DayVectors

* 21 entries including: capitalism & socialism (series); Euclid in space (series); last tourist trip (series); General Hertling on Ukraine offensive; JAGM-ER missile | recycled S-200 missiles? | TRLG-230 missile; molecular machines; Trump fading & Biden rising for 2024 election; risk factors for COVID-19; convergence on economic policy | Asian family values; Dubai bike loop | Korea solar bike path | biomolecule solar panels; early dark energy from CMB | cosmic optical background; crazy MAGA judges | Trump Big Lie not working | emoji contract; magnetic detox | virovores | Argus Pathfinder telescope array; cyberwar against Europe's renewable energy grid; Bidenomics | Putin's Wagner folly | Xi backs Putin.

[MON 31 JUL 23] THE WEEK THAT WAS 30

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Since spring, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have been conducting a grinding offensive against Russian invaders. It's made slow progress, though movement seems to be increasing now. In late May, a Twitter poster known as "NoelReports" spoke with retired US Army General Mark Hertling -- mentioned here in the past -- who provided a balanced view of events, with the narrative edited down a bit [and a few additional comments sneaked in]:

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* Incidentally, with reference to the use by Ukraine of the Russian-made surface-to-air missile for land attack -- this last week, an S-200 was clearly film by a security camera performing a strike on Taganrog, a Russian city just beyond Ukraine's border, on the Sea of Azov. There is now no real doubt of what the Ukrainians are doing with their S-200s.

That may shine some light on why the USA has been so insistent on refusing to provide ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. The S-200 is well bigger than an ATACMS, has about as big a warhead, has comparable range, and appears to be well faster than ATACMS -- Mach 4 versus Mach 3+. Give it an updated guidance system and possibly a new warhead, and it seems it would be as useful as ATACMS for land attack. The S-200 was heavily produced and ended up in the hands of Soviet client states, so it seems likely many are available. It would make sense that the USA would help Ukraine adapt S-200s, and focus on delivery of other weapon systems.

[FRI 28 JUL 23] CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (57)

* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (57): Feminism was not a new thing in the 21st century; it had originally emerged as a distinct movement in the 19th century, to gain ground through the first half of the 20th century and then, in the 1960s, picked up strength. However, the emergence of modern feminism at that time did not lead to rapid progress for women.

In the early 1990s, Amartya Sen performed a detailed survey of gender demographics. Since women statistically live longer than men, he expected that he would find a surplus of women -- and that was true in Britain, France, and the USA, with 105 women per 100 men. However, he found that in China and Bangladesh, there were only 94 women per 100 men; there were only 90 per 100 in Pakistan. Tallying up the statistics, Sen found that there were 100 million fewer women on Earth than men.

This finding was picked up by feminist economists and given a close examination -- one of the economists being Diana Strassman (born 1955). Strassman inspected traditional economic models and found they were unrealistically male-biased. The long-standing idea was that economies were based on households, with a man as the head of the household, a wage-earner, with the wife and children dependent on him. Given the assumption that the husband was attentive to the needs of the family, the wife and children could be ignored.

This scenario was never completely true. Not all husbands are economically fair to their wife and children, and in some societies women always get the short end of the stick in food, medicine, and education. It is also not always true that there is a husband around the house, with many households run by single mothers -- and such households often suffer the worst hardships.

Another bias was pointed out by the economist Nancy Folbre (born 1952), who pointed out that economists tended to discount the work of mothers -- shopping, cooking, cleaning, child care -- who are not formally paid a wage for their household labor. In undeveloped countries, women gather wood, carry water, plow the fields, and repair huts. The UN estimated that unpaid work could be up to 70% of the world's labor, with most of that unpaid work done by women. Economists have worked to factor unpaid labor into their models, but it's proven difficult to do.

Of course, women today in developed countries are commonly wage-earners. That wasn't always true, hence the assumption of a male head of household as the sole economic player in models. In the USA, only a fifth of women earned wages in 1890, and until the 1950s there were many jobs closed to married women; if a female employee got married, she'd be laid off. That had changed considerably by the 1980s, when about 60% of women had jobs, with much of the unpaid work that mothers used to do shifted to cleaners and nannies. However, even at that, a lot of unpaid labor remained -- with women, even those with jobs, doing most of it.

Strassman also criticized the notion of "free choice", the assumption that an economy operated on the basis of large numbers of free agents who could choose from a list of options. In reality, for many women, their choices are constrained, sometimes highly so. Along with the notion of free choice, there was the assumption of a "positive-sum game", in which some people would benefit from economic decisions, but nobody would lose. That is clearly not true in the real world, with a trifling improvement for the rich having a severe impact on the poor, including women.

Underlying these sterile economic models was a failure to understand that, while humans are self-interested, they are also generally sympathetic and empathic. They want to do the right thing for themselves, but they can and do trade that off against doing the right thing for others. The economist Julie Nelson (born 1956) suggested that an economic system needed to factor in empathy, adapting such impersonal measures as GDP with the ability to "provision" people to stay fed and healthy, and to lead fulfilling lives with their families.

That sentiment echoed back to Amartya Sen's discovery of the missing women. Sen pointed out that the Indian state of Kerala had found its missing women, by promoting female education and giving women a significant, paid role in the workforce. The result was that women outnumbered men in Kerala by about the same margin as they did in Europe and America. In any case, although women have made many advances in the 21st century, they still greatly lag men in economic power and influence. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[THU 27 JUL 23] WINGS & WEAPONS

* WINGS & WEAPONS: As discussed in an article from JANES.com ("Lockheed Martin Reveals Work On New JAGM Variants" by Andrew White, 13 September 2022), the US military has obtained a follow-on to the venerable AGM-114 Hellfire missile, the multi-service "AGM-179 Joint Air To Ground Missile (JAGM)". The program that would lead to JAGM was begun in 2002, originally to develop the "AGM-169 Joint Common Missile (JCM)" -- but JCM went off track, to be canceled in 2007 and resurrected as JAGM. JAGM is only now going into service.

JAGM, at 49 kilograms (108 pounds), is a follow-on to the semi-active laser (SAL) guided AGM-114R Hellfire II AKA Hellfire Romeo and the AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire, guided by a millimeter-wave (MMW) radar system from the launch platform. It is effectively an improved Romeo Hellfire, with a dual SAL and MMW seeker. Now Lockheed Martin is working on "JAGM-MR" -- "medium range" -- which will have greater range and more sensor options than the original JAGM. Initial all-up flight tests were in late 2022. Along with JAGM-MR, Lockheed Martin is also considering a "JAGM-ER" -- "extended range" -- variant, along with maritime and "short-range air defense (SHORAD)" variants.

* As discussed in an article from THEDRIVE.com ("Is Ukraine Using Old S-200 SAMs In The Land-Attack Role?" by Thomas Newdick, 10 July 2023), the Russians have released a video showing the impact of what clearly seems to be an antique S-200 surface-to-air missile (SAM) -- which was given the NATO reporting name of "SA-5 Gammon" -- diving into a target in Russia Bryansk Oblast, bordering on Ukraine. The Russians have reported other attacks with what appears to be the S-200, and say they have shot a number of them down.

The S-200 was introduced into service in the late 1960s, being fired from fixed sites to take on high-flying intruders. It was launched using four solid-rocket boosters that then dropped off, the missile then flying using a liquid-fuel rocket motor driven by storable propellants -- which, as a class, were notorious for being toxic, corrosive, and spontaneously igniting when mixed together. The S-200 was a big missile, about 10.7 meters (35 feet) long, with a 215-kilogram (480-pound) fragmentation warhead, and a range against aerial targets of about 300 kilometers (185 miles).

Ukraine has old S-200 batteries in service, and it seems stockpiles of old S-200s, which could be augmented by missiles from other ex-East Bloc nations. The long range and big warhead of the S-200 would make it an attractive weapon for ground attack, if fitted with a GPS-INS guidance system and possibly a more optimized warhead. It is, of course, possible that S-200s have been actually used as SAMs, to miss their targets and fall to earth. Of course, Russian reports are never to be trusted; the Ukrainians are not talking, but they are known to have used old Tupolev Tu-141 drones as cruise missiles, so the idea of using S-200s for ground attack is not ridiculous.

* The US HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) has been a huge asset in Ukraine's war against Russian invaders. Along with the Americans, the Turks have been major arms suppliers to Ukraine -- and now they are providing their answer to HIMARS -- the TRLG-230 missile system. Each rocket has a diameter of 23 centimeters (9 inches), a weight of 210 kilograms (465 pounds), and a maximum range of 70 kilometers (43 miles). The warhead has a weight of 42 kilograms (93 pounds), and features an explosive charge scattering with steel balls.

The missiles have GPS-inertial midcourse guidance and laser-seeking terminal guidance, to permit precision strikes using targeting by a drone. The baseline launcher for the TRLG-230 missile is a four-axle truck. It can carry two "sixpacks" of missiles, for a total of 12 missiles.

The TRLG-230 was preceded in service by the TRLG-122, which is similar in general configuration but is much smaller, with a diameter of 12.2 centimeters (4.8 inches), a weight of 76 kilograms (168 pounds) -- including a 13.5-kilogram (30-pound) warhead -- and a maximum range of 30 kilometers (19 miles). There are 20 rockets in each launch pod. Both rockets are successors to the earlier TRG series rockets.

[WED 26 JUL 23] EUCLID IN SPACE (3)

* EUCLID IN SPACE (3): Euclid's sky map will be examined to determine how galaxies cluster, giving hints on whether BAOs are influencing their distribution. Euclid will determine the distances to millions of galaxies through their "photometric redshift" -- the stretching out or "reddening" of the light from galaxies due to the expansion of the Universe. The farther a galaxy is away, the redder its light gets. The NISP instrument can sort out the distances by categorizing galaxies in its photometric bands.

Euclid will also hunt for dark matter through "weak gravitational lensing" -- that is, the distortion of images of the distant sky due to mass concentrations along the path to Earth. Gravitational lensing can have startling effects, for example providing multiple images of the same galaxy, but it can be subtler in its effects, just slightly deforming the shape of distant galaxies. Euclid will use VIS imaging to spot these deformations, with NISP providing distances.

The 3D map of the cosmos generated by Euclid will identify the distribution of galaxies and the dark matter surrounding them. Since the further away a galaxy is, the farther back in time it is, the map also amounts to a "time probe" to help track down the evolution of dark energy in the Universe across time to about 20 billion years in the past.

According to the Lambda-CDM model, dark energy permeates the Universe, with major effects across large scales. Its density should be constant across space. During the first fractions of a second in the life of the Universe, the expansion of spacetime was driven by inflation -- a rapid and exponential growth in the size of the Universe in a very short period of time. After this, the acceleration of the Universe gradually slowed down due to the gravitational effects of matter on spacetime itself. However, about 5 billion years ago, this expansion started accelerating again; it is now understood that this acceleration is continuously growing.

Under Lambda-CDM, dark energy would be the cause of this acceleration. Since its density is constant across space and as the universe expands and more space is created, the universe would gradually contain more and more dark energy, eventually surpassing the effects of gravity from matter and accelerating the expansion of the Universe in the process.

Probing the map will reveal how the expansion of the expansion of the Universe has changed over time, and will also show if the expansion is the same in all directions -- as the Lambda-CDM model assumes it is. The data will also constrain models of dark energy; since nobody knows what dark energy really is, there's been a profusion of models. The data will allow some models to be thrown out.

During its primary mission, Euclid will take hundreds of thousands of images of over 12 billion galaxies that will be combined with ground data to perform the study, with about 1.5 billion sources selected from the pile for analysis. Alternate "deep field" images, about 50 square degrees in size -- 250 times the apparent size of the full Moon -- will be obtained for about 10% of observations as controls. The Euclid Consortium plans to perform an initial data release in 2025 with 17% of the survey, which will then be followed in 2027 with a 50% survey data release, and a final release with all data in 2030.

Euclid observations will be backed up by the NASA James Webb Space Telescope, also at the L2 point. The JWST has a much narrower field of view, but it can obtain samples to help validate the map, and also inspect items of particular interest discovered in the survey.

[TUE 25 JUL 23] MOLECULAR MACHINES

* MOLECULAR MACHINES: As discussed in an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("Tiny Labmade Motors Could One Day Suck Pollutants From The Air and Harvest Precious Metals" by Robert F. Service, 6 April 2022), back in the 1980s there was a craze over the potential of "nanomachines" that would be able to work miracles, or destroy all life on Earth. In reality, while the concept of nanomachines was intriguing, at the time they weren't a reality, and turning them into one proved anything but trivial.

Of course, nature has developed a wide range of molecular machines to support the processes of life, including spinning rotary motors to generate energy and molecular pumps to transfer vital substances. Chemists are now developing their own optimized derivatives of these molecular machines In three studies, scientists report on their designs of molecular pumps and rotary motors, and show how sets of them can all work in the same direction to concentrate specific chemicals. They are all merely demonstrations at present, but could lead to a wide range of applications, from drawing greenhouse gases from the air to extracting metals from seawater.

Human-made macroscale motors burn fuel to generate heat, which drives pistons or turbines to result in motion. That isn't the way things work when it comes to molecular biology. One issue is that a chemical reaction that causes a molecular rotor to spin clockwise is equally likely to spin it counterclockwise. Another issue is that heat causes molecules to jostle randomly in all directions.

Fraser Stoddart -- an organic chemist at Northwestern University, in Evanston IL -- has been a pioneer in studies of such molecular machines, sharing a Nobel Prize for his research in 2016. His research team designed rings that would thread on and off a molecular axle when different chemicals were added. Unfortunately, a set of those molecular machines didn't work together in any set direction, meaning it was difficult to get them to do anything useful.

Further work by Stoddart and his team has got around that obstacle. In a recent study, they immobilized a new class of molecular pumps on the surface of solid particles made from materials known as "metal organic frameworks (MOF)". MOFs have a tinkertoy-like architecture that chemists can manipulate at the atomic level, in this case allowing the researchers to mount their molecular pumps on the MOFs in alignment. The resulting system could then accumulate molecular rings. Stoddart says the scheme doesn't really do anything useful, but could be the basis for some that do -- for example, accumulating carbon dioxide from the air.

Along similar lines, a research team under David Leigh -- a chemist at the University of Manchester in the UK -- immobilized their tiny machines on micrometer-size plastic beads. Then, like the Stoddart group, they showed that by repeatedly adding a pulse of a chemical fuel, they could thread multiple rings on rods attached to the beads. Leigh's researchers used two different rings, which emitted green or blue light, and showed they could alternate the different colored rings on the rods. Leigh suggests the technology could be used for data storage, or to sequester toxins from the body into the hollow beads.

In a third study, Leigh's team created a rotating motor that spins continuously as long as fuel is present. In this case, a chemical group called a "pyrrole-2-carbonyl" acts as a rotor that revolves above a stationary group called a "phenyl-2-carbonyl". When no fuel is present, another group called a "diacid" that is attached to the rotor bumps into the stationary group, locking the rotor.

A combination of two fuel molecules changes the configuration of the diacid, however -- first eliminating the blockage, which allows the rotor to spin, and then restoring the blockage, ensuring the rotor can't spin backward. Additional pairs of fuel molecules spin it again. For now, the fuel-driven rotor's spin isn't very fast, only making about three revolutions per day. Once again, these are demonstrations, with the researchers working to figure out the rules of construction and operation of their molecular machines. Once they do, then they can start tinkering with applications -- for example, harvesting metal ions from the ocean. Leigh says that once they start moving on to applications, it will be "a game changer".

[MON 24 JUL 23] THE WEEK THAT WAS 29

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: The race towards the 2024 election is picking up, with Joe Biden energetically promoting "Bidenomics", while Donald Trump promotes any bonkers idea that comes into his head. There is certainly good reason to dread the prospect of Trump being re-elected, but there's not so much reason to actually fear it. Trump had the weakest win in 2016, lost handily in 2020 -- like he'll be in a stronger position in 2024, as the indictments pile up? The MAGA faithful circle their wagons around him, but nobody with at least half a brain and any conscience will vote for Trump in 2024.

A recent FOX poll gave the vote for Biden as 49% and the vote for Trump as 44%. That likely overstates the support for Trump -- the FOX polling organization, incidentally, does have a professional reputation, but there are very likely doubts among a component of that 44%. One Corey Richardson (@TheCoreyRichardson.bsky.social), writing on Twitter, suggested that support for Trump was hollow and gave a warning to Republicans:

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That's presuming the Republican Party makes it through the primary election intact, with Trump as the candidate. In reality, the GOP primary is shaping up to be a train wreck of catastrophic proportions.

* As for Joe Biden, the 49% rating is likely underestimating his support. He's going from strength to strength, leaving the media one step behind. Michael A. Cohen, writing for MSNBC, had fun with the "silly season" that inevitably occurs early in a presidential race:

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In the meantime, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has been attempting to promote himself as a presidential alternative to Trump for the GOP, is sinking into a bottomless hole. He was heavily promoted by FOX for a long time, but FOX has largely abandoned him, the mainstream media is laughing at him, his campaign is running out of money, and he's going nowhere in the polls.

In a recent interview, DeSantis denounced "post-birth abortions" -- a fantastical lie concocted by the no-choice gang. Beyond telling lies, DeSantis clearly has no awareness that anyone who comes out against reproductive rights is not going to be President of the United States. Some believe he's actually lining himself up for a 2028 presidential run, but changing demographics will leave him even worse off then than he is now.

Swing states are becoming more Blue, Red states are getting less Red. The 2016 election was a perfect storm for the Democrats; the 2024 election is shaping up to be a catastrophic storm for the Republicans. What happens to them in the aftermath is impossible to say, but it won't be tidy.

[FRI 21 JUL 23] CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (56)

* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (56): China formally became a member of the World Trade Organization in late 2001, with Chinese goods gradually flooding into US and European markets, hauled across the oceans on giant container ships. A lot of the goods were not actually made by Chinese companies, instead being from American or other Western firms who were taking advantage of China and other countries with low-cost labor.

The business model of using such countries for assembly was illustrated by the "smile / smiling" curve -- devised by Stan Shih (born 1944), one of the founders of Taiwanese tech firm Acer INC. Shih pointed out that the most value for a company in introducing a product was in the development and marketing phases of the product cycle, while the least was in product assembly. The curve of value versus phase was high at both ends, low in the middle, hence the "smile".

That gave an incentive to automate product assembly, with what couldn't be reasonably automated farmed out to countries like China. The same principle was more or less at work in farming out manufacture of clothing to countries with low-cost labor, since putting together clothing was very hard to automate. There were protests that off-shoring production was exploiting impoverished labor in other countries -- with the response that in many cases these factory jobs, mean as they might be, were often better than the alternatives for employment in impoverished countries.

There were also protests that America and other developing countries were bleeding jobs to China and elsewhere, though there were problems with that claim, too. These assembly jobs were often economically impractical in the USA, except to the extent they could be automated -- and then they didn't result in a lot of jobs. However, there was a corporate push at that to offshore as many business functions as possible, with the realization slow to sink in that it didn't always really make business sense to do so.

Of course, foreign manufacturers had long set up production facilities in other countries to get around trade barriers and serve local markets. There was little problem with such arrangements, since the foreign countries employed citizens of and paid taxes to the host government. Cross-border business operations did lead to companies playing games with "offshoring" profits, diverting them to low-tax countries so the countries where the business was conducted couldn't get their hands on them.

While China boomed, Russia seemed to be stabilizing under Vladimir Putin, who became president in 1999. He moved ruthlessly against the oligarchs, even putting some of them behind bars, which went over well with Russian citizens. Western investment in Russia grew, with the big cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg offering glitter and the good life. However, Russia's development was skewed, being reliant on fossil-fuel production, with Europe becoming reliant on Russian gas for heating and industry. Outside the big cities, grinding poverty was the norm.

The global petroleum industry, in fact, was on increasingly shaky ground. Partly that was due to the rise of concerns over climate change, which suggested that the industry didn't have a long-term future. That concern really didn't affect business as usual at the time -- but the industry was becoming increasing unstable, subject to the difficulty of finding new oil fields as old ones became depleted, and even more so from political complications that resulted in cycles of "boom & bust".

More at the forefront of the world economy at the time was the rise of internet firms. The 1990s had been an era of experimentation, leading to the establishment of online bookseller Amazon.com in 1995 and the Google web search engine in 1996. By the turn of the century, Amazon had diversified into selling a wide range of products and brought online commerce to the forefront. Of course, as Amazon grew in power, it attracted criticism, in particular that it was driving small retailers out of business. There was some validity to that criticism, but it ignored the fact that many small retailers were Amazon "partners" who got a much bigger market thanks to online commerce -- traditional charity reseller Goodwill Industries was a prominent Amazon partner.

The Google search engine so came to dominate the search market that "Googling" became synonymous with internet searches. Google would be a leader in establishing internet advertising, and dominate the industry. "Social media" companies also began to take off. "Facebook" was established in 2004, as something of an online meeting place for Harvard students; it would spread to other universities, then to the general public in 2006. It would ultimately evolve to have a membership comparable to a good fraction of the population of the Earth. Similarly, "Twitter" emerged in 2006, establishing an online community based on short messages of 140 characters each -- later expanded to 280.

Online services such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter were free for use. Amazon, of course, made its money through retail sales, while the others were directly or indirectly supported by advertising. All were dependent on collecting data on their users -- Amazon, for example, used user data to tailor product recommendations to individual users. The big online firms weren't the only ones collecting data on users; supermarkets and other retailers devised "loyalty card" programs, in which user sales were tracked to allow, for example, mailing packets of personalized sales coupons to every user.

User data was tracked by "data mining" software that collected the data and assessed it. Data mining had emerged in the 1990s, in the wake of earlier statistical-analysis software. It had a wide range of applications, one of the most important being to check charge-card transactions for fraud. Data mining, however, opened the door to potential misuse of user data. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[THU 20 JUL 23] SPACE NEWS

* Space launches for June included:

[04 JUN 23] USA-C CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-4 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 1220 UTC (local time + 5) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.

[05 JUN 23] USA-C CC / FALCON 9 / SPACEX DRAGON CRS 28 -- A SpaceX Falcon booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 1547 UTC (local time + 4), carrying the 28th operational "Dragon" cargo capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) to provide supplies to the ISS Expedition 68 crew. It docked with the ISS Harmony module the next day.

The freighter's payload included the third pair of "ISS Roll Out Solar Arrays (iROSA)" inside the unpressurized trunk of the spacecraft. There was also "Thor", an ESA instrument to observe blue discharges above thunderclouds. CubeSat payloads, to be deployed later, included:

• The "Moonlighter" 3-unit (3U) CubeSat, built by the Aerospace Corporation, as a data-security experiment, to be hacked in space.
  
  
• Five studentsat CubeSats sponsored by the Canadian Space Agency. One CubeSat from York University, named "Essence", observed Arctic ice for climatic research purposes by using a camera with a fisheye lens. Essence also carried a solar energetic proton detector to collect additional data from solar coronal mass ejection events.

The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.

[07 JUN 22] CN JQ / KINETICA 1 / SHIYAN 24A & 24B -- A Kinetica 1 booster was launched from Jiuquan at 0410 GMT (local time - 8) to put the "Shiyan 24A & 24B" satellites into orbit. There were 24 other payloads on the flight, about which little was announced.

[09 JUN 23] CN JQ / KUAIZHOU 1A / LONGJIANG 3 -- A Chinese Kuaizhou 1A (KZ1A) booster was launched from Jiuquan at 0235 UTC (local time - 8) to put the "Longjiang 3" comsat into orbit.

[12 JUN 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 5-11 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0710 UTC (local time + 4) to put 52 SpaceX "Starlink v1.5" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.

[12 JUN 23] USA VB / FALCON 9 / TRANSPORTER 8 -- A SpaceX Falcon booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 1456 UTC (local time + 7) on the "Transporter 8" mission -- a rideshare flight to low-Earth orbit, carrying 72 payloads. The dedicated Transporter rideshare missions feature a payload stack of several rings that each contain circular attachment points, or ports, with a defined volume around them that can be filled with one or many satellites depending on customer needs.

The launch integrators on this flight included Exolaunch, handling 32 satellites, and Maverick Space Systems, handling at least 6 satellites. Alba Orbital also handled six PocketQube satellites. Launcher (now part of Vast) flew its second space tug, "Orbiter SN3", carrying four satellites and several hosted payloads. The hosted payloads on SN3 included "Nightingale 1" for Cesium Astro, being a Ka-band communications system; "Remora" for Millenium Space Systems, being a guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) system; and a CubeSat deployer demonstration for TRL11. D-Orbit had the "ION-SCV011" "Savvy Simon" orbital transfer vehicle, carrying multiple small satellites. Larger satellites on the launch included:

• Otter Pup: A 38-kilogram (84-pound) satellite from Starfish Space, to demonstrate rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking (RPOD) technologies during its mission, including docking back with Orbiter SN3 after its initial release.
  
  
• W-Series 1: An in-space manufacturing demonstration from Varda Space Industries, featuring a Rocket Lab Photon satellite bus hosting a small manufacturing module and re-entry capsule.
  
  
• GHOSt 3: A hyperspectal imaging satellite from Orbital Sidekick, with a launch mass of 85 kilograms (187 pounds). It followed GHOSt 1 & 2, launched on Transporter 7.
  
  
• HOTSAT 1: A 130-kilogram (185-pound) satellite with an imaging infrared imager. It was built by SSTL of the UK for Sat Uv.
  
  
• NewSat 40:43: Four more Earth remote sensing satellites from Satellogic of Argentina. They had 1-meter (3.3-foot) resolution multispectral and 25-meter (82-foot) resolution hyperspectral imaging payloads.
  
  
• Runner 1: A 90-kilogram (200-pound) optical remote-sensing satellite, with color and multi-spectral imaging. It was built by Terran Orbital and ImageSat International for the Chilean government, which named it "FASat-Delta".
  
  
• DROID 001: A 32-kilogram (70-pound) satellite from Turion Space with a space situational awareness imaging payload, based on a 42U satellite bus from NanoAvionics.
  
  
• ABA First Runner: An 80-kilogram (175-pound) satellite from Azista BST Aerospace (ABA) with panchromatic and multispectral optical imaging.
  
  
• MuSat 1: A 59-kilogram (130-pound) demonstrator satellite from Muon Space.
  
  
• Gregoire: A 100-kilogram (220-pound) demonstrator satellite from Aerospacelab of Belgium.
  
  
• QPS-SAR 6: A 100-kilogram (220-pound) SAR radarsat from iQPS.
  
  
• ICEYE x 3: Another set of 70-kilogram (154-pound) SAR radarsats from ICEYE of Finland.
  
  
• Skykraft Block 3: Another set (of 5) air-traffic management satellites from Skykraft of Australia.
  
  
• Blackjack Aces 1:4: Four satellites to test optical comlinks and onboard data processor, from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Apparently this was the end of this particular program, other efforts having made it redundant, and it was only flown to close things out.
  
  
• Tomorrow R2: An 85-kilogram (187-pound) satellite from Tomorrow.io to monitor precipitation.

CubeSats on the launch included:

• Forest 2: A 6U CubeSat from Spire Global with a thermal imaging payload to monitor wildfires.
  
  
• Lemur 2 x 2: Two 6U CubeSats from Spire Global with AIS/ ADS-B/ GNSS-RO / RF sensors.
  
  
• GEI-SAT Precursor: A 16U CubeSat from Satlantis of Spain with visible to near-infrared (VNIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) imaging, intended to identify methane emissions.
  
  
• EPICHyper 2: A 6U CubeSat built by Clyde Space for Wyvern, with a hyperspectral imaging payload of Earth remote sensing.
  
  
• Tiger 4: A 6U CubeSat from OG Technologies for internet of things (IOT) communcations.
  
  
• SpaceBEE x 12: New U/4 IOT satellites from SpaceX subsidiary Swarm.
  
  
• FEROX 1:4: Four CubeSats for IOT from FossaSat of Spain, Each had a volume of 1.5U, a length of 3U, a width of 2U, and a height of U/4. The idea is to have a stack of four packed as a 6U CubeSat.
  
  
• Exploratory In-Orbit Verification of an E/W-Band Satellite Communication Link (EIVE): A 6U CubeSat from the University of Stuttgart to demonstrate high-frequency communications.
  
  
• Mission 0: A 3U CubeSat from Outpost Technologies Corporation to demonstrate their new satellite bus.
  
  
• MDQSAT-1C & 1D: Two U/2 CubeSats for IOT from Innova Space of Argentina.
  
  
• Viasat's XVI: A 12U CubeSat satellite for the Air Force Research Lab that to demonstrate satellite communications using the military Link-16 tactical communications network.
  
  
• Modular Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (MISR) x 2: 6U CubeSats for the US Special Operations Command.

Along with the CubeSats, the mission also flew a set of tiny PocketQubes:

• UNICORN 2I: A triple-PocketQube (3P) satellite from Alba Orbital to monitor artificial illumination levels at night.
  
  
• Istanbul: A 1P satellite for IOT from Turkey's Hello Space.
  
  
• URESAT 1: A 1.5P satellite with an amateur radio payload, from Spain's URE and AMSAT-EA.
  
  
• MRC 100: A 3P satellite from the Technical University of Budapest in Hungary to "electromagnetic pollution" generated by human activity on Earth.
  
  
• ROM-2: A 1P studentsat from the International Computing High School of Bucharest in Romania, with an amateur radio payload and a two-megapixel camera.
  
  
• Satlla 2I: A 2P Satlla-2I studentsat from Ariel University of Israel, with a free-space optical link.
  
  
• Pleiades-Squared: A 1U demonstration CubeSat from Cal Poly Pomona's Bronco Space.
  
  
• PlatziSat1: A PocketQube from Colombia's Platzi.
  
  
• SpeiSat: A 3U CubeSat, hosted by the Italian Space Agency, being the Vatican's first satellite. It carried a tiny "nanobook" of prayer readings by Pope Francis and amateur radio transmissions of messages of hope.

The booster stage soft-landed at Vandenberg.

[15 JUN 23] CN TY / LONG MARCH 2D / JILIN 1 x 38 & -- A Long March 2D booster was launched from Taiyuan at 0530 UTC (local time - 8) to put 41 satellites into low Earth orbit -- a record number for Chinese spaceflight. They included 30 "Jilin-1 Gaofen-03D", 8 "Jilin-1 Gaofen-06A", and 2 "Jilin-1 Pingtai-02A" Earth remote sensing satellites, plus the "Heerguosi 1" satellite.

[18 JUN 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / SATRIA -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 2221 UTC (local time + 4) to put the Indonesian "Satria" geostationary comsat into orbit.

It was built by Thales Alenia Space and was based on the Spacebus Neo-200 fully electric satellite bus. It had a mass of roughly 4,700 kilograms (10,360 pounds) and a design lifetime of 15 years; it was moved into the geostationary slot at 146 degrees East. The satellite was operated by Satelit Nusantara Tiga and was to provide 90,000 schools, 40,000 hospitals, and many other residential and government sites in Indonesia with 150 gigabits per second connectivity.

[20 JUN 23] CN TY / LONG MARCH 6A / SHIYAN 25 -- A Long March 6A booster was launched at 0318 UTC (local time - 8) from the Chinese Taiyuan launch center to put the "Shiyan 25" into Sun-synchronous orbit. It was apparently a demonstrator for some class of surveillance satellite.

[22 JUN 23] USA VB / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 5-7 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 0717 UTC (previous day local time + 8) to put 47 SpaceX "Starlink v1.5" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The booster stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.

[22 JUN 23] USA CC / DELTA 4 HEAVY / NROL 68 (USA 345) -- A Delta 4 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0918 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload into orbit. The payload was designated "NROL 68 (USA 235)". It was believed to be an ORION-type SIGINT satellite.

The Orion satellites themselves were introduced to replace a series of four smaller satellites named Rhyolite and later Aquacade, which were launched on Atlas-Agena rockets between 1970 and 1978. Orion itself appears to have gone through at least two generations of satellites, with the first two satellites being deployed from Space Shuttle Discovery with the aid of an inertial upper stage during its STS-51C and STS-33 missions in 1985 and 1989 respectively. After national security missions transitioned back to expendable launch vehicles, two more satellites were launched in 1995 and 1998 using Titan IV rockets with Centaur upper stages.

The first of a series of new-generation satellites was launched in September 2003, marking the final Orion mission aboard a Titan IV rocket before missions switched to the Delta IV. Subsequent launches followed in January 2009, November 2010, June 2012, June 2016, and most recently December 2020 with the NROL-44 mission. The Delta IV Heavy's final flight is scheduled to occur from Cape Canaveral next year with the NROL-70 mission, which will most likely carry another Orion.

These modern satellites appear to have included communications intelligence capabilities allowing them to take over this role from a previous series of dedicated satellites, known by several codenames including "Chalet", "Vortex", and "Mercury".

[27 JUN 23] RU VS / SOYUZ 2-1B / METEOR-M 2-3 (COSMOS 2568) -- A Soyuz 2-1b booster was launched from Vostochny at 2118 UTC (next day local time - 4) to put the "Meteor-M 2-3" weather satellite into near-polar orbit. It had a launch mass of 3,250 kilograms (7,150 pounds). The launch also included 43 other payloads. They included 16 "Space-Pi" CubeSats from educational institutions; a 12-unit (12U) PHI-Demo CubeSat, developed at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center in the United Arab Emirates; a Malaysian 6U CubeSat; and 11 CubeSats for Russian customers.

[WED 19 JUL 23] EUCLID IN SPACE (2)

* EUCLID IN SPACE (2): The ESA Euclid space observatory was built to answer five questions in cosmology:

• What is the structure and history of the cosmic web?
  
  
• What is the nature of dark matter?
  
  
• How has the expansion of the Universe changed over time?
  
  
• What is the nature of dark energy?
  
  
• What more can be learned about gravity?

The most popular model among cosmologists is the "Lambda Cold Dark Matter". It balances normal matter and radiation with the mysterious dark matter and dark energy.

According to Lambda-CDM, dark matter is characterized by being a type of matter that only interacts through gravity, not the electromagnetic force; it does not generate or interact with light, rendering it invisible. Its existence and distribution must be inferred indirectly from its effects on the structure of the Universe.

Some of the effects that Euclid scientists are aiming to observe are the "Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations (BAO)" and weak gravitational lensing on galaxies. Under Lambda-CDM, the Universe contained a homogeneous mix of photons, electrons, neutrinos, "baryonic matter", and dark matter for the first 370,000 years of its life. Baryons are particles including the proton and neutron, the only really stable members of the family, with baryonic matter making up the great majority of the matter that we're used to seeing and interacting with.

In that early stage in the Universe's life, the mix was so hot that photons and electrons interacted with each other constantly, with the result that atoms couldn't form and the Universe was opaque to light. However, as the expansion of the Universe continued, the temperature dropped down enough to allow electrons to combine with nuclei and form atoms, with light then propagating through the cosmos. This phase change left an imprint across space that we now call "cosmic microwave background (CMB)" radiation.

Examination of the CMB has revealed subtle changes in temperature across it, corresponding to the fluctuations in the density of matter in the early Universe at the time of the phase change. These density fluctuations give clues to the matter that makes up the Universe. In regions where the density is higher, matter would be attracted to each other and create an inward pressure -- but at the same time, the interactions between photons and baryonic matter would set up an outward pressure that would tend to counteract it.

Dark matter is such higher-density regions would, at first, enhance the inward pressure and increase the density of baryonic matter. However, as the density increased, interactions between the baryonic matter and photons would increase as well, resulting in enhanced outward pressure that would reduce the density. The result would be oscillations, the BAOs. Once atoms were formed, the photons stopped generating the outward pressure related to the BAOs, leaving a baryonic "shell" around the density fluctuations. These shells were, so it is suspected, the seeds of the formation of galaxies and galaxy clusters. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[TUE 18 JUL 23] COVID-19 IMPACT

* COVID-19 IMPACT: As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("DNA Is Providing New Clues To Why COVID-19 Hits People Differently" by Tina Hesman Saey, 11 November 2022), it is well-known that a COVID-19 infection affects different people differently: some of those infected shrug it off, others die. Researchers have been trying to figure out what factors determine how a subject reacts to a COVID-19 infection, investigating everything from demographics to preexisting conditions to vaccination status and even genetic clues.

Of course, it is generally known that older people are more likely to have severe complications of the disease, while the unvaccinated have an increased risk of hospitalization and death. Data from the US CDC shows that unvaccinated people age 50 and older are 12 times as likely to die from COVID-19 as vaccinated people who had gotten two or more booster shots,

Among the vaxxed, the number of shots counts. The same data showed that people 50 and older who got their first two shots and only one booster were nearly three times as likely to die (1.27 deaths per 100,000) as their peers who got two or more boosters.

It is also known that a list of health conditions, including heart disease, kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes and obesity, increase the risk of bad outcomes for patients of all ages. Oddly, some types of asthma seem to provide protection against COVID-19.

Cancer patients are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, but some cancer patients are more vulnerable than others. Of course cancer patients who are immunosuppressed -- either because of problems with their immune systems or because they are taking immunosuppressive drugs -- are more likely to come down with severe COVID-19. They may develop a "cytokine storm", a violent immune reaction that can cause tissue- and organ-damaging inflammation.

Chris Labaki -- a cancer researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston -- says that cancer patients should adopt "strict measures" to avoid infection by COVID-19: "Wear masks as much as possible, clean everything, including washing your hands. Maybe don't go to crowded public places where the chance of catching COVID-19 might be higher." People who are physically close to cancer patients need to take the same precautions.

All these risk factors for COVID-19 are generally known. What is more puzzling is that young and otherwise healthy people may get really sick, be hospitalized, or sometimes even die from COVID-19. Studies have been performed to identify genetic risk factors -- with the surprising result that some genes inherited from Neandertal humans seem to protect against COVID-19 infection, while other Neandertal genes seem to increase the risk of severe disease.

A massive international study examining DNA from more than 28,000 COVID-19 patients and almost 600,000 people who, as far as they knew, hadn't been infected confirmed that inheritance from Neandertals is related to in COVID-19 susceptibility. The same study showed confirmed an earlier finding that people with type O blood seem to have some protection against COVID-19, though nobody has a good idea of why.

The same research time found that people with rare variants in a gene called "toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7)", are over five times more likely to get severe COVID-19 than those who don't have the variants. That makes sense, since the TLR7 protein is involved in the immune system chain that sounds an alarm against viral infections. Other genes have been linked to COVID-19 outcomes, providing clues that could identify drugs that might better treat the disease.

The problem with the effort to identify genes that suggest susceptibility to COVID-19 is that they can't spot a linkage that makes a clear difference. The genetic clues are much less significant than the evident factors such as age, health, and exposure. Exposure is the most significant: people who are in crowds a lot are far more at risk than those who are not. In any case, the right habits are the most important of all. Labaki's advice to cancer patients -- mask, avoid crowds, wash your hands -- plus staying up-to-date on vaccinations is a good idea for everyone.

[MON 17 JUL 23] THE WEEK THAT WAS 28

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("The American Left And Right Loathe Each Other And Agree On A Lot", 13 July 2023), a recent book by a sitting US senator blasted the "neoliberalism" that came in the wake of Ronald Reagan, saying it led to a "free-market fundamentalism" that was not really in America's interests. The book proposed three solutions: "putting Wall Street in its place", bringing "critical industries back to America" and resurrecting "an obligation to rebuild America's workforce".

This sounds like the words of Bernie Sanders, but it's actually from DECADES OF DECADENCE by Marco Rubio. Although the culture wars consume the USA, there's actually some common thinking on economic policy:

BEGIN_QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Both sides agree that the state must take charge, using tariffs and industrial policy to boost favored industries, coupled to redistribution to cut the big corporations down to size. American Compass, a think-tank leading the charge on the Right, recently released an anthology of policy essays called "REBUILDING AMERICAN CAPITALISM: A Handbook for Conservative Policymakers" that took an axe to Republican sacred cows:

BEGIN_QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

That sounds like a straightforward Left-wing agenda, but maybe things have changed. Thomas Piketty, the famous French economist who has made a career of taking on inequality, says: "Beginning with the 2008 financial crisis, we've seen the beginning of the end of this sort of neoliberal euphoria and the pandemic accelerated this transformation."

Piketty finds much to like in the Biden Administration's economic policies, but wants them to go farther. He calls for a return to the high marginal tax rates on income in effect during the mid-century postwar years, as well as a new steeply progressive wealth tax to redistribute wealth. Joe Biden really wants to raise taxes on the ultra-rich -- with plenty of public support for that goal as the Elon Musks of the world publicly demonstrate their arrogance and foolishness -- but Republicans are not keen on that idea.

Indeed, just how far does this convergence on economic thinking really go, as long as the Republicans are stuck with the culture wars as the basis for their policy? Lunacy has become normal to them; efforts to be constructive have disappeared from public view. Battles over reproductive rights and trans rights go nowhere, except to ultimate Republican defeat. The Republicans are facing political disaster in the 2024 elections -- and should it come to pass, will have no one to blame but themselves. How the confused and toxic agenda of the Right will sort itself out after that is impossible to say.

* In another article from ECONOMIST.com ("The New Asian Family", 8 July 2023), at one time the leaders of East and South-East Asian countries were fond of promoting "Asian values" of disciplined government and tight family life. The notion that these governments were more disciplined than their Western counterparts went out the window after the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Now the story of the primacy of the Asian family is fading out as well.

In China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, millions of young people are opting for looser, often isolated, and less male-dominated arrangements. In a region with over a fifth of humanity, the socioeconomic and demographic consequences will be far-reaching and potentially destabilizing:

BEGIN_QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

This trend follows that of Europe. Between 1960 and 2010 Europe's marriage rate fell by half, with the same forces in action: families became economically burdensome, with steadily inflated housing costs being a particular problem, and male-dominated family structures increasingly anachronistic:

BEGIN_QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Women concentrating on their careers in the region are faced with an uphill slog, forced to work harder to achieve less than their male counterparts. Add to this the East Asian distaste for single motherhood, and the result is collapsing fertility rates:

BEGIN_QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Governments there won't encourage immigration to ease the shortfall, instead provide perks for getting married. That approach has clearly failed. Governments have shown little taste for supporting alternative lifestyles, such as gay marriage and adoption -- Taiwan being an exception, having both of them. Governments need to rethink policies:

BEGIN_QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

How much of an impact on demographics such changes might have is not clear. What is clear is that they would reflect the will of the citizens. The governments may not like facing reality, but they cannot live in a fantasy world any more.

[FRI 14 JUL 23] CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (55)

* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (55): George W. Bush became president in 2000, promising a return to a conservative agenda, but one moderated by compassion. In his first year in office, Bush was immediately confronted by a recession.

During the 1990s, the introduction of the Web had led to a boom of "dot.com" firms to cash in on the economic opportunity of online commerce. The result was a stock-market bubble that peaked in 2000 and then began to crash, losing most of its value by early 2001. That led to a recession that proved short-lived, economic normalcy returning after eight months.

The "Dot-Com Recession" was immediately followed by a major corporate scandal when the Enron energy company collapsed. In the aftermath, it became clear that Enron, with the help of Arthur Andersen accounting firm, had engaged in fraudulent accounting practices and deception of shareholders. Arthur Anderson, under fire, went broke in turn, with the scandal leading to the passage of a series of laws to correct the problems that had surfaced. The most significant of these laws was the "Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002", which nailed down corporate financial record keeping and reporting.

The Bush II Administration got off to an economic start that seemed to put the Reagan Revolution in a poor light. Nonetheless, Bush continued on the Reagan track; his first major economic action was to push through a significant tax cut in 2001, which would be followed by another in 2003. The budget was in surplus, thanks to Bill Clinton, and so taxes needed to be trimmed, but Bush went well farther than a mere trim. The tax cuts were promoted by the Bush II Administration as a new version of "trickle-down", again following the Laffer curve -- only tangibly benefiting the wealthy and aggravating the income inequality that had begun with Reagan. Budget deficits began to grow again.

However, economic issues were overshadowed when Islamic terrorists of the al-Qaeda organization, based in Afghanistan, hijacked jetliners to perform suicide attacks on the twin World Trade Center towers in New York City, which were destroyed, and on the Pentagon, which was significantly damaged. While the USA had been dealing with Islamic terrorism since the Reagan Administration, but now the "Global War On Terror (GWOT)" moved into high gear.

Afghanistan was under the control of an Islamic extremist faction, the Taliban. The USA demanded that al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan be disbanded and the leadership turned over for trial. The Taliban refused, with the USA and Britain invading Afghanistan and evicting the Taliban from the government -- with the Taliban beginning an indefinite guerrilla struggle against the invaders, supported by factions in the Pakistani government. In the meantime, actions by and against al-Qaeda terrorists took place around the globe.

As a follow-up, in 2003 the Bush II Administration invaded Iraq to successfully overthrow Saddam Hussein. The invasion of Iraq was driven by long-standing annoyance with Saddam Hussein's efforts to defy sanctions and, by all appearances, obtain weapons of mass destruction (WMD). As it turned out, the Iraqi WMD program was largely a bluff, leading to great embarrassment for the Bush II Administration when they couldn't find WMD stockpiles. The ease in invading Iraq turned into a nightmare when the Americans and their allies found themselves in the middle of a civil war.

From the economic point of view, conducting two foreign wars at the same time led to further aggravating the budget deficit. In addition, in 2003 the Bush II Administration pushed through "Medicare Part D", which provided prescription drug benefits -- which was a good thing, but no real provisions were made to ensure funding. An effort in his second term to privatize Social Security was dead on arrival, and did nothing to enhance Bush's declining fortunes.

From the 1970s, the cost of US housing had steadily increased. Before that time, a house was a place to live, but then it became an investment for the future. Homeowners voted to protect that investment, with municipal governments becoming unwilling to encourage low-cost housing, for example by passing restrictive zoning laws. Housing prices became inflated, reaching a peak in 2006, when the housing bubble burst and prices then fell rapidly. Mortgages based on the inflated value of housing became painfully expensive, with mortgage defaults and foreclosures following.

That was bad enough -- but to make matters worse, the financial industry, in its search for new speculative investments, came up with the idea of offering securities backed by mortgages. These securities were given much higher credit ratings than they deserved, and their value collapsed along with the housing market. The industry was also increasingly populated by "shadow banks" operating on new financial measures, and did not have FDIC protection. A number of major banks, lacking funds to make good their losses, collapsed; the world economy went into a tailspin, with unemployment skyrocketing and major industries threatened with collapse. Coupled with the persistent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush left the White House in disgrace. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[THU 13 JUL 23] GIMMICKS & GADGETS

* GIMMICKS & GADGETS: As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("93-Kilometer-Long Climate-Controlled Bike Path To Keep Cyclists Cool" by Adam Williams, 02 February 2023), modern cities have become increasingly friendly to bicyclists, setting bike paths and lanes, as well as other facilities. Sunny Dubai is headed in that direction, but has to go there considering the fact that the heat there can be brutal.

Local studio Urb has accordingly devised the "Loop", an enclosed and elevated structure, 93 kilometers (57 miles) long, covered with windows in a geodesic frame. Cooling systems will be driven by renewable sources, with solar clearly playing a large role -- but the paths themselves will generate electricity. In addition to its areas for jogging, walking and cycling and related facilities, the Loop would also with lots of greenery, with large numbers of plants and trees. There would be multiple pocket parks, sports facilities, and urban farming. An Urb press release announced:

BEGIN_QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

The Loop is not much more than a design concept that hasn't been fleshed out yet, and such concepts have a tradition of being not much more than imaginative fantasies. However, this is wealthy Dubai, where ambitious projects often happen. If it does, it will be interesting to see if it then happens elsewhere.

* Environmental advocates took notice of an innovation from South Korea, in which the cities of Daejong and Sejong put 32 kilometers (20 miles) of solar panels in the median of a freeway. On top of that, they ran a two-lane bike path underneath the solar panels, with underground interchanges to allow bike riders to get into and off of the path. Bike riders have mixed feelings about the idea, wondering just how enjoyable it would be to ride a bike along the pathway. Of course, bike riders could concentrate on speed and not worry about the scenery.

* As discussed in a release from the Biophysical Society ("Harnessing Plant Molecules To Improve the Efficiency of Solar Panels", 22 February 2023), current photovoltaic (PV) cell technology is based on solid-state physics. Lahari Sada -- a researcher at the University of Maryland -- is investigating an alternate approach, using biomolecules such as chlorophyll to come up with PV panels that are, in potential, cheaper, easier to recycle, and more efficient.

The approach involves leveraging off the fluorescence of biomolecules. Sada explains: "Any sort of molecule that fluoresces, gives off light. If we excite [such a fluorescent molecule], it can transfer its energy to metal nanoparticles, and if the particles are close enough to each other, they will knock off electrons and generate current." Sada adds that the molecules don't necessarily have to be fluorescent, they just have to have high absorption of light -- examples being chlorophyll, beta carotene, or lutein. Each of these is relatively inexpensive and easy to derive from plants.

The research is in an early phase, but for the moment it seems promising. It even may be possible to come up with a "designer molecule" that can be synthesized in bulk cheaply and optimize its properties. However, there's a long way to go before we get there, if we ever do.

[WED 12 JUL 23] EUCLID IN SPACE (1)

* EUCLID IN SPACE (1): On 1 July 2023, a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral to put the European Space Agency's (ESA) "Euclid" observatory into space. It was designed to perform a wide-area sky survey to probe into the distant past of the Universe, with a focus on determining the distribution and nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Euclid was 4.7 meters (15 feet 3 inches) tall and was 3.7 meters (12 feet 2 inches) in diameter. Its launch mass was about 1,921 kilograms (4,235 pounds). Prime contractor was Thales Alenia Space, working with elements from over 80 European companies, including Airbus Defense and Space, Beyond Gravity, and OHB.

After a journey of about four weeks, Euclid was parked at the Sun-Earth Lagrange 2 stable point, on a line from the Sun to the Earth and beyond the Moon's orbit. At the L2 point, it has an uninterrupted view of deep space for conducting its observations. Observations began about three months after launch. Euclid will map 36% of the sky over the duration of its primary mission, which is currently expected to last six years. The survey is being performed by a reflecting telescope with two instruments: The "Near-Infrared Spectrometer & Photometer (NISP)" and the "Visible Instrument (VIS)".

NISP is a 64-megapixel array of 16 near-infrared sensors, sensitive to electromagnetic waves between 900 nanometers and 2,000 nanometers in wavelength -- corresponding to the near-infrared part of the spectrum. It has three photometric filters, allowing it to obtain images in three bands:

• The "NISP-Y" filter obtains images at wavelengths between 920 and 1,146 nanometers.
  
  
• The "NISP-J" filter obtained images at wavelengths between 1,146 and 1,372 nanometers.
  
  
• The "NISP-H" filter provides images at wavelengths between 1,372 and 2,000 nanometers.

NISP can also perform slitless spectroscopy in the 1,100 to 2,000-nanometer wavelength range.

VIS is a visual imaging camera with 609-megapixel resolution, consisting of 36 charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors to obtain images in the 550 to 900-nanometer wavelength range.

Both NISP and VIS are wide-field instruments, with a field of view of about 0.5 square degrees -- approximately 2.5 times larger than the size of the full Moon. Over its six-year primary mission, Euclid will take multiple images of 40,000 of these fields that, combined, will cover 15,000 square degrees of the sky. This is the significant differentiator of Euclid against other infrared space telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). For each observation field, Euclid will take six visual images, 12 near-infrared images, and four spectrum exposures. This means it will take about 5 gigabytes of raw data per field.

While Euclid's mirror is 1.2 meters (3 feet 11 inches) in diameter, much smaller than JWST's 6.5-meter (21 foot 4 inch) diameter primary mirror, JWST has a narrow field of view. It would take JWST hundreds of years to survey the same area of the sky as Euclid will in its primary mission.

Euclid features a Sun shield that protects the mirror assembly and instruments from heat sources such as the Sun, Earth, and Moon, cooling them down to about 90 degrees Kelvin. This shield also has a solar panel that provides 1.8 kilowatts of power to Euclid's systems. The main structure of the observatory is made out of silicon carbide, which is stiff and rigid across a wide range of temperatures, and has high thermal conductivity to maintain an even temperature.

Euclid's survey is focusing on regions of the sky where the dust from the Solar System and the stars, gas, and dust from our own Galaxy are less common or not present at all. This is done to gather as much clean data as possible from distant galaxies. Euclid's observations are being supported by the Euclid Science Ground Segment which will store, process, and analyze the data gathered by the telescope. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[TUE 11 JUL 23] CMB MYSTERY

* CMB MYSTERY: As discussed in an article from NATURE.com ("New Type Of Dark Energy Could Solve Universe Expansion Mystery" by Davide Castelvecchi, 17 September 2021), the discovery that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating has suggested the existence of a mysterious "dark energy" driving it. Now research has indicated there may have been a second form of dark energy that further boosted the expansion in the first 300,000 years after the Big Bang that created the Universe.

Two studies have detected a possible trace of this "early dark energy" in data collected between 2013 and 2016 by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile. The ACT is designed to map the cosmic microwave background (CMB)-- primordial radiation left over from the Big Bang. CMB mapping has helped reveal the broad composition of the Universe, which consists of about 5% ordinary matter, well more unseen "dark matter", and dark energy.

The best CMB map to date was provided by the European Space Agency's Planck mission, which was active between 2009 and 2013. Planck data yields a value for the current rate of the expansion of the Universe -- but over the last decade, measurements of the expansion of the Universe using supernova "candles" and other approaches suggest the value is about 5% to 10% faster than the rate obtained from the Planck data.

In 2019, cosmologist Marc Kamionkowski at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and his collaborators suggested that, along with the dark energy observed in the current Universe, there was also an early dark energy that could account for the discrepancy. The ACT map of the CMB's polarization is consistent with the existence of early dark energy.

A model based on the ACT data suggests that the Universe is now 12.4 billion years old, about 11% younger than the 13.8 billion years calculated using the Planck model, and would be about 5% faster. That result is entirely tentative, and needs to be cross-checked with data from the South Pole Telescope. It may be particularly consternating if the SPT data contradicts both models.

* In related science news, as discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("The Universe's Background Starlight Is Twice As Bright As Expected" by Liz Kruesi, 22 March 2022), there's an interesting quandary in astronomy called "Olber's Paradox" -- which suggests that, in an infinite Universe filled with stars, the night sky should be completely bright. We know now that the Universe is not infinite, tracing its origins back to the Big Bang over 13 billion years ago, and that the expansion of the Universe stretches out or "reddens" the light from stars, effectively reducing the energy of emissions with distance.

However, that still leaves the question of why the night sky is as bright as it actually is. The light that is seen is from bright stars, glowing dust clouds, and other nearby sources -- backed up with a background glow that comes from the cosmic sea of distant galaxies, the first stars that burned, and faraway coalescing gas.

In 2021 Tod Lauer -- an astronomer at the National Science Foundation's NOIRLab in Tucson AZ -- and his team the amount of light in this "cosmic optical background (COB)" using the New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Pluto in 2015, to inspect a region on the sky largely devoid of nearby stars and galaxies. Being so distant from the Sun, the New Horizons observation would not be confounded by sunlight scattered by dust, which is more concentrated in the inner Solar System.

They obtained images using the probe's LORRI imager, then digitally removed all known sources of light, including nearby galaxies, even heat from the spacecraft's nuclear power source. What was left over was the observed COB. The researchers used large archives of galaxy observations, like those from the Hubble Space Telescope, to calculate the light emitted by all the galaxies in the universe. That led to a puzzle, Lauer saying: "It turns out that the galaxies that we know about can account for about half of the level we see."

Marc Postman -- an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore MD and a study co-lead -- says: "There's clearly an anomaly. Now we need to try to understand it and explain it." Postman suggests that maybe rogue stars stripped from galaxies linger in intergalactic space. Another possibility is that there is "a very faint population of very compact galaxies that are just below the detection limits of Hubble." The new NASA James Webb Space Telescope should be able to confirm or deny the existence of these faint galaxies.

Other researchers have suggested some problem with the analysis -- an error in determining the actual emissions from the New Horizons probe, or missing some foreground light. Lauer and his colleagues are refining their observations, while other groups are inspecting LORRI and Hubble images to see if they can get clues. New missions, such as the NASA SPHEREx -- which will be launched in a few years to perform an all-sky survey of the Universe -- should also help unravel the puzzle.

[MON 10 JUL 23] THE WEEK THAT WAS 27

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed in an article from MSNBC.com ("Trump-Appointed Judge Restricts Officials' Contact With Social Media Giants" by Steve Benen, 5 July 2023), on the 4th of July, a Federal judge blocked key Biden administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies about "protected speech".

The judgement was in response to a Federal lawsuit pressed by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri. The lawsuit challenged government officials engaging in outreach to social media companies, encouraging them to act responsibly. For example, officials asked companies such as Twitter and Facebook not to allow promotion of vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic.

Judge Terry Doughty hadn't come up with a full decision on the 4th of July, with the judgement instead being a preliminary injunction, restricting government agencies -- from the White House to the Department of Health and Human Services to the FBI -- from talking to social media companies for "the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech." He believed that the Biden Administration was targeting commentary from the Right. The target was actually disinformation; it just so happens that the Right is fond of spreading disinformation.

The injunction didn't simply target communications concerning public health, THE NEW YORK TIMES adding in a report that that Federal agencies and tech giants "have long worked together to take action against illegal or harmful material, especially in cases involving child sexual abuse, human trafficking and other criminal activity. That has also included regular meetings to share information on the Islamic State and other terrorist groups."

Such communications are nothing new, having taken place in the Trump and Obama Administrations as well. This is not Doughty's first wild shot at the Biden Administration; he had "previously blocked the Biden Administration's national vaccination mandate for health care workers and overturned its ban on new federal leases for oil and gas drilling." Blogger Kevin Drum commented:

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The judgement is so unrealistic and unenforceable that it might simply be ignored, but it is likely to be appealed -- and then shot down by the appeals court, hopefully with prejudice.

* In other news of Right-wing lunacy, according to an article from REUTERS.com ("Swing State Republicans Bleed Donors And Cash Over Trump's False Election Claims" by Tim Reid and Nathan Layne, 5 July 2023), long-time Republican donors in swing states are getting fed up with state GOP party officials pushing Donald Trump's fraudulent claim that he was cheated out of the 2020 election.

Real estate mogul Ron Weiser, for example, has been a big donor to the Michigan Republican Party, and was even a chair of the party for a time. Now he's disgusted with Trump-driven lies about the election, calling them "ludicrous", and is halting his funding. Weiser said: "I question whether the state party has the necessary expertise to spend the money well."

He's not the only donor in battleground states to reconsider his support, with others in places like Michigan and Arizona deciding to halt funding as well. Both the Michigan and Arizona parties are now suffering from funding shortfalls, having "astonishingly low cash reserves," as one observer put it. Part of the shortfalls were in part due to legal fees incurred in futile election challenges by the party organizations. Backing Trump-aligned candidates who were slaughtered at the ballot box didn't help their credibility either.

"It's too bad we let the Right wing of our party take over the operations," said Jim Click, whose family has been a longtime major Republican donor in Arizona. He and other donors said they would give money directly to candidates or support them through other political fundraising groups.

The Republican parties of some swing states are doing much better. In addition, state parties don't rely solely on individual donors, they also receive money from national party organizations, outside groups, and political action committees. Nonetheless, it is not hard to see that efforts to back Donald Trump as his legal worries pile up are not promising of success in 2024. Trump barely won in 2016, lost handily in 2020, and shows no signs of being in better shape in 2024. Unfortunately for the GOP, the MAGA extreme is heavily entrenched in the party; MAGA has no future, but it's hard to see what happens to the GOP as it goes down.

* According to an article from REUTERS.com ("Canadian Farmer's Thumbs-Up Emoji Leads To $62,000 Fine" by Ismail Shakil, 7 July 2023), a Canadian farmer who replied to an image of a contract to buy a crop of flax with a "thumbs-up" emoji has been ordered to pay more than $82,000 CD ($61,750 USD) in damages for non-delivery of the flax.

Chris Achter, the owner of a farming company in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, got the contract from South West Terminal (SWT), a grains buyer in 2021, and replied with the emoji. SWT never got the flax and sued Achter, who replied that the emoji just indicated he'd seen the contract. That was lame; in any case, an intensive search for legal precedents suggested the thumbs-up emoji indicated acceptance.

Saskatchewan Judge T.J. Keene said: "I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Chris okayed or approved the contract just like he had done before except this time he used a thumbs-up emoji. In my opinion the signature requirement was met by the thumbs-up emoji originating from Chris and his unique cell phone."

[FRI 07 JUL 23] CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (54)

* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (54): Asymmetry of information in economic decisions is one of those things that seems blatantly obvious in hindsight, but it was a revelation when an economist finally pointed it out. Roughly in parallel, economists came up with a comparable obvious revelation: that economic decision-making can be expedient, inconsistent, and incompetent. This reality applies to individuals, corporations, and governments.

The implications were detailed by two economists, a Norwegian named Finn Kydland (born 1943) and an American named Edward Prescott (1940:2022), who met each other while they were at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. When Kydland went back to Norway, he talked Prescott into joining him at the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen, where they came up with their theory of "time inconsistency" -- or more simply: "The rules tomorrow are not necessarily the rules today."

Time inconsistency contradicted the law of rational expectations. Suppose a government is confronted with high inflation, and takes the usual measure of raising interest rates to counter it. So far so good, hopefully, but then consumer spending and business are constrained, with the economy suffering as a result. The government, under pressure, relents and drops interest rates. To no surprise, inflation remains high or even gets worse, leaving the government with a credibility problem.

Governments do such things "because they can": if not constrained from raising or lowering interest rates, they will do so, or in other words they have "policy discretion". There's nothing criminal about their inconsistency, any more than there is when individuals break their budgets "when something comes up" -- leaving them scrambling to put their houses back in order later. Indeed, their time inconsistency may have been entirely forced by unforeseen events, and the consequences are not necessarily troublesome; sometimes improvisations work surprisingly well. There is certainly no merit in sticking to a policy that isn't exactly working, as demonstrated by Ronald Reagan's commitment to supply-side economics even as it proved unrealistic, piling up huge deficits.

In the case of inflation, the trick is to take away the government's policy discretion by leaving the job of controlling the money supply to the central bank. That is yet another economic reality where the reaction is: "Well, of course!" -- but the US Federal Reserve didn't get independence until 1951, the Banque de France in 1994, and the Bank of England in 1998.

Independent central banks seemed to be the key to keeping inflation under control: it fell from a height in the early 1980s and stayed low to the end of the century, while the economy generally boomed. Some spoke of a "Great Moderation" of that era, but skeptics wondered if it was just a question of luck, that there were no "forcing functions" to drive inflation during that time -- such as the oil shocks that drove inflation in the 1970s. In time, events would show the truth to be between the two extremes, and that managing an economy is a game of both skill and luck.

In any case, Kydland and Prescott shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in economics, "for their contributions to dynamic macroeconomics: the time consistency of economic policy and the driving forces behind business cycles". The comment about business cycles concerned their work to nail down technology-driven cycles earlier explored by Schumpeter. [TO BE CONTINUED]

[THU 06 JUL 23] SCIENCE NOTES

* SCIENCE NOTES: As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Magnetic Solution Removes Toxic Forever Chemicals From Water" by Michael Irving, 22 January 2023), researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have devised a means of extracting persistent toxic chemicals from water -- by adding a solution to the water that coats the toxic molecules and magnetizes them, so they can be removed.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of chemicals that have been in wide use around the world since the 1950s, thanks to their water- and oil-repelling properties. However, they have been recently linked to a number of health problems, including increased risks of diabetes and liver cancer. PFAS are found at concerningly high levels in rainwater everywhere and are very hard to break down, giving the nickname of "forever chemicals."

Queensland researchers developed a solution called a "magnetic fluorinated polymer sorbent" which, when added to contaminated water, coats the PFAS molecules and allows them to be magnetically extracted. In tests with small samples of PFAS-laden water, the team found that the technique could remove over 95% of most PFAS molecules, including over 99% of "GenX", a particularly troublesome PFAS, within 30 seconds.

Other schemes have been devised to break down PFAS, usually involving catalysts triggered by UV light or heat. The Queensland researchers believe their approach has advantages, with the solution having the ability to be re-used up to ten times; their scheme is also unusually fast, and doesn't require energy input, other than for the magnetic separation process.

* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("First Virovore Discovered" by Michael Irving, 28 December 2022), researcher John DeLong of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln wanted to find out if any microbes got its living from devouring viruses. He didn't know about any that did, and it puzzled him, since viruses are potentially nutritious. DeLong said:

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To investigate, DeLong and his team collected samples of pond water, isolated various microbes, and then added large amounts of "chlorovirus" -- a freshwater inhabitant that infects green algae. Over the next few days, the researchers team tracked the population size of the viruses versus the other microbes to see which was gaining at the expense of the other.

The analysis showed that a ciliate known as Halteria appeared to eating the viruses. In water samples with no other food source for the ciliates, Halteria populations grew by about 15 times within two days, while chlorovirus levels dropped 100-fold. In control samples without the virus, Halteria didn't grow at all. In a later phase, the researchers tagged chlorovirus DNA with fluorescent dye, and found that Halteria cells soon began to glow from the devoured viruses.

The researchers have named Halteria a "virovore", the viral equivalent of "carnivore". They believe that it's not the only virovore, and are investigating further.

* As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("All-Seeing Telescope Will Snap Exploding Stars" by Daniel Clery, 24 August 2022), arrays of small telescopes have been on a growth path in recent years. The latest example of this trend is an array named the "Argus Panopticon", which went online in North Carolina in October 2022.

The project is being directed by astronomer Nicholas Law of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who had previously led the construction of a smaller array, the "Evryscope", discussed here in 2016. The Evryscope array had 27 telescopes, each 7 centimeters (2.75inches) across, looking outward from the surface of a hemispherical dome.

The new array takes its name from Argus Panoptes, the all-seeing, many-eyed giant of Greek mythology. The initial implementation, the "Argus Pathfinder", is an array of 39 small telescopes -- each with an aperture of 20 centimeters (8 inches) -- that can image a slice of sky 1,700 times the size of the full Moon. The telescopes all have solid-state CCD imagers and feed a data system that merges all of them for storage and analysis. The ultimate array will have 900 telescopes, equivalent to a unitary telescope with an aperture of 5 meters (16.4 feet), and be capable of observing the overall night sky.

Instead of looking out from a dome's surface, the Argus telescopes will sit in a shallow 10-meter (33-foot) wide bowl, all aiming out a window in a dome. Over the course of the night, the bowl and telescopes will pivot slowly to track the sky. The telescopes will use CMOS instead of CCD imagers, CMOS being better able to follow rapid changes in the images. Data from the array will be freely available in real time, with the control system issuing automatic alerts for interesting events to observatories with bigger telescopes.

The Argus Pathfinder will be placed in the Appalachian Mountains near Chapel Hill for debugging, moving later to Mount Laguna Observatory in California. Total cost of the completed array is expected to be about $20 million USD, or about $20,000 USD per telescope.

[WED 05 JUL 23] THE LAST TOURIST TRIP (6)

* THE LAST TOURIST TRIP (6): I got up early on Wednesday, 10 May, and drove to DIA to catch my flight out at 0600 AM. The flight was uneventful, the only interesting thing was finding that Seattle was clear and sunny as I flew in, giving me a splendid view of Mount Rainier. Much farther to the south, I could see a large conical peak, to wonder: Is that Mount Hood? It's next to Portland, in Oregon. Later I checked online for maps and air images, and determined it was indeed Mount Hood. I also confirmed that the mountain to the east of the line from Mount Rainier and Mount Hood was Mount Adams -- I'd wondered if it was Mount Rainier early in the approach -- and the truncated peak to the west of the line was Mount Saint Helens. Geez, I remember the eruption, it was over 40 years ago.

I got into SeaTac and made my way to the tram station -- first walking up a block to a 7-11 convenience store to get a coke. I'd located the store on Google Maps before leaving, I'd even gone down to street view to trace out the walk, so there were zero surprises getting to it. I had forgotten how hilly Seattle is, and it turned out to be a bit of a steep climb.

Taking the tram and the bus to the SMOF was a bit confusing. The system is based on use of an "Orca" card that maintains an account; there was no day pass system, and it wasn't clear how to handle the transfer from tram to bus. I did clumsily figure it out, and I was at the SMOF about 45 minutes before it opened at 1000 AM. It's right at Boeing Field, so I did get shots of a Boeing 777X prototype while I was waiting for the museum to open.

I recall way back when that the SMOF had a B-47 Stratojet bomber out front, but these days it has a spiffy Lockheed Super Constellation propliner on display. Once it did open, I went through it thoroughly, taking shots. I figured it would take from two to four hours to cover it all, but it only took me an hour and a half. I went back to SeaTac, walking up to the 7-11 to get lunch -- a hot dog and a coke -- then killed time waiting to get back to DIA. I'd also bought eyeshades from Amazon so I could get some sleep in the terminal, but it didn't work out all that well, I couldn't get useful sleep. I flew back in about midnight, and I was in bed by about 0245 AM -- getting up as usual as 0430 AM.

I judged it a very successful trip, if an unconventional one -- flying cross-country for a brief activity, then flying right back, only about 24 hours from end to end, cost being less than $290 USD. It did beat me up a bit, disrupting my sleep schedule for a few days. That sort of quick trip only works when the destination is a big city with a good metro transit system, and it isn't dependent on any particular date. I'll do it again in 2025 to visit NASM once more, and then hopefully never do it again.

As a footnote, I found out from my niece Jordy that she was going to get married in Roche Harbor, on San Juan Island in Puget Sound, where my brother has a little private resort complex -- yeah, he's a high roller. I tried to come up with a plan for getting there, but it was troublesome; I couldn't fly into SeaTac and take the shuttle boat to San Juan Island, or the reverse, in any less than two days. The expense wasn't great, but it was too much like work, so I told Jordy I'd have to beg off on her wedding. [END OF SERIES]

[TUE 04 JUL 23] ENERGY CYBERWAR

* ENERGY CYBERWAR: As discussed by an article from REUTERS.com ("Cyberattacks On Renewables" by Nora Buli, Nina Chestney and Christoph Steitz, 15 June 2023), the war in Ukraine has led to a ramp-up in an ongoing cyberwar, with Europe's renewable energy technologies now in the crosshairs.

Henriette Borgund is an "ethical hacker", a cybersecurity actor at Norsk Hydro in Oslo, having worked previously in military cybersecurity. She says: "I am not sure I want to comment on how often we find holes in our system. But what I can say is that we have found holes in our system."

The war in Ukraine awakened power producers to the vulnerability of their systems. Michael Ebner -- information security chief at German utility EnBW -- says: "We established last year, after the start of the Ukraine war, that the risk of cyber sabotage has increased." EnBW is expanding its 200-strong cybersecurity team to protect operations ranging from wind and solar to power grids.

So far, Russian cyber-attacks on power systems have largely been restricted to Ukraine, but outsiders are paying close attention to them. Torstein Gimnes Are, cybersecurity chief at Hydro, "The cyber campaigns that Russia has been running against Ukraine have been very targeted at Ukraine. But we have been able to observe and learn from it." Gimnes won't talk about specific attacks or threats, only speaking in generalities, such as possibility of malware infestations of power networks.

Ukraine's SBU security service says that Russia has launched more than 10 cyberattacks a day, on average, with the Ukrainian energy sector a priority target. SBU officials say Russia has tried to bring down digital networks and cause power cuts, and that missile attacks on facilities were often accompanied by cyberattacks. The Russians, of course, deny they are conducting cyber-attacks, and blame the US and its allies for cyber-attacks on Russia.

Swantje Westpfahl -- director at Germany's Institute for Security and Safety -- says renewable energy systems pose a particular challenge. Traditional power plants, running on gas or nuclear power, are relatively easy to physically and digitally wall off and protect, but renewable energy sources tend to be scattered:

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James Forrest -- executive vice president at Capgemini, a security consultant -- says that cyber-threats range from stealing sensitive data, to power outages, and even destruction of assets. He pointed to the Triton virus, which hackers used to remotely take over the safety systems of a Saudi petrochemical plant in 2017 and shut it down.

Sophisticated malware like Triton is a concern, but security officials say the most common threat are phishing emails, which attempt to penetrate organizational security by conning employees. Cem Gocgoren -- information security chief at Svenska Kraftnaet, a Swedish grid operator -- says such attacks are "more or less constant". SK has roughly quadrupled its cybersecurity team to about 60 over about the last four years, and is working to educate staff: "We have to make them understand that we are under attack all the time. It's the new normal."

Hacking into a wind farm can be easy. Researchers at the University of Tulsa conducted an experiment by hacking into unnamed wind farms in the United States in 2017 to test their vulnerabilities, with the permission of the wind farm operators. The researchers picked a lock to gain access to a chamber in the base of a wind turbine. They accessed the turbine's server and got a list of IP addresses representing every networked turbine in the field -- to then shut down the turbines.

Despite the heightened awareness, the European power sector is struggling to keep up with the threat. Jalal Bouhdada -- CEO of cybersecurity firm Applied Risk -- says:

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[MON 03 JUL 23] THE WEEK THAT WAS 26

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he promoted a new economic order that became known as "Reaganomics", based on the dual premises of cutting taxes and shrinking government. As discussed in a video from REUTERS.com, current US President Joe Biden has a counterpoint to Reaganomics, called of course "Bidenomics". Biden explains it as follows:

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Bidenomics is a rejection of Reaganomics, with the Biden Administration seeking to fund its agenda by taxing the wealthy, resulting in an economy that grows from the "middle out, the bottom up, instead of just the top down -- when that happens, everybody does well."

Biden wants to boost priority industries, such as chip making, clean energy, and electric cars. The goal is to revive US manufacturing and put US workers first: "Made in America -- not a slogan, it's actually happening!" Add to that, as discussed here in week 22, a careful approach to international trade through "securonomics" and "friendsourcing".

Any such economic initiative will take time to show clearly visible results, with Americans unhappy about high inflation. Biden says that US growth rates are excellent and employment is high. For now, only a minority of Americans are buying the Bidenomics story -- but economies go in cycles, inflation is steadily dropping, and it's a fair bet that the economy will be on the upswing in 2024.

* Regarding the rebellion of the Russian Wagner mercenary force discussed here last week, one "Yasmina (@yasminalombaert)" outlined just how foolish Putin has been:

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* That result is exactly what might be expected of Putin: having gone down a one-way dead-end street, Putin has nowhere left to go. As discussed in an essay from ECONOMIST.com by China commenter "Chaguan", Chinese President Xi Jinping doesn't see any reason to change direction either. According to Chaguan, Beijing doesn't see that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a disastrous blunder:

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Xi has emphasized his close relationship with Putin. The Chinese are annoyed with Putin for his incompetence, but:

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Chinese media provided relatively unfiltered reports about the Wagner rebellion to the public -- suggesting that Beijing is either giving itself wiggle room, or just doesn't see it as a serious issue. Indeed, Xi can take encouragement from the facts that the People's Liberation Army is strictly obedient to Beijing, and that Chinese leadership would never permit the rise of an alternate military force that could be disloyal. Beijing doesn't see Putin as a loser, just a wayward student in need of wise counsel from China:

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The problem for Xi is that he is betting on an endgame that isn't going to happen. Where will China be if Russia suffers total defeat in Ukraine, and Putin's regime then collapses into chaos? It will be hard for Xi to then deny that he might have indeed made a big mistake, leaving him at a loss to deal with the consequences.