solar system
stars
exoplanets
(and ET life)
galaxies & cosmology
relativity, quantum,
& particle physics
cultural
literacy
teaching & ed,
science & tech
late June 2019
6/30 is Asteroid Day
and the 111th
anniversary of the Tunguska event
(Earth & Sky)
NASA approves Dragonfly
(Washington Post)
a mission to land a drone on Saturn's moon Titan
NASA's announcement
Good news for
life on Mars?
(Astronomy)
did the bombardment stop early enough -- while Mars was warm(er) and wet -- for life to start?
another Mars methane burst and decline
(Science News)
ho hum
The Moon
is a hot topic
How the Apollo 11
samples tell the
story of the solar system's formation
(Vox)
Scientific American
July issue is
all Moon
including
'When Earth and Moon were one'
(the synestia model)
'Apollo's bounty: the science of the moon rocks'
and all paywall, of course
Sky & Telescope July issue is all Moon
a mix of science, Apollo 11, & a return to the Moon
and all paywall, of course
Astronomy July issue is all
Apollo 11
2 free to read
Celebrating 50 years of Apollo
(Astronomy)
Watch Apollo 11 documentary on CNN: 6/23, 9 pm
(CNN)
if you missed it in theaters this spring
also Saturday, 6/29
or watch the opening plenary broadcast from the Astrobiology Science Conference
at 9:30 pm EST
One small step back in time
(Scientific American)
relive the wonder of Apollo 11
a long interactive
or, pretending it didn't happen
yes, we landed on the Moon
(Starts with a Bang)
Europa has tasty food for bacteria
(Universe Today)
well, at least for
Earth bacteria
Happy summer solstice
(Vox)
or at least it was on 6/21, 11:54 am EDT
... the longest day,
but not the hottest
weather
🔥 yes, the climate
is changing 🔥
climate consequences
Glacier retreat rate in the Himalayas has doubled in the 2000s
(Carbon Brief)
compared to 1990s
or download the
full 1150-page Hindu-Kush assessment
Record ice melting in Greenland?
(Washington Post)
or
nothing to write Nome about?
(National Snow & Ice Data Center)
depends on who's writing the government summaries
if it's nothing to worry about, then what about this graph?:
Methane is not the worst thing that will be released by melting ice
(BBC)
anthrax? nuclear waste?
Which cities should be saved first from rising seas?
(NY Times)
the huge (future) cost of global warming
how about the ones with pro-clean energy policies?
climate solutions
5 questions about carbon taxes,
answered
(Vox)
Solar surpasses coal in electricity
(Forbes!)
for the first time
A global transition to clean energy
(Vox)
in 12 charts
unfortunately, annual carbon emissions are still going up, as are gov't subsidies for fossil fuels
and the report it's based on:
Renewables Global Status report
(Renewables Now)
the executive summary
Perovskite: about to disrupt solar?
(Nature)
or an overly optimistic promise
climate politics
How to debate a
science denier
(Scientific American)
exposing bad info and bad techniques both work
published article
(Nature Human Behavior)
free to read, but not to
save or download
How to defeat climate legislation:
leave town
(Vox)
at least in Oregon
Why arguing about climate change (often) doesn't work
(Knowable)
in cartoons
GOP idiocy on
climate change
(Vox)
and why they love the name change from 'global warming to 'climate change'
The Pentagon's outsize role in
global warming
(Bill McKibben, in
NY Books)
with more details:
Pentagon fuel use, climate change, and the cost of war
(U of Boston)
the largest user of fossil fuels and largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world....
and is responsible for 80% of the entire US government energy consumption
Rise of the extinction deniers
(Scientific American)
same people as the climate change deniers
environment
The United States of plastic
(The Guardian)
a long read
Plastic wrapped in plastic
(The Guardian)
the wasteful reality
of American grocery stores
Global warming stymies Everglades restoration
(Scientific American)
Collapsars didn't produce our gold?
(AAS Nova)
new paper cites mismatch with observational evidence
published paper
(ApJ Letters)
contradicting a previous claim
100+ TeV photons from the Crab
(Science News)
how does it do it?
don't know for sure, but the leading hypothesis seems to be inverse Compton scattering of
the CMB
The 'cow' seems
to be a strange supernova
(Science News)
Solar history is recorded in moon rocks
(Astronomy)
a fast rotator & more active Sun in the past
but still a slower rotator than average
TESS finds its smallest planet
(NASA Goddard)
smaller than Earth, larger than Mars
Straddling the radius gap
(AAS Nova)
2 same-mass planets: one small and close-in, one large and far-out, around the same star
Clues to planet birth
(Sky & Telescope)
youngest known exoplanet provides evidence for formation by gravitational collapse
at least for this 12-Jupiter-mass planet
close to its star
Unraveling the formation history
of hot Jupiters
(Astrobites)
M stars: the most common stars in the galaxy are commonly host to
diverse systems of low-mass planets
(Astrobiology Web)
No ETI laser
signals found by
Breakthrough
(Astrobiology Web)
not even from
Boyajian's star
Astrobiologists meet in Seattle
(AGU)
the program is here
June 24 - 28
A 'netflix'-algorithm for finding exoplanets?
(Science News)
Earliest known galaxy merger:
1 Gyr A.B.
(Science News)
Evidence for the SMBH mass function
(U Western Ontario)
SMBHs form by direct collapse?
1st ID of an FRB
An non-repeater FRB is identified in a galaxy far, far away
(Sky & Telescope)
Astronomy comments
and why FRBs are especially mysterious
(Astronomy)
Localization of
1st FRB
(Astrobites)
in massive early-type spiral galaxy
published article
(Science)
and a galaxy very different from the host of the only other identified one
unusually for Science,
it's free to read!
-------------------
The Milky Way's halo extends to
520,000 cyrs?
(Subaru)
uh.... isn't the SMC
210,000 cyrs away?
5 solutions to the
H0 discrepancy
(Starts with a Bang)
or
Could the Big Bang be wrong?
(Discover)
I think it means 'the Big Bang' is incomplete...
... not as good as the previous article
Can warm inflation lead to cold dark matter?
(physics buzz)
The Milky Way: bigger, brighter, and more massive than most
(Knowable)
and now with many more companions
it's not just the SMC & LMC ..we now know of ~60!
is an update of
The Milky Way in Context
(Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics)
Why all galaxies don't have the same percentage of dark matter
(Starts with a Bang)
why dark matter can dominate in smaller galaxies
The simple idea behind Einstein's greatest discoveries
(Quanta)
does simplicity point the way to the future of physics?
Was Feyman wrong
about truth and beauty in science?
(Aeon)
or just another irrelevant rant by a science 'philosopher'?
Can you understand the universe if you're stuck inside it?
(Quanta)
Nuclear Barnett effect seen in protons for first time
(Physics Today)
and why it took so long
Ring of controversy:
updates on EHT's M87 SMBH 'image'
(Prof Matt Strassler)
photon spheres for rotating black holes don't exist... so what are we seeing?
a very long read
Black hole shadows, photon rings, and lensing rings
(arXiv)
an even longer read
and more geeky
ETH may target a blazar next
(Astronomy)
quantum computers
Improving at a
'doubly exponential'
rate?
(Quanta)
Neven's law
The ultimate in
randomness?
(Quanta)
dark matter, or not?
Are we building useless dark-matter detectors?
(BackReAction)
another rant against technology-building (and in favor of data trolling)
Space is too damn empty
(physicsmatt)
A betrayal of
America
(Washington Post)
election interference becomes a laughing matter between
Trump and Putin
why isn't this the top story on every news site?
as does the killing of journalists
(Vox)
while Trump fast-
forwards American decline
(NY Times)
by savaging American diplomacy
U.S. drops to
48th in World Freedome Index
(Reporters without Borders)
below South Africa, Slovenia, and Burkino Faso
Supreme Court
abdicates on
gerrymandering
"Partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts."
(U. S. Supreme Court)
which includes Kagan's dissent at the end
The GOP turn from
democracy
(Vox)
a bigger threat to American democracy than Trump?
Supreme Court enshrines winner-take-all
(The Atlantic)
if you want to write the rules and draw the districts, you better win
"for the first time ever", SC refuses to "remedy a constitutional violation"
(Scotusblog)
from Elena Kagan's dissent
while Roberts announces the Supreme Court is powerless
The hypocrisy of CJ Roberts, who voted against the constitutionality of nonpartisan redistricting commissions
(NY Times)
but now writes that commissions are the solution to political gerrymandering!
will the 5-4 decision allowing such commissions survive with Kavanaugh replacing Kennedy on the Court?
Forget the Russians, it's American courts that rig our elections
(American Prospect)
Gerrymandering is bad... the alternatives are worse
(The Atlantic)
a defense of Supreme Court decision
a practice can constitute a threat to
democracy without violating the Constitution.
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/supreme-court-gerrymandering-case-upholds-a-political-tradition
Copyright © BloombergQuint
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/supreme-court-gerrymandering-case-upholds-a-political-tradition
Copyright © BloombergQuint
a practice can constitute a threat to
democracy without violating the Constitution.
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/supreme-court-gerrymandering-case-upholds-a-political-tradition
Copyright © BloombergQuint
"...
a practice that can constitute a threat to
democracy may not be a violation of the
Constitution"Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/supreme-court-gerrymandering-case-upholds-a-political-tradition
Copyright © BloombergQuint
(Bloomberg)
really? then what good is a Constitution?
a practice can constitute a threat to
democracy without violating the
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/supreme-court-gerrymandering-case-upholds-a-political-tradition
Copyright © BloombergQuint
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/supreme-court-gerrymandering-case-upholds-a-political-tradition
Copyright © BloombergQuint
a practice can constitute a threat to
democracy without violating the Constitution.
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/supreme-court-gerrymandering-case-upholds-a-political-tradition
Copyright © BloombergQuint
Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/gadfly/supreme-court-gerrymandering-case-upholds-a-political-tradition
Copyright © BloombergQuint
A decision that drags the Supreme Court into the mud
(NY Times)
Will NC legislators now act?
(News & Observer)
to prevent lawmakers from choosing their voters
or will the NC Supreme Court rule that partisan gerrymandering the state constitution?
Census question remanded to lower court to adjudicate partisan influence
(Scotusblog)
will the question be approved after a do-over?
How the census question will affect the Carolinas
(News & Observer)
the Democratic debates
Joe Biden:
"My time is up."
(The Atlantic)
let's hope so
Rules of the game
(NY Books)
a preview
How to watch them if you missed them
(Government Hub)
and watch future ones
Why they will be awful
(Washington Post)
Blocking a debate on climate change is idiotic
(Salon)
Too many wannabe
candidates are wasting our time
(Washington Post)
but it could be worse
Mike Pence: the only person who lies more than Trump?
(Washington Post)
the helpless idiot
---------------------
elections
The biggest travesty since
Bush v. Gore
(Slate)
"a defense of lawlessness" on the census question
election security
NC delays purchase of voting machines with paper trail because of 'unfamiliarity' ?!?
(News & Observer)
and blames it on
'cybersecurity concerns'
or because new is always the enemy of the good
Undermining election safeguards
for 2020
(Politico)
2020 cybersecurity:
recommendations
(Washington Post)
2020 cybersecurity:
even voting machine makers are worried
(Washington Post)
how to make voting difficult
The voter suppression
chronicles
(American Prospect)
highlights North Carolina
economics
Time to rip intro economic texts?
(Washington Post)
and start over
What students learn in economics
101: time for a
change
(University College, London)
a very long read
The U.S. economy is broken, but
stop blaming China
(The Guardian)
blame the behavior of the Fortune 500 and the wealthy
Message from the
billionaires
(NY Times)
tax us!
On Juneteenth:
an unprecedented debate about slavery reparations
(Vox)
but what next?
Why reparations are not the answer
(The Atlantic)
to poverty, at least
generations
We're not getting any younger
(News & Observer)
NC median age rises to 38.9...we're the
22nd oldest state
The Boomers ruined everything?
(The Atlantic)
creating a crisis for younger Americans
(bad) foreign policy
America's indefensible defense budget
(NY Books)
but at least we have 136 military bands...
and then there's its huge contribution to global warming
The self- destruction of American power
(Foreign Policy)
was it our bad habits or our bad behavior?
i.e., new challenges or imperial overreach?
Trump & Iran on a collision course?
(NY Times)
both sides behaving recklessly
Saudi Arabia: running out of friends?
(NY Times)
except American ones
U.S. escalates attacks on Russian power grids
(NY Times)
is this really what Americans want their government doing?
Walmart's bribes
(NY Times)
the American way of doing business is punished
books
The ice at the end of the world
(USA Today)
scary clues to climate change in Greenland
The fate of food
(Vox)
global warming hits home
C14: revolutionizing science
(Nature)
The Death of Politics
(The Atlantic)
more like the death
of facts...
murder by Trump
trips/art
A local's guide to
Portland (OR)
(Washington Post)
The many van Gogh sunflowers
(NY Times)
how many, how different?
sadly, the 5 sunflowers will never be re-united again
'van Gogh and the Sunflowers' exhibit has only videos of the other 4
(van Gogh Museum)
get the 80-page catalog or the
250-page scientific work
(both in English)
Monument Valley
(The Atlantic)
36 hours in Oxford
(England)
(NY Times)
and it even has a map
Training for the Moon
(The Atlantic)
in Arizona
A local's guide to Toronto
(Washington Post)
Young Picasso
(Foundation Beyelar)
was extended an extra month
with more pictures here
science
Why pilots see UFOs
(CNN)
Metallic hydrogen:
finally discovered?
(Gizmodo)
on Earth, that is
Evolution: not as
simple as in Darwin's time
(Anthropocene)
Twisted light
(Science)
light beams with a self-torque
what?
The evolution of our eyes
(Evolution Institute)
to meet modern demands
Horns are growing in young people's skulls
(Washington Post)
blame smartphones, research says
but some say bogus
(CNN)
Physics and astronomy: two fields divided by a common interest?
(Triton Station)
the sociology of
astro-physics
arrogance v. tolerance?
The magic of twisted graphene
(Quanta)
CRISP-R babies:
when will the world be ready?
(Nature)
Countries whose citizens trust science the most?
(Science)
N. Europe and and central Asia
and whose citizens are most overconfident about the science they think they know? yep, USA
20 years of X-ray
telescopes
(Sky & Telescope)
what we've learned about black holes, galactic jets, star- birth, dark matter, and dark energy
AAS acquires
Sky & Telescope
(AAS)
How to manage your professional decline
(The Atlantic)
it's coming sooner than you think
a long read
Where to get the best (blackboard) chalk
(UC-Berkeley)
this is serious stuff
Space idiocy
(RT)
because it's all about greed
education
How to get your Harvard admission rescinded
(Washington Post)
plagiarism, racist writing, or matricide
The end of an American college
(The Atlantic)
Newbury, in Brookline, MA
4 things teachers shouldn't be asking of students
(Education Week)
bad tech
Fbook wants to become the world's banker: what could
possibly go wrong?
(American Prospect)
other than everything
limited time? read the most important stories from early June 2019:
1) The Moon: new science and going back (hey! it's part of Mars, right?)
2) Cassini's finale at Saturn
3) AAS in St. Louis: Day 3 Day 2 Day 1
4) D-Day at 75
5) election interference: Russian hacking in Durham?
6) a lower likelihood for ETI ?
7) climate politics: 2020 candidates' climate plans
8) the end of civilization in 2050: climate extremism or climate truth?
9) a re-do of America's dinosaurs
early June 2019
Saturn news
Cassini & Huygens:
13 years of discovery at Saturn
Origin of Saturn's rings and moons
(Science)
2 parts of a special issue on Cassini's discoveries at Saturn
paywall
wait, didn't my tax money pay for this NASA research? ... and now I have to pay again to see the results?
Astronomy summarizes
propellers, waves & gaps
Cassini's final images
(ABC Science)
Vacationing on Titan
(The Atlantic)
asteroid news
An orbit map of
the solar system
(Universe Today)
shows mostly asteroids of course
Mesosiderite
meteorites:
from a hit-and- run collision at Vesta
(Nature Geoscience)
4.5 Gyrs ago
free to read but not to save
Psyche mission clears phase C
(NASA)
Aug 2022 launch?
Evidence for a volcano remnant
on too-small Ceres?
(Nature Geoscience)
paywall
and a new type of
volcanic activity
(DLR Germany)
on Ceres' Ahuna Mons
@AAS
--------------------
NaCl on the
surface of Europa
(Astronomy)
@AAS
The Moon
science
Lunar south pole:
what lies beneath?
(Astronomy)
remnant of an early impactor?
published article
(Geophys. Res. Lett.)
A primer
(Astronomy)
what you should know
Apollo's legacy:
the giant impact hypothesis
(Astronomy)
and still evolving
Sky & Telescope
July 2019 issue
is all Moon
paywall of course
going back
Is there a Trump Moon policy?
(Washington Post)
the comments are priceless
Fact check: the Moon is *not* part of Mars!
who knew? everyone
but Trump, apparently
5 ethical questions about using the Moon
(The Conversation)
who decides?
and more and more
on the Moon last month
------------------------
NASA to shut down
Spitzer on 1/30/2020
(Scientific American)
leaving a big gap in
IR astrophysics
The lure of Venus
(Nature)
Earth's now-evil twin
Did Snowball Earth jump-start plate
tectonics?
(National Geographic)
Origin of meteorites is still largely a mystery
(The Conversation)
the chondrule problem
It moves in mysterious ways:
the sand on Mars
(Earth & Sky)
at least in non-Earthly ways
🔥 yes, the climate
is changing 🔥
Rising Methane:
a new climate challenge
(Science)
Is climate change (particularly Arctic warming) fueling tornadoes?
(Carbon Brief)
maybe, but little evidence
Southern Ocean:
a carbon sink or
carbon spout?
(Science News)
climate consequences
Soot, sulfate, & dust: 3 ways through the fog
(Nature)
how much we still don't know about aerosols & climate
civilization's end?
The end of civilization as we know it in 2050?
(New Scientist)
'overblown rhetoric' says Michael Mann
yes, says
An existential climate-related
security risk?
(Breakthrough)
lethal heat, crop yield drops, Amazon ecosystem collapse, & 0.5-m sea level rise
no, says
a groups of climate scientists
(Climate Feedback)
and no, of coure,
says the climate- skeptic camp
(Science 2.0)
but then you shouldn't believe anything they say
---------------------
Limiting warming to 1.5 °C could save thousands of heat-related deaths
(Science News)
just in the U.S.
Rising sea level costs: $1.4 trillion each year in 2100
if 1.5 °C warming target is missed
(Physics World)
or $14 trillion/yr
if 2 °C target missed
published article
(Envir. Res. Letters)
free
Feeling the heat
in winter
(Hakai)
& wreaking havoc
in communities and ecosystems
How the carbon cycle works
(Smithsonian)
at least Earth's cycle
climate politics
Why there should be a Democratic-candidate political debate on
climate change
(The Atlantic)
Focus on climate change -- as if the future of civilization depended on it
(Indy Week)
Going after DC's
climate criminals
(Vox)
U. S. Chamber of Commerce, Farm Bureau, National Association of Manufacturers, American Petroleum Institute, and more
candidates' climate
& energy plans
Joe Biden
(Biden for President)
John Delaney
(Delaney for President)
Seth Moulton
(Moulton for President)
supports the
Green New Deal
Beto O'Rourke
(O'Rourke for President)
Jay Inslee, part 1 (Inslee for President)
by 2030, power plants. autos,& buildings all green
8 pages
Jay Inslee, part 2
(Inslee for President)
jobs, energy, and infrastructure
35 pages
Elizabeth Warren
(NY Times)
$2-trillion green manufacturing plan
-----------------
Oregon's Clean Energy Jobs bill inches forward
(Vox)
$1-trillion in climate risk: coming due in 5 years?
(NY Times)
climate solutions
Bury it: a new plan to remove trillions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere
(Washington Post)
we have the technology
environment
So that's where
the plastic is
(The Atlantic)
highest level of microplastics is
650 m below the ocean surface
Public lands:
not protected
after all?
(Science)
so much for
"This land is your
land ..."
Superflares on other stars
(Science News)
and may have happened on the Sun a century ago
The highest energy gamma-ray bursts
(NASA)
First CME in another star?
(Chandra)
wait, didn't that happen last year?
(phys.org)
in the same star?
When will our Sun
turn violent?
(Science)
a nice review of the sun's magnetic cycle
or
Is the Sun's 11-year cycle caused by an 11-year Venus-Earth-Jupiter tidal alignment?
(Solar Physics)
Did the first supernovae explode asymmetrically?
(Scientific American)
Growing pains:
brown dwarfs vs.
giant planets
(Gemini)
the origin stories of the two species are likely very different
@AAS
Giant planets orbiting sun-like stars are rare?
(SETI)
@AAS
A limited habitable zone for complex life
(UC-Riverside)
@AAS
and the
published article
(Ap J)
CO and CO2 (toxic) abundances strongly limit possibilities
free
Ethane (C2H6) seas may be the most common in the universe
(Astrobiology)
nitrogen seas may be common around red dwarfs... water seas appear to be limited to sun-like stars and are relatively rare
paywall
Newborn planets, hints of infant moons
(Quanta)
Observational first:
a circum-planetary disk
(ApJ Letters)
paywall
What the Antlia2 galaxy's collision with the Milky Way left behind
(Sky & Telescope)
ripples in our disk
and still the only prediction of a galaxy's existence and position to come true
@AAS
Is a magnetic field keeping Milky Way's SMBH quiet?
(NASA)
@AAS
Cold quasars:
a clue to how galaxies die?
(U Kansas)
@AAS
Spiral galaxy arms are winding up?
(MNRAS)
and not static density- wave creations
says a citizen-science project
paywall
Yes. there's a problem with the Hubble constant...
(Starts with a Bang)
... but, no, a 1-Gyr-younger-universe is not a viable solution
First detection of Milky Way's SMBH
accretion disk
(Science News)
10-4 M☉ & 100 au
just the mass of a large asteroid falls in each year
Planck's new CMB polarization analysis finds "no new evidence" of temperature anomalies
(ESA)
maybe they're real,
or maybe they're just statistical fluctuations
Astronomy has a
more coherent story
Magnetic fields found between galaxy clusters
(Astronomy)
a surprise discovery
and
does this interstellar bridge solve a dark matter problem?
(Starts with a Bang)
SMGs: monsters in the dark
(Aeon)
why the universe's biggest galaxies are so hard to find
The galaxy without dark matter? --
now has it
(MNRAS)
a wrong distance led to wrong assumptions
Desperately seeking dark matter
(Astronomy)
now focusing on lighter candidates
Not-so-spooky-action-at-a-distance
(Not Even Wrong)
and another book on quantum strangeness
Is the no-boundary
universe viable?
(Quanta)
sadly, not a particularly explanatory article
Quantum leaps
take (a little) time
(Quanta)
Pentaquarks become 'less than weird'
(Science)
The future of particle physics
(Starts with a Bang)
How rotation changes a black hole's singularity
(Starts with a Bang)
using only classic general relativity
read with caution
Hiding in plain sight:
a mirror world?
(New Scientist)
it may explains the difference beteen 'beam' and 'bottle' neutron lifetimes...
and other stuff as well
paywall, sadly
Tariffs & sanctions: America's new weapons of mass destruction
(The Economist)
erode American legitimacy
Russian hacking
close to home?
DHS to probe for
Russian hacking
in 2016 Durham
County election
(News & Observer)
but Durham County election officials continue to blame 'human error'
(News & Observer)
in mis-programming
machines in 2 precincts
Russian hacking of 2016 NC election?
(Washington Post)
continuing claims,
but little evidence
and then there's NC gerrymandering...
The Hofeller files detail GOP's
secret plans
(News & Observer)
but a fight over who owns the hard drives
and the NY TImes
version
by the same author, but not quite the same article
and more details:
how the NC GOP lied about the use and timing of race
in district drawing
(Election Law Blog)
------------------
D-Day at 75
DDay Center
The anniversary events
Ernie Pyle, who told America the truth about D Day
(NY Times)
"most of the men in the first wave never had a chance..."
The Normandy invasion
(CNN)
in pictures
The hidden power behind D-Day
(Smithsonian)
Adm. William Leahy
The invention that won WW II?
(Smithsonian)
the Higgins boat
Nothing prepares you for visiting Omaha beach
(The Atlantic)
Astronomy helped decid D-Day
(Sky & Telescpe)
Sun, Moon, & tides
the 100-page visitor's guide
(Normandy Tourism)
---------------------
'Undesireable militants'
(The Atlantic)
helped pass the
19th amendment
The real origins
of the U.S.-China cold war
(Foreign Policy)
viewing it through the lens of the US-USSR one
Reckless in Riyadh
(NY Books)
crazy Saudi Arabia
A dilemma in Texas
(Texas Monthly)
if only citizens are counted, Texas loses
congressional seats and billions of $
The rites that gave birth to religion
(Nautil.us)
prehistoric bonding
Things that just never happened
(Washington Post)
accept it
books
A scientist's summer reading list
(Science)
American Cosmic
(Vox)
UFOs have become
a religion
... we were taken to this place in NM blindfolded....
Resistance to immunity
(NY Books)
3 books reviewed
art & trips
de Kooning:
Acrobat with a
paintbrush?
(NY Books)
more likely, just a messy tangle of paint
Astronomers meet in St. Louis
June 10 - June 13
Day 3 highlights:
exoplanets; galaxy surveys; cosmic voids; solar eruptions; Milky Way structure
Day 2 highlights
universal dust;
tests of density-wave theory; stellar streams in the Milky Way
Day 1 highlights
galaxy formation;
bad news for ETI;
dark matter in the early universe;
what' s new under
the sun
science
The war for free science (research)
(Vox)
and against publisher paywalls
How much nature
is enough?
(NY Times)
2 hours is ideal
fossil hall at NMNH in DC re-opens June 8
Dinosaurs again
(Science News)
'Deep Time' at the
Smithsonian
New home for
old fossils
(Washington Post)
A T, Rex exhibit
66 million years
in the making
(Washington Post,
25-minute audio)
The stars of
Deep Time
(Smithsonian)
David Koch gets his name on a fossil hall
-------------------
The Rise of the
First Animals
(Scientific American, June 2019 issue)
paywall
The state of
astronomy research
(AAS Nova)
in 573 white papers:
a preview of the future
education
Better schools won't fix America
(The Atlantic)
fixing inequality must come first
Free speech is doing just fine on college campuses
(The Atlantic)
The WV education wars continue
(Jacobin)
GOP tries to privatize schools and end teacher strikes
Unattractive (or obese) people are less likely to get into med school
(News & Observer)
a Duke Health study
bad tech
Roots of Big Tech run disturbingly deep
(NY Times)
360+ acquisitions by FBook & Google
was no one paying attention?
Electric scooters
coming back to Durham
(News & Observer)
what to know
antitrust is coming
and deservedly so
Troubles snowball
(NY Times)
Fbook, Google, et al. face House
investigation
(Washington Post)
Amazon doesn't just want to dominate the market
(The Nation)
it wants to be the market
and so i
s the monopoly lobbying
(NY Times)
----------------------
GPS is ruining
your brain
(Washington Post)
ditch it
Elon Musk's satellites threaten the night sky
(Washington Post)
for all of us
What if we just gave up the stars?
(The Atlantic)
Google and Fbook
sucked profits from newspapers...
time for a change
(Washington Post)
Hate speech is OK
if it's part of a
larger argument?
(Vox)
says YouTube
The 4 Fbooks
(New Atlantis)
misinformation, manipulation,
dependency, & distraction
or all of the above
limited time? read the most important stories from late May 2019:
1) science report on Ultima Thule
2) explaining the Moon's hemispheric differences or its water or Earth's water
3) bad climate news
4) our galaxy was shaped by collisions with interlopers
5) a schedule for returning to the Moon
6) rising anti-science
7) trade: China v. USA
8) cities v. rural areas
late May 2019
Europa lander moves backwards
(Science)
will the Clipper still launch in 2023?
Pluto's red ice
hints at recent water ejection by
volcanoes
(Science News)
NH3- and organic-
rich water?
Pluto: a subsurface ocean kept liquid
by a thin layer of hydrates?
(Astronomy)
Ultima Thule
First science results from flyby of KBO 2014 MU69
(Science)
includes both a summary and scientific paper
free at the moment
commentary:
Ultima Thule's quiet, lonesome past
(Astronomy)
the Kuiper Belt is
pretty deserted
Moon
An early lunar collision with a dwarf planet?
(Sky & Telescope)
can explain the geological asymmetry of the Moon's near- and far-side hemispheres
so the Moon is made up
of 3 bodies?
accepted article
(JGR: Planets)
free to read
but not download/save
but
Water on the Moon:
still an unsolved
problem
(PNAS)
but some possible answers
and Earth
Formation of Moon
(probably) brought water to Earth
(U Muenster)
supplied by Theia
(not the dwarf planet above)
here's looking at you, molybdenum
Where Earth got
its water?
(Astronomy)
is still uncertain
Libyan desert glass definitively tied to meteor impact
(The Conversation)
smoking gun: the mineral reidite
here's looking at you, molybdenum
Earth to Moon
37 launches and an outpost: the U.S.
lunar plan revealed
(Ars Technica)
missing only the
total cost
but there is a nice poster
Vox explains
NASA's enormous to-do list
The new race begins
(The Guardian)
we've been there
and back before
What you didn't know about Apollo
(Smithsonian)
Apollo at 50
What the Apollo astronauts didn't know
(Air & Space)
how the USSR lost and the U.S. won
The best ways to remember Apollo 11
(The Guardian)
------------------
Mars & Venus
Did a former large ocean on Venus deprive it of life?
(Universe Today)
by slowing its rotation which led to its ocean
evaporating
Life on Mars: looking in all the wrong rocks?
(Frontiers in Earth Science)
a better prospect: volcanic microfossils
Huge ice reservoir below Mars' NP may contain record of past climate
(U Texas)
and past conditions for life?
Lessons for Earth from Venus & Mars
(Earth & Sky)
and the rest
Ring around Haumea
(Earth & Sky)
the ring around the (oval & 4th-largest) dwarf planet is a near perfect circle
How much of the solar system should be left as
wilderness?
(Science Direct)
is â…› enough?
--------------------
🔥 yes, the climate
is changing 🔥
Expected sea-level rise higher than
previously thought
(PNAS)
an upper value of 2-meter rise is
within 90% of uncertainty bounds
free
Why natural cycles (ocean, volcanoes,
sun) play only a small role in rate of global warming (Carbon Brief)
human activities are responsible for 97-98% of the long-term changes
with short-term oscillations provided by the El Niño cycle
The start of the spring growing season has advanced by 6 days
since 2000
(Earth & Sky)
in northern Europe
published article
(Biometeorology)
free
April 2019: 2nd hottest on record
(Earth & Sky)
Rough Weather Ahead
(Scientific American, June 2019 issue)
how climate change
is making severe weather worse
paywall
Wettest 12 months in (recorded U.S.)
history just ended
(Union of Concerned Scientists)
bet that it's related to global warming?
'Extraordinary thinning' of Antarctica ice sheets
(The Guardian)
up to 122 m in places
24% of the W. Antarctic
ice sheet is now unstable
published article
(Geophys. Res. Lett.)
free
What's growing in your yard?
(NY Times)
is changing rapidly with climate
check you location here
climate problems
Why more natural gas is not a bridge to clear energy
(Vox)
5 reasons why
(Oil Change)
gas is not clean, cheap, or necessary
How climate change can fuel wars
(The Economist)
not just Nigeria, Sudan, Syria, ...
Calculate your carbon footprint
(Cool Climate)
maybe you'll end up doing something about it
As climate changes, so does life in soil
(Knowable)
Fossil- fuels underpriced by
$5 trillion
(Vox)
a subsidy we all pay
more details
earlier this month
climate solutions
How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change
(Carbon Brief)
a factcheck
Climate change is unsolvable without doubling nuclear power
(Scientific American)
with links within to supporting statements by IEA and IPCC
but completely ignoring issues of safety and waste disposal
Humans broke the
atmosphere...
how we can start
to fix it
(Scientific American)
turn CH4 into CO2
The future of wind power
(Vox)
giant turbines?
Carbon offsets for
forest preservation: worse than nothing?
(Pro Publica)
an inconvenient truth?
climate politics
Promises and perils of the Paris climate agreement
(Science)
if countries' commitments are self-determined, is it really a global agreement
Political/economic advantages of clean energy grids
(NY Times)
a unanimous vote
in SC
Are the elderly contributing more than their share to climate change?
(NY Times)
are there implications for public policy?
Political lobbying against U.S. climate legislation cost society $60 billion
(Carbon Brief)
Kids can change
parents minds' on
climate change
(News and Observer)
Climate messaging:
what works,
what doesn't
(NY Times)
scary climate facts and fuzzy polar bear stories aren't working
The 'Anthropocene'
gets closer to
being a thing
(Nature)
one more hurdle/vote --
next year -- left
Senate proposal: 'Clean Energy Standard Act'
(Rep Ben Lujan D-NM)
what climate scientists would do if they were in charge?
79-page proposal
(Sen Tina Smith D-MN)
RFF assessment
(RFF)
in 7 pages
--------------------
environment
Toxic America
(The Guardian)
how the chemical
lobby fights regulation
How to get deaths due to environmental pollution off the books?
(NY Times)
get EPA to rewrite
the rules
How plastic
became a plague
(Scientific American)
12 articles
readable if you can get beyond the
new 3-article paywall
A plastic-footprint calculator
(Omnicalculator)
Environmental protections are becoming law
(Washington Post)
but, sadly, only state by state
Former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: nuclear power should be banned
(Washington Post)
the danger of climate change no longer outweighs that of nuclear accidents
A Global Deal for Nature
(Science)
guiding principles, milestones, and targets
a science-driven plan to save the diversity and abundance of life on Earth
free at the moment
Did a nearby supernova make humans bipedal?
(Astronomy)
SN → atmospheric ionization → lightning → wildfires → forest burning
→ humans went from forests to savannas
3 different star formation epochs in the Orion Nebula? (Astrobites)
based on their color-magnitude diagrams
or are we being tricked by binary stars?
When white dwarfs collide, they don't always explode?
(U Bonn)
published article
(Nature)
paywall
Pulsars: how slow can they go?
(Astrobites)
before they lose
their rotating beam
Trail of a runaway pulsar
(AAS Nova)
Do active galactic nuclei help or hurt life?
(AAS Nova)
pros and cons
published article
(Astrophysical Journal)
free
Looking for life?
it's in brown dwarf atmospheres!
(arXiv)
with Earth-like temperatures
The battle in the disk:
planets v. comets
(Earth & Sky)
ET organic matter
found in 3.3-Gyr-old volcanic rock
(Gizmodo)
the surprise is that
it's still there
A survival guide
for exoplanets
(Earth & Sky)
small, rocky planets are most likely to survive their stars'
transition to red giants & white dwarfs
The pressure and temperature limits of rocky planets
(Astrobiology Web)
inferring the interior by observing the exterior
A planet gap at
1.5 - 2.0 REarth?
(Quanta)
will the gap hold up as TESS finds more planets?
A 'Virtual Planet'
simulator
(Astrobiology Web)
a software package that simulates planetary system evolution over Gyr timescales
How dead aliens could help humans
(Space)
those who don't learn the lessons of extinction are doomed to repeat it
galaxy collisions
ours
The biggest hit
of all...
on The Milky Way
(Science Daily)
10 Gyr ago, the GAIA Sausage reshaped
our galaxy
and a simulation
(U Cambridge)
A galaxy collision with the Milky Way triggered a star- formation burst
2-3 Gyr ago
(Earth & Sky)
half of the disk's stars were formed then
What's punching holes in the Milky Way's disk?
(Live Science)
is it dark something?
not ours
A hit-and-run collision spawns a
new generation of stars, and planets
(Hubble)
-------------------
What are big black holes doing on the outskirts of small
galaxies?
(Science News)
The H0 problem
(could the universe be as young as
12.5 Gyr old?)
(WBUR OnPoint,
50-minute program)
featuring Adam Reiss, NP 2011
should have been better,
but the sorters couldn't separate the
wheat from the chaff
A history book
of galaxies
(Hubble)
in one image
a 250-day exposure
Still no evidence of dark matter?
no matter....
(Starts with a Bang)
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
Why corned beef sandwiches exist
(NPR Weekend Edition - Saturday)
the electric dipole moment of the neutron! (maybe)
but NPR?!?
more serious science
(CERN)
oh, and another reason we exist
(Starts with a Bang)
the Pauli exclusion principle
actually there are many reasons for us being here
Are new particles hiding in plain sight at the LHC?
(Science)
its detectors aren't sensitive to long-lived particles
Are axions the
dark matter?
(phys.org)
can black holes tell us?
Where do protons & neutrons get their mass and spin?
(Scientific American, June 2019 issue)
new accelerators might tell us... but this article doesn't
paywall
A hint of quantum entanglement inside protons
(Science News)
based on observed entropy increases after high-speed collisions
Are the 'fundamental constants' both
fundamental and
constant?
(Inside Science)
using both tabletop experiments
and LIGO data
Looking for dark photons at the LHC
(CERN)
and how to find them
because one has to look
for something
Why impeachment is not the wisest remedy
(The Atlantic)
at least not yet
Memorial Day
a day for reflection, not celebration
watch
The Fallen of WWII
(Neil Halloran)
an 18-minute
data visualization
or
Victory at Sea
all 22 parts
and why you should
(Washington Post)
The Dead have a lesson to teach us
(Washington Post)
how not to honor it
Invade another country
(Vox)
Lindsey Graham,
war monger
Pardon a war criminal
(Lawfare)
Promise USMA grads that 'war is
in your future'
(Army Times)
but Pence is 'honored' to be saying it
Sanitize torture
(The Guardian)
Enforce silence on the atomic-bomb guinea pigs
(The Atlantic)
----------------------
The end of May
(The Guardian)
literally and literally
existential crises
beyond Brexit?
(The Guardian)
China v. U.S.
China v. America
(The Economist)
a new kind of cold war
The USA-China trade war
(Vox)
explained, sort of
What does China want from the WTO?
(The Diplomat)
What does China want?
(The Conversation)
3 motivating factors
A China Sputnik
moment?
(Washington Post)
in blacklisting Huawei
-------------------
cities
America's cities are unlivable: blame wealthy liberals
(NY Times)
amen
for example,
San Francisco,
the broken
(Washington Post)
The surprising reason rural areas are doomed to decline
(Washington Post)
Where Democrats and Republicans live in your city
(538)
---------------------
voting
Texas Sec. of State - who led attempted purge of 100.000 citizens' voting right - resigns
(Austin American-Statesman)
and has agreed to pay
$0.5 million court cost
but at least he got praised for his 'moral character and integrity' by TX governor
Why happens when you try to register black voters?
(Washington Post)
yep, a registration crackdown
Are we abandoning voting security?
(American Prospect)
and what about the 2 Florida districts that were Russian-hacked in 2016?
(Tampa Bay Times)
What happens when women are in charge
(Washington Post)
the Nevada legislature
----------------------
Abolish the priesthood
(The Atlantic)
for several reasons
The appeal of socialism is due to the present age of inequality
(New Republic)
Will elites ever be held responsible?
(The Atlantic)
books
The Universe Speaks in Numbers
by Graham Farmelo
and a commentary
(Not Even Wrong)
The eclipse that proved Einstein right
(Aeon)
chasing a solar eclipse in Principe and Sobra to prove General Relativity
an excerpt from Matthew Stanley's new book
A crisis wasted
(Jacobin)
how Obama failed
and we're living with the failures of neoliberalism today
apparently-you're-not-supposed-to-read-anything-serious-in-the-summer-book-lists
NY Times
Washington Post
but for those of you who crave substance
Washington Post
Wired
Bill Gates
art & trips
A life in drawing
(The Guardian)
another Leonardo
at the Queen's Gallery
The invisible city beneath Paris
(New Yorker)
a long read
16 buildings by
I. M. Pei
(Curbed)
died this week at 102
and
Establishment Modernism Lite?
(NY Books)
L.A.'s Troubadour: when Elton John became a rock star
(LA Times)
Bosnia and
Herzegovina
(NY Times)
where sleeping beauty awakens
North Macedonia:
a new country (name)
(NY Times)
it's Balkans week?
science
science & anti-science
Measles for the
1%
(New York)
do they deserve each other?
Why (some) people
fear science
(Forbes)
4 reasons
and some remedies for each
The War on Science
(Skeptical Inquirer)
the rise of anti-intellectualism and 'other ways of knowing'
the first half is very good... the second half slides into a pointless diatribe against post-modernism
How to reverse the assault on science
(Scientific American)
emphasize 2 points:
(1) scientists care about evidence;
(2) scientists are willing to change their mind based on new evidence
On ignorance and
scientific illiteracy
(Starts with a Bang)
Two threats to
U.S. science
(Science)
nurturing young and non-native scientists
A science brain drain?
(Forbes)
into data 'science'
science as research
The science is in:
why a junk-food diet piles on the weight
(Cell Metabolism)
Superconductivity at 250 K
(Nature)
yes, but it requires
1 million atmospheres of pressure, too
nature
1-Gyr-old fossils set back origin of earliest fungi
(NY Times)
Death of the Nile
(Al-Monitor)
running dry
An ethical quandary -- in amber
(Science)
Noah, your flood never happened
(Skeptical Inquirer)
21 pieces of evidence
Oldest known tree
in eastern U.S.
(Earth & Sky)
is a 2624-yr-old bald cypress in NC
bad media
Birthing centers
for political polarization
(Washington Post)
the outsize and detrimental effect of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC
Stop repeating Trump's nasty nicknames
(Washington Post)
yet
they keep doing it
(NY Times)
bad tech
Why does Elon Musk think he can
ruin the night sky for everyone else?
(The Guardian)
pure arrogance
Astrobites
commentary
How the NSA wrecked Baltimore
(NY Times)
EternalBlue was developed at taxpayer expense
but it's not our fault,
NSA whines
Take down the fake Pelosi video?
(Vox)
not Fbook
maybe it should change its name to FakeBook?
FBook plans to launch cryptocurrency
(The Guardian)
'Global Coin' in 2020
as if they didn't have enough problems
education
How other nations manage to have their kids leave college debt free
(NY Times)
9 examples
(but it's socialism!)
Why boys get poor grades?
(ScienceNordic)
undervalued achievements?
Many schools teeter on edge of decrepitude
(Washington Post)
'borderline criminal'
Rewriting Economics 101
(Vox)
Raj Chetty at Harvard
There's more to college than
getting in
(The Atlantic)
advice from the CEO of College Board
Books:
the wallpaper of college libraries
(The Atlantic)
The teacher pay penalty reached a record high in 2018
(Economic Policy Institute)
how much are teachers underpaid
in your state?
in NC, 27%...
2nd worst in America
Why America needs the HBCUs
(The Atlantic)
SAT to add 'adversity score'
(NY Times)
that rates a student's educational or sociological disadvantage
using 15 factors and a secret formula... students will not be able to see
their own score
but the problem with quantifying adversity
(The Atlantic)
and in defense
(The Atlantic)
limited time? read the most important stories from early May 2019:
1) the Moon: a new origin theory and new samples (from both Apollo 11 & the backside)
is the U.S. going back?
2) first results from the Dark Energy Survey
3) more gravitational wave sources (including a black hole swallowing a neutron star?)
4) water, water everywhere?: in the solar system and in exoplanets
5) who made our gold? collapsars or kilonovas?
6) fossil-fuel subsidies are unbelievably huge
7) still doing nothing about school shootings
8) Trump (misbehavior) rules the news
early
May 2019
our Moon
4 articles:
'The Science of Apollo'
'The Moon Three Ways'
'Targeting Luna'
'(Back) to the Moon'
in the
Sky and Telescope July 2019 issue
available now
paywall
The Moon's mantle unveiled
(Nature)
first results from the
Change'E-4 in situ study of the backside
bits of mantle on the surface?
(Science News)
A (slightly) new
lunar origin theory
(Nature Geoscience)
a giant impactor hit Earth when it was covered with a
magma ocean
this reconciles composition differences between Earth and Moon, while satisfying angular momentum concerns
NY Times comments
on 'an exciting result'
and has a short simulation
How the Apollo Moon rocks changed the lunar origin story
(Washington Post)
and may yet again
Recent lunar tectonic activity?
(Astronomy)
looking at its old
seismic activity
back to the moon?
The race to develop the Moon's riches
(New Yorker)
China, the U.S., & private companies battle for science, profit, and trade
but the reality is that the race for geopolitical & military advantage is driving this, as in 1969
Bezos's Blue Origin lunar plans
(The Atlantic)
Artemis: USA to
the Moon by 2024?
(NY Times)
but going to space or the Moon to save humanity is silly
(Gizmodo)
wait...have humans really landed
on the Moon?
(Smithsonian)
---------------------
water in the
solar system
Is hot black ice the most common
form of water in the solar system?
(Quanta)
and in water-world exoplanets?
National Geographic
chimes in
how H2O XVIII was discovered on Earth
(Nature)
paywall
but we're still looking for the source of Earth's water...
Was it delivered by hyperactive comets?
(Scientific American)
the D/H ratio of comets 45P, 46P, & 103P hints that it might be special 'hyperactive' comets
except another study claims:
Asteroids brought in half of Earth's water?
(Astronomy)
says Hayabusa's find of water on Itokawa
----------------------
A nearby neutron- star merger could explain the actinide abundances in the early solar system
(Nature)
if it was nearer than 300 pc, and happened ~ 80 Myr before solar system formation
paywall
large bodies
What we learned from Mars' summer- of-2018 dust storm
(Earth & Sky)
How Earth's continents became twisted & contorted
(Real Clear Science)
Venus re-imagined
(Astronomy)
is it geologically alive?
small bodies
Why Pluto is losing
its atmosphere
(The Conversation)
it's freezing out as winter comes
The plan to dodge a killer asteroid
(Wired)
Kuiper belt collisions are rare
(Physics Today)
says the sparse cratering record on Pluto and Charon
Gaia's 14,000-asteroid map
(ESA)
A 4000-mi ice corridor on Titan
(Astronomy)
--------------------
yes, the climate
is changing
Newest models predict a warmer future
(Scientific American)
El Niño: stronger and stranger in recent decades
(Real Clear Science)
reconstructing the record over the past 400 years with corals
first evidence that it's tied to climate change?
Permafrost release is accelerating carbon release
(Nature)
2019: 3rd warmest start to a year
(Carbon Brief)
behind only 2016
and maybe 2017
climate consequences
The coming fire apocalypse in L.A.
(New York)
The end of Bengal tigers?
(NY Times)
done in climate change and rising
sea levels
UN biodiversity report
1 million species
in danger of extinction... here's looking at you, humans
(Washington Post)
and, in fair play, humans will suffer
as a result
UN report: Biodiversity crisis puts humanity at risk
(The Guardian)
5 ways humans we're speeding extinction
(Science News)
Extinctions since
1500
(Vox)
Extinction v.
Mike Pompeo
(New Yorker)
extinction wins
Nature's dangerous decline 'unprecedented'
(media release,
IBPES)
species extinction rates 'accelerating'
the 52-page
Summary for Policy Makers
could be temporarily down for 'too many requests'
full 1800-page report
coming in a few months
5 important graphs
(BBC)
-------------------
Human fingerprint on climate change goes back more than a century
(Carbon Brief)
drought shows up in tree rings
Canadian syrup:
another climate - change loser?
(NY Times)
Mapping America's climate/weather
disasters
(Washington Post)
climate politics
How to get any state or city to pass clean energy policy
(Vox)
a political strategy that actually works?
but could we please not
call it a 'trick'?
'climategate' anyone?
A better way to engage voters on climate
(ThinkProgress)
neuroscience study says call it 'climate crisis', not 'climate change'
Middle-school kids' concern about climate change can change views of their conservative parents
(Nature)
says a study done in NC coastal counties
paywall
IMF put U.S. fossil- fuel subsidies at
$649 billion
(IMF)
only China's is higher
The Atlantic
explains what 'subsidies' means
Climate geopolitics will have new rivalries, winners and losers
(Nature)
4 futures for 2030...
...and 4 lessons
a big green new deal, a technology breakthrough, dirty nationalism, or just muddling on
Jay Inslee's 100-100-100 plan
(The Atlantic)
reshaping the power grid, auto market, & the building code
ditto says Vox
Inslee's 100% plan
(Inslee for President)
by 2030, power plants are carbon neutral; all new
cars are electric; zero- carbon new buildings
U.S. House votes
to remain in Paris climate accords
(NY Times)
so what? no chance of passing Senate...
but, the first climate bill passed in a 10 yrs
all Dems for, but only
3 GOP members for
climate solutions
How to save the planet from plastic
(Vox)
accelerating the evolution by making plastic rot
and will work even for people who don't believe
in evolution
Put equity first in climate adaptation
(Nature)
the best way to tackle poverty
The Green New Deal isn't big enough
(Washington Post)
the U.S. can't do it alone... and the developing countries need help
environment
Gone: off-shore drilling rules enacted after
BP spill
(Politico)
another Trump-ordered victory for
oil and gas
How to save the planet from plastic
(Vox)
accelerating the evolution by making plastic rot
and will work even for people who don't believe
in evolution
Put equity first in climate adaptation
(Nature)
the best way to tackle poverty
The Green New Deal isn't big enough
(Washington Post)
the U.S. can't do it alone... and the developing countries need help
environment
Gone: off-shore drilling rules enacted after
BP spill
(Politico)
another Trump-ordered victory for
oil and gas
Who made our gold?: collapsars
(Science News)
claim: collapsars make 80% of universe's gold
they are less frequent, but
1 collapsar makes 30x
more r-process elements than a ns-ns merger
preprint
(arXiv)
comparison of collapsar & ns-ns
merger on p. 46
What a nearby kilonova would
look like
(Science News)
as bright as a crescent moon for a day or so, turning from blue to red, disappearing after a week
for a burst 1000 c-yrs away
preprint
(arXiv)
FRBs, superluminous supernovae and magnetars
(AAS Nova)
one and the same?
our Sun:
stranger than
imagined
(Quanta)
Postcards from
the future
(Starts with a Bang)
a preview of our Sun's death, from Hubble
Close-in planets of size 2 - 4 REarth
may be water worlds with oceans thousands of miles deep
(Earth & Sky)
published article
(PNAS)
paywall
and how to find exoplanet oceans
(Astrobites)
spectroscopy and
'glint' in the light curves
What makes a planet habitable?
(Science)
don't ignore a
planet's interior
Alternate forms
of life?
(Big Think)
based on Si, NH3, or alternate chirality
Exomoon or not?
(Astrobites)
Has cosmic inflation been verified?
(Starts with a Bang)
mostly
1st results from
Dark Energy Survey
(APS)
explaining the 2 measurement flavors
preprint
(arXiv)
published article
Phys Rev Letters
paywall
Ωb = 0.069 (+0.011)
w = - 0.80 (+0.10)
isn't the cosmological constant supposed
to be w = -1?
Did the first stars
supernova as jets?
(MIT)
providing seeds for the 2nd generation
How bright was the Big Bang?
(American Journal
of Physics,
May 2019 issue)
bet you never thought about that before
except the title is grossly misleading... it's about whether the human eye could see during the
Dark Ages
paywall
Big problems with cosmology?
(Scientific American)
or just manufactured misunderstandings?
(Starts with a Bang)
Measuring H0 with black-hole mergers
(Astrobites)
1st published paper:
H0 = 75+40 km/s/Mpc
ttest-32
Why the H0
tension is good
(Starts with a Bang)
How Feynman diagrams revolutionized physics?
(Quanta)
will not tell you how they did it nor how they're actually used
A first: double-slit experiment with positrons
(Science News)
like electrons, they show interference
gravitational waves keep rolling in
LIGO/VIRGO: the rumors are true
(LIGO)
2 ns-mergers, 3 bh-mergers, & (likely) the 1st ns-bh merger
possible remnants of a ns-bh merger?
(Science 2.0)
is a 'quark star' one
of them?
and back in April:
New Scientist
piles on the gravitational-wave
rumors
... or rumors
A calculation of the 'incalculable' details of the final few moments of a
black-hole merger?
(Science)
but don't bet your house
but maybe bet your car?
preprint
(arXiv)
-------------------
On the verge of a
rotating singularity
(Astrobites)
(still) Hunting the muon's forbidden decay
(CERN Courier)
such as
μ+ → e+ + γ
or
μ+ → e+ + e- + e+
the doubly-magic
nucleus Ni78
(Nature)
read with caution
Using gravitational waves to communicate?
(Cosmos)
Dark matter exists?
and proof that
alternatives don't?
(ApJ)
Higgs: portal to a
'dark world'?
(Earth & Sky)
Can spacetime and gravity emerge naturally from entanglement?
(Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics 2018)
Trump
all 29 investigations
(NY Times)
47 years of bigotry
(The Atlantic)
an oral history
Takeaways from
10 years of taxes
(NY Times)
The origin of his wealth
(NY Times)
How to know if we're in a constitutional crisis
(Vox)
but, sadly, not what to
do about it
--------------------
A connection between crime and undocumented immigrants?
(NY Times)
no evidence
school shootings
Will we ever stand up to guns?
(NY Times)
2 dead heroes...
how many more
must we sacrifice?
Kendrick Castillo,
Randy Howell
(Washington Post)
heroes... and martyrs
50 years of U.S. school shootings
(NY Times)
111 shootings:
202 dead,
454 injured...
and the rate is rising
J Paul Stevens:
"the worst decision of my tenure"
(The Atlantic)
DC v. Heller
how the right "to bear arms" went from the
militia to everyone
--------------------
foreign wars
Viktor Orban's war on intellect
(The Atlantic)
why is this person
in our White House?
Why are we reviewing military plans for Iran?
(NY Times)
Is war in the air?
(The Atlantic)
Yemen, Venezuela, Iran...
and Bolton, Trump, and Pompeo are making it more likely
(Vox)
What if Iran gets tired of being
poked by us?
(The Atlantic)
what they could do
---------------------
The Supreme Court & the census case
(NY Times)
believing truth or lies
Trump, tax loser & tax cheat.., bigly
(NY Times)
so this what the art of the deal looks like
Millennials/Gen Z
vs. Boomers/Silents
(The Atlantic)
the coming
generation war
voter suppression
Overturning gerrymandering
(Center for American Progress)
policy recommendations for voter-determined districts
3.6 million people couldn't vote in 2018 due to registration issues
(Non Profit Vote)
and nearly 5 million in 2016
Double standards in our election system
(The Hill)
a new kind of voter suppression emerges
FL legislature re-invents poll tax
(Vox)
for felons
Another state's congressional districts found
gerrymandered
(Cleveland Plain Dealer)
Ohio, this time
but the Wall Street Journal disagrees because black and Latino turnout has increased
paywall
yes, voters might get upset if you try to suppress their votes ... and then might turn out in greater numbers
--------------------
U.S. economy:
fixed or broken?
6 Americans
living in a broken economy
(The Guardian)
working for Amazon, Lyft, Tesla, Popeye's plus a college student and a laid-off ex-GM-Lordstown worker
How GM screwed
its workers at
Lordstown
(NY Times)
what happens when you have weak unions
An economy too good to be true?
(Washington Post)
it's not booming for everyone
Why wages are
finally rising...
(NY TImes)
...10 years after the recession ended
rise in minimum wage & growth of high-wage industries
OR?
Americans working harder, but paychecks don't show it
(Vox)
productivity spikes
-------------------
Long-awaited
CBO report of 'medicare for all'
(CBO)
will be selectively quoted by both sides
AG William Barr
lies to Congress
(Vox)
GOP: let's move on
most others: Barr
sure fooled the public
art & trips
An odyssey to Ithaca
(NY Times)
The Last Supper
(Washington Post)
on the 500th anniversary (5/3/2019)
of Leonardo's death
The many (and tiresome) Leonardo conspiracies
(The Atlantic)
From clay tablets to smartphones
(NY Times)
review of 5000 years of writing
an exhibit at the British Library
through 8/27/19
Italy and France fight over Leonardo
(The Guardian)
Tintoretto's wildness
(NY Books)
Tintoretto: artist
of Renaissance Florence
(National Gallery
of Art)
at NGA through 7/14
Martin Puryear, citizen sculptor
(NY Times)
solo at the
Venice biennial
Liberty, Democracy, and the art of Puryear
(The Economist)
NC teachers in Raleigh
(News & Observer)
What NC teachers did in Raleigh
and the 5 things they're asking for
Teachers teach lawmakers (again)
Did partisanship make the teacher rally less effective?
teachers should be talking to GOP legislators.... duh
Events schedule for teachers rally
in Raleigh, May 1
and why it's needed
why do GOP legislators have to
be told twice?
----------------------
Tuition or dinner?
(NY Times)
nearly half of college students go hungry?
science
Was the Cambrian explosion triggered by O2 bursts?
(Quanta)
Still looking for the hominin ancestor of humans
(Gizmodo)
China: redrawing the world science map
(Nature)
via the Belt and Road Initiative
a long read
A Denisovan jawbone from China
(Nature)
some lived at high
altitude?
7 big misconceptions about heredity
(Skeptical Inquirer)
Chemistry: more fun than you think?
(Scientific American)
nah
bad tech
Uber and Lyft are
making traffic worse
in San Francisco
and
New York city
Uber IPO:
rich get richer
while drivers are forced to sleep in cars to make money
(The Guardian)
which is why
Uber I.P.O. is a stain on Silicon Valley
(NY Times)
Fbook cofounder:
time to break up
Fbook
(NY Times)
but it's not enough
(Atlantic)
or is Fbook a capitalism problem?
(Vox)
regulating social media is much more important
The digital threat
to a human future
(NY Books)
what Turing told us
Digital (and print) media are suffering
(American Prospect)
and it's the fault of Google and Fbook
2400 journalists & media staffers have lost jobs in 2019 so far
SpaceX admits (crew) capsule "destroyed" in an "anomaly"
(CNBC)
no, it was destroyed in an explosion
and why was NASA
warned against showing video
Silicon Valley can escape regulation of Washington
(Quartz)
but it can't escape
the world's
The Boeing crashes and partisan deregulation
(American Prospect)
can't blame it on Trump
The rise of
Amazon Prime
(Recode/Vox)
limited time? read the most
important
stories from late April 2019:
1) M87's black hole
2) first double-neutrino electron capture observed
3) more bad climate news
climate models warm up and ocean waves/wind rising and climate tipping points reached
and rising inequality and Greenland falling apart and a glacier-free Alps
4) NC teachers rally in Raleigh
5) Hubble tension tightens
6) can life survive on exoplanets around cool stars?
7) will the Mueller Report change anything?
8) capitalism vs. modern monetary theory
9) Pulitzer Prizes awarded
1) M87's black hole
2) first double-neutrino electron capture observed
3) more bad climate news
climate models warm up and ocean waves/wind rising and climate tipping points reached
and rising inequality and Greenland falling apart and a glacier-free Alps
4) NC teachers rally in Raleigh
5) Hubble tension tightens
6) can life survive on exoplanets around cool stars?
7) will the Mueller Report change anything?
8) capitalism vs. modern monetary theory
9) Pulitzer Prizes awarded