last updated: noon, October 31, 2019
October guide to the bright planets or the This Week's Sky-at-a-glance
| solar system |
stars and in between them |
exoplanets (and ET life) |
galaxies & cosmology |
relativity, quantum, & particle physics |
cultural literacy |
teaching/education, science & tech |
late October 2019 |
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14 Hygiea: the solar system's smallest dwarf planet? (ESO) Citizen science with Nov. 11th transit of Mercury (Sky & Telescope) The Gateway: the holding area for the Jupiter family of comets (U Arizona) a transition region for centaurs and where comets to go to die Martian landslides ≠ Martian ice (University College) Tidal heating and orbital resonances (Eos) how many magma and watery oceans are they responsible for in the solar system? 2/I Borisov Update (Earth & Sky) but sure looks like a solar-system comet 2I/Borisov: making Oumuamua look weirder (Science News) but it's like the solar system's comets (Sky & Telescope) What 2 interstellar interlopers can teach us (Starts with a Bang) ----------------------- A new formation theory for Titan's dunes (Science Advances) chemical reactions rather than winds Whence the ice at the Moon's south pole? (Earth & Sky) multiple sources? multiple ages? New evidence that an impact caused the Younger Dryas climatic event (The Conversation) 12,600 years ago... but no smoking-gun crater published paper (Nature)  🔥 yes, there is a climate crisis 🔥  how we know the planet is warming the big picture climate consequences What cities will be erased by rising seas? (NY Times) Number of people threatened by rising seas goes up by 3x (Washington Post) published article (Nature Communications) Decline in atmospheric CO2 apparently not responsible for longer glacial cycles (Nature) Cape Cod: where the effects of climate change are already here (Boston Globe) and terrifyingly real Carbon emissions (and subsequent ocean acidification) caused mass marine extinctions in the past (The Guardian) Δph = -0.25 drove extinctions 66 Myr ago after the asteroid crash but Δph = -0.15 if T rises by 0.2 °C by 2100 PNAS published paper Record rainfall: a looming agricultural disaster (Politico) but is it weather or is it climate? Global warming means baby sea turtles are nearly all girls (Washington Post) Low sea ice and record warmth define 2019 (Carbon Brief) climate politics The climate crisis (The Guardian) the most important story to be covered The 4 worst countries on climate (American Prospect) the U.S., China, Russia, & Saudi Arabia worst-behaving and least-prepared for consequences climate solutions & non-solutions Underestimating the costs of global warming will be devastating (NY Times) the price of rising seas and harsher weather is more than thought What economists are missing (Earth Institute) Renewables could match coal in 5 years (Carbon Brief) Solar photovoltaics set for spectacular growth (IEA) in next 5 years A taste of climate apocalypse (Pro Publica) PG&E's rolling blackouts Qatar, unbearably hot, starts to air-condition the outdoors (Washington Post) beyond the 2 °C limit How guilty should you feel about flying? (NY Times) not much, unless you're a frequent flyer That big study in Science from July claiming trees are solution to climate ills? never mind.... (The Scientist) the carbon-absorbing benefits of global forest restoration were overestimated environment Save Our Seas 2.0 (Washington Post) the ocean's plastic crisis $12 trillion and counting: the cost of the world's broken food system (Nature) The discovery of the ozone hole (Nature) science, redux.... 34 years ago |
Magnetars: how did they get their B field? (Quanta) neutron star mergers Sr in the spectrum: finally, evidence of the r-process in neutron-star mergers (Science News) The neutron-star properties that affect the afterglow of a bh-ns merger (Astrobites) a prediction Are neutron star mergers responsible for nearly all the heavy elements (Physics Today) --------------------- How buckeyballs -- C60+ -- (might) form in space (Nature) Tycho's supernova remnant (Chandra) the lumpy, clumpy death of a star ALMA: a new look at SN 1987A (Astrobites) |
When exoplanets collide (Earth & Sky) the origin of warm dust in BD +20 307 "Many rocky planets like Earth" in the universe (UCLA) ET Is Earth an interesting planet to ET civilizations? (Starts with a Bang) Are the planetary protection rules to strict? (Science News) |
Another value for H0: the crisis ramps up (Keck Observatory) H0 = 76.8 + 2.6 km/s/Mpc using time-delay in gravitationally-lensed quasars ...are CMB measurements are problematical? published paper (MNRAS) paywall Boil and bubble: trouble at the galactic center (Sky & Telescope) pointing back to outbursts 3.5 Myr ago Galaxy mergers are the driving force behind starbursts (SRON) scroll down to read English version Why Einstein's 'greatest blunder' was a double blunder (Starts with a Bang) the origin of the 'cosmological constant', revisited Nobel Prize redux Physical cosmology was overdue for a Nobel Prize (Starts with a Bang) Why Peebles won a Nobel for his work in cosmology (Astrobites) Celebrating the 2019 Nobel Physics Prize (Nature Astronomy) papers from the past mostly free ------------------------- read with great caution Is dark energy just a local artifact? (Physics World) a re-interpretation of supernova data preprint (arXiv) 'Evidence for anisotropy of cosmic acceleration' read with caution Inflation or the Big Bang: which came first? (Starts with a Bang) not as settled as you might think spoiler alert: a vote for inflation first Who put the bang in The Big Bang? (Earth & Sky) a (simulated) bridge between inflation and the Big Bang another vote for inflation first |
Why the speed of gravity has to be the speed of light (Starts with a Bang) quantum supremacy? Google claims quantum supremacy first (Nature) with a 53-cubit system Quantum computing takes flight (Nature) more details but a precarious milestone (Nature editorial) everyday quantum computing is decades away published paper free for the moment IBM says 'not true' (Science) Is a Chinese quantum supremacy surprise coming? (Newsweek) -------------------- Hubble sides with no-dark-matter galaxies? (Astronomy) Avoiding (thinking about) wormholes (Forbes) since they don't exist read with caution Dark matter and the nightmare of nonlinearity (BackReaction) and ditto (Starts with a Bang) read with incredulity How to find a wormhole (Earth & Sky) or Bigfoot? published paper (Phy Rev Letters) read while laughing Cosmic triangles (Quanta) and time or something |
Halloween The science of movie monsters (Smithsonian) Colliding galaxies make a ghost (Astronomy) Hubble's contribution The science of Halloween candy (PBS, 1½ hr doc) Visionaries of the night: cats, bats, and owls (Earth & Sky) big chemicals, big ears, & big eyes A brief history of the Salem witch trials (Smithsonian) really brief -------------------- Breaking America: Trump and Zuckerberg (NY Times) Cities: growth and failure (Vox) the creative class vs. the social class? voter suppression US Superior Court panel rules NC congressional districts unconstitutional (Raleigh N&O) due to extreme partisan gerrymandering and orders no elections until districts are re-drawn The secret NC GOP plan to win 12 of 13 House seats (The Intercept) newly uncovered documents show gerrymandering at its finest from the secret Hofeller files How to suppress the student vote (NY Times) what GOP-dominated states are trying now Does NC redistricting reform require a constitutional amendment? (Raleigh N&O) yes millennials v. boomers Another millennial whine: old people have all the power (NY Times) there's an easy solution, lazy millennials: start voting, as if your life depended on it Millennials: "out to lunch" mentally (NY Post) they need to get their own life in order before blaming others Millennials are responsible for sluggish economy (CNBC) Millennials blame boomers....again (The Guardian) maybe they wouldn't be whining if they'd accomplish something The millennial urban lifestyle is about to get more expensive (The Atlantic) yes, please All the President's ... ... whistleblowers (American Prospect) ... men named in the whistleblower complaint (MSNBC) ... crimes (The Intercept) ... women (The Guardian) 43 more abused? ... Yankees (NBC News) ------------------ Incoherence and incompetence (Washington Post) in the White House Lucky that American nuclear bombs are still in Turkey (New Republic) not American workers It's back to The Jungle (New Republic) in the meat industry 'The Jungle' of Sinclair Lewis fame It's not the robots. it's the oligarchs (American Prospect) coming for our jobs Why GM workers are on strike (HuffPost) it's not complicated: corporate greed and the settlement didn't give them the one big thing they wanted (Vox) the re-opening of Lordstown ---------------------- A guide to Asian restaurants (New York) good (& bad) signs by nationality Asian humor? books The Meritocracy Trap (Vox) a pretense to rationalize inequality? The Age of Addiction (Vox) how Big Business feeds our addictions travel/art/museums art Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera (NC Museum of Art) opens 10/27/19 Lucian Freud: the self-portraits (The Guardian) narcissism at its worst... at London's Royal Academy of Art, 10/27/19 - 1/26/2020 Beginners guide to Lucian Freud (Royal Academy) Lucian Freud in 5 self-portraits (Royal Academy) The last climb up Uluru (NY Times) before the ban Cape Dorset: Native Art hasn't saved the Inuit (NY Times) but leave it to NYT for not bothering to show a single piece of native art in an overlong story Almost all the Leonardos (Washington Post) da Vinci's 500th anniversary at the Louvre it even has Vitruvian Man (Art Newspaper) but not Salvator Mundi Salvator Mundi: in or out? (Art Newspaper) apparently still up in the air... but now only "attributed to Leonardo" Why the Mona Lisa is the world's most famous painting (Washington Post) because it was stolen El Greco in a new light (Art Newspaper) at Paris' Grand Palais An extraordinary Rubens exhibit (Art Newspaper) in Toronto, at the Art Gallery of Ontario travel Celebrate Death Valley's 25th year as a National Park (National Park Service) The last climb up Uluru (NY Times) before the ban St. Louis: the most enlightening spot in America? (NY Times) for exploring what American really is Capital Reef NP (Washington Post) like Zion, except without the crowds Saba (CNN) the most unknown Caribbean island? |
A defense of reason and of universities (Stephen Pinker in Skeptic) Another drop in college readiness (Inside Higher Ed) lowest in 15 years as measured by ACT teaching Stop blaming teachers (The Conversation) student test results are out of their hands genes count the most Algorithms (not teachers) are grading student essays (Vox) what could go wrong? ---------------------- The President's new Science Council (Washington Post) 1 scientist; 6 industry reps so much for science bio-science The making of mammals (Nature) how the earliest mammals thrived alongside dinosaurs How the big dinosaurs kept their cool (Science News) blood-vessel clusters in their head Survival of the fittest cells (Nature) the secret battles fought inside your body How evolution built genes from scratch (Nature) gender Boosting inclusivity in the Nobels (Nature) after this year's science prizes are all won by men The first all-female spacewalk (Earth & Sky) Friday, 10/18/19, 7:50 EDT watch it here with Christina (Hammock) Koch, NCSSM '97 How NASA misunderstands female astronauts (Inverse) 3 stories other-sci More valuable than gold?: lead without radioactivity (The Atlantic) from ancient shipwrecks bad tech 5-G safety maybe, be cautious (Scientific American) no, don't fall prey to scare-monering (Scientific American) "it's (almost) certainly safe" (Forbes) that's (almost) a relief FBook fail Fbook: assaulting the truth (NY Times) while pretending to defend free speech Free speech ≠ Fbook false ads (Washington Post) even if it does to Zuckerberg "You can be unethical and still be legal... that's the way I've lived my life" (Vanity Fair) Zuckerberg quote says it all Tech companies destroy democracy and the free press (NY Times) money that used to support journalism is now used by Google and FBook to support & spread fake news Zuckerberg defends lying (Washington Post) in the guise of free speech and Fbook then hides negative responses to his speech but when you own communication, that's what you do Truth vs. free speech: Zuckerberg chooses neither (The Guardian) in incoherent and vacuous speech Zuckerberg, in his own words (Wall Street Journal) Google continues to support climate deniers (The Guardian) Stress & injuries: the price of 1-day Amazon delivery (Vox) Set your Google data to self-destruct (NY Times) because Google is not going to |
limited time? read the most interesting & important stories from early October 2019: 1) 2019 Nobel Prizes exoplanets & cosmology; lithium batteries; how cells use and adapt to oxygen 2) American inequality grows and so does whining by the rich 3) a variety of climate solutions will we choose any of them? 4) does the universe still make sense? Hubble constant, again a cosmic controversies conference doesn't make much news 5) Dems debate..... Trump destroys 6) physics teaching enters a new era? 7) bad tech gets worse colleges spy on applicants with hidden cookies Fbook allows lying in political ads 8) is it really OK to eat meat? |
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early October 2019 |
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Preparing for a CME (Neurologica) a coronal mass ejection is inevitable nearly life? "We found life on Mars in 1976" (Scientific American) in the Viking labeled-release experiment New organic compounds found in Enceladus' ice grains (Earth & Sky) are ingredients of amino acids nearly water Sutton Island: a former oasis on Mars (Earth & Sky) found by Curiosity Nirgal Vallis: running water and a lake (ESA) found by Mars Express -------------------- 20 newly-discovered moons for Saturn (Astronomy) now with 82, more than Jupiter How did water get on Earth? (Scientific American) it's still comets vs. asteroids the never-ending question 🔥 yes, there is a climate crisis 🔥 how we know the planet is warming the big picture How fast will seas rise? (Science) a dying Greenland glacier holds the clues read it while it's still free Where Earth stores its carbon (Science News) mostly in the mantle but beware of asteroid impacts measuring climate change Frozen into the Arctic (Scientific American) to study climate change Dramatic glacier melt in Peru (Earth & Sky) Radical warming in Siberia (Washington Post) An island breaks up with Antarctica (NY Times) is this global warming unhinged or just the normal flow of things? Some NC birds in trouble due to global warming (Raleigh N&O) climate solutions The economic case for taking on global warming now (Vox) unfortunately, the author's attempt at an attention-grabbing title demeans the actual story -- and not for the first time The problem with net-zero emissions targets (Carbon Brief) they need to be net-negative instead How millennials are killing climate-change denial (Inverse) What you can do for burned Amazon forests (Smithsonian) give up hamburgers; donate $5 to Amazon conservation The climate problem: it's not just cars (Vox) low-carbon steel and concrete options are scarce & expensive Do we have the carbon tax backwards? (Anthropocene) published article: Declining CO2 price paths (PNAS) Living in a geo- engineered world (Gizmodo) Is geoengineering worth the risk? (Science News) Why climate change won't be solved by individuals (Areo) only by voting for people who will reduce emissions but that shouldn't prevent individuals from doing their share The most effective climate tax (EPFL) for Switzerland lessons for the US? Where to buy 'Impossible Foods' and 'Beyond Meat' (Vox) climate disasters The worst human side of fossil fuel extraction (Scientific American) violence against and trafficking of Native women -------------------- A detailed map of auto emissions for every road in America (NY Times) find your metro area in Durham-CH, emissions up 74% since 1990 Plastic waste is everywhere (Vox) in grocery stores can/will we get rid of it? Why does Duke Energy get to be a monopoly? (Raleigh N&O) |
Uncertainty in the solar opacities? (EOS) Are magnetars the result of stellar mergers? (Astronomy) published article (Nature) paywall Are pulsars responsible for too much antimatter? (AAS Nova) hitting Earth in cosmic rays Are repeating FRBs neutron-starquakes? (New Scientist) The matter of molecules (Scientific American) Tidal disruption of a star by a black hole (Sky & Telescope) 10,000x rarer than a supernova with a short simulation When black holes shred sun-like stars (AAS Nova) a short summary |
What keeps stars from eating their newly-born planets (Max Planck) Why just being in the habitable zone doesn't make an exoplanet livable (Science News) What we can learn from hot Jupiters (Smithsonian) An exoplanet that orbits in 18 hours (Universe Today) a new record The giant planet orbiting a dwarf star (Earth & Sky) ET Intelligent ways to search for extraterrestrial life (New Yorker) Are we prepared to discover extraterrestrial life? (Seth Shostak, NBC) The most suitable galaxies for life? (Discover) large spirals and dwarfs with high metal content |
Has the universe stopped making sense? (LiveScience) yes, H0, again and with a nice Ωm-H0 constraint diagram peer-reviewed paper (arXiv) by Katie Mack et al., NCSU who gives the intro talk at the next NC-AAPT meeting @NCSSM, Nov14-15 Milky Way: galaxy kidnapper (UC Riverside) Milky Way: gas raider (Hubble) Did universe's structure grow from the top down -- or from the bottom up? (Starts with a Bang) spoiler alert: some of both but SMBHs stunt dwarf galaxies' growth (UC Riverside) Cosmic Controversies conference (U Chicago) October 5 - 8 program and videos: day 1: panel on esolution of the H0 discrepancy day 2: panel on explanation of cosmic acceleration day 3: panel on explanation of dark matter day 4: panel on what we can learn about cosmology from particle physics A galaxy's size and SMBH-mass are correlated (Astronomy) how they grow in size together 3.5 Myr ago, the Milky Way's center exploded (Earth & Sky) and it lasted for 0.3 Myr How the cosmic web fuels the growth of galaxies and SMBHs (RIKEN) a 3-D view (Science News) Probing a galaxy's halo via an FRB (Sky & Telescope) the halo is 'calmer' than expected low turbulence & magnetization; thin gas content? The violent history of Andromeda (phys.org via ANU) multiple bouts of galactic cannibalism The violent history of the Milky Way (Astrobites) from a sausage to a splash -- a head-on crash 10 Gyrs ago Massive galaxies in the early universe (Physics Today, October 2019 issue) hiding in plain sight |
Can the neutrino's tiny mass solve big mysteries? (Quanta) or not Discovery of hidden info in the Hall effect constant? (Gizmodo) but discussable in an intro physics class? uh, no. published paper (Nature) free to read, but not to save 7 more black-hole-merger candidates found by not-LIGO (Sky & Telescope) LIGO silent of course But is it science? (Aeon) Jim Baggott on separating real science from pseudodscience (viz., multiverse crap) and Sabine Hossenfelder on the same in particle physics (BackReaction) and Do we need a more powerful particle collider? (Inside Science) 2000-atom olioporphyrins placed in quantum superposition (Scientific American) but writers should stop saying that the molecule was in 2 places at once!... that's nonsense! read-only published paper (Nature Physics) IceCube neutrino traced back to BL Lac object (Max Planck) more details (IceCube) The hunt for useful quantum computers (Nature) beyond quantum supremacy 10-cubit register breaks new ground in quantum computing (Physics World) read with caution The tantalum crystal that mimics an some axion properties (Gizmodo) but no, we're not closer to finding dark matter What the quark? (New Scientist) why quarks may not exist paywall read with disbelief Looking for a wormhole through the Milky Way SMBH (Scientific American) |
Dem debate #12 takeaways Vox winners: Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg; losers: Gabbard, Biden Washington Post winners: Warren, Sanders, Klobuchar; losers: Biden, Steyer Politico winners: Buttigieg, Samders, Warren, Klobuchar fading: Biden NY Times stood out: Buttigieg, Klobuchar; reassuring: Sanders, Warren; uneven: Biden Dems continue to defend the American empire (The Intercept) but the debates -- and the Dem primary -- is now a sideshow (The Atlantic) and then there were 5? (New York) is Joe Biden one of them? ------------------ What Dan McCready learned in losing NC-9 (NY TImes) lead with values; promote common- sense policies; don't give up on rurals A Nobel for poverty-fighting (economics) science (Science News) when did economics become a science? Columbus Day Who really discovered America? (ZME Science) not Columbus Columbus Day: a whitewashed history (USA Today) Indigenous peoples and Columbus Day (Smithsonian) American inequality Consequences of Americans not sharing a common lived experience (Washington Post) are not good We should tax our way to equality (NY Times) not the other way 'round, which is what we're currently doing How American CEOs got so rich (Vox) stock buy-backs aren't the only way the perils of being rich Yes, billionaires pay lower taxes than the rest of us (NY Times) for the first time ever (Washington Post) billionaires pay a lower tax rate than the working class The triumph of injustice (Washington Post) the richest Americans paid the lowest tax rate of any other income group and yet they want more (tax cuts) Why the IRS audits poor people more than the rich (ProPublica) it's cheaper & easier and now the rich want our pity, too (NY Times) ------------------------- Why Trump voters stick with him (NY Times) unexpectedly revealing or maybe not? or Why Republicans aren't turning on Trump (The Atlantic) All the President's crimes (The Intercept) a collection the damning texts (Vox) explained 'the smoking texts' (Politico) ------------------ Inside story at the border war (NY Times) 'shoot them in the legs"... moats with snakes & alligators, electrified fences, and much more Baseball: does it matter if no one sits in the seats? (NY Times) or afford to? Jamal Khashoggi (Washington Post) one year later A missing voice, a growing chorus His final seconds 1 year later, Saudi clampdown still exists Still owed justice (NY Times) Where is justice for Yemen? undone by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia (PBS Frontline, 2-hr documentary) ------------------ books Deep State (NY Times) how the FBI made a mess of the 2016 election 2 new books confront climate change: On Fire by Naomi Klein The Green New Deal by Jeremy Rifkin travel/art/museums Where is da Vinci's Salvator Mundi? (The Guardian) a no-show for the Louvre exhibit? William Blake at the Tate Modern (The Guardian) is not my idea of art Kamchatka (NY Times) wildlife & volcanoes The Bungle Bungles (The Atlantic) a photo tour of the beehive domes of western Australia |
The true cost of being a teacher (Vox) 94% of U.S. teachers spend their own money on their classrooms 7 teachers on what they buy and how much it costs science 2019 Nobel Prize winners Physics James Peebles for 'physical cosmology' and Maynor & Queloz for 'exoplanet discoveries' press release New perspectives on our place in the universe popular info advanced scientific background cosmology: pp. 1 - 14 exoplanets: pp. 15 - 24 51 Peg b: a planet worth a Nobel Prize (Astrobites) The 3 exoplanet encyclopedias from France from NASA Goddard from NASA IPAC why does NASA need 2? ------------------- Chemistry Goodenough, Whittingham, & Yoshino for development of lithium batteries press release developing the world's most powerful batteries popular info advanced scientific background Quanta comments How lithium batteries work (How Stuff Works) in multi parts ------------------- Medicine Kaelin, Ratclifffe, & Semenza for how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability press release advanced scientific background ------------------ Nobel Prize, misc. Humans, humility, and Nobel Prizes (Washington Post) there are more things, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy... 2019 Nobel Prize predictions for the sciences (Inside Science) goes 1 for 3 What wins a Nobel Prize (Chemistry World) the data behind 100 years of prizes Should the press be covering the Nobel Prize? (Ars Technica) the biggest injustice in NP history (Starts with a Bang) ------------------ other science Copernicium is strange (Science) element 112 as its P.T.- predecessor mercury The danger of a single study (Undark) exoplanets & life Lab-made primordial soup yields RNA bases (Nature) support for RNA-world? (some) Pigs conquer tools (Vox) Woolly mammoths' last stand? (Earth & Sky) on Wrangell Island Federal attack on government science research reaches breaking point (Gizmodo) China: how science made a superpower (Nature) Simplest parking strategies (J Statistical Mechanics) just the math, please paywall Language and the brain (Science) a special issue entirely paywalled, of course Abdus Salaam, the first ****** Nobel Prize winner (Netflix) in Physics (1979) a review (Physics World) 9 things parents should do to raise successful kids (INC via getpocket) nearly science Infinities, equalities & equivalences (Quanta) anti-science Mark Meadows (NC-R) and the dinosaur caper (New Yorker) ------------------- College students just want normal libraries (The Atlantic) it's glitz vs. physical texts teaching Teaching Physics for tomorrow (Physics Today, October 2019 issue) equipping students to change the world The coming revolution in physics education (Physics Teacher, October 2019 issue) paywall Teaching at the university level should not be a hassle (Nature) if it is, perhaps you shouldn't be at university Paying for your neighbors' kids' Christian indoctrination (The Atlantic) ----------------------- diet and health A new theory of obesity (Scientific American, October 2019 issue) it's the processed food Red meat is now OK? (NY Times) but mixed messages aren't ok Is eating beef healthy? (Vox) or not harmful? The actual reason meat is not healthy (The Atlantic) In defense of meat: we're all gonna die sometime (Reason) who knew there was right-wing take on meat? ------------------- bad tech Colleges hide tracking cookies on applicants' computers (Washington Post) surreptitously during college visits trying to match Fbook's criminality? Fbook will allow Trump to lie in his ads (Popular Info) and anyone else, for that matter The lies that Fbook tells (Washington Post) jail them! Fbook vs critics, competitors, & the government (The Verge) the leaked audio bad sports NCAA California did the right thing... in allowing pay for athlete endorsements (Washington Post) don't buy into NCAA propaganda NCAA rejects recommendations to stop academic fraud (Raleigh N&O) NBA NBA capitulates to China (Washington Post) instead of exporting democratic values, it's importing dictatorial ones For the NBA, it's all about the Benjamins (Houston Chronicle) money defeats democratic values every time NBA collides with China, retreats with bruised spine (NY Times) |
limited time? read the most
important
stories
from late September 2019:
1) climate news reigns new IPCC report: Ocean and Cryosphhere global warming is accelerating melting ice: not just the Arctic climate policy: many roads to take, but none chosen 2) new limits on neutrino mass 3) bird loss: a cause for concern? 4) the Ukraine, Trump, Biden mess: a turn toward impeachment 5) a new focus on Venus 6) a new black-hole visualization 7) has Google reached quantum supremacy? |
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| late September 2019
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An alternative to Planet X: a primordial black hole? (Vice) preprint (arXiv) Still no solution in Hawaii telescope protest (phys.org) disasters How bad can a cataclysmic solar superstorm be? (Scientific American) How worried should we be about an asteroid collision (Smithsonian) --------------------- Venus again Super-rotation of Venus's cloudtops (Earth & Sky) Why we need to go back to Venus (Astronomy) The clouds of Venus (Sky & Telescope) are still puzzling Was Venus once habitable? (Europlanet Society) Yes -- and for 3 Gyr says Smithsonian --------------------- Autumnal equinox: Monday, 9/23/19, 3:50 am EDT (Vox) 9 things to know Why Earth has 4 seasons (Earth & Sky) just in case you didn't go to grade school The spectrum of interstellar comet Borisov (Inst. Astro. Canarias) but don't expect to actually see the coemt... it will be fainter than Pluto at peak brightness preprint (arXiv) CN in the spectrum The age of Saturn's rings (Earth & Sky) is still being debated Euro Planetary Society meets in Geneva Day 4 summary science at Venus; ocean worlds & icy moons Day 3 summary planetary defense; upcoming missions Day 2 summary asteroid missions Day 1 summary 50 years after Apollo; exploring Kuiper belt; completing solar system's inventory The snow-cannon Enceladus why Saturn's inner moon are so radar-bright ---------------------- 🔥 yes, there is a climate crisis 🔥 how we know the planet is warming the big picture A new IPCC report: Oceans & Cryosphere commentary: The evidence for accelerating sea-level rise (Carbon Brief) a relatively short explainer IPCC: humans are turning oceans into warm acid basins, hostile to life (Vox) IPCC: big risks for coastal cities and food supplies (NY Times) The ocean is the key (Science) to achieving climate and societal goals IPCC: intense storms and loss of marine life are inevitable (The Guardian) once-per-year extreme sea-level event by 2050 IPCC: extreme coastal flooding yearly (Washington Post) massive changes are already here and the actual reports: Summary for Policy Makers (45 pages) Full Report (1170 pages) -------------------- The melting, drying, and flooding Earth (Nature) global warming in pictures Global warming is accelerating (WMO) report prepared for the UN summit this week (which Trump won't be attending) The climate crisis (The Guardian) explained in 10 charts Summer 2019: hottest on record for N. Hemisphere (Earth & Sky) tied with 2016.... and 2nd warmest winter in S Hemisphere NOAA has even more charts and the August 2019 summary Dramatic sea ice melt caps a tough Arctic summer (Nature) the top of the world is screaming for help What Arctic warming means for the rest of us (Earth & Sky) Trapped: why 300 scientists are locking themselves into Arctic ice (Nature) Earth's 3rd-largest ice sheet (Hindu Kush-Himalaya) is melting quickly (The Guardian) an IPCC report preview climate solutions How to shop, eat, and cook in a warming world (NY Times) Getting to 100% renewables requires cheap energy storage (aka batteries) (Vox) how cheap? 12 excuses for climate inaction (Vox) and how to refute them climate reporting Listen to the scientists! (Starts with a Bang) what Greta Thunberg has taught us (or should have) 12 more years to climate disaster? (NY Times) true and not true Climate change: about to alter the face of global conflict (New Republic) looking back from 2100 The climate policy with the most potential is the one most neglected (Vox) green energy R&D to spur innovation is overlooked and underfunded Act now and avert a climate crisis (Nature) Covering Climate Now: 250 organizations band together Most U.S. teens are frightened by climate change (Washington Post) maybe they should spend some time convincing their parents climate policy How the Trump administration tried to bury climate science (IndyWeek via The Guardian) The hard truths of global warming: how little progress is being made (Nature) in charts and graphs The human imperative of stabilizing global warming at 1.5 °C (Science) A new scenario logic for the Paris agreement long-term temperature goal (Nature) paywall money & climate How money fuels global warming (Bill McKibben, New Yorker) from banking, insurance, and asset management Where cash to solve global warming is flowing (Nature) and why it's not enough The billions behind the climate-denial movement (Smithsonian) Donors Trust, Mellon-Scaife, Koch, Bradley, & more from 2013, but still telling --------------------- Trump admin tries to kill cleaner air, better cars (NY Times) Climate Action summit (United Nations) is September 23 Making travel to conferences climate-sustainable (Nature) 7 steps environment Dumping chemical and nuclear waste (Mosaic) is a warning enough? |
The Sun's corona and its connection to the solar wind (Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics) paywalll? Uniting short γ-ray bursts and neutron star mergers (AAS Nova) Pinning down the spins of black holes in mergers (Astrobites) Most massive neutron star measured (West Virginia U) 2.17 Msun |
VPLanet: a virtual planet simulator for modeling pllanets across Gyrs of time (U Washington) and VPL website pre-published article (arXiv) A new method of finding exoplanets (Astrobites) by using the gaps in the protoplanetary disk A follow-up to the first H2O-vapor detection on an exoplanet: K2 18-b (Earth & Sky) pre-print of paper 1 (arXiv) abstract of paper 2 (Nature Astronomy) paywall for entire article but no, we didn't find liquid water on K2 18-b (Starts with a Bang) proving water is liquid is much harder A new explanation of Tabby's star dimming (Columbia U) the capture and slow annihilation of an exomoon? exolife What life might be like in alien oceans (BBC) crazy stuff? Where ET might be lurking (Earth & Sky) in the solar system Planets made of quarks? (arXiv) |
A new visualization of a black-hole accretion disk (NASA) has a nice explanatory diagram but Earth & Sky has a short video The oldest cluster of galaxies (so far) (Astronomy) or, more properly, a galaxy protocluster Milky Way's SMBH is eating more (Earth & Sky) it's now at maximum recorded brightness |
The delayed-choice quantum eraser (Preposterous Universe) Has Google achieved quantum supremacy? (MIT Tech Review) is it true? (Starts with a Bang) what it means (IEEE Spectrum) Neutrinos: the Standard Model's greatest puzzle (Starts with a Bang) based on first results from KATRIN KATRIN pre-print (arXiv) released 9/16/19 Constraining dark matter by using the Milky Way's satellite galaxies (AAS Nova) Constraints on the constancy of G in time (Astrobites) from a pulsating star Chasing Einstein opened in theaters 9/13/2019 (it's in Franklin, NC, but not in Durham, Raleigh, or CH) a review (Not Even Wrong) and the trailer (IMDB) LEP -- the greatest lepton collider ever built (CERN Courier) its run ended in 2000 The main trouble with Many Worlds (BackReaction) it doesn't solve anything read with caution Again, yes. We have no idea what goes on inside a black hole (Live Science) Can time travel survive a theory of everything? (Science News) let's hope not Universe as hologram? (BackReaction) read with disbelief Did a strange Higgs particle steal antimatter from the universe? (LiveScience) Dark matter made before the Big Bang? (Science Daily) and how it might have happened? (Starts with a Bang) |
U.S. prepares to shut the door on refugees (Daily Kos) an end to what made America great It's the environment, stupid (NY Times) the biggest 2020 campaign issue Trump, Ukraine, Biden just the facts The Trump-Ukraine timeline (Washington Post) as of now Trump and the Ukraine call (NPR) what happened? what's next? Bidens in Ukraine (Wall Street Journal) an explainer paywall Will Biden's son jeopardize his father's campaign? (New Yorker) the Biden/Ukraine accusations (Vox) The Ukraine facts are clear (Washington Post) but does the truth matter any more? -------------------- Donald Trump v. the USA (NY Times) in 40 sentences American politics is broken (Politico) how to fix the gridlock, misinformation, polarization, corruption, & inequality some interesting, some crazy Edward Snowden reminds of how he stopped an unconstitutional conspiracy by the US government (Fresh Air, 1-hour podcast) recording every citizen's phone calls, texts, & Google searches without ever asking or even telling us a violation of the 4th Amendment Trump's clown (The Guardian) yep, Giuliani NC elections New NC maps pass legislature (Raleigh N&O) but judges still get to approve GOP unanimous; Dems split New House maps are half as GOP-biased as previous ones (Election Law Blog) Senate maps are ⅓ as biased with graphs showing where the district-drawing falls in terms of bias A longer analysis of the likely result of the new district drawings (Old North State Politics) by Michael Bitzer, political scientist, Catawba College NC Election Board voting-equipment decision didn't follow the law (Carolina Public Press) election security experts send complaint to NCEB New districts still favor the GOP (Raleigh N&O) primary election endorsements Indy Week People's Alliance Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People ------------------------- Language (Nautil.us) thoughts, words, actions American migration patterns (The Atlantic) terrifying -- or good -- for the GOP? books Imagined life (Science News) imagining the odd critters elsewhere After Geoengineering (Penguin Random House) climate tragedy, repair, & restoration an excerpt: The desperate race to cool the oceans (MIT Tech Review) before it's too late 100 best books of the century (The Guardian) Wolf Hall at #1 Waters of the world (Nature review) the roots of climate science the story of the the scientists who unraveled the mysteries of the seas, glaciers, & atmosphere what not to read The Number of Heavens (Not Even Wrong review) the worst of multiverse propaganda art/trips/museums Francis Bacon: deep, dark, & bleak (NY Times) in Paris |
science Pterosaurs: monsters of the Mesozoic skies (Scientific American) Is CRISPR the only hope left for the banana? (Nature) Why we don't shoot our garbage, nuclear waste, etc. into the Sun (Starts with a Bang) it's dangerous (think launch explosion)... not to mention prohibitively expensive the vanishing of the birds 3 million birds lost in N American since 1970 (Science News) Grassland habitats and sparrows fared the worst (Science) With a map of bird loss (NY Times) Extinction is for the birds? (The Guardian) 7 simple actions to help birds (3billionbirds) by the authors of the scientific paper False alarm? There is no impending bird apocalypse (Slate) what happens when marketing gets more attention than the science bad tech Uber: drivers are not central to our core mission (Vox) explaining why they don't have to pay drivers as employees 'tech is our mission' schools NC gets an F for unsafe drinking water (Raleigh N&O) time to get the lead out |
limited time? read the most
important
stories
from early September 2019:
1) solar system news & speculation life elsewhere in the solar system? a return to Venus (the living?) Jackrabbit on the far side of the Moon 2) proton news 3) an end to partisan gerrymandering in NC? and more election news 4) general relativity GR passes another test -- this time with a pulsar wind and overtones in gravitational waves supporting the no-hair theorem 5) a climate 'town hall' and Democratic candidates' climate policies (with grades!) 6) first water detection on an exoplanet 7) EdWeek rates K-12 schools 8) bad tech: the states go after Google California goes after Uber/Lyft |
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early September 2019
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What Yutu-2 has found on the far side of the Moon (Earth & Sky) Another interstellar visitor? (Sky & Telescope) Saturn's history is written in its rings (Sky & Telescope) Viewing Saturn (Hubble) images & videos Titan's lakes: craters formed by underground explosions? (Universe Today) What Ryugu told us (Earth & Sky) Venus is alive (Eos) resurrecting interest in a dead planet and Why we need to go back (The Conservation) Venus: a laboratory for exoplanetary science (arXiv) are microbes controlling the albedo? (Earth & Sky) when in doubt, blame it on aliens? Roadblocks still in Hawaii ...and now at the back-up site in the Canary Islands (Science) 🔥 yes, there is a climate crisis 🔥 how we know the planet is warming the big picture Beyond the 2 °C limit (Washington Post) large parts of the globe have already passed the threshold including most of Canada, Alaska, Europe, & Russia plus 6 takeaways & extreme climate change arrives in America annual temperature rise in Durham = 0.6 °C since 1895 West Antarctica's ice loss is due to humans (Physics Today) A new 'heat blob' arises in the Pacific (NOAA) rivaling the one 5 years ago Flight shame (NY Books) the climate hazards of air travel climate policy Fracking: best cases 'for' and 'against' (Vox) 4 inconvenient facts about climate change (This Week) climate town hall Climate Crisis Town Hall: 10 candidates, 40 minutes each (CNN) happened 9/4/2019 7 takeaways (Scientific American) candidates are not afraid of big ideas, but some key differences emerge 6 winners, 3 losers (Vox) in CNN townhall Joe Biden: incoherent as usual other 2 losers: meat and fossil-fuel companies 10 questions to ask at a climate townhall (Vox) and suspiciously in time for the CNN event: Kamala Harris's climate plan (Kamala Harris) Julian Castro's climate plan (Julian Castro) Pete Buttegieg's climate plan (Pete Buttigieg) Elizabeth Warren has a climate plan, but not on her web site -- rather on one you have to register to see yet she's very good pouting about others' lack of transparency ... what a hypocrite summaries Grading the candidates' climate plans (The Guardian) only Sanders, Warren, & Booker get As A summary of Dem candidates' climate plans (Vox) ------------------- climate solutions Global Commission on Adaptation delivers 90-page report (Global Commission on Adaptation) claims $7.1 trillion in benefits are possible with investment in climate-resilient infrastructure et al. the Adapt Now report The real news about electric vehicles (The Conversation) countering the fake news Is nuclear power a viable solution to global warming? (Vox) ------------------- climate apocalypse? read with disbelief The climate apocalypse is coming (New Yorker) what if we stopped pretending? instead, believe the following responses to it Ban rich white guys from writing about climate change (Gizmodo) Should The New Yorker have published it (Vox) if it's wrong on the science? not to mention wrong on the politics and wrong on the psychology... not to mention he's a novelist, not a scientist It's a choice -- not a foregone conclusion (Scientific American) a climate scientist responds -------------------- the Amazon fires contradicting claims So why is the Amazon burning? (Washington Post) Fires mostly set by farmers (Smithsonian) to clear land what happens next? 4 reasons it's burning (Earth & Sky) The real data on Amazon fires (Global Fire Data) highest rate of fires since record-keeping began in 2013 More dangerous than WMDs? (The Atlantic) one person shouldn't have the power to doom the planet Brazil's Bolsanaro finally responds (Vox) military deployed after threat from Macron or Everything you're reading about the Amazon is wrong? (Forbes) well, not everything Do the Amazon fires justify environmental interventionism? (The Guardian) long-term Amazon Rainforest on fire (The Intercept) on the front lines in the Amazon: conservation, agribusiness, & ranching Increasing wildfires threaten carbon release from boreal soils (Nature) but the Amazon is *not* the 'lungs of the world' (The Atlantic) its contribution to the oxygen atmosphere is pretty much zero Unrecoverable -- once it's gone (The Atlantic) Is the Amazon near a tipping point? (Science Advances) How the Amazon could self destruct (NY Times) the threat of dieback The risk of Amazon forest dieback (PNAS) a scientific review environment Mapping the strain on our water (Washington Post) NC is in the top 10 of water use per day and has medium/high risk of water stress |
more on the First pair-instability supernova? (Quanta) maybe pulsational, maybe not A mass gap between neutron stars and (stellar) black holes? (Starts with a Bang) and is LIGO about to fill in the gap? and with a nice diagram of supernova type as a function of mass and metallicity It's raining sun (Scientific American) null-point topologies are the solution to solar mysteries? |
First detection of H2O in an exoplanet atmosphere (Earth & Sky) of a habitable super-Earth but not necessarily liquid water of clouds ET life How life could start in interstellar space (Science Alert) Life on Europa? (Starts with a Bang) Can we avoid harming alien life? (Astronomy) if we find it life on Enceladus? Enceladus -- the best hope for life beyond Earth? (Starts with a Bang) What life would look like an ocean moon? (Gizmodo) in cartoons humor... I think prospects for life in the solar system all from September 2019 issue of Astronomy on Mars on Europa beneath the crust on Titan on Enceladus on Triton beneath the ice on Pluto |
Why is a SMBH periodically flaring? (Earth & Sky) in x-rays Galaxy collisions and star formation (Astrobites) not as big a bump as once thought Formation and evolution of star clusters in the LMC (Hubble) nice pictures, little else typical Hubble Radio-emitting bubbles found near galactic center (Earth & Sky) like the hourglass-shaped Fermi bubbles, but smaller Dark matter in DF2 and DF4? (Astronomy) still no definitive answer What's going on inside those 2 Fermi bubbles? (Space) A very short history of the Milky Way (Astrobites) read with caution An expanding controversy (Science) an update on H0 ... with a summary of a new method, albeit with large (10%) uncertainty paywall Starts with a Bang claims it requires new physics at least we get a summary of recent results |
First overtones heard in the ringing of a black-hole merger (Caltech) in first black-hole merger discovered, but belatedly noticed and supporting the no-hair theorem (Science News) A new confirmation of General Relativity (Science News) using a pulsar's winds Time flies: the 4th anniversary of the first gravitational- wave discovery (Scientific American) The evidence for dark matter (The Conversation) it's not about 'belief' Quantum mechanics is fine (Starts with a Bang) it's human bias about reality that's the problem? with a summary table that displays differences between quantum-interpretation theories the proton Has its centennial (Physics Teacher) and it's not the simple particle you thought New measurement favors smaller proton size (Science News) rP ~ 0.83 fm and hope dies for new physics (Quanta) but apparently a proton's size depends on the context --------------------- Physicists don't want to understand quantum mechanics? (NY Times) no, just a thoroughly embarrassing article if, like Sean Carroll, it means accepting non- falsifiability and the multiiverse , that's a good thing! and Not Even Wrong exposes the Carroll's silly claims in Quantum Reality II and Regarding Papers about Fundamental Theories which remembers the time when papers on GR were not wanted read with caution 5 (most promising) ways to quantize gravity (BackReaction) Where's the quarkonium? (Space) and the tetraquarks, and the glueballs, ...? Are we all wrong about black holes? (Quanta) given how little we know about black holes, it's hard to take this question seriously... although deleting the silly pictures of surfer-philosophers (is there possibly a lower life form?) would help read with disbelief Where quantum probability comes from (Quanta) more multi-universe nonsense from one of its lead purveyors and worse Splitting the universe (Aeon) A quantum of life? (Scientific American) psychobabble |
The 3rd Democratic debate (538) in 7 charts O'Rourke &Warren impress; Castro & Biden do not Time for Joe to go (Rolling Stone) NC's legislature embarrasses itself (Raleigh N&O) again and again The Presidency and the Lost Generation Z (The Atlantic) is Kamala Harris their only chance? warning: The Atlantic now limits you to reading 5 free articles/month or maybe it falls to The heir (The Atlantic) Ivanka or Don, jr? Supreme Court disses asylum seekers (Vox) acting like an arm of the GOP 9/11 Happy birthday, 9/11 (Washington Post) welcome to war without end Has the 18-year war in Afghanistan been worth it? (Washington Post) what it got right and wrong... and the consequences When luck meant everything (The Atlantic) to life or death NC GOP override budget veto while Democrats attend 9/11 ceremony (Washington Post) tricked again elections NC district drawing Judges appoint referee, give legislature until 9/19 (NC Policy Watch) why they're likely to ask Nathan Persily to draw new maps? (Election Law Blog) and bypass the NC legislature Watch NC district- drawing live on-line (Raleigh N&O) but only because the judges made them do it in public but Off to a bad start on Day 1? (Raleigh N&O) the lottery ball affair The Hofeller affair was the prelude to Sharpie-gate (Indy Week) The end of partisan gerrymandering in NC? (Raleigh N&O) pardon us if we're skeptical... of an end to GOP trickery 3 NC judges embarrass CJ Roberts (NY Times) Are NC Democrats backing away from non-partisan redistricting? (Raleigh N&O) they'd better not NC's 9th district A Democratic defeat or a GOP wake-up call? (Vox) HB2-author Bishop wins special election Two Dans, two elections, and now winners (New Republic) Or are Dems going in reverse? (NY Times) Trump makes unfounded voter fraud claim while campaigning for a House seat opened by GOP cheating (Vox) oh, the irony ------------------- Michigan's smart idea for fixing gerrymandering (Vox) conservatives want to crush it The legless armless FEC (Washington Post) just when a robust one is needed most Information gerrymandering and undemocratic decisions (Nature) bet you hadn't been thinking about that An all-hands-on-deck moment for American democracy (Washington Post) O'Rourke, Bullock, Castro, Abrams, etc.: stop wasting out time Protecting elections from social media manipulation (Science) we can't understand it if we're not measuring it NC Election Board chooses not to have secure voting (Raleigh N&O) until 2020 or maybe even beyond and elections past Impact of NC Gerrymandering (Raleigh N&O) dividing races, cities, and a campus ------------------- books Permanent Record (Washington Post) Edward Snowden explains how he did it... sort of they wanted him gone (The Guardian) 'they' is us, the USA The Economist's Hour (Vox) a generation of economists got us into our present mess...can a new one get us out of it? proving again that economics is NOT a science, not even a social one The Guarded Gate (NY Books) keeping southern and eastern European immigrants out of America Quantum Mechanics: the graphic novel (Physics Today) a review She Said (The Guardian) bringing down Harvey Weinstein Einstein's War (Physics Today) Einstein & Eddington ... war heroes? No shadow of a doubt (Physics Today) the significance of the 1919 total solar eclipse An autumn reading list (Science) Fashionopolis?? art/trips/museums Remembering Robert Frank (Smithsonian) the photographer who chronicled the alienation and heartbreak in America 36 hours in Geneva (NY Times) but no CERN? Portugal's Alentejo (NY Times) Labor Day thoughts The case for a 4-day work week (Vox) 32 hours of work, 3-day weekends Uber & Lyft: fighting to keep their employees poor (NY Times) will Californians let them? It's 'Labor Day', not 'Contract Employee' day! (LA Times) What working Americans deserve (Pete Buttigieg) Bargaining for more (American Prospect) Unions for all: a new plan to save American Labor (Vox) 'sectoral bargaining' is the future? The jobs most threatened by machines (American Prospect) cashiers, not truckers ------------------- America, the gerontocracy (Politico) old in leaders, old in voters, old in system of government The last 5 Navajo code talkers (USA Today) share their story Brexit: fools rush out (NY Books) guns & shootings yet again Mass shootings: both increasing and increasingly deadly (LA Times) Texas gun laws loosened after 2nd mass shooting this month (Vox) because it's Texas:, where guns are more important than people American gun madness (Vox) in 16 maps & charts |
K-12 schools EdWeek rates the states NC ranks 37th overall on achievement, financing, & chance for success NC 23rd in K-12 achievement with an average grade of C- NC 30th in 'chance of students success' with a grade of C+ NC ranks 46th in per-pupil spending NC spends $9,367, ~$3400 below US average... and gets a grade of F Raleigh N&O comments but We're getting what we pay for (Raleigh N&O) and it's not good 57% of students passed reading tests .... and 60% of schools with a majority of low-income students were rated D or F A failing grade for NC's top 'educatpr' (Raleigh N&O) taking away resources from public school education A surge in the number of integrated schools (Washington Post) but not in the big cities college How to end the PhD problem? (Policy Options) end the PhD bashing 17 questions colleges should be asking (Sen Ben Sasse, R-KS, The Atlantic) When did college become so cruel? (NY Times) Why college became so expensive (The Atlantic) Why dorms are so nice now (The Atlantic) --------------------- space The ISS is more valuable than people realize? (Scientific American) only if you care about space effects on human biology.... not if you actually care about science Can spaceflight save the planet? (Scientific American) just pie-in-the-sky human origins continued When was America first occupied by humans? (Sapiens) science Light from dark (Science News) how this thermoelectric generator works The delusion of scientific omniscience (Scientific American) Death by diet soda? (NY Times) mass extinctions A long-ago mass extinction (Stanford) 2 Gyr ago, when life was microbes A 6th major mass extinction? (Historical Biology) the end-Captinian although perhaps unnoticed because it preceded the Permian one by only 8 Myr no, the end-Captinian wasn't 'major' (Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology) with rankings of the top 10 extinctions now that's a journal title! A reversal of the biological clock? (Nature) How capitalism created dinosaurs (Nautil.us) 'Fundamental Physics' Prize for first SMBH image (Breakthrough Institute) another 'Breakthrough' prize for underachievement and hype? bad tech Has 'Science' let radiation scare us to death? (RealClearScience) no, but this bogus article (transparently pro-nuclear) is pretty scary in trying to get us to think it's safe 50 states/territories start antitrust investigation of Google (Washington Post) or why the Internet is far from being free every state but CA & AL or Google's very bad day (Vox) Uber/Lyft 'contract workers' about to become employees (LA Times) in CA at least but Uber/Lyft say they won't (Vox) MIT Media Lab Hype vs. reality (Chronicle of Higher Education) Harper & the food computer The moral rot of the MIT Media Lab (Slate) Epstein and the moral bankruptcy of the techno-elites (The Guardian) solutions: close MIT's Media Lab; disband the TED talks; boycott John Brockman ---------------------- How social networks can be used to bias voters (Nature) Protecting elections from social media manipulation (Science) we can't understand it if we're not measuring it |
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limited time? read the most important stories from late August 2019: 1) upper limits to neutrino masses 2) gravitational-wave rumors another ns-bh merger? the least-massive black hole? the most-massive (stellar) black hole? an unnoticed kilonova (pre-LIGO-upgrade)? 3) climate change news methane regulations removed new solutions for solving climate change and talking about it 4) origins of American slavery: 400 years ago 5) Ryugu news: little dust, despite violent origin 6) First Americans: in Idaho, by sea from Japan? 7) first observed pair-instability supernova? 8) climate policy Bernie Sanders climate plan Andrew Yang's climate plan 9) good and bad news for Earth-like exoplanets |
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