DayVectors

* 23 entries including: capitalism & socialism (series), defending Taiwan (series), UK in space (series), hunting dark matter, Ukraine Independence Day | Colorado mail voting | Trump books, DeployNet tactical network | Echoguard radar | Gambit drone, Walmart banking, FBI raids Trump | rotten Russian economy | Id.Me revisited, Malyuk bullpup rifle | Alligator AMR, Inflation Reduction Act in detail | Russian V Ukrainian morale, artificial enamel | seashell & lobster-shell materials, solar Africa, Russians afraid of Ukrainians | Inflation Reduction Act passed, renewables gain | antiprotons & symmetry | atomic clock & Einstein, superworms against styrofoam | yeasts for biofuels, & supplying Ukraine | Europe wildfires | FOXsplaining the 1-6 Committee.

[WED 31 AUG 22] DEFENDING TAIWAN (4)

* DEFENDING TAIWAN (4): Following missile and air defense, the next priorities for protecting Taiwan are ...

[3] MINE WARFARE: Taiwan is of course an island, and a landing force has to be mostly transported by sea. Mines represent a very cheap and non-offensive means of making an amphibious assault more costly, or at least more troublesome. Relatively small mines like the Russian PDM, intended for beach or waterway protection, could be rapidly deployed in the tidal zone of likely landing sites. The mines could be complemented by steel or concrete obstacles, to steer landing craft towards the mines. The Ukrainian use of mines may have deterred a landing at Odessa.

The USA can provide major support of mining the waters around Taiwan by stockpiling Quickstrike / Extended Range stand-off air-delivered mines at regional bases and in the continental United States. The Quickstrike is essentially a glide bomb with popout wings and an influence fuze; it can be dropped from 75 kilometers (45 miles) away, and glide to deploy itself at a specific location. If there were a shooting war in progress, a B-2 stealth bomber or the follow-on B-21 could deploy them from contested airspace.

[4] SEA-DENIAL FIRES: Taiwan, of course, should have the ability to strike at a sea-borne invasion force, taking a three-layer approach.

The first, outermost layer would involve long-range guided-munitions munitions capable of striking Chinese staging areas and ports, as well as petroleum, oil, and lubricants tanks supporting the naval force. For more than a decade, Taiwan has had the "Hsiung Feng IIE" cruise missile, with a range of 600 kilometers (370 miles), and also has the "Wan Chien" air-launched cruise missile, with a third of the range. However, neither are available in quantity.

US assistance is required to rapidly augment existing Taiwanese indigenous systems and amplify their deterrent effect through the prospect of expanding them. Taiwan plans to double advanced missile production to a total of nearly 500 per year in 2022, but that's hardly enough. In 2020, the USA approved the sale of 135 "AGM-84H Standoff Land Attack Missile Expanded Response (SLAM-ER)" air-launched cruise missiles to Taiwan for approximately $1 billion USD. They are precision weapons with a range of 300 kilometers (185 miles).

Taiwan should purchase Harop long-range loitering munitions from Israel as well, possibly obtaining a license manufacturing agreement, as part of purchases of other Israeli munitions. Taiwan will not only need a large stockpile of such long-range precision munitions, but will have to disperse the weapons to make sure they can survive a Chinese first strike.

The second layer entails stockpiling and deploying anti-ship missiles and precision-guided munitions to hit Chinese naval assets threatening Taiwan's shores. Again, the idea would be for American-made weapons to augment weapons made in Taiwan, such as the Hsiung Feng III supersonic anti-ship cruise missile, with a range of 120 to 150 kilometers (75 to 95 miles). The USA has already approved the sale of 100 Harpoon land-based coastal defense cruise missile launchers, with 400 missiles and 25 targeting radar systems, to Taiwan, these missiles having range comparable to that of the Hsiung Feng III. If Beijing becomes more threatening, the USA will need to provide more Harpoons.

The third layer will be coastline defense with precision fires, such as US-made Guided Multiple-Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rockets, to turn Taiwan's nearshore waters and beaches into kill zones. The US is planning to deliver at least eleven GMLRS High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) by 2027; more would be better. In addition, the SAAB-Boeing Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GL-SDB) is now becoming available, using old MLRS rocket boosters to launch the SDB glide bomb. It provides a precision-guided weapon that can be launched by HIMARS, with about twice the range of GMLRS. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[TUE 30 AUG 22] HUNTING DARK MATTER WITH GRAVITY

* HUNTING DARK MATTER WITH GRAVITY: The mystery of "dark matter" -- the unseen mass of the Universe -- has been discussed here in the past. Ingenious experiments have been devised to hunt down dark matter particles, but none have panned out. As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("The Windchime Experiment Could Use Gravity To Hunt For Dark Matter Wind" by James R. Riordan, 4 August 2020), a new experiment -- named "Windchime" -- will hunt for dark matter through the only force it is known, by definition, to feel: gravity.

The central idea is simple. If the Milky Way Galaxy is mostly a cloud of dark matter, as astronomical measurements suggest, then we should be sailing through it at about 200 kilometers per second, which would create a "dark matter wind". The Windchime detector, as its name implies, takes its cue from the windchimes often found decorating houses, being a collection of pendulums that swing in the dark matter breeze. There would be about a billion or so micromachined sensors in a box about a meter on a side.

If that sounds like an obvious approach, the problem is that gravity is a very weak force, compared to the electromagnetic force. Hold up a brick, its weight is the result of the gravitational attraction of the entire Earth. Hold up a brick-sized magnet with each arm and bring them slowly together, at a certain range they will be impossible to keep apart, and very difficult to separate once they slap together. The weakness of gravity means that confounding influences -- simple vibration, for example -- tend to drown it out.

Physicist Daniel Carney, of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California, got to thinking of using gravity to hunt for dark matter -- though the idea was obviously challenging, Carney wondering if it could be done, since it sounded impossible at the outset: "When you first make the estimate, the answer is no. It's actually going to be infeasibly difficult." However, in 2020, Carney and his collaborators dug into the idea, and it began to seem more plausible: "Thirty years ago, this would have been totally nuts to propose. It's still kind of nuts, but it's like borderline insanity."

Carney took inspiration from gravitational-wave observatories, which similarly demanded very difficult measurement technology and took decades to get to work -- but now they are performing routine observations. The research group now has a prototype Windchime built of commercial accelerometers, and are using it to develop the software and analysis that will lead to the operational version of the detector.

However, Carney believes it could take decades to develop sensors that are capable of picking up dark matter. Even then, Windchime will be sensitive only to dark matter bits that are roughly the mass of a fine speck of dust, enormous on the scale of elementary particles. However, if it finds nothing, that would decisively rule out the existence of supermassive dark matter particles -- and the detector could also find other supermassive particles, such as tiny black holes.

* As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("Gravitational Wave Radar Could Help Map The Invisible Universe" by Asa Stahl, 22 June 2022) after decades of effort, the detection of gravity waves is now increasingly routine. A study now suggests more can be made of it, through "gravitational wave radar" or "gradar".

Gravity waves big enough to detect are created by events such as the merging of two black holes. Einstein's theory of gravity says that concentrations of mass along the path of the wave can alter its course -- and so a gravitational wave may be accompanied by a faint later "echo" caused by masses. Researchers have long believed these delayed signals, called "gravitational glints," should be too weak to detect. However, physicists Craig Copi and Glenn Starkman of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, investigated the matter, using Einstein's theory, to determine just how strong the signal should be.

It turned out the signal was much bigger than expected. Researchers could use the glints to hunt for massive bodies in space that would otherwise be impossible to detect, like concentrations of dark matter or lone neutron stars on the other side of the observable universe. Copi warns that the calculations are very difficult, and will have to be confirmed by observations. However, the potential makes the research clearly worthwhile.

[MON 29 AUG 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 35

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: 24 August marked Ukraine's Independence Day, the country having become independent in 1991. There was no mass celebration, there being worries of Russian attacks, with the occasion only marked by displays of broken Russian tanks and other vehicles on the streets of Kyiv. There were sympathetic demonstrations in the Baltic States, with a number of Soviet-era monuments demolished.

Russian activity was not actually out of the ordinary, but that was bad enough: there were strikes at Ukrainian cities, with a train station hit in Eastern Ukraine. 25 people were killed, 50 injured. In the meantime, the US State Department and Yale University announced that satellite imagery revealed at least 21 detention camps in Russian-occupied Ukraine, with suggestions of mass graves at some of them. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the size of the Russian Army would be increased -- leading to hoots of derision outside Russia, since the Russians haven't been able to obtain enough warm bodies so far, and aren't able to equip them. It is believed that stockpiles of Russian long-range missiles are critically depleted.

The USA celebrated Ukraine Independence Day by authorizing a $3 billion USD military aid package to Ukraine, items including six NASAMS air-defense systems, hundreds of thousands of 155-millimeter rounds and other ammunition, laser-guided rockets and launchers, counter-artillery radars, and drones. That makes more than $13.5 billion USD in military aid to Ukraine since January 2021, and $15.5 billion USD since 2014.

In the meantime, American President Joe Biden is on a roll, implementing a debt-forgiveness program for student loans. It was a big but definitely restrained program, not close to simply erasing the debt -- but it was accompanied by loud complaints from the Right. The White House was prepared for the complaints, being quick to point to forgiveness of large pandemic-relief loans taken out by offending Members of Congress.

Biden's public-approval ratings are climbing rapidly. One of the keys is that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who had been stalling Biden's agenda, has finally decided to come in for a landing, having accomplished whatever it was he was trying to do -- which isn't easy to figure out. Expect more action when Congress returns from summer recess on 6 September.

* With midterm elections coming up, noise about "stolen elections" is getting louder -- with voting by mail accused of being particularly prone to election fraud. We Coloradans find that particularly annoying, since voting by mail has been the norm for years, and it hasn't been troublesome.

As reported in an article from THE FORT COLLINS COLORADAN newspaper, universal voting by mail voting was introduced in 2013, with every registered voter receiving a ballot to the mailing address provided on their voter registration. By the 2020 election, more than 93% of Colorado's registered voters returned their ballots by mail. Ballots are sent out at least 22 days before election day, and can be returned by mail, or shoved in a drop box. It is required that citizens show ID when registering, or voting at a polling place.

There's also an absentee voting scheme for active military personnel and other Colorado state voters, but it's something of a different program. Fraud is negligible; the Heritage Fund, a conservative research and education institution, tracks voter fraud cases nationwide, and has documented only 15 cases in Colorado, going back to 2005.

Colorado is one of at least 21 states that restore voting rights when an inmate is released from incarceration. Additionally, people in jail awaiting sentencing or on parole are also eligible to vote in Colorado. In 2020, two Denver jails even had in-person voting centers set up so eligible inmates could vote in person.

* THE DAILY SHOW's Michael Kosta zeroed in Trump Administration officials shilling their memoirs, with Kosta clearly enjoying himself:

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[FRI 26 AUG 22] CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (9)

* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (9): Why did Ricardo think that high food prices led to high rents? His reasoning was simple. The productivity of farmers was more or less dependent on the quality of land: poor land meant poor yields, good land meant high yields. Landlords could charge higher rents for good land than poor land, with the end result that it was the landlords who were the beneficiaries of high food prices, not the farmers.

The primacy of the landlords filtered through all of society: workers needed higher pay to survive, with the higher pay cutting into the profits of businesses. Ricardo concluded that "the interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interest of every other class in the community." Businessmen were inclined to re-invest their profits to expand business; landlords used their rents to build fine manors, hire servants, and obtain luxuries, which did little to contribute to the prosperity of the nation as a whole. The dominance of landlords was more a relic of feudalism than an example of capitalism at work.

To make things worse, Britain had passed protectionist "Corn Laws" to restrict the import of foreign grain, with the consequences of still higher food prices and, of course, a more limited food supply. In 1819, a demonstration was held in Saint Peter's Fields in Manchester, agitating for expansion of the voting franchise and the end to the Corn Laws. Troops came to the scene; one thing led to another, with the soldiers opening fire on the crowd, with a number of people killed and hundreds injured. The incident became known as the "Peterloo Massacre".

Also in 1819, Ricardo became a Member of Parliament, where he pushed for an end to the Corn Laws. Few listened at the time; it wouldn't be for decades, well after his death, that his argument would prevail and Britain would repeal the Corn Laws. The "free trade" message was simply too counter-intuitive to the conventional wisdom.

The conventional wisdom was wrong. What would happen, according to Ricardo, if the Corn Laws were repealed? Cheap foreign grain would flood into Britain, workers wouldn't have to pay so much for food, capitalists wouldn't have to pay higher wages -- and would be able to invest in business expansion, increasing the wealth of the nation. The reply in protest to this was that it wouldn't be wise for Britain to be dependent on a foreign country for its food, but if several other countries could sell Britain cheap grain, Britain's vulnerability would be minimized.

Ricardo pointed out that it made no sense for Britain to grow its own grain, if some other country could do a better job of it. If, say, Russia could produce cheap grain but wasn't good at producing iron -- then Britain, which was good at producing iron, could sell iron to Russia in exchange for imports of grain. Each country, as Ricardo put it, had a "comparative advantage" that gave them a basis for economic cooperation. National self-sufficiency made some sense in pre-industrial days, when economies and trade were smaller, but the Industrial Revolution rendered it impractical. National self-sufficiency, or "autarchy", would always be a nonstarter, with a tendency to be pushed by authoritarian-nationalist regimes.

Ricardo was significant in the study of economics by introducing concepts of economic modeling; not all his ideas would persist, but his methodology did. Ironically, in 1814 he purchased a great estate, becoming a member of the landlord class -- hinting at the reality that economic models are simplifications of the messy real world. Nonetheless, he didn't give up his principles; he continued to push for free trade for the rest of his days. He would be vindicated, though the concept of "free trade" would prove more complicated than it looked. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[THU 25 AUG 22] WINGS & WEAPONS

* WINGS & WEAPONS: As discussed in an article from JANES.com ("Saab Launches New Deployable 5G Network System" by Olivia Savage, 22 February 2022), the Saab company of Sweden has announced the introduction of the firm's "DeployNet" -- a 5G ruggedized tactical secure broadband communication system. According to SAAB:

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DeployNet, as its name implies, permits the quick deployment of a tactical network that supports voice and data communications, including real-time video streaming. The system consists of a core network, a radio access network, mast units, end-user equipment, and power supply. The system was developed in collaboration with partners in the UAE, with a number of potential customers interested in it.

* As discussed in an article from JANES.com ("Echodyne Delivers Additional Radars For US Army Force Protection" by Carlo Munoz, 16 March 2022) has now delivered a new lot of the company's EchoGuard 3D radar system, in support of the US Army's Security Surveillance System (SSS) program.

The Echoguard 3D is a lightweight tactical radar that can be carried and set up by individual soldiers, being mounted on a tripod. It can observed ground traffic and drone traffic; it operates in the S-band, from 2 to 4 GHz, and uses a "metamaterials" array antenna -- metamaterials having been last discussed here in 2013.

* As discussed in an article from JANES.com ("General Atomics Reveals Gambit Unmanned Aircraft" by Gareth Jennings, 03 March 2022), the American General Atomics company has made a name for itself with its Predator and follow-on Reaper drones. The firm is now working on a new drone to follow the Reaper in turn.

The "Gambit" drone is being offered for the US Air Force "Off-Boarding Sensing Station (OBSS)" program, with GA competing against an offering from Kratos -- both firms having been awarded development contracts. Gambit is not seen as a production item, at least not yet, the company calling it an "advanced concept aircraft", featuring AI-flavored software:

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Concept illustrations from GA show a stealthy drone with turbofan propulsion. It is not clear if the Gambit will have a secondary attack capability.

[WED 24 AUG 22] DEFENDING TAIWAN (3)

* DEFENDING TAIWAN (3): An essay from WARONTHEROCKS.com ("Eight New Points on the Porcupine: More Ukrainian Lessons for Taiwan" by Andrew Erickson and Gabriel Collins, 18 April 2022) proposed a comprehensive strategy for a "dragon-choking" porcupine defense of Taiwan, suggesting that Taiwan present Chinese forces with:

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These eight categories require an overlapping matrix of technologies:

BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE: Russian forces have made considerable use of tactical ballistic missiles (TBM) in their war against Ukraine, with the Ukrainians hard-pressed to deal with TBM attacks. TBMs haven't been much more than a dangerous nuisance to Ukraine, but China could well be inspired to build up a massive TBM force to crush Taiwan at the outset of a conflict. Taiwan needs to build up anti-TBM defenses to instill doubts in Chinese war planners.

Right now, Taiwan has 350 US-made "Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC) 3" anti-TBM missiles; they are being upgraded to the more formidable "Advanced Capability" standard, with Taiwan seeking to obtain 300 more PAC-3 AC missiles. The USA is likely to be agreeable. To deal with intermediate-range missiles, Taiwan needs "Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)" mobile missile launchers on mobile units.

Passive defenses are also needed. Beyond the four MQ-9 Reaper high-altitude, long-endurance surveillance drones they are currently acquiring from the USA, Taiwanese forces should put GPS-Beidou navigation satellite jammers on additional drones, or potentially aerostats, to degrade the accuracy of missile strikes. Taiwan could also complicate a Chinese ballistic-missile attack by hardening or dispersing targets, as well as through use of large numbers of decoys. Decoys are, effectively by definition, much cheaper and easier to build than the systems they imitate. Such measures would multiply the number of missiles China would need to launch to be sure of causing sufficient damage.

AIR DEFENSE: One of the big surprises of the Ukraine War was the ineffectiveness of Russian air power against Ukraine, with air power primarily used to launch stand-off weapons. That's because Ukraine has a layered air defense, originally heavily based on the Buk, Kub, Tor, and S-300 surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems that could engage targets at altitude -- forcing Russian aircraft to fly low and suffer attacks from the tens of thousands of Stinger and other infantry-portable SAM systems provided by NATO allies.

Ukraine is now receiving the medium-range "Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS)" platform, based on an extended-range version of the US AIM-120 "Advanced Medium-Range Air-To-Air Missile (AMRAAM)". Their defensive radar network is still full of holes, with reliance when possible on NATO "Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS)" aircraft operating outside of Ukrainian airspace.

Taiwan's large and growing stockpile of PAC-3 SAMs gives the country an ability to deal with attackers at altitude and range. Taiwan, however, lacks a medium-range SAM capability, but for the same cost as Taiwan's 2019 deal to acquire 66 F-16V fighters, the island's military could purchase more than 150 NASAMS batteries -- which are highly mobile, and compatible with tunnel / cave sheltered operations. Smaller follow-on deals could obtain hundreds of replacement rounds.

Finally, Taiwan needs to obtain a large stockpile of infantry SAMs; the tens of thousands of such weapons delivered to Ukraine made a big difference in nullifying Russian battlefield air power. Taiwan is obtaining more US-made FIM-92 Stinger infantry SAMs, but large quantities of such weapons will be needed -- complemented by mobile anti-aircraft cannon, and jammers capable of interfering with drones. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[TUE 23 AUG 22] WALMART BANKING?

* WALMART BANKING? As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("Banks Beware, Amazon And Walmart Are Cracking The Code For Finance" 17 September 2021), these days everyone's a banker. Global brands ranging from Mercedes and Amazon to IKEA and Walmart are cutting out the traditional financial middleman and plugging in software from tech startups to offer customers everything from banking and credit to insurance.

The use of "embedded finance", as it's known, means Amazon can let customers "buy now pay later" when they check out, and Mercedes drivers tell their cars to pay for their fuel. Of course, banks are still behind most of the transactions, but financial industry observers say they risk being pushed further away from the front end of the finance chain. That means they won't have the access to the mountains of data the companies on the front end get about the preferences and behaviors of their customers, giving them a vital edge. Matt Harris, a partner at investor Bain Capital Ventures, says:

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For the moment, many areas of embedded finance are no threat to the dominance of banks. Even though some of the upstarts have licenses to offer regulated services such as lending, they don't have the financial depth of banks. However, if financial technology -- "fintech" -- firms can grab a chunk of digital payments from banks, lenders will have to react.

Stripe, for example, the payments platform behind many sites with clients including Amazon and Google, is now a big player, with a value approaching $100 billion USD. In 2019, it was estimated that the new entrants to the payments market had obtained a cut of 8% globally, and that share has since risen -- particularly after the pandemic boosted digital payments. Now the focus is turning to lending, supported by digital lenders with a variety of products that businesses can pick and choose to embed in their processes.

Billions of dollars are being pumped into embedded finance startups all over the world, including Klarna in Sweden, Solarisbank in Germany, and Square in the USA -- which is now worth $113 billion USD, more than Europe's most valuable bank, HSBC, on $105 billion USD. Roland Folz, chief executive of Solarisbank -- which provides banking services to more than 50 companies including Samsung -- says: "Customers expect services, including financial services, to be directly integrated at the point of consumption, and to be convenient, digital, and immediately accessible."

It's not just consumers that are being courted. Businesses themselves are being approached by fintechs such as Canada's Shopify. Kaz Nejatian, vice president of product & merchant services at Shopify, says:

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A Shopify spokesperson said funding ranges from $200 to $2 million USD. It has provided $2.3 billion USD in cumulative capital advances and is valued at $184 billion USD, well above Royal Bank of Canada, the country's biggest traditional lender.

However, Shopify's lending business is still peanuts compared to the big banks. JPMorgan Chase & CO, for example, has a had a consumer and community loan book worth well over $400 billion at the end of June. Major advances into finance by companies from other sectors could also be limited by regulators, who are trying to come to grips with the fintechs.

In addition, some of the big banks are seeking partnerships to make sure they stay in the game. Citigroup has teamed up with Google on bank accounts, Goldman Sachs is providing credit cards for Apple, and JPMorgan is buying 75% of Volkswagen's payments business, while planning to expand to other industries. Traditional banks, it seems, are understanding they can ride the steamroller, or be part of the road.

[MON 22 AUG 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 34

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Donald Trump is in big trouble. True, that's been the case since 6 January 2021, but now it's more specific: the Feds raided his Mar-a-Lago resort / estate to haul off boxes of secret documents he wasn't supposed to have there. Compared to all the other trouble he's facing, even that shouldn't seem like a big deal -- but suddenly, Trump and his MAGA fans are waking up to unpleasant reality.

The denialism has been loud and angry, with flaming attacks on the FBI and the DOJ -- a Republican candidate in New York saying that Attorney General Merrick Garland "should be executed". There was concern until recently that the Democrats were unlikely to do well in the fall midterm elections, but that was nonsense: right now, MAGA candidates in Senate races are lagging badly, and the House races are likely skewed in the same way.

The big bogus thing about the fears of the Democrats losing Congress was the failure of the news media and pundits to realize that polls are only meaningful when things are stable: it's easier to predict the road ahead when the road behind has been consistently straight, but not so easy when it zigzags. The Republican Party has become dependent on Trump and has nothing else going for it. Now Republican candidates can either endorse Trump, or refuse to do so, and neither option does them any good. They're stuck on a sinking ship that wasn't seaworthy to begin with.

In the meantime, President Joe Biden is rallying. As discussed last week, he's scored a major legislative victory, the economy is stabilizing, and fuel prices are steadily dropping. I take a walk in the morning five days a week, to the neighborhood shopping mall and back, and added a dogleg to the filling station so I could check fuel prices -- down to about $3.80 USD a gallon, still high but not so bad. Lurking in the background is the reality that Papa Joe is leading the USA to a devastating military victory against Russia. Few notice that right now, but once the Orcs are run out of Ukraine, excitement is likely to be running hot.

Papa Joe doesn't worry much about the sniping. During the primary campaign in 2020, he was lagging Bernie Sanders at the outset, but he shrugged, rallied, and then blew Bernie's doors off. He doesn't seem to be sweating it much now, either.

* An article from NEWSTATESMAN.com ("The Truth About Russia's Rotten Economy" by Will Dunn, 19 August 2022) examined the state of Russia's economy, through the lens of Russian economist Sergei Guriev. Versed in physics and math, he gravitated towards using math to model economic processes, doing postdoc research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, becoming a professor at the New Economic School in Moscow in 1998. He acquired influence, which did not endear him to Vladimir Putin; after escalating harassment, Guriev left Russia for Paris, to become a professor of economics at Sciences Po, France's leading university for social sciences. He also became chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development in London.

Russia appears to be weathering extensive Western sanctions handily -- but like everything else in Russia, appearances are deceptive, and the story is complicated. The government in Moscow can gloss over defaulting on its debt, according to Guriev, because a default only impairs Russia's ability to raise money in financial markets. That isn't an issue to the Kremlin, Guriev saying: "Russia is a toxic partner. Nobody wants to lend to Russia."

The government can also point to energy sales that give the Russia a healthy account surplus, though there's trouble down the road. A plan to embargo 90% of Russian oil imports to the EU by the end of the year will be significant, Guriev says, but it is still months away and until it is implemented, "it's actually good for Putin, because an oil embargo in December raises oil prices today". This is why a price cap on Russian oil and gas, agreed by G7 leaders in July, is vital: not only because it would reduce the market value of Russian oil before the embargo, but because it would affect how much India and China will pay for Russian energy.

Another seeming sign of Russia's strength is a strong rouble. Guriev says this is actually a consequence of Western sanctions. The reason the rouble's exchange value is high is that Russian businesses can't import much: no software, no semiconductors, bearings, jet engines or car parts. Even products that aren't sanctioned aren't available, because Western companies don't want to be seen doing business with a thug regime. The strong rouble exists only because people don't want to buy roubles with dollars, Guriev saying: "It's not a sign of a stronger economy. It's a side effect of something which really hurts Russia."

Putin is also taking a huge economic risk with his policy of "gas blackmail", trying to press against Europe by throttling gas supplies. The problem for Putin is that reducing the flow of gas not only reduces money coming back to Russia, but also gives customers an incentive to find alternatives to Russian gas, Russia losing those customers over the longer term. In the meantime, Russia's industrial output is cratering, Guriev saying:

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Guriev believes that Russia, in the face of ever-growing woes, is moving from a "spin dictatorship" to a dictatorship of fear. Spin dictators preserve a "narrative of competence" on the economy to maintain their popularity. People do vote for spin dictators, although perhaps not in the volumes the dictators claim. Such leaders are also heavily reliant on corruption, however, which creates only narrow and unstable economic growth, if at all. Everything starts to break down; to maintain the pretence, ever more repressive measures are needed.

Guriev worries that the West will soften on Putin and lean towards accommodation, which would be a disaster:

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Guriev is likely exaggerating the risk. Putin is losing the war, it's steadily getting worse for him by the month. As long as Ukraine, the USA, and NATO are winning, they won't soften. The Ukraine War will have widespread consequences -- one of the major ones being that Western nations have learned the risks of economic reliance on authoritarian states like Russia and China. How well they meet that challenge is another question.

* Back in February, I tried to sign up with the government-backed Id.Me online ID validation service, so I could access my Internal Revenue Service and Social Security accounts. It was a fiasco, the system being so overloaded by people trying to get in as to be inaccessible. I decided to try again in the late summer.

That time arrived, so I tried again. I succeeded, but it was not fun, being sent in circles, repeatedly being forced to upload copies of my personal documents, and having my video interview session broken once -- thanks to fumbling with my smartphone, which I was using as a webcam through the Droidcam app. I'd had to go to a video interview because the self-validation procedure didn't work; the system's attempts to match my face to a selfie via Droidcam failed. I finally realized that I needed to take the selfie using my smartphone, in exactly the same way as the scan was performed. However, the system wouldn't let me try to self-validate again.

I was relieved when the interview completed, but I had validated for IRS access; I asked the interviewer if my SSC access would work as well. The interviewer, apparently stumped by the question, got defensive and said NO, I had to validate again. I got a bit agitated, that being absurd. I didn't believe it, it made no sense; I extricated myself from the conversation, and promptly logged in to both the IRS and SSC.

Next, I sign up for SSC retirement payments. I don't turn 70, at which time I get max payment, until early next year, but it takes a bit of time to process. I don't really need the money very much; I think I'll spend a chunk of it backing Ukraine reconstruction once the Orcs are driven out. I'll probably have my benefits cut later, presuming SSC finally is reformed, but I don't worry about that.

[FRI 19 AUG 22] CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (8)

* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (8): The recommendations in Hamilton's REPORT ON MANUFACTURES had a mixed fate, with some elements being implemented in legislation, but others not faring so well. Jefferson and other Southerners did not like the idea of industrial subsidies, though Jefferson would change his thinking on the matter in time. The biggest problem with the report, however, was that it promoted moderate tariffs; both the Jeffersonians and the industrialists wanted high tariffs for protection of industry. Not incidentally, at the outset, the Federal government largely obtained its funds from tariffs.

Hamilton had more luck in promoting the First Bank of the United States. He had studied the central banks of Europe, and felt that such a thing was necessary to ensure that the United States had an adequate money supply; leaving it to private hands would not do the job. A central bank would serve both the government and private citizens. Resistance was strong, Southerners in particular regarding banks and bankers as dodgy and disreputable, and there was nothing in the Constitution allowing a central bank. The Constitution didn't rule it out, however, while the "Elastic Clause" of the Constitution allowed Congress to pass any law as long as it didn't contradict the Constitution. Hamilton got his central bank.

* Hamilton was a politician and a government official, not an economist, and had little or no effect on the emerging study of economics. An English clergyman named Thomas Malthus (1766:1834) proved much more influential, though his vision exceeded the bounds of mere economics.

Malthus stated his ideas in a pamphlet published in 1798, titled AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION. He pointed out that, without constraints, human population would double every generation; parents would have four or more children, those children would mature and marry to have four or more children, and so on. Of course, population growth was subjects to constraints, such as disease and, in particular, famine: the food supply, being limited by the availability and development of agricultural land, couldn't expand as rapidly as the population.

That was clearly how the world worked. The English scholar Charles Darwin (1809:1882) read the ESSAY ON POPULATION, and it became a keystone of his theory of evolution by natural selection, initially published in 1859. Darwin realized that there would be competition for survival within a population of organisms, and those members of the population that had mutations advantageous to their survival would persist more readily than those that didn't. Over "deep time", the process could result in great changes in organisms.

As far as humans went, the ESSAY ON POPULATION gave a grim message, with suggestions that it made economics into a "dismal science", and Malthus often seen as a cold cynic. He wasn't, he was personally a proper Englishman, but he lived in an era when poverty was effectively the norm, it always had been, and it seemed from his writings that it always would be. Of course, contraception did offer a way out of the vicious cycle, but contraception was a dodgy thing in those days, and all Malthus could do was suggest that people marry late -- which he did.

* More significantly, Malthus did not appreciate the potential of the capitalistic Industrial Revolution emerging around him -- but in 1798, it wasn't that noticeable. Manufacturing establishments such as textile mills, after all, were nothing new, and the improvements were slow enough to not be very noticeable. Economists tended to focus on other things.

David Ricardo (1772:1823) was an Englishman of Jewish origins, an acquaintance of Thomas Malthus, who had made a great fortune in the stock market. He got interested in economics after reading THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, focusing on the tensions between landowners, capitalists, and the working class. Tensions were running very high in Britain early in the 19th century, mostly because of high food prices. There was some belief that landowners were at fault, for charging high rents, which sounds intuitive, but Ricardo disagreed, believing that lowering rents would not change food prices. It was, ironically, the high food prices that were leading to the high rents. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[ED: Notice I changed the name of the series from SOCIAL CAPITALISM. The new title makes much more sense. I changed the title in archived installments.]

[THU 18 AUG 22] SPACE NEWS

* Space launches for July included:

[01 JUL 22] USA CC / ATLAS 5 / USSF 12 (WFOV) -- An Atlas 5 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 2315 UTC (local time + 4) rocket to put the "Wide Field Of View (WFOV)" experimental geostationary missile warning satellite for the US Space Force. It carried an infrared sensor. The flight also included a secret payload. The flight was designated "USSF 12".

[02 JUL 22] USA-C MJV / LAUNCHERONE / STP-28A -- The Virgin Orbit "Cosmic Girl" carrier aircraft, a modified Boeing 747 jetliner, operating out of the Mojave Air & Space Port in California, performed the third launch of the "LauncherOne" air-launched booster over the Pacific Ocean. It carried seven smallsats, the launch being sponsored by the Pentagon's Space Test Program. The payloads included:

• NACHOS 2: A CubeSat from US Los Alamos National Laboratory, carrying a miniaturized hyperspectral imager, being used to connect sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide to specific volcanoes, cities, neighborhoods, and individual power plants.
• Gunsmoke L: A classified CubeSat from the US Army Space & Missile Defense Command, possibly intended to support battlefield surveillance.
  
  
• MISR B: A modular intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance payload for US Special Operations Command.
  
  
• Recurve: A satellite from the Air Force Research Laboratory, to demonstrate a tactical adaptive radio relay satellite.
  
  
• Slingshot 1: A CubeSat from the Aerospace Corporation, hosting multiple experiments and demonstrations.
  
  
• Compact Total Irradiance Monitor / Flight Demonstration (CTIM-FD): One of two NASA CubeSat payloads, built by the University of Colorado Boulder, to measure total solar irradiance on the Earth.
  
  
• GPX2: The second NASA CubeSat, from NASA Langley Research Center, to demonstrate commercial off-the-shelf GPS receivers that could be used on future small satellite missions for autonomous close-proximity operations, such as formation flying or docking.

Virgin Orbit nicknamed the flight "Straight Up" in honor of a breakthrough single from singer Paula Abdul released on Virgin Records in 1988.

[07 JUL 22] RU PL / SOYUZ 2-1B / GLONASS K (COSMOS 2557) -- A Soyuz 2.1b booster was launched from Plesetsk at 0918 UTC (local time - 4) to put a GLONASS M navigation satellite into orbit. It was assigned the series designation of "Cosmos 25557 and the GLONASS sequence number of 60.

This satellite was the fourth in Russia's GLONASS K series of navigation satellites, a new generation designed to operate longer and transmit more navigation signals than earlier spacecraft. The GLONASS K satellites have a launch mass of about 935 kilograms (2,060 pounds) and have a design life of 10 years. They feature five navigation channels, including a new civilian L-band signal. The new craft are lighter, generate more electrical power. They are based on an unpressurized Express 1000K bus built by ISS Reshetnev in Zheleznogorsk, Russia. The GLONASS K spacecraft also support the international COSPAS-SARSAT search and rescue network.

With this launch, the GLONASS fleet consisted of 26 active satellites, including 22 operational spacecraft and four more undergoing commissioning or "in maintenance," according to the Russian government's official GLONASS network status website. The constellation requires 24 satellites spread among three orbital planes to provide global navigation coverage.

[07 JUL 22] USA-C CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 4-21 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 1311 UTC (local time + 4) to put 53 SpaceX "Starlink" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The satellites were built by SpaceX, each having a launch mass of about 225 kilograms (500 pounds). The booster first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.

[11 JUL 22] USA-C VB / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 3-1 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 0139 UTC (next day local time + 7) to put 46 SpaceX "Starlink" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The satellites were built by SpaceX, each having a launch mass of about 225 kilograms (500 pounds). This brought the number of Starlink launches to above 2500. The first stage landed on the SpaceX drone barge in the Pacific.

[12 JUL 21] CHINA XC / LONG MARCH 3B / TIANLIAN 2-03 -- A Long March 3B booster was launched from Xichang at 1630 UTC (next day local time - 8) to put the third "Tianlian 2" geostationary space communications satellite into orbit.

China launched five first-generation Tianlian satellites from 2008 through 2021. The first spacecraft in the second-generation Tianlian system launched in 2019, debuting a larger, more capable design with the ability to connect to more spacecraft at the same time, and provide higher data transmission rates. China sent a second Tianlian 2-series satellite into orbit in December 2021; this third launch provided global coverage. The second-generation satellites were based on the DFH-4 spacecraft bus produced by the China Academy of Space Technology.

[13 JULY 22] NZ / ELECTRON / NROL 162 -- A Rocket Labs Electron light booster was launched from New Zealand at 0630 UTC (local time - 13) to put a classified payload into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office. The payload was designated "NROL 162". It was to be followed by a partner mission, "NROL 199". The satellites on the dual missions were designed and built by the NRO in partnership with the Australian Department of Defense. This mission was contracted through the NRO's "Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket (RASR)" program.

[13 JUL 22] EU KR / VEGA C / LARES 2 -- A Vega booster was launched from Kourou in French Guiana at 1313 UTC (local time + 3) to put the "Laser Relativity Satellite (LARES) 2" satellite into orbit for ASI, the Italian space agency. The spherical LARES 2 satellite was covered in laser mirrors to permit tracking from the ground, supporting gravity studies in geoodynamics and general relativity. It had a launch mass of about 300 kilograms (660 pounds) and was built by the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics. Six CubeSats were also sent into orbit:

• Alpha: A 1-unit (1U) CubeSat from ARCA Dynamics of Italy, to study the Earth's magnetic field.
  
  
• CERN Latch-up Experiment Student Satellite (CELESTA): A 1U CubeSat, developed by the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) and France's University of Montpellier. It monitored the radiation environment in orbit.
  
  
• MTCube 2: A studentsat CubeSat, also from the University of Montpellier, intended to investigate the effects of space radiation on computer memories.
  
  
• Trisat R: A CubeSat from the University of Maribor in Slovenia, to perform space radiation studies.
  
  
• Greencube: A 3U CubeSat from Sapienza University of Rome, with a miniature pressurized garden to grow vegetables in space.
  
  
• AstroBio CubeSat (ABCS)k: A 3U CubeSat to perform biological and chemical experiments.

This was the first flight of the improved "Vega C" -- "C" for "Consolidation" -- booster, featuring a much more powerful first stage motor, an enlarged second stage, an improved liquid-fueled upper stage, and a new payload fairing design.

[15 JUL 22] USA-C CC / FALCON 9 / SPACEX DRAGON CRS 25 -- A SpaceX Falcon booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0044 UTC (previous day local time + 4), carrying the 25th operational "Dragon" cargo capsule to the International Space Station (ISS). The most significant payload was the "Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT)" instrument developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was mounted on the exterior of the ISS to measure the mineral composition of dust in arid regions. Five CubeSats were launched, as the NASA "Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) 45" mission, including:

• BeaverCube: A 3-unit (3U) CubeSat from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). BeaverCube carried an array of cameras to take images of the Earth's oceans, the goal being to measure temperature of cloud tops and the ocean surface. The satellite demonstrated the use of the new lightweight "Tiled Ionic Liquid Electrospray (TILE) 2" thruster.
  
  
• CapSat 1: A studentsat from the Weiss School.
  
  
• CLICK A: A demonstrator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  
  
• ERAU: A demonstrator from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
  
  
• FUTABA: A studentsat from the Kyuushuu Institute of Technology in Japan.
  
  
• HSU-SAT 1: A demonstrator from Happy Science University in Japan.
  
  
• JAGSAT: A demonstrator from the University of South Alabama.
  
  
• TUMnanoSAT: A demonstrator from the Technical University of Moldova.

[15 JUL 22] CN TY / LONG MARCH 2C / SIWEI GAOJING 2-01, 2-02 -- A Long March 2C booster was launched from Taiyuan at 2257 UTC (next day local time - 8) to put the "Siwei Gaojing 2-01 / 2-02)" satellites into Sun-synchronous orbit.

The satellites, which were also named "Superview NEO", were owned by China Siwei Surveying and Mapping Technology LTD, a commmercial remote-sensing service. China Siwei plans to deploy a constellation of 28 remote sensing satellites ? 16 high-resolution optical satellites, eight radar observation spacecraft, and four spacecraft for wide-format optical imaging. The Gaojing 2-01 and 2-02 satellites are the first radar spacecraft in China Siwei's fleet. Two high-resolution optical satellites were launched on a Long March 2C rocket in April. The high-resolution optical satellites had an imaging resolution of 30 centimeters (a foot); the radar satellites had a resolution of 50 centimeters (20 inches).

[17 JUL 22] USA-C CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 4-22 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at ---- UTC (local time + 4) to put 53 SpaceX "Starlink" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The satellites were built by SpaceX, each having a launch mass of about 225 kilograms (500 pounds). The booster first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.

[22 JUL 22] USA-C VB / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 3-2 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 1739 UTC (local time + 7) to put 46 SpaceX "Starlink" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The satellites were built by SpaceX, each having a launch mass of about 225 kilograms (500 pounds). This brought the number of Starlink launches to above 2500. The first stage landed on the SpaceX drone barge in the Pacific.

[24 JUL 22] CN WC / LONG MARCH 5B / WENTIAN -- A Long March 5B booster was launched at 0622 UTC (local time - 9) from the Chinese Wenchang launch center on Hainan Island to put the "Wentian (Quest For The Heavens)" lab module for the Tiangong modular space station.

The Wentian module was the second of three large modules needed to complete the initial construction of the Tiangong station. The Tianhe core module launched on a Long March 5B rocket in April 2021; Wentian will be following by the third module, "Mengtian", later in 2022.

Wentian had a launch mass of about 23 tonnes (50,000 pounds). It had deployable solar arrays with a span of about 55 meters (180 feet). It was fitted with mounting platforms to host science instruments and unpressurized experiments in the vacuum of space. Wentian carried a small robotic arm designed for more precise movements than the larger arm positioned outside the Tianhe core module. Wentian's arm was intended to be used to transfer experiments and other hardware outside the station. There were accommodations for life science and biological research racks inside the module's pressurized volume. The module added an airlock to support spacewalks outside the Tiangong space station.

[24 JUL 22] USA-C CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 4-25 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 1338 UTC (local time + 4) to put 53 SpaceX "Starlink" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The satellites were built by SpaceX, each having a launch mass of about 225 kilograms (500 pounds). The booster first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship; it was its 13th flight.

[17 JUL 22] CN JQ / ZHONGKE 1A / SATECH 01 & -- A Chinese Kuaizhou 1A (KZ1A) booster was launched from Jiuquan at 0412 UTC (local time - 8) to put six satellites into orbit. The main payload was a demonstrator satellite, "SATech (SY) 01"; one of its significant experiments was the "High Energy Burst Searcher (HEBS)", to observe cosmic gamma-ray bursts. The five smaller payloads included the "Huawan-Nanyue Kexue" science satellite, the "Chuangxin 15" studentsat, two electromagnetism research satellites, and a GNSS (navsat) atmospheric density measurement satellite. One of the satellites reportedly was being used for quantum encryption experiments.

This was the first launch of the CAS Space Zhongke (ZK) 1A, an all-solid four-stage small / medium-lift booster, based on the BF-31 road-mobile ICBM. CAS Space, also known as Zhongke Aerospace, is a spinoff company partially owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

[29 JUL 22] CN XC / LONG MARCH 2D / YAOGAN 35-3 x 3 -- A Long March 2D booster was launched from Xichang at 0220 UTC (local time - 8) to put the secret "Yaogan 35 Group 2" payloads into orbit. It was a triplet of satellites and may have been a "flying triangle" naval signals intelligence payload.

[WED 17 AUG 22] DEFENDING TAIWAN (2)

* DEFENDING TAIWAN (2): RAND's David Ochmanek believes that US weapons development needs to be reconsidered:

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Ochmanek envisions a drone swarm ganging up on a Chinese warship, overwhelming its defenses with numbers, and the drone swarm talking over its mesh radio network to coordinate its attacks. As far as coordinating the actions of hundreds, even thousands of drones in the Taiwan battlespace, that can be done by advanced software with AI. The mesh network would have about 10-kilometer (6-mile) spacing between nodes at most, making it difficult to jam, with communications able to route around areas being jammed. Being digital systems, they would also be easy to simulate digitally, though small-scale real-world experiments would be needed for validation.

Lieutenant General Clint Hinote -- the Air Force's Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, Integration, and Requirements -- commented on similar wargames performed by the USAF, saying:

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The problem, Hinote says, is that even if a Chinese invasion is deterred, the result will be massive damage to Taiwan and US assets in the West Pacific. Extensive Chinese strikes against US facilities in the opening phases of a conflict over Taiwan is a common feature in wargaming this scenario. Drones could also help blunt such attacks at modest cost -- and could be used by Taiwan for offensive operations against China.

Yemen's Houthi fighters have demonstrated how low-cost long-range Iranian kamikaze drones could inflict major damage on Saudi oil facilities. If Taiwan had a thousand long-range kamikaze drones, with small warheads to attack vulnerable targets, it could ensure that China would suffer too heavily in an assault on Taiwan to make the effort worthwhile. For now, however, nobody is talking about emulating the Houthis -- which seems so oblivious as to hint about things that are going on out of sight.

In the meantime, the war of words between China and the USA over Taiwan continues, with Beijing saying that independence is not in Taiwan's future, while the USA makes it clear that it is in American interests to defend Taiwan. There is less to the quarrel than it seems: although the current Taiwanese government has zero interest in submitting to Chinese rule, there's no interest in declaring independence either.

There's no clear sign of a shift in the status quo, though it could change at any time. The war in Ukraine complicates Chinese strategy over Taiwan in two ways:

• Russia's attempt to retake land they regard as rightfully theirs, over the objections of its inhabitants, is likely to end in disastrous failure. The defiance of the US, and its allies, against Russian aggression in Ukraine shows Beijing that an assault on Taiwan will be bitterly resisted.
  
  
• The war in Ukraine is proving a battle laboratory for use of drones and precision-guided munitions. Indeed, once the war is over, it is very possible that Ukraine and Taiwan will join forces to develop such weapons appropriate to their similar needs.

As long as the drawbacks of Chinese aggression are clear to Beijing, Chinese leadership will hesitate to take a disastrous plunge. It may take a generation, but eventually new leadership will arise, and may well decide that the pretense of taking back Taiwan no longer serves any useful purpose. At that point, Taiwan and its allies will have won the war. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[TUE 16 AUG 22] MALYUK & GATOR

* MALYUK & GATOR: As discussed in an article from THEDRIVE.com ("Ukraine's Indigenous Malyuk Bullpup Rifle Is The Weapon Of Choice For Its Special Operators" by Joseph Trevithick, 11 March 2022), although Western weapons have been flooding into Ukraine, the Ukrainians do have a fairly sophisticated arms industry of their own. Ukrainian-built arms include a rifle known commonly as the "Malyuk", a "bullpup" design that is being heavily used by Ukrainian special operations forces units, among others.

A bullpup design features the rifle mechanisms moved back into the stock -- magazines are plugged into the stock -- the result being a short rifle that doesn't sacrifice barrel length, if at the expense of a little more complexity and being a little more awkward to handle. Malyuk is a Ukrainian word that is translates to "baby" or "youngster"; that was actually the name of the prototype for the weapon -- with the production item sold by InterProInvest (IPI), the manufacturer, as the "Vulcan", having unveiled it in 2015.

As is common for bullpup weapons, it is rooted in a traditional assault rifle design -- in this case, the Kalashnikov series. The Malyuk has a barrel 41 centimeters (16.3 inches) long, with the overall weapon being 71 centimeters (28 inches) long, and weighs about 3.8 kilograms (8.4 pounds) unloaded.

Like the AK-pattern rifles they are based on, versions are available chambered to fire Soviet-designed 7.62x39 mm and 5.45x39 mm ammunition, as well as NATO standard 5.56x45 mm, and they can use standard AK-type magazines as well -- which, on a bullpup rifle, plug into the bottom of the stock. There is a Picatinny rail on top for mounting various optics, plus another rail underneath for mounting foregrips and other accessories. There are also attachment points on the sides for lasers and lights, and IPI offers a proprietary sound suppressor.

The short length of a bullpup rifle offers advantages, but there are also drawbacks. It is more complicated than a conventional rifle, and there are some usage issues as well -- the hot barrel being close to the shooter's face, while a left-handed shooter may have a hot spent cartridge tossed down the collar. IPI says the Malyuk was designed to dissipate barrel heat efficiently and that it can be adapted for a left-handed shooter -- but that's not helpful during a combat encounter, when a right-handed shooter might be forced to shoot left-handed, to shoot around a corner for instance. Some just find it awkward.

Only a relatively small number of armies have made bullpups their standard infantry rifle, and even some special-operations units don't like them much. A few nations that adopted bullpup rifles gave up on them. In Ukraine, Malyuks and other bullpups are mostly in use by special operations forces.

* Another interesting firearm of Ukrainian origin is the Snipex "Alligator" anti-material rifle (AMR), in service with the Ukrainian Army. Introduced in 2020, the Alligator fires the hefty Russian 14.5 x 114-millimeter cartridge, has a weight of about 25 kilograms (55 pounds), and features a folding bipod plus a rear rest leg. It is a manual-action weapon, with a five-round box magazine and a Picatinny rail for mounting different kinds of sights. It incorporates features to reduce recoil, such as a muzzle brake and recoil absorbers. It features a cheek rest that can be moved from side to side to accommodate left- or right-handed shooters.

Useful range is up to 2 kilometers (1.25 miles), though the bullet remains deadly for several times that distance. An AMR is used for taking out unarmored or lightly-armored assets like missile launchers or trucks, using armor-piercing ammunition. It can be used as an anti-personnel weapon, but it's hard to hit smaller targets at range, and gruesome overkill for the purpose.

[MON 15 AUG 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 33

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("Democrats Score Big Wins" by David Morgan, 8 August 2022), the House of Representatives has now passed the "Inflation Reduction Act" -- a $430 billion USD drug pricing, energy, and tax bill, mentioned here last week after it cleared the Senate. It now goes to President Joe Biden's desk for signing.

The package is a scaled-back version of Biden's "Build Back Better" proposal, which was blocked by conservative Senate Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema as too expensive. Manchin and Sinema voted for this bill; no Republicans did, and it was only passed through the Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris was able to cast a tie-breaking vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said:

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According to a recent Reuters / IPSOS poll, about half of Americans -- some 49% -- support the bill, including 69% of Democrats and 34% of Republicans. The bill includes:

• Provisions to deal with climate change -- with funding to the tune of $370 billion USD, is focused on climate change, making it the most important bill passed to that end so far. The bill offers businesses and families billions in incentives to encourage purchases of electric vehicles and energy-efficient appliances, as well as to spur new investments in wind and solar power that would double the amount of new, clean electricity-generating capacity coming online in the United States by 2024. Manchin, however, added a provision that would only allow the Federal government to authorize new wind and solar energy developments on Federal land when it is also auctioning rights to drill for oil and natural gas.
  
  
• Giving Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices -- the bill's most popular component, with support from 71% of Americans, including 68% of Republicans. Negotiated prices for 10 of the costliest drugs for Medicare would apply starting in 2026, with that number rising until it caps at 20 a year in 2029. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates Medicare would save $101.8 billion USD over 10 years by negotiating drug prices. The provision also introduces a $2,000 USD annual cap on out-of-pocket costs for the elderly through the Medicare program. Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug costs has been on the wishlist for a long time, but the lobbying by the pharmaceutical companies has blocked it.
  
  
• An extension of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act.
  
  
• A 15% minimum tax on corporations with book profits of over $1 billion USD.
  
  
• A new excise tax on stock buybacks, a late change after Sinema raised objections over another provision that would have imposed new levies on carried interest, currently a tax loophole for hedge fund and private equity financiers. The carried-interest tax provision was dropped. The excise tax is expected to raise an additional $70 billion in tax revenue per year, lawmakers said. That is more than the carried interest provision had been forecast to raise.
  
  
• A push to revitalize the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which has long struggled with attempts by Republican lawmakers to starve it of funds. The IRS will obtain $80 billion USD to obtain new hires and update its antiquated systems, with the IRS expected to perform more aggressive audits of big taxpayers. Improved auditing is expected to bring in several times as much revenue as is being spent on the IRS.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell predictably blasted the bill, saying: "Hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes on a struggling economy will kill American jobs. He denounced the legislation as a "so-called inflation bill that will not meaningfully reduce inflation at all, and will actually make inflation even worse in the short term."

It is true that the impact of the bill will be long-term; major bills are like that -- though it is also true that inflation is in part a matter of social psychology, and reassuring the public that things are being done helps cool it off. In any case, President Joe Biden was ceding no ground to the Republicans, declaring the bill a big win: "Senate Democrats sided with American families over special interests, voting to lower the cost of prescription drugs, health insurance, and everyday energy costs and reduce the deficit, while making the wealthiest corporations finally pay their fair share."

Incidentally, Senator Bernie Sanders, marked as the furthest Left the Senate gets, wasn't happy with the bill, saying among other things: "This legislation does not address the reality that we have more income and wealth inequality today than at any time in the last hundred years." He concluded: "This reconciliation bill goes nowhere near far enough in addressing the problems facing struggling working families. But it is a step forward and I was happy to support it." One wonders, however, if Sanders was, by dissing the bill, trying to encourage Fox News to approve of it.

Other major legislation -- on gay marriage and voter rights -- remains in the wings, for when Congress returns from summer recess. The big interesting question in that context, as mentioned here last week, is if Manchin pushes filibuster reform to get the legislation passed. Things are looking up in that direction, but we'll see.

* On 9 August, a series of violent explosions shook a Russian airbase in occupied Crimea, with startled tourists watching mushroom clouds rising into the air. Nobody knows what happened; the explosions were big, and the Ukrainians are not known to have weapons with nearly enough range to reach the airbase. The Ukrainian government blandly claimed that it had been a partisan attack, but few believed that. Speculation on Twitter was all over the map, muted by the general awareness that it was best to keep the Russians guessing.

Fighting still grinds on in the Donbas region, but precision attacks by HIMARS rocket launchers have seriously hobbled the Russians, who are no longer making even slow progress. The VOICES FROM RUSSIA & UKRAINE YouTube channel, which plays phone intercepts of Orc soldiers, suggests the Russians are flatly terrified of HIMARS. Although intercepts have been drying up somewhat due to better Russian security, a recent intercepted conversation between a Russian soldier and his father suggests desperation is sinking in:

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Ukrainian forces are under severe pressure, but much more upbeat. Ukrainian General Dmytro Marchenko gave an interview with several interesting comments, excerpted here:

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Marchenko is a big guy with a good-humored demeanor, clearly admired by his troops -- they likely call him "Papa Bear" or something like that. Online comments on this interview gave General Marchenko points for "weapons-grade trolling" of the Russians. The war remains painful, but it does make a big difference to have the psychological upper hand over an adversary. A poll of Ukrainians showed 98% of them were sure Ukraine will win the war, and over 90% backed Zelenskyy. More than half seriously, Ukrainians on social media are already promoting "Summer Beach Party Crimea 2023".

[FRI 12 AUG 22] CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (7)

* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (7): Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS was published in 1776, the same year that the American colonies declared independence of Britain. During the conflict, the 13 colonies tried to establish joint action through a ramshackle and voluntary confederation, embodied in a "Continental Congress", that proved barely effectual. After the end of the revolution in 1783, the defects of the confederation became obvious -- leading to the establishment of a central government of the United States in 1789.

The Constitution of the new government reflected the commercial bent of the new nation. To be sure, the Constitution gave the Federal government broad powers to provide common laws, maintain domestic order, provide national defense, and "promote the general welfare" that didn't sound particularly commercial in themselves, but were necessarily intertwined with commerce. The common laws regulated interstate trade -- with the Constitution effectively setting up the United States as an internal free-trade bloc -- and national defense a navy to protect American foreign trade from pirates or hostile states -- with "freedom of navigation" becoming an ongoing theme in American foreign policy. The Constitution also granted the Federal government specific powers with commercial implications, such as to:

• Issue currency. The states had been issuing their own money, but the chaos was too much to tolerate. At the outset, hard currency was the norm; the Continental Congress had issued paper currencies, but they had quickly fallen into uselessness.
  
  
• Regulate patents and copyrights, or in modern terms regulate "intellectual property".
  
  
• Operate a national postal service, to ensure reliable communications across the nation.
  
  
• Establish standards of weights and measures, a necessity for commerce.

In 1790, America's first president, George Washington (1732:1799), delivered the first annual presidential address to the US Congress, which stated that the safety and interest of a free people "require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies." -- with Washington reflecting a mercantilist mindset.

Alexander Hamilton (1755|1757:1804), the first treasury secretary of the USA, followed up Washington's comment with a proposal for US government commercial policy in his REPORT ON THE SUBJECT OF MANUFACTURES, presented to Congress in 1791. He argued for subsidies or bounties to industry, and moderate tariffs -- not intended to discourage imports, but instead to obtain funds for the government operation and industrial subsidies. The funds could be used for internal improvements, such as the construction of roads and canals. Encouraging industry would increase employment and encourage immigration to the United States, with immigrants bringing in new skills and ideas. In the end, America would have a domestic industry that was capable of providing all the gear needed for national defense.

There was a significant omission in the REPORT ON MANUFACTURES: there was no place for slavery in Hamilton's scheme. This pointed towards the fundamental split in America's economy at the outset: between a North that was headed towards industrialization, and a South that was headed towards a plantation system, based on slave labor. Thomas Jefferson (1743:1826) -- at the time, Washington's vice president, and later a president -- was insistent on the superiority of "honest farmers" over money-grubbing businessmen. In practice, Jefferson's "honest farmers" were hard to separate from the owners of plantations, run by slaves. Jefferson was a slave-owner. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[THU 11 AUG 22] GIMMICKS & GADGETS

* GIMMICKS & GADGETS: As reported in an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("New Artificial Enamel Is Harder And More Durable Than The Real Thing" by Graycen Wheeler, 3 Feb 2022), the enamel on our teeth is the hardest thing in our bodies, but still elastic enough not to crack very often. Researchers have now come up with an artificial enamel that is tougher and more durable than natural enamel.

Enamel is hard to mimic because it's not just a simple composite of molecules; it has an elaborate structure. Calcium, phosphorus, and oxygen atoms are linked together to form crystalline wires. Enamel-producing cells form a magnesium-rich coating around those wires -- which then weave together and establish structures that resemble bunches and twists. It is this structure that gives enamel its impressive properties.

Previous attempts to create synthetic enamels have not been able to duplicate this structure. Efforts have been made to use peptides -- fragmentary protein chains -- to guide the formation of the crystalline wires, but coatings didn't form around the wires.

Now a research team at the University of Ann Arbor in Michigan has figured out a workaround. Instead of peptides or similar biological tools, they used extreme heat to coax the wires into an orderly formation. As with earlier efforts, they made the wires of hydroxyapatite, a calcium phosphate compound -- but then encased the wires in a malleable metal-based coating that prevents the wires from snapping. The coating was made with zirconium oxide, which is very strong and biologically inert.

Although the artificial enamel didn't have the elaborate 3D structure of natural enamel, it was still very hard and durable, having to be cut with a diamond-bladed saw. To measure the hardness and elasticity of the new artificial enamel, the researchers nicked a piece of it and applied pressure until the nick spread into a fracture. The fracturing pressure and the length of the crack gave them the toughness and strain resistance of the enamel. They also tried to indent the enamel with a pointy diamond tip. They found that the artificial enamel outperformed natural enamel in six areas, including its elasticity and ability to absorb vibrations.

More work needs to be done on the artificial enamel, since its fabrication requires high heat, then freezing, and then cutting with a diamond saw. However, the market potential is there. Our bodies can't regenerate enamel, so the artificial enamel should have plenty of application in dental treatments. Alvaro Mata -- a biomedical engineer at the University of Nottingham in the UK who was not involved with the study -- says the artificial enamel should be useful for many purposes: "From creating body armor to strengthening or hardening surfaces for floors or cars, there could be many, many applications."

* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Seashell-Inspired Material Makes for Strong, Light Spacecraft Shielding" by Michael Irving, 5 May 2022) researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico have developed a material, inspired by seashells, that has remarkable properties and is also very cheap.

Seashells are strong due to their structure of alternating layers of organic and inorganic materials. Layers of inorganic nanograins provide strength, while organic proteins "glue" them together, preventing cracks from propagating between layers. The Sandia researchers mimicked this structure, laying down a sandwich of inorganic layers of silica, alternating with carbon black derived from burnt sugar.

The result is light, very hard and stiff, with an ability to stand extreme heat -- possibly up to 1,650 degrees Celsius (3,000 degrees Fahrenheit). It is also remarkably cheap, a fraction of a percent of the cost of beryllium, the material with the closest thermal and mechanical properties. Production is also environmentally-friendly, the only chemical element being ethanol. The Sandia researchers see it as useful for spacecraft shielding and reactors.

* As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("Lobster Shell Patterns Make Concrete Stronger" by Jill Gralow & James Redmayne, 26 January 2021), Australian researchers have leveraged off the stacked, twisting patterns of a lobster shell to improve the strength of concrete.

The process involves depositing layers of concrete one on top of the other using a 3D printing process. The concrete is reinforced with steel fibers. Research lead Jonathan Tran says: "The lobster shell is always something that still amazes me by its very interesting shapes and architectures [that make] the lobster shell ... amazingly very stiff." He sees the process as particularly useful for building arched or elaborated curved structures.

[WED 10 AUG 22] DEFENDING TAIWAN (1)

* DEFENDING TAIWAN (1): As discussed here a few months back, Taiwan has been considering a "porcupine" strategy to deter a Chinese invasion -- the idea being to acquire large numbers of smart munitions to balance Chinese material superiority. As discussed in an article from THEDRIVE.com ("Massive Drone Swarm Over Strait Decisive In Taiwan Conflict Wargames" by Joseph Trevithick, 19 May 2022), wargames conducted in the US have suggested just how effective huge swarms of cheap drones would be in the defense of Taiwan.

David Ochmanek -- a senior international affairs and defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Development during President Barack Obama's administration -- has discussed wargames performed by RAND that established the importance of robot platforms in a new Taiwan Straits crisis.

According to Ochmanek, a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan would have to be defeated in a week or ten days. The Chinese have amassed a wide array of capable "anti-access / area denial" capabilities in the past two decades to deal with intervention by the USA and other Taiwanese allies -- including an arsenal of ballistic and cruise missiles that could be used to neutralize US bases across the Pacific region; anti-satellite weapons to destroy or degrade various American space-based assets; and dense integrated air defense networks, bolstered by capable combat aircraft.

In recent years, US wargames envisioning a Taiwan crisis have not gone well for the USA. However, Ochmanek says that modeling performed by RAND, including simulations conducted in cooperation with the Air Force, shows that large numbers of robot aircraft -- particularly relatively small and inexpensive machines capable of operating as fully-autonomous swarms using a collaborative "mesh" data-sharing network -- have shown themselves to be absolutely essential for coming out on top in these wargames. Ochmanek says:

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If a single robot aircraft only has to act as a sensor node, weapons truck, jammer, or datalink relay, among other things, it then also opens up the option to make that platform smaller and cheaper than it would be if it were a multi-role platform. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[TUE 09 AUG 22] SOLAR AFRICA

* SOLAR AFRICA: As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("Nigerian Businesses Turn To Solar As Diesel Costs Bite" by Macdonald Dzirutwe, 12 July 2022), the recent crunch on oil has been a big hint that the world needs to shift to renewable energy sources. Solar-energy companies in Nigeria are seeing that shift through a surge in demand for mini-grids and equipment, as businesses in Africa's biggest oil producer look for alternative power sources after the cost of diesel soared.

Nigeria, Africa's largest economy with a population of more than 200 million people, has installed electricity capacity of 12,500 megawatts -- but the national grid only provides 4,000 MW at peak, leaving businesses and citizens heavily reliant on diesel-powered generators. While gasoline is subsidized, diesel is not, and its price has tripled, mostly due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Energy Commission of Nigeria says the country spends $22 billion USD annually to fuel generators.

Solar power adoption is estimated at below 2%, and some businesses perceive it as unsuitable for large-scale use. One study showed that Nigeria's installed photovoltaic power generation capability per capita amounted to 1 watt, compared to an average 8 watts in similar emerging markets like South Africa.

Prince Ojeabulu -- CEO of Rensource Energy, a Nigerian solar-power provider -- says that negative attitude towards solar is changing as energy costs eat into company margins. In 2021, Rensource installed under a megawatt of solar panels, but it is now constructing 6 MW plants. He says: "By the end of the year, going by the trend that we see so far, we should have 12 MW of solar installations operational across Nigeria, or even more."

It's not all smooth sailing, however, due to supply chain disruptions caused by the Ukraine War and COVID-19 lockdowns in China. Finding local financing has been troublesome too, but money is flowing in from overseas development financial institutions seeking to invest in businesses focusing on green energy. The long-term prospect is, however, "sunny".

* In closely related news, another article from REUTERS.com ("Malawi Solar Mini-Grid Shows Promise", 21 April 2022) described the implementation of a solar-power project in Malawi -- where the village of Sitolo uses an array of photovoltaic panels to power maize mills, a sunflower oil facility, and to power small businesses.

In Malawi, more than three quarters of the country's roughly 20 million population does not have access to electricity -- a higher proportion than Africa's average of roughly half. Small villages in Africa are often "off the grid", with delivering electricity to them being problematic. Village-level solar power installations can be much more cost-effective, and eliminate the need to run expensive and dirty diesel generators.

The Sitolo project connects more than 700 people across three villages. Local farmers no longer have to trek long distances to get their maize milled or sunflower seeds pressed. Brenda Limbikani, a sunflower farmer, said local people never used to grow sunflowers. She says: "But with this oil-pressing machine, more people have planted the crop. This year, the number of farmers growing sunflowers is more than ever."

[MON 08 AUG 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 32

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: The war in Ukraine drags on, but it is clear the Russians, and their Ukrainian separatist allies, are getting the worst of it. That was reflected in an intercepted phone call, between a separatist soldier and his mother & father:

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A video was circulating of a HIMARS attack on a Russian supply train at night. It was a continuous chain of thunderous secondary explosions, shattering the night. It appears that Ukrainians are enthusiastic about Saint HIMARS. One video, to the soundtrack of Metallica's ENTER SANDMAN, spliced together clips of HIMARS in devastating action, concluding with: HIMARS GLOBAL TOUR 2022 / COMING SOON / TO A RUSSIAN MUNITIONS DEPOT NEAR YOU!

At the bottom end of the munitions scale, the Ukrainians are very enthusiastic about small commercial quadcopter drones. A video showed a Ukrainian soldier, nicknamed "Screw" for whatever reason, putting together miniature aerial bombs from 40-millimeter launcher grenades. They're about the size of an egg; Screw attached a cap with a detonator on it, plus a tailkit with fins, the accessories being 3D-printed. He says he's made hundreds of the little bombs.

As far as other weapons in the war go, the Russians released a photo of the remains of an AGM-88D HARM anti-radar missile, which had apparently chewed up an air-defense radar. That was surprising, because Ukraine is not known to fly any aircraft qualified to use HARM. If the report is true, clearly there is some improvisation at work, either air or ground launch, with an air asset carrying the specialized HARM targeting system. All the complaints about the failings of military aid to Ukraine don't recognize that Ukraine is getting weapons nobody is talking about.

* Along with the Ukraine War, China's belligerence over Taiwan was on full display this last week, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island as part of an Asia tour, despite loud objections from Beijing. China responded to the visit with a major set of military provocations, including missile launches. There was much fuss over how the USA handled the matter, but if Pelosi had backed down, Beijing would have felt more emboldened to react against the next perceived provocation. Nothing in the status quo changed. We may be on the road to calamity, but we would have been in any case.

The USA doesn't own the Taiwan problem; China does. Xi Jinping has as much claim to Taiwan as Vladimir Putin has to Ukraine, and neither the people of Taiwan nor Ukraine are going along. Xi needs to watch what happens to Putin. It might prove educational.

* Back in the USA, just before going on summer recess, Congress passed the "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022", which is effectively a "skinny" version of President Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan. Features include:

• A 15% corporate minimum tax.
  
  
• Prescription drug pricing reform: Medicare can negotiate drug prices, and caps out-of-pocket costs to $2,000 USD.
  
  
• Funds to increase IRS tax enforcement.
  
  
• An extension to the Affordable Care Act.
  
  
• Almost $370 billion USD for energy security and to address climate change.

It's not close to everything needed, but it's a substantial step. It clearly shows the fingerprints of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin -- but it was also passed by reconciliation, with 51 votes, including Vice President Kamala Harris. That's a big deal, since Manchin has been steadfast in supporting the 60-vote filibuster rule. It was obvious that his support was a tactical measure, but it was unclear if he would ever relent. Now he has, with the next question being: will Manchin support filibuster reform? He's discussed doing so in the past, so there is hope.

[FRI 05 AUG 22] CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (6)

* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (6): Adam Smith's "invisible hand", as he saw it, was inclined to "virtuous circles": with business development, the labor supply grew, with wages moderate by size; the increased labor supply meant further business development. The system generated wealth.

Of course, economics is a behavioral science -- the study of human economic behavior -- and Smith essentially knew it. While in modern times, Smith is seen as a prophet of capitalism without restraint, relying on the "magic of the market", he was thinking more in terms of breaking down the system of trade guilds and monopolies, enforced by governments. His system would not work if governance were based on the "the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind." Smith also took a dim view of landlords, believing they had an ingrained tendency to raise rents to the maximum rate possible. Smith believed the capitalist system had an inherent tendency towards monopoly, writing:

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People are generally in business, as is said today, to "make money and have fun." They may have a sense of social obligation, but that's not what the system is all about, and their ideals of a just society may not reflect those of other citizens. Smith did not have a high opinion of businessmen, and believed that a factory worker "generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to become." He also suggested that his system of "natural liberty" could eventually run into diminishing returns and stagnation -- looking ahead somewhat to the phenomenon that would become known as "market saturation", in which sales no longer increase, leading to brutal price competition, and very possible monopoly over the longer run.

Certainly, Smith was hardly an anti-government activist in any sense; he not only believed the state had a right of taxation, but endorsed progressive taxation to a degree:

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TWON was Smith's last major work; he then was appointed commissioner both of customs and of salt duties for Scotland, living out his life in comfort and public prestige. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[THU 04 AUG 22] SCIENCE NOTES

* SCIENCE NOTES: As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("Global Wind And Solar Growth On Track To Meet Climate Targets" 31 March 2022), a report from the climate think tank Ember from March says that solar and wind power can grow enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius if the 10-year average compound growth rate of 20% can be maintained to 2030.

Solar generation gained 23% globally in 2021, while wind supply gained 14% over the same period. Both renewable sources together accounted for 10.3% of total global electricity generation, up 1% from 2020. The Netherlands, Australia, and Vietnam had the fastest growth rates for the renewable sources, replacing about 10% of their electricity demand from fossil fuels to wind and solar in the last two years. Ember's global lead Dave Jones said that the main obstacles to growth are political constraints like permitting, and that governments need to take down those obstacles.

However, despite gains in wind and solar, coal-fired power generation saw its fastest growth since at least 1985, up 9% in 2021 at 10,042 terawatt hours (TWh), or 59% of the total demand rise. This came in a year of rapid demand recovery, with 2021 seeing the largest recorded annual increase of 1,414 TWh in global electricity demand in 2021, the equivalent of adding a new India to global demand. The biggest demand rise was recorded in China, up 13% in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. China relies largely on coal for power production, but passed the one-tenth of power generation from wind and solar landmark for the first time in 2021 along with six other countries.

* As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("Antiprotons Show No Hint of Unexpected Matter-Antimatter Differences" by Emily Conover, 5 January 2022), it is well known that the matter of which we and the world are composed is "mirrored" by "anti-matter", which looks the same but has reversed electrical charges. The puzzle to physicists is why we effectively only see matter and not antimatter. On the face of it, shouldn't there be as much of one as the other? A recent experiment keeps the question alive, showing that the ratio of charge to mass of protons and anti-protons is, within the limits of measurement error, exactly the same.

The "Baryon-Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE)" experiment at the European particle physics laboratory CERN, near Geneva, measured the oscillations of a single anti-proton confined within an electromagnetic trap. These oscillations gave the charge-to-mass ratio of the anti-proton; those measurements were compared to those of a trapped hydrogen ion, consisting of a proton and two electrons, to obtain the proton's charge-to-mass ratio.

After more than 24,000 of these comparisons, BASE researchers found that the two charge-to-mass ratios are identical to within 1.6 billionths of a percent. This is more than four times as precise as the previous measurement.

According to Stefan Ulmer -- a spokesperson of BASE and physicist at RIKEN in Wako, Japan -- the experiment also tested physicists' understanding of gravity's effect on antimatter. Since the Earth's gravitational environment shifts slightly as the planet orbits the Sun, if gravity had a different effect on protons and anti-protons, it would have showed up over the year and a half duration of the BASE experiment. According to Ulmer, there was no difference, within a precision of 3%.

* As discussed in an article from NEWSCIENTIST.com ("Most Precise Atomic Clock Shows Einstein's General Relativity Is Right" by Alex Wilkins, 16 February 2022), the University of Colorado Boulder JILA laboratory -- a collaboration between the university and the US National Institute of Standards & Technology, the name once meaning "Joint Institute For Laboratory Astrophysics" -- has developed an atomic clock of unprecedented precision, and used it for a test of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

JILA's Tobias Bothwell and his colleagues separated hundreds of thousands of strontium atoms into "pancake-shaped" blobs of 30 atoms. They used optical light to trap the atoms into a vertical stack 1 millimeter high; then they shined a laser on the stack, and measured the scattered light with a high-speed camera, with the wavelength of the emission from the strontium atoms being used as a time reference.

According to general relativity, clocks run slower the deeper they are in a gravity well. The stack of strontium atoms was vertical, meaning time ran more slowly at the bottom of the stack than at top -- exactly 10E-19 of a second slower, to be precise, with a certainty of 21 decimal places. Earlier measurements of this "redshift" in wavelength used multiple clocks; this was the first to use a single clock.

Bothwell says this atomic clock design could eventually be used to measure gravitational waves in space or the possible ways that dark matter couples to ordinary matter -- as well as having uses in more practical areas, such as improving accuracy for the Global Positioning System (GPS), which uses the precise timing of atomic clocks to calculate distance.

Another research group at the University of Wisconsin in Madison has also come up with an innovative atomic clock set-up. Shimon Kolkowitz and his colleagues used comparisons between six different strontium atomic clocks to measure a second. This comparative model, known as a "multiplex clock", allowed the to use a less stable laser than the JILA group's clock, but still achieve a level of precision even better than that obtained by the JILA team.

[WED 03 AUG 22] UK IN SPACE (3)

* UK IN SPACE (3): The British government is supporting space development efforts through a "Research Collaboration Advice Team (RCAT)" within the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, set up in 2021. The RCAT provides advice on topics such as export controls, cybersecurity, and intellectual property.

Ultimately, it roots back to the UKSA, which has a broad mission, a spokesperson saying: "We will facilitate small satellite launches from our soil; back UK companies in the effort to develop sustainable practices and clean up space debris, and continue to invest in our world-renowned engineers and scientists. The UK Space Agency is supporting companies and researchers who together contribute pioneering new ideas, create jobs, and develop the technologies that position the UK as a global leader in space."

* As discussed in a footnote, Scotland is about to become a space power in itself, with the first launch of a spacelift booster from the Shetland Islands. The launch will be a cornerstone of the UK Pathfinder Launch program.

However, the effort is under the direction of US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor for the effort, which has been setting up SaxaVord Spaceport on the northernmost Shetland isle of Unst. The booster itself will be provided by US startup ABL Space Systems, which has been developing the "RS1" light booster. The RS1 can place up to 1,350 kilograms (2,975 pounds) of payload in low Earth orbit (LEO). The current arrangement envisions Lockheed Martin as obtaining up to 26 launch vehicles from ABL through 2025, and then 29 more through 2029. They may be launched from sites from the US and other countries as well.

ABL Space Systems, which refers to its launch system as GSO, says that the RS1 booster and launch control elements of the GS0 can be stored in standard shipping container form-factors. The elements are described as "modular and deployable", allowing a launch system to be set up quickly -- though regulatory issues mean it's not just a question of hauling in the elements and putting them in place.

There has been work towards other UK spaceports, but the only one visible for the moment is Spaceport Cornwall, which is at Cornwall Airport Newquay. SpacePort Cornwall is working with and has been working with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit, which is grounded on the Virgin LauncherOne rocket launch system. LauncherOne involves a modified Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 jetliner carrying a booster under a wing, to fly it to high altitude for launch. The air launch reduces the size of a booster required to loft a payload, since the booster doesn't have to blast through thick air at lower altitudes.

In the meantime, the UK Defence Space Command, having been set up in 2021, is coming up to speed on space activities. UK Space Command, located at High Wycombe Royal Air Force base, alongside RAF Air Command, is a joint command, staffed from the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force, the government's Civil Service, and industry. Space Command's directives will come from the UK government's National Space Council, through the Space Directorate. The UK Space Agency will work with Space Command to deliver a joint national space capability.

Space Command, however, will be closely involved in international collaborations to get its job done. One such collaboration is Operation Olympic Defender, which is a US-led multinational effort intended to coordinate space efforts. The UK Space Command joined the Olympic Defender effort in 2021. The UK also participates in the Combined Space Operations initiative, which comprises Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, the UK and the US, and focuses on joint space operations.

Space Command has awarded a contract to SSTL for a technology-test satellite under Project TYCHE, a 150-kilogram (330-pound) pathfinder for a space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance system under Project MINERVA. It follows the earlier SSTL "Corbonite" series of satellites. [END OF SERIES]

[TUE 02 AUG 22] SUPERWORMS ATTACK / YEASTS FOR BIOFUELS

* SUPERWORMS ATTACK: As discussed in an article from NPR.org ("How Superworms Could Help Solve The Trash Crisis" by Olivia Hampton, 23 June 2022), Chris Rinke and other researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have found that the larvae of the darkling beetle (Zophobas morio) have unusual dietary habits: they can eat styrofoam. In fact, they can live on a diet consisting only of styrofoam, with two-thirds of those that only ate styrofoam maturing into beetles. Rinke says: "They're really eating machines. Their main goal is to gain as much weight as they can to then become a pupa and a beetle. So, they're not very picky eaters."

In their natural habitats, these "superworms" -- so-called because of their large size -- feed on decaying matter, such as rotten wood, leaves, and sometimes animal carcasses. They can handle such poor fare because of their intestinal microbiomes, which generate enzymes that can digest things other animals cannot. Rinke says that the superworms offer a path towards full recycling of plastics: "We could have gigantic worm farms with millions of worms and feed them polystyrene. But what scales way better, and is I would say also cheaper, is to focus on the enzymes."

He envisions spreading an "enzyme cocktail" over shredded plastic, with the digested result fed to microorganisms that could generate "bioplastics". It's just a dream right now, the scheme being nowhere near commercialization.

* YEASTS FOR BIOFUELS: In related news, enthusiasm about biofuels has gone up and down. There have been vehicles running off them for a long time, but the idea that they could replace petroleum has lost favor, due to concerns about costs and actual environmental impact. One issue is that they compete with food production, and it would be better if they were able to make use of plants that grow where crops can't, or from agricultural waste.

According to an article from SCIENCENEWS.com ("A Tweaked Yeast Can Make Ethanol From Cornstalks And A Harvest's Other Leftovers" by Nikk Ogasa, 7 July 2021), researchers have come up with a new genetically-modified (GM) variant of common baker's yeast that can convert agricultural wastes from corn production -- leaves, stalks, and spent cobs, or "corn stover" -- into ethanol for use as a biofuel.

Metabolic engineer Felix Lam of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his team focused on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or ordinary baker's yeast, as a possible solution. Modified baker's yeast is already used to convert corn kernels into ethanol, but it doesn't work so well for corn stover. In the stover, sugars are bound up in lignocellulose, and yeasts can't break it down. The lignocellulose can be broken up with acids, but that process generates organic compounds named "aldehydes" that will kill yeasts.

The researchers decided to figure out a way to convert the aldehydes into something non-toxic. They already knew that, by adjusting the chemistry of the growth environment, they could improve the tolerance of the yeasts to alcohol -- which is also toxic to them at high concentrations. Working from that hint, the researchers focused on a yeast gene named GRE2, which helps convert aldehydes into alcohol. They randomly generated about 20,000 yeast variants, each with its own genetically modified variant GRE2. That done, they put all the variants inside a flask containing toxic aldehydes to see which ones survived.

A number did, but one did far better than any of the others. This variant demonstrated that it could produce ethanol from treated corn stover almost as efficiently as from corn kernels. It could also produce ethanol from other woody materials, such as wheat straw and switchgrass. Lam says: "We have a single strain that can accomplish all this." Nonetheless, although that's an important step in the process chain, it isn't the only step, and much more needs to be done to get a practical process. Lam adds: "There are so many moving parts to this problem."

[MON 01 AUG 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 31

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Retired US Army General Mark Hertling, who has been cited here in the past, got weary of listening to the complaints of those saying US support of Ukraine is inadequate, and decided to respond on Twitter, first citing comments from THE KYIV INDEPENDENT:

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Hertling added:

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I keep saying on Twitter: "Support of Ukraine is clearly inadequate, because they need everything yesterday. They can't get everything, and they can't get it yesterday."

Somebody else added, relative to those claiming there's some scheme at work to starve Ukraine of weapons, that if that were the case, we would be hearing endless leaks from the Pentagon. We're not, because everyone involved is working overtime and has neither time nor inclination to complain to the press.

* We've had a hot summer in Colorado, but so far the fires have been muted. Not so much in Europe; Britain has had its hottest days ever, and has been suffering fires, as has been much of Southern Europe. The fires have been particularly troublesome in Slovenia, since they've been cooking off dud artillery rounds left over from World War I. There's been hundreds of detonations, with the authorities finding it hard to keep count.

* The House committee investigating the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot has been taking flak from Right-wing media. THE DAILY SHOW'S Desi Lydic has been investigating the pushback, and has issued a report:

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