948 book still has more to say a review of The Dream Universe (BackReaction) subtitled: How Fundamental Physics Lost its Way art/trips/museums Manet: Portraying Life (Royal Academy, 1.5-hr documentary) released in theaters at time of 2013 exhibition It's Alive (Columbia Museum of Art) classic horror and sci-fi art closes 5/17/2020 with 10 1-min tours (YouTube) with Metallica's Kirk Hammett Brooklyn Bridge: a tour (NY Times) star of NYC Madagascar (NY Times) cornucopia of beauty Antarctica (NY Times) Adm. Byrd and self-isolation at the end of the world Boston's Apollo: Thomas McKeller & John Singer Sargent (Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum) a review (NY Times) Boston's Apollo (The Guardian) another review Picasso and Paper (Royal Academy of Arts) with a 40-min virtual walk through Inside 2 Hockney blockbusters (Royal Academy of Arts) with an 80-min movie	Found: Africa's greatest collection of footprints (Science News) Christina Koch interview (WBUR OnPoint 50-min podcast) from space quarantine to home quarantine How covid-19 will stop new math? (Quanta) these people need to get a life NC gets an F in social distancing (Raleigh N&O) one of 9 'F' states and the counties that are the worst On the Pentagon's UFO videos (Katie Mack, NCSU, via Scientific American) Stephen Wolfram claims a theory of everything  (again) (Stephen Wolfram) but Few are buying it (Scientific American) coronavirus medical Sensible ways to re-open a country vs. America's way (Time) 7 ideas on how to beat Covid-19 and save the economy (Vox) starting with 'wear masks' Yes, there was a pandemic playbook (Politico) the Trump team just didn't follow it McConnell gets 3 Pinocchios update:  oops, McConnell corrects himself the embarrassing truth, as of 5/12: from World in Data U.S.: 9th highest death rate per capita U.S.: 21st highest testing rate per capita U.S.: 4th highest total covid cases per capita U.S.: 4th highest daily Covid cases per capita rolling 3-day average Where coronavirus is increasing most rapidly mostly Africa & Asia -------------------------- 20% employment means that 35 million people lose health insurance (The Guardian) who's planning for that? A guide to staying safe as states re-open (The Atlantic) dos and don'ts Guidelines for re-opening? What guidelines? (NY Times) with numerical data on each state NC's data trends are mixed Travel from NYC seeded outbreak across the country (NY Times) Has a strain of coronavirus mutated into something more contagious? (Washington Post) but many are skeptical Where Americans are staying home (Washington Post) county by county CDC on the decline: are we finally noticing? (Slate) Save us from Jared the incompetent (Washington Post) better yet, trade him to Shark Tank the boy wonder idiot fails at yet another thing 'Hey, it's only killing the old and sick... so what?' (Indy Week) Dan Forest, idiot 2020 GOP governor candidate bad tech How big tech plans to profit from the pandemic (The Intercept) Fbook's huge truth problem can't be fixed by an oversight board (Washington Post) Will Fbook & Google finally be forced to pay for using news from local outlets? (NY Times) Australia and France may lead the way bad media Stop over-covering the puny anti-lockdown protests (Vox) the 'pro' ones have been a lot larger
limited time?  read the most interesting & important stories from  late  April 2020: 1) coronavirus still reigns medical news the future elections education economics: current and future a chance to remake America 2)  CP lepton asymmetry  at long last? can it explain why the universe is made of matter and not anti-matter? 3)  first detection of a merger of unequal-mass black holes 4) our interstellar visitors: Oumuamua & Borisov, and those who stuck around: the Centaur asteroids 5)  climate news temperature records: past & future Greenland ice sheet loss underestimated? climate/cv economics will the climate lobby ever get their message straight? is it about changing personal behavior or that of governments & corporations? 6) looking for ET 7) a new cosmological tension: the universe's density