21 entries including: Joe Biden (series), animal communications & AI (series), BRICS revisited (series), Mayhem hypersonic | Transwing drone | boom-refueling pod, critical minerals end-run around China, Trump circles the drain | Japan & ASEAN | old-time things, electrolyzing hydrogen from sea water, Hunter Biden pushes back on MAGA | Jill Biden's Xmas video, transparent & perovskite solar cells | China recycles renewables, hydrogen-fuel hubs | popular solar, Israeli-Palestine settlement? | deflated Trump | 1920s STAR TREK, enzymes against COVID-19 | sauna planets | age of Saturn's rings, EVs starting to take off, Zelenskyy assesses the war in 2023 | a Briton talks of Trump.
* JOE BIDEN (6): On his very first day at Syracuse Law School, Joe made the acquaintance of another new student, Jack Owens. They hit it off very well, becoming best friends, with Jack to eventually become integrated into the Biden clan. During a long, rambling conversation, Joe told Jack he planned to run for the US Senate from Delaware; Jack thought that was a wild thing for such a youngster to say that he shot: "Hey, what are you talking about, buddy?" Jack later said that Joe "projected a kind of confidence, without being obnoxious about it."
Joe was getting by financially with alumni and state aid, and had a job as a resident advisor in an undergraduate dorm for his room and board. He was spread thin, trying to juggle everything at once, with Neilia being his top priority. He still played sports of course, playing touch football and rugby. He got by academically as best he could, cramming for exams with Neilia's help, but wasn't an honor student. He found law school a grind and was impatient with it, wanting to get out and pursue his ambitions.
Early on, Joe got himself in trouble, when he botched a paper in a technical writing course, failing to properly cite it. He was accused of plagiarism and had to explain himself in a faculty meeting. He convinced the profs he hadn't cheated intentionally, but he was told he'd have to take the class again next year. The matter would dog him later. In any case James K. Weeks -- the associate law professor who had received the paper in question -- later judged that Joe was hardly one of his high-scoring students, but there was more to him than his performance on exams:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
He knows what he is doing and appears to possess good judgement and a highly developed sense of responsibility. He is the type of individual one is more than willing to take a chance on, for he is unlikely to sell short your expectations.
END_QUOTE
As was said of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joe had a second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament. In any case, Joe crammed his way through his first year at Syracuse Law School, and married Neilia in August 1966. They were married in a Catholic church, Neilia's father having given his blessing -- though Joe noticed he was extremely nervous during the ceremony, his hands trembling. All the Biden clan was there, along with friends going back to his Scranton days. Joe SR gave him a wedding present, a green 1967 model-year Chevy Corvette, which would be a prized possession for the rest of his life.
They moved into an apartment in the Strathmore district of Syracuse, with Neilia teaching at nearby Bellevue Elementary School. They were both very busy, but had time to hobnob with the neighbors, with Joe throwing together sports teams when he could. They particularly liked the neighbor kids, sometimes cramming them into the Corvette and driving off to buy them icecream. They all thought Neilia was drop-dead gorgeous, and the boys liked to spy on her when she was sunbathing. They got a young German shepherd dog from a neighbor and named him "Senator", clearly reflecting Joe's aspirations.
By this time, the Sixties counterculture revolution was coming up to full steam as the war in Vietnam intensified. Joe gradually grew opposed to the war, but was never one for "marching and carrying signs" -- one of his neighbors, Joseph Fahey saying of him: "He was pretty cautious. He was a middle-of-the-road liberal. He always favored working within the political process to make change." Joe was a good Catholic, didn't drink or smoke, and was certainly not going to "turn on, tune in, drop out", as the slogan had it then. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* WINGS & WEAPONS: As discussed in an article from THEDRIVE.com ("Mayhem Hypersonic Strike-Recon Jet Contract Awarded To Leidos" by Joseph Trevithick, 16 December 2022), the US Air Force has awarded a contract to startup company Leidos to develop a demonstrator hypersonic air vehicle, as part of the service's secret "Mayhem" program.
The first details about Mayhem emerged in 2020, with the program linked to a separate program to develop high-speed jet engines. Last year. In 2022, more information emerged, with the effort labeled the "Hypersonic Multi-mission ISR & Strike" project -- clearly identifying its roles, with "ISR" standing for "Intelligence, Surveillance, & Reconnaissance". According to the Pentagon contract announcement:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
This program is focused on delivering a larger class air-breathing hypersonic system capable of executing multiple missions with a standardized payload interface, providing a significant technological advancement and future capability. Work will be performed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and other potential testing sites to be determined, and is expected to be completed by 15 October 2028.
END_QUOTE
* Back in World War II, Grumman carrier-based combat aircraft -- like the Wildcat, Hellcat, and Avenger -- used wing folding so they could fit more conveniently on the carrier. Other manufacturers simply hinged their wings straight up, but that could lead to a height problem. Grumman took a different approach, rotating a wing at the hinge so it folded back flat alongside the fuselage.
As reported in an article from NEWATLAS.com, ("Pterodyamics Scales Up Its Remarkable Dihedral Transwing eVTOL" by Loz Blain, 8 May 2023), PteroDynamics -- a startup out of Colorado Springs, Colorado -- has taken a page from the Grumman playbook with the "Transwing" electric vertical take-off / landing (eVTOL) drone. The Transwing has a low-mounted wing and a vee tail, with two electric motors driving props on each wing, for a total of four. It also has actuators on the rear fuselage that connect with rods to the fuselage -- with the actuators pulling the wings back along the fuselage, allowing the drone to land straight down, coming to rest on the ends of the engine housings, and similarly take back off again. Once in flight, the actuators tilt the wings back out again. Surprisingly, the transition between modes seems, from videos, to be perfectly smooth.
Pterodynamics' current X-P4 prototype has a 4-meter (13.1-foot) wingspan, and a fuselage about 2 meters (6.6 feet) long. It uses only the inboard props in forward flight, with the props on the outboard motors snapping back to eliminate drag. It's been tested by the US Navy as a ship-to-shore logistics platform, ferrying a small cargo internally. Pterodynamics envisions larger members of the family, up to an air taxi with a capacity of ten passengers.
* As discussed in an article from THEDRIVE.com ("Podded Aerial Refueling Boom Design Has Been Completed For Air Force" by Thomas Newdick, 24 March 2023), in-flight refueling was developed after World War II, with the technology taking two directions:
Now the US Air Force has completed the design of a "small, pod-mounted tactical air refueling boom" that could be carried on future transport aircraft, as well as potentially other platforms like drones. This is surprising, few having thought there was any need for such a thing, and details of the exercise are lacking. It is plausible that the boom-refueling pod is intended to allow ordinary transport aircraft to become tankers, as well as larger drones.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* ANIMAL TALK & AI (2): The effort to understand animal talk is not only being enabled by AI, but by the reduction in cost and improvement in capability of technologies such as hydrophones, biologgers, and drones. The result is floods of data that are impossible to deal with by hand or traditional computer analysis. Only AI can do the job.
Originally, "large language models" like ChatGPT were trained by being fed huge training sets, with ChatGPT educated on about 45 terabytes of data -- equivalent to billions of pages of text. The training required that the model be told what the data elements actually meant, so it could match inputs to outputs. That was laborious, and so the next generation of models were designed to "bootstrap" or "self-supervise", being given a relatively small set of training data that educated them to the level of being able to determine what to match between inputs and outputs.
As a next step, in 2017 two research groups discovered a way to translate between human languages without being given any translation dictionary to start with. The trick was to analyze the languages, converted into networks, and comparing the networks. For example, tallying the frequency with which words such as "mother" and "daughter" appear near each other to accurately predict what comes next. Raskin says:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
There's this hidden underlying structure that seems to unite us all. The door has been opened to using machine learning to decode languages that we don't already know how to decode.
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In 2020, in a further step, natural-language processing began to be able to "treat everything as a language," as Raskin puts it. For example, consider DALL-E 2, an AI system that translates from text to images defined by the text. This leap between domains is the kind of "multimodal" capability that translation of animal communications is likely to require. Humans use body language and gestures while talking; while humans can write to communicate without such assistance, animals can't, and so any animal actions made immediately before, during, or after uttering sounds could provide important context for understanding what an animal is trying to "say". Traditionally, researchers have cataloged such behaviors in a list called an "ethogram". With the right training, machine-learning models could help parse these behaviors, and possibly discover patterns in the data.
As an early and simple step towards AI-driven understanding of animal languages, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers a free app named "Merlin" that identifies bird species. Merlin is trained on Cornell's library of bird songs; a user gives a recording of a bird song to Merlin, which converts it into a spectrogram and looks for the best match. It then compares this guess to eBird, Cornell's global database of bird observations, to make sure it's a species that one would expect to find in the user's location. Merlin can identify calls from more than 1,000 bird species with remarkable accuracy.
There is, however, a real-world difficulty with hearing the tune of one bird or whale from all the environmental noise around it. This is known as the "cocktail-party problem", the challenge of listening to one person while everyone is chattering away in the same room. Humans can do it instinctively, with varying degrees of success, but it has long plagued efforts to process animal vocalizations. In 2021, the Earth Species Project built a neural network that can separate overlapping animal sounds into individual tracks and filter background noise, such as car honks, then released the open-source code for free. It works by creating a visual representation of the overall sound, which the neural network uses to determine which pixel is produced by which speaker. In addition, the Earth Species Project recently developed a "foundational model" that can automatically detect and classify patterns in datasets. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CRITICAL MINERALS END-RUN? As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("Can Australia Break China's Monopoly On Critical Minerals?", 20 June 2023), China is dominant in the supply of a number of "critical minerals", including cobalt, graphite, lithium, nickel, and particularly the rare earths. They are crucial to many different technologies, with some being essential to wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles. A clean-energy future is impossible without them.
China supplies almost 90% of processed rare-earth elements, and is by far the biggest processor of lithium. In the Indo-Pacific region, this is driving Australia, Japan, South Korea and other nations to find alternative sources, and defining a new resource-based geopolitics in doing so.
Plans for new critical-mineral supply-chains are being drawn up in multilateral forums such as the Quad grouping of America, Australia, India and Japan. Resource-rich countries such as Australia and Indonesia -- with lots of nickel and plans for a battery industry -- are hoping to win a minerals bonanza. According to the National Bureau of Asian Research, a think-tank in Seattle, the strategizing focuses on three elements: "friend-shoring"; shifting supply-chain management from "just in time" to "just in case"; and building up spare capacity in minerals processing.
China's dominance, says Australia's resources minister, Madeleine King, is a "strategic challenge". On 20 June 2023, Australia's government unveiled a critical-minerals strategy to take on the challenge. Australia is the biggest producer of lithium, the third-biggest producer of cobalt, and fourth-biggest of rare earths, but does little processing itself. The plan is to become "a globally significant" producer of processed critical minerals by 2030.
The plan commits hundreds of millions of dollars to projects, this money being in addition to billions in an existing fund set up to get early-stage critical minerals projects off the ground, notably them a rare-earths refinery. Also in 2023, Australia's government blocked a Chinese entity from raising its stake in a rare-earths company, citing national security concerns.
Australia enjoys a free-trade relationship with the USA, and hopes to Australia hopes to qualify for green subsidies under President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. A delegation of Australian producers visited Tokyo to court Japanese investment and long-term purchase contracts. It is likely they got an attentive hearing, since in 2022 Japan made critical minerals one of 11 strategic sectors in need of government support. In March 2023, Japan and America agreed to co-operate on minerals supply chains, one part of the agreement being to counter "non-market" actors -- reading, of course, as "China".
In South Korea, President Yoon Suk-yeol's government has released a plan to secure critical-mineral supplies. The aim is to cut the country's import dependence on China from 80% to 50% by 2030 and to increase its use of recycled minerals, from 2% to 20% of the total. South Korea has struck partnerships with countries including Australia, Indonesia and Kazakhstan, as well as the EU. It has joined an American-led, multi-country Minerals Security Partnership, announced in 2022. Taiwan and India are also investigating new critical-minerals strategies.
China doesn't actually source all the critical minerals, instead having a lock on processing, which is costly, complicated, and potentially environmentally hazardous. Decades ago, China made processing central to its industrial plans, using massive subsidies and lax environmental standards. China's customers didn't mind relying on China as long as they could get critical minerals for cheap -- but in the past decade, since Xi Jinping became China's president, Beijing has become more aggressive and more willing to use its chokehold on the supply of rare earths to push its belligerent agenda. Russia's invasion of Ukraine then dramatically brought home the risks of becoming too economically reliant on authoritarian regimes.
Building up the infrastructure to process critical minerals is neither cheap nor easy, however, with the need to ensure environmental standards complicating it further. It will require inter-government planning and cooperation over decades to establish that infrastructure. Few think that China can simply be cut off; it's more a question of risk management, having alternatives. Greg Hayes, the boss of American defense giant Raytheon, says that ending its reliance on Chinese supplies of critical minerals looks "impossible ... we can de-risk but not decouple."
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Last week was definitely interesting, with Pope Francis saying Catholic priests could give their blessings to same-sex relationships. This was less dramatic than it sounded, in that the pope made it clear that gay marriage was still verboten. However, it was a big step in the right direction.
In another surprise, the Supreme Court of Colorado decided that, as per the provisions of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, Donald Trump is not eligible to run for President of the United States in the state in 2024. Now it goes up to the Supreme Court of the USA, and nobody knows what will happen to it there. Given that Trump is circling around the drain, it's not certain that taking him off the ballot in Colorado and other swing states will make any difference -- he's had it. However, the screaming of the Trump trolls in response to the judgement was very loud, and enjoyable to hear.
We have become so used to the absurdities of the Trump Era that we don't recognize them easily as absurd -- but a future generation will wonder how such a ridiculous figure as Trump ever came to be so powerful and feared. He is no longer powerful, and gradually he is no longer feared. As of late, he's taken to channeling Adolf Hitler, promising to be a monstrous tyrant if he's re-elected. That's certainly creating outrage, but it's just Trump, dialing it up to 11 so he can stay in the spotlight. It excites the MAGA trolls, but nobody else will vote for him.
Trump is slated to go to trial in the court of Judge Tanya Chutkan in March. Trump is attempting to play the "presidential immunity" card to the courts again to delay the inevitable. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith went to SCOTUS to ask them for a rapid judgement on Trump's immunity, but they replied, on unanimous vote, that it would go through the appeals court as planned. There was much protest against SCOTUS, but it seems unlikely that the appeals court will judge in Trump's favor, and unlikely that SCOTUS will accept an appeal from Trump if it does.
Oh, in another surprise for this last week, the meme #TrumpSmells went totally viral, with comparisons of Trump to landfills, dirty diapers, and so on. It appears that this really got to him. On another front Clay Bennett, cartoonist with the CHATTANOOGA TIMES -- I follow him on X/Twitter and have chatted with him a tiny bit -- had a recent cartoon of a boy holding a McDonald's box and Trump holding a big bag of McD's hamburgers, labeled:
boy: HAPPY MEAL trump: BITTER, ANGRY, & HATEFUL MEAL
* The growing outreach of Japan (and South Korea) was discussed here in October. An article from ECONOMIST.COM ("Japan Is A Cuddlier Friend To South-East Asia Than America Or China", 14 December 2023) discussed how Japan has been successfully courting the member states of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). There's a tendency to see ASEAN as stuck in a diplomatic tug-of-war between China and the USA, but that's oversimplifying matters:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
For many South-East Asian countries, Japan offers a vital hedge against the rival powers, as a source of capital, technology and aid. Over the past decade, Japanese foreign direct investment into ASEAN countries has totaled $198 billion USD, behind America's $209 billion USD, but beating China's $106 billion USD. Japanese firms covet South-East Asia's growing markets, and policymakers see the region as a bulwark against Chinese expansionism. Sustained engagement, from mediating regional conflicts to building regional institutions, has helped Japan accumulate substantial influence. According to a survey of South-East Asian researchers, businesspeople, and policymakers ... Japan is the region's most trusted outside partner.
END_QUOTE
In mid-December 2023, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio hosted ASEAN leaders in Tokyo. By all reports, it went well, Japan no longer having to mend fences with its neighbors:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Warm ties between Japan and South-East Asia were hardly inevitable. Imperial Japan spread death and destruction across the region. After the Second World War ended, ill-will lingered. In the early 1970s anti-Japanese riots broke out in Bangkok and Jakarta. In 1977 Japan's prime minister, Fukuda Takeo, called for building equal partnerships with South-East Asia based on "heart to heart" ties. The soft-edged "Fukuda Doctrine" came to characterize Japan's relations with the region. John Ciorciari of the University of Michigan and Kiyoteru Tsutsui of Stanford University dub Japan the "courteous power". As Mr Tsutsui puts it: "It's not that Japan is nice; Japan had to do it because of the legacy of the war."
Japanese diplomacy tends to be deferential where America's and China's can be preachy or pushy. Japan keeps relatively quiet about human-rights violations and talks to autocrats, hoping they will transform. At times this has seemed to pay off, as when military rule ended in Myanmar in 2011; at others it has not, as when the junta returned there a decade later. The past three Japanese prime ministers have visited South-East Asia within four months of taking office. America is "riding Japan's coat-tails" in South-East Asia, says Emma Chanlett-Avery of the Asia Society Policy Institute, an American think-tank.
Japanese private investment and state aid have helped to generate growth and goodwill. The Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA), Japan's overseas development arm, has provided training, expertise and funding for decades. The key to the trust Japan enjoys is "long-term consistency", says Tanaka Akihiko, JICA's president. The Manila-based Asian Development Bank, of which Japan is the largest shareholder, plays a big part in financing regional development. Japan is central to the two biggest regional trade deals of recent years, the CPTPP and RCEP. (America is absent from both, China a member only of the second.) Japanese soft power, from anime to ramen, has helped create Japanophiles across South-East Asia.
END_QUOTE
The Japanese have been investing big money in infrastructure development in South-East Asia, building roads, sewage systems, power plants, and currently Manila's first subway. ASEAN is developing rapidly: in 2000, the combined GDP of the ten ASEAN members was equivalent to 30% of Japan's, now it's over 70%. Increasing equality helps the relationships. Traditionally pacifistic Japan is also helping improve the defense of ASEAN:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Under Abe Shinzo, prime minister from 2012 to 2020, Japan loosened the legal shackles on its armed forces and defense industry. It has since concluded defense-equipment transfer agreements with the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia; Japan builds boats for coastguards in the Philippines and Vietnam. ... Japanese strategists ... see capacity-building in South-East Asia as a way to counter China's assertiveness throughout the Indo-Pacific. As a Japanese security official puts it: "The theatres are connected."
END_QUOTE
As the article concludes: "Japan's outreach to South-East Asia will always include roads, ramen, and courtesy. But a harder edge is emerging."
* Pakistan has an inclination to throw its civilian leaders into jail, which is what happened to former Prime Minister Imran Khan. He was locked up in August 2023 on charges of leaking classified documents; Khan says he was arrested to keep him from running in the general election in early 2024.
OK, nasty as this is, it's business as usual in Pakistan, and not all that noteworthy. What was noteworthy was that his supporters took some rough notes written by Khan and handed off by his lawyers to produce an AI-generated video speech starring Khan.
This was the sort of thing that doesn't seem as startling in hindsight. The technology is clearly there, it's just a new use of it. It leads to the interesting question: What if Donald Trump checks out, and his stooges continue his campaign with an AI-generated animation? That would be definitely novel, but I don't think it would accomplish much for them. They might as well haul around a Disney animatronic robot, or a wax dummy.
On another unusual front in the AI revolution, X/Twitter has introduced their own AI chatbot named "Grok", which has received good press. However, the firm's owner, Elon Musk, is not completely happy with it, because when it's asked, say: "Are vaccines safe?" -- it answers along the lines of: "All validated medical research shows they are safe." Musk, confronted with the liberal bias of reality, is considering changes.
* Anyway, AI is the future, leaving the past in the dust as we grow older. A list of things to remind us of aging has been making the rounds, with a point assigned to each thing on the list we've done:
used a rotary phone used a floppy disk used a typewriter taken pictures with a film camera listened to music on a CD owned a walkman listened to music on a boombox watched a movie on VHS rented a movie from Blockbusters learned cursive sent or received a fax accessed the internet via dial-up used a phone book used an encyclopedia sent a postcard used a paper map owned a dictionary owned a thesaurus written a check uncurled a telephone cord rewind a cassette tape using a pencil
Yes, I've done them all, and a few of them I still do on occasions. I print out paper maps when I plan for travel, because I don't like to drive and fumble with a phone while I'm doing it. However, I use Google Maps to get a street view of where I'm going to help navigate.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* JOE BIDEN (5): In any case, the Corn Pop confrontation was part of Joe Biden's familiarization process with black American culture in Delaware, which was undergoing gradual desegregation in that era. He chatted with the other lifeguards, all black, and played as the only white guy in informal all-black basketball teams, to find out that most of them didn't know any other white guys. He recollected later:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
They'd ask me questions like: "What do white girls do? Where do you live?" It was almost like we were exchange students. It was a real awakening for me. I was always the kid in high school to get into arguments about civil rights. I didn't do any big deal ... I marched a couple of times to desegregate the movie theaters in downtown Wilmington ... [but] I wasn't part of any great movement.
END_QUOTE
Nonetheless, Joe acquired black friends -- he never had problems making friends -- building up another element of his tight-knit Delaware social network. Incidentally, while Joe was in college, he had to sign up for the draft, but he was able to get deferments. In the early 60s, with no real war on, getting a deferment was no big deal. He would continue to get deferments and would never serve in the military.
By 1964, his junior year, Joe was worrying that his grades weren't good enough to get him into graduate school, so on the advice of his teachers he doubled down on the studying. His grades improved, and he felt confident enough to get back into football, with a chance for a slot on the Delaware team come the next year.
However, that got derailed when he went down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for spring break. Fort Lauderdale was, to no surprise in hindsight, overrun with students on spring break, most of them male. When the group found out they could take a short air trip to the Bahamas on cheap fares, they took it -- Joe had never flown before, incidentally. They ended up on Paradise Island, where the guys crashed a hotel beach. There was a gaggle of pretty girls there and Joe, always brash, went up to the one he thought prettiest and said: "Hi, I'm Joe Biden." The girl replied: "Hi Joe, I'm Neilia Hunter."
Joe was entirely smitten at first sight, and he clicked with Neilia right away. She was going to Syracuse University in New York State -- not very far from Skanateles, her hometown -- and studying to be a teacher, about ready to graduate and get a job. He stayed with her every moment he could until he went back to Wilmington, having arranged to go to Syracuse the following weekend. When he got back to his parents' house, he called out to Valerie, and told her excitedly: "I met the girl I'm going to marry!"
When he drove up to Syracuse, he was dressed as neatly as he was able, going in a nice car loaned from Joe SR's car lot. Neilia hadn't cooled off by that time, with the relationship growing stronger. He gave up all thought of getting on the Delaware football team. He continued the long-distance commute every weekend, with Neilia also coming to Wilmington to meet his family. He stayed in a boarding house when he was in Syracuse; Neilia's parents, who were well-to-do, found him well-conducted, though her father had issues about the fact that he was a Catholic.
Joe had been thinking of going to Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York, but In started looking into Syracuse Law School instead. He graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 with a bachelor's degree in political science and history, to then enroll in Syracuse Law School. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* Space launches for November included:
[03 NOV 23] CN WC / LONG MARCH 7A / TJW 10 -- A Long March 3B booster was launched from Wechang at 1454 UTC (local time - 8) to put the secret "TJW 10" satellite into geostationary orbit. It was apparently a SIGINT satellite. The TJW satellites were manufactured by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology.
[04 NOV 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-26 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0037 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 23 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
[08 NOV 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-27 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0505 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 23 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
[09 NOV 23] CN XC / LONG MARCH 3B / CHINASAT 6E -- A Long March 3B booster was launched from Xichang at 1123 UTC (local time - 8) to put the "Chinasat 6E" AKA "Zhongxing 6E" geostationary comsat into space. The satellite was built by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and based on the DFH 4 bus. The satellite had an overall bandwidth of more than 100 gigabits per second. It had a footprint extending from the Horn of Africa to Japan, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and northern Queensland in Australia.
[10 NOV 28] USA-C CC / FALCON 9 / SPACEX DRAGON CRS 29 -- A SpaceX Falcon booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0128 UTC (next day local time + 4), carrying the 29th 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.
[11 NOV 23] USA VB / FALCON 9 / TRANSPORTER 9 -- A SpaceX Falcon booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 1849 UTC (local time + 8) on the "Transporter 9" mission -- a rideshare flight to low-Earth orbit, carrying 90 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.
Payloads were mostly picosatellites and CubeSats, including five of the larger 16-unit (16U) CubeSats. A number of "orbital transfer vehicles (OTV)" or "space tugs" were flown, carrying nanosats for deployment and hosting payloads of their own, including:
Satellite payloads included microsats, CubeSats, and picosats:
Other payloads on board that were not described included "IRIS C2" "OrbAstro PC1 & TR1", and "Platform 5".
[12 NOV 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / O3B MPOWER 5 & 6: -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 2108 UTC (local time + 3) to put the "O3B MPOWER 5 & 6" medium Earth orbit (MEO) comsats into orbit. This was the second launch of second-generation O3B satellites. The Falcon 9 booster landed on the SpaceX recovery barge.
The company's original constellation consists of 20 satellites, all in MEO, which were launched aboard five Soyuz missions between from 2013 to 2019. O3b was originally owned by the company O3b Networks before being acquired by SES in 2016. The satellites making up this second-generation constellation are built by Boeing and are based on the Boeing 702X satellite bus, with electric propulsion.
[16 NOV 23] CN JQ / LONG MARCH 2C / HAIYANG 3A -- A Long March 2C booster was launched from Jiuquan at 0355 UTC (local time - 8) to put the "Haiyang (Ocean) 3A" SAR ocean-observation satellite into orbit, for the China National Satellite Ocean Application Service (NSOAS), a branch of the China's State Oceanic Administration.
[18 NOV 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-28 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 1300 UTC (local time + 4) to put 23 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
[20 NOV 23] USA VB / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 7-6 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 1030 UTC (local time + 8) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
[21 NOV 23] NK LC / CHOLLIMA 1 / MALLIGYONG 1 F3 -- A Chollima 1 booster was launched from North Korea's Shohae launch center to put the "Malligyong 1" spy satellite into space. It was the first successful launch in three tries.
[22 NOV 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-29 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0747 UTC (local time + 4) to put 23 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
[23 NOV 23] CN XC / LONG MARCH 2D / HULIANWANG JISHU SHIYAN 2A:2C -- A Long March 2D / YZ-3 booster was launched from Xichang at 1000 UTC (local time - 8) to put the "Hulianwang Jishu Shiyan 2A,2B,2C" comsats into orbit. They were believed to be test satellites for a "SatNet" constellation.
[25 NOV 23] RU PL / SOYUZ 2-1B / RAZDAN 1 (COSMOS 2572) -- A Soyuz 2-1b booster was launched from Plesetsk at 2058 UTC (next day local time - 3) to put the "Razdan 1 (Cosmmos 2572)" satellite into orbit.
[28 NOV 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-30 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0420 UTC (local time + 4) to put 23 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* ANIMAL TALK & AI (1): As discussed in an article from SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.com ("Artificial Intelligence Could Finally Let Us Talk with Animals" by Lois Parshley, 1 October 2023), it's long been obvious that animals often have languages of a sort, some more sophisticated than others. Thanks to the learning capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), we are now acquiring better tools to decode those languages.
The corvids -- including crows, magpies, and jays -- are known to be smart birds, with none smarter than the New Caledonian crow; it can fashion tools from twigs and use them to, for example, pick insects out of tree bark. Only a handful of birds are known to make tools.
Christian Rutz, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, has spent much of his career studying the crow's capabilities. The ingenuity Rutz observed changed his understanding of what birds can do. He started wondering if there might be other overlooked animal capacities. The crows live in elaborate social groups and may pass toolmaking techniques on to their offspring. Experiments have also shown that different crow groups around the island have distinct vocalizations. Rutz wanted to know whether these dialects could help explain cultural differences in toolmaking among the groups.
Rutz and other animal behaviorists are getting help from artificial intelligence. Humans have long believed animals have languages of a sort, and that we might be able to learn them -- a notion reinforced by the abilities of some sorts of parrots to carry on simple conversations. Researchers have long been wary of coming to such a conclusion, in large part because people are naturally inclined to believe it. However, Rutz thinks that, thinks that AI is a game-changer: "People realize that we are on the brink of fairly major advances in regard to understanding animals' communicative behavior."
Butz isn't the only one working on AI tools to help understand animal languages. The Project Cetacean Translation Initiative (CETI) is focusing on trying to understand the vocalizations of the sperm whale. The Earth Species Project (ESP) has a broader focus, with its team of AI researchers, biologists, and conservation experts collecting a wide range of data from a variety of species and building machine-learning models to analyze them. Aza Raskin, one of the founders of ESP, believes the group's work is potentially revolutionary, comparable to the invention of the telescope: "We looked out at the universe and discovered that Earth was not the center." The use of AI to probe animal communications will have a similar impact: "These tools are going to change the way that we see ourselves in relation to everything."
For almost two decades Shane Gero, a scientist in residence at Carleton University in Ottawa, kept detailed records of two clans of sperm whales in the waters of the Caribbean around Dominica, capturing their clicking vocalizations and noting what the animals were doing when they made them. He found that the whales seemed to use specific patterns of sound, called "codas", to identify one another. Like human babies, the juveniles pick up the codas by repeating sounds the adults around them make.
Having decoded a few of these codas manually, Gero and his colleagues began to wonder whether they could use AI to make it easier. As a proof of concept, the team fed some of Gero's recordings to an artificial neural network (ANN), matching the codas to the whales. The ANN was then able to identify a small subset of individual whales from the codas 99% percent of the time. That led to Project CETI, for which Gero serves as lead biologist, which plans to deploy an underwater microphone attached to a buoy to record the vocalizations of Dominica's resident whales around the clock. [TO BE CONTINUED]
NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* ELECTROLYZING SEAWATER: As discussed in an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("Splitting Seawater Could Provide An Endless Source Of Green Hydrogen" by Robert F. Service, 15 March 2023), there's been considerable interest in using hydrogen -- split out of water using "electrolyzers", powered by renewable energy -- as a fuel. Although not very much "green hydrogen" is being produced these days, advocates believe it could become a major fuel resource.
Current electrolyzers, however, need fresh water as a feedstock. Widespread use of green hydrogen implies breaking down large volumes of water, which could put pressure on fresh water supplies. Now a number of researchers are working on electrolyzers that can handle salt water, which would mean access to an effectively limitless water supply.
Green hydrogen is not the norm today, most hydrogen being obtained from methane, using fossil fuels to generate the needed heat and pressure -- resulting in carbon emissions. The challenge for green hydrogen is to get down the cost -- which currently runs to about $5 USD per kilogram. Much of the problem is the high cost of electrolyzers, which rely on catalysts made from precious metals. The US Department of Energy (DOE) is now running a decade-long effort to improve electrolyzers and bring the cost of green hydrogen down to $1 USD per kilogram.
Large-scale production of green hydrogen could well put pressure on global fresh-water supplies. Generating 1 kilogram of hydrogen using electrolysis takes some 10 kilograms of water; running trucks and key industries on green hydrogen could demand about 25 billion cubic meters of fresh water a year, equivalent to the water consumption of a country with 62 million people, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Sea water is much more plentiful than fresh water, but it poses problems for electrolyzers. An electrolyzer is an electrolytic cell, with two electrodes separated by an electrolyte. The electrodes are covered with catalysts to promote chemical reactions. A negative voltage is applied to one electrode, the cathode, with a positive voltage applied to the other electrode, the anode. Water is dissociated by the catalysts on the cathode into hydrogen and hydroxyl ions (H+ and OH- respectively), with hydrogen gas (H2) produced at the cathode and oxygen gas (O2) produced at the anode. However, with sea water the anode also generates chlorine gas, derived from the salt. The chlorine gas corrodes the cell, causing it to quickly fail.
Three research groups are working on a fix. Researchers led by Nasir Mahmood -- a materials scientist at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia -- coated their electrodes with negatively charged compounds such as sulfates and phosphates, which repelled negatively charged chloride ions and prevented the formation of chlorine gas. Their cell proved robust, though at first it generated little hydrogen; further tweaking resulted in an effective cell.
Qiao Shizhang, a nanotechnologist at the University of Adelaide, and his colleagues made changes to a different type of electrolyzer that features semipermeable membrane between the electrodes; in this type of cell, the dissociation reaction is at the anode, with H+ ions then migrating through the membrane to the cathode to form H2. Qiao and his team coated their electrodes with chromium oxide, which attracted a bubble of OH- ions that repelled chloride ions. The device split seawater for 100 hours at high currents without degradation.
Shao Zongping, a chemical engineer at the Nanjing University of Technology, and his colleagues took a third approach to dealing with the chloride. They surrounded the electrodes with membranes that only allow freshwater vapor to pass through from the surrounding bath of seawater. As the electrolyzer converts fresh water to hydrogen and oxygen, it creates a pressure that draws more water molecules through the membrane, replenishing the freshwater supply. Shao and his colleagues report their setup operated for 3200 hours with no sign of degradation.
Md Kibria [not misspelled], a materials chemist at the University of Calgary, suggests that there's no visible need for electrolyzing seawater, since desalinization technology is available that can produce fresh water for conversion with little markup.
Mahmood disagrees, saying the desalination approach is only efficient at large scale, meaning big infrastructure costs; it would be useful to have a scalable technology that allows a facility to start out small and then grow. He also points out that corrosion-resistant electrodes may also be useful for tapping other impure water sources, such as wastewater and brackish water. Mahmood says: "We need to keep working on alternative technologies."
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: The MAGA element in Congress continues their harassment of President Biden's son Hunter, having issued a subpoena for him to appear for questioning by the House Oversight Committee, led by Representative James Comer. Hunter Biden (HB) said he was agreeable to testifying -- but only in a public hearing lest his testimony be willfully misconstrued. The House MAGA did not like that at all, insisting that his testimony be conducted in private, and threatening him with contempt. This last week, HB showed up outside the Capitol Building, to comment to the media:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
I'm here today to answer at a public hearing, any legitimate questions Chairman Comer and the House Oversight Committee may have for me. I'm here today to make sure that the House committee's illegitimate investigations of my family did not proceed on distortions, manipulated evidence and lies. And I'm here today to acknowledge that I've made mistakes in my life and wasted opportunities and privileges I was afforded, for that I'm responsible. For that, I'm accountable, and for that I'm making amends.
But I'm also here today to correct how the MAGA right has portrayed me for their political purposes. I am first and foremost a son, a father, a brother, and a husband from a loving and supportive family. I'm proud to have earned degrees from Georgetown University and Yale Law School. I'm proud of my legal career and business career. I'm proud of my time serving on a dozen different boards of directors, and I'm proud of my efforts to forge global business relationships.
For six years, MAGA Republicans, including members of the House committees, who are in a closed door session right now, have impugned my character, invaded my privacy, attacked my wife, my children, my family, and my friends. They have ridiculed my struggle with addiction, they belittled my recovery and they have tried to dehumanize me, all to embarrass and damage my father who has devoted his entire public life to service. For six years, I have been the target of the unrelenting Trump attack machine, shouting: "Where's Hunter?"
Well, here's my answer. I am here. Let me state as clearly as I can. My father was not financially involved in my business, not as a practicing lawyer, not as a board member of Barisma, not in my partnership with a Chinese private businessman, not in my investments at home nor abroad, and certainly not as an artist.
During my battle with addiction, my parents were there for me. They literally saved my life. They helped me in ways that I will never be able to repay, and of course they would never expect me to. And in the depths of my addiction, I was extremely irresponsible with my finances. But to suggest that his grounds for an impeachment inquiry is beyond the absurd, it's shameless.
There is no evidence to support the allegations that my father was financially involved in my business because it did not happen. James Comer, Jim Jordan, Jason Smith and their colleagues have distorted the facts by cherry-picking lines from a bank statement, manipulating texts I sent, editing the testimony of my friends and former business partners, and mis-stating personal information that was stolen from me. There is no fairness or decency in what these Republicans are doing. They have lied over and over about every aspect of my personal and professional life, so much so that their lies have become the false facts believed by too many people.
No matter how many times it is debunked, they continue to insist that my father's support of Ukraine against Russia is the result of a non-existent bribe. They displayed naked photos of me during an oversight hearing, and they have taken the light of my dad's love for me, and presented it as darkness. They have no shame. These same committee chairman have engaged in unprecedented political interference in what would've already been a five-year investigation of me.
Yet here I am, Mr. Chairman, taking up your offer. When you said, we can bring these people in for depositions or committee hearings, whichever they choose. Well, I've chosen. I'm here to testify at a public hearing today to answer any of the committee's legitimate questions. Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say. What are they afraid of? I'm here. I'm ready.
END_QUOTE
HB's public show went over well with the sensible, though the MAGA trolls howled. Not all that incidentally, videos suggest that HB came to the Capitol Building in a Secret Service armored limousine. As a Biden family member, he is clearly under Secret Service protection, and definitely needs it. In any case it is unlikely, if not impossible, that the House will pass a vote to hold HB in contempt. Even if they do, the DOJ won't do anything with it.
HB has also been hit with a felony indictment by Special Counsel David Weiss, who has been investigating him for five years now. Weiss had previously been embarrassed when he cut a plea deal with HB that was rejected by the courts. The indictment doesn't seem to add up; yes, HB was in arrears in taxes, but it seems already made restitution and paid penalties, and that's almost always as much as the IRS wants. Bigger tax cheats haven't been indicted.
The indictment also spent too much time rehashing HB's wild conduct while he was addicted, which seemed more like personality assassination than relevant to the charges. Might it be the case that Weiss wants to press the nastiest case he can against HB and get the House MAGA off his back? Knowing that a jury is likely to give HB a PASS? If so, that seems futile, since the House MAGA cannot be satisfied.
James Comer, talking to CNN's Jake Tapper, claimed that the indictment was to "protect" HB, with Tapper all but breaking out laughing. Comer says clueless things like that all the time; he makes Inspector Clouseau look competent. HB, also not incidentally, is pressing a set of big libel suits against his persecutors. Given how unrestrained they have been, odds seem good of him winning.
* The House MAGA are also moving forward on an "impeachment investigation" of Joe Biden. Since nobody knows of any grounds for impeaching Joe Biden, it will amount to nothing but theatrics. What may be the case is that, knowing Trump is going down hard, the GOP wants to put on a show of defending him. It won't help them.
Speaking of fuss over nothing ... First Lady Jill Biden came up with exuberant candy-cane Christmas decorations for the White House, and then invited the Dorrance Dance tap-dancing troupe, led by Michelle Dorrance, to dance their way through the rooms and decorations, to the tune of Duke Ellington's big-band jazz take on Tchaikovsky's THE NUTCRACKER.
It was flashy and stylish, something like maybe what Disney would put together these days, and nothing that would startle anyone who ever saw a family-rated Las Vegas show or the like. For whatever reasons the MAGA trolls decided to lose their minds over it, accusing Jill Biden of every satanic depravity as part of a "War On Christmas", including a fair amount of acidic sneering that some of the dancers were black folk. Trump lieutenant Stephen Miller -- known for his resemblance to the vampire Nosferatu -- told FOX's Laura Ingraham:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
It's a war on normal, Laura, fundamentally. They hate normal. Christians, religious people who believe in God, people that believe in family and children. People believe that in an upstanding way of living, they believe in borders, people that believe in all the things that make society run. They hate normal. So when you look at these ANTIFA protests, when you look at these radical Left women's marches, when you look at these open borders marches, what do you see, you see people in purple hair and pink hair and a thousand face piercings, and horrendous tattoos and bizarre outfits.
END_QUOTE
It seems the MAGA trolls are becoming ever more desperate these days, another recent example being their war against pop singer Taylor Swift -- who has drawn their wrath by not liking Donald Trump, and encouraging her fans to vote. She's stayed above it all, and the attacks seem to have raised her public stature. I think the odds are fair that she'll do a hookup with Joe Biden during the presidential election campaign, or maybe better Kamala Harris. Harris needs a higher profile.
The mad rantings of the MAGA trolls have gone so far around the bend that it is unlikely anyone with (>=brain/2) pays any attention to them. A poll found that people who don't believe the mainstream media are now disinclined to believe the troll media either. There is much justified alarm over wild MAGA talk, but from here it looks like the Right is falling to pieces along with Donald Trump.
Trump is going down, little doubt about it, and after that it's hard to see that the GOP has any future. Consider that:
-- are Centrist positions in the 21st century, and the GOP has rejected all of them. These days, Trump is loudly channeling Adolf Hitler in his speeches, clearly for shock effect, with the GOP refusing to protest. This is not a path to electoral success.
Trump's efforts to shock people are working, but not doing him much good. Commenter Ian Bremmmer noted on X/Twitter: "Any public company CEO, university president, or other accountable leader would be forced to resign for saying things Trump routinely says on the campaign trail." Another commenter, John Sipher, replied: "He would be fired from Piggly Wiggly." For non-Americans, that's a supermarket chain associated with the US Southeast.
Trump is a dead end, and the GOP is stuck with him. Given that Trump is probably going to be indisposed, one way or another, by the time the election comes around, the GOP convention in July is likely to be a spectacular train wreck. As far as Stephen Miller goes, the thought I had in response to his rantings was that three years from now, Miller will be serving a prison sentence.
That made me feel better. I'm old enough to remember the Sixties and how crazy things were then; the Trump Era has been crazier, and regression to the mean back to normal -- a "new normal" to be sure -- will happen, if not necessarily right away. I'll have to be patient until it does.
* Regarding Christmas decor: I've always wanted to get a toy train to run around my little plastic Christmas tree. I spotted a cheap toy train set for kids on Amazon and bought it, and it turned out to work just fine for the job, with snap-together tracks. One of the concerns I had with the train engine is that these cheap battery-operated toys often use very small Philips-head screws to keep the battery compartment closed, instead of a snap fit scheme -- and the screw heads don't take well to repeated use. Fortunately, although the engine did use a single screw to keep it in place, once it was loosened I could snap the batteries in and out without using it again. It was definitely worth the low price.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* JOE BIDEN (4): At the University of Delaware, Joe of course continued to play sports, and remained socially energetic and outgoing. He didn't join a fraternity, but he was elected president of the freshman class. His classmates remembered him as a neat dresser, rarely if ever wearing bluejeans. Joe also played football, though he had to back off when his grades suffered.
He continued to date girls, including Maureen Masterson -- though Joe introduced her to one of his dorm mates, Jim Greco, and she gravitated towards him instead. Later Maureen and Jim got married, with the Grecos remaining close friends with Joe. Valerie, incidentally, came to the University of Delaware in Joe's junior year, with Joe getting in trouble sometimes with the campus police for hanging around the women's dorm to visit her. They often double-dated.
In the summer of 1962, in between his freshman and sophomore years, Joe got a job as a lifeguard at Prices Run, a public swimming pool, where he was one of the few white people there. It proved to be a formative experience, one particular incident sticking in his mind, recycling it in speeches:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
I was one of the guards in the diving board area. Swimmers weren't allowed to bounce on the board; it was a three-meter board, and if you fell off sideways, you landed on the cement.
There was a "bad dude" at the pool they called "Corn Pop", who ran with a bunch of bad boys. Another rule was that if you used Pomade hair styling, you had to wear a baby cap. Corn Pop got up on the board, wasn't wearing a cap, and bounced on the board. I called to him: "Hey, Esther, you! Off the board, or I'll come up and drag you off." [The reference was to Esther Williams, a competition swimmer who went to Hollywood and starred in swim-related movies.]
Corn Pop got off the board, but he was mad, saying: "I'll meet you outside." I had parked outside the gate. I found out there were three guys with straight razors. Not a joke. I talked to a guy named Bill, a white guy, a mechanic who helped maintain the city pools. I asked Bill: "What am I gonna do?"
Bill said: "Come down here in the basement, where all the pool gear is." He cut me a six-foot length of chain, folded it up, and handed it to me: "You walk out with that chain, and you walk to the car and say: 'You may cut me, man, but I'm gonna wrap this chain around your you head.'"
"You're kidding me." "No." So I walked out with the chain and up to my car. In those days, the bad boys liked straight razors, put them in the rain barrel to get them rusty. He looked Corn Pop in the eye, and said: "When I tell you to get off the board, you get off the board, and I'll kick you out again -- but I shouldn't have called you Esther Williams, and I apologize for that."
I didn't know if apology was gonna work. He said: "You apologize to me?" I told him: "I apologize for what I said, but not for throwing you out."
He said: "Okay." -- and closed the straight razor. My heart began to beat again.
END_QUOTE [rewritten for clarity]
Biden's critics insist the "Corn Pop" story was embellished at best, a fabrication at worst -- but Delaware is a small state, Wilmington is only a middling-sized city, and there's not so many "degrees of separation" in the population. People got to know about Joe, and they generally backed up his stories. Incidentally, today that pool is the "Joe Biden SR" swimming pool. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE
* GIMMICKS & GADGETS: As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com
("Semi-Transparent Solar Cells Boost Growth Of Greenhouse Plants" by Michael
Irving, 07 March 2023), transparent solar cells are nothing new, having been
discussed in the past. However, so far they
haven't had much of an impact.
They may help resolve a dilemma, however. Solar farms and conventional agriculture are competing for land; Researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) thought that didn't really need to be so, and built semi-transparent solar cells that could be mounted on the roofs of greenhouses.
The solar cells were of organic construction, meaning based on carbon compounds. Organic technology can produce transparent, flexible solar cells, but they tend to degrade quick. The UCLA researchers accordingly coated their cells with a chemical named "L-glutathione" that sealed them off and prevented them from oxidizing. The lifetime of the cells greatly increased.
Next, the researchers put the solar cells to work in model greenhouses, growing wheat, mung beans, and broccoli. Each crop was grown in one of two greenhouses -- one with a clear glass roof dotted with segments of inorganic solar cells, and the other with a roof entirely consisting of semi-transparent organic solar cells. The organic cells demonstrated a power conversion efficiency of 13.5%, and allowed 21.5% of visible light to pass through. That proved to be enough, since cells blocked ultraviolet and infrared light, allowing wavelengths useful for photosynthesis to pass through. In addition, strong ultraviolet can damage plants, while too much infrared can make the greenhouse too hot.
The team is now working to commercialize their technology. Over the longer run, cell designs may be optimized to absorb wavelengths useful for power generation, while allowing wavelengths useful for plant growth to pass through.
* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Silver Mirror Triples Efficiency Of Perovskite Solar Cells" by Michael Irving, 19 February 2023), there's been substantial work on the use of perovskite minerals in solar cells. Perovskite cells promise to be cheap, but they haven't reached the efficiency levels of silicon solar cells. Now researchers at the University of Rochester in New York state have boosted the efficiency of perovskite cells by three and a half times -- by adding a layer of a different material underneath it that changed the interactions of the electrons in the perovskite.
All solar cells work by using sunlight to excite electrons to a higher energy state, freeing them from being linked into the cell material so they can be used in an electric current. However, they have a tendency to recombine with the cell material, reducing current.
The researchers found they were able to dramatically reduce electron recombination in perovskite by placing it on a substrate made up of either silver alone, or alternating layers of silver and aluminum oxide. The team says that doing so creates a kind of "mirror" that suppresses recombination. The improved perovskite cell is just a lab exercise at present, not near to commercialization.
* As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("China To Set Up Solar, Wind Recycling System As Waste Volumes Surge", 17 August 2023), the push towards renewable energy is leading to a problem: how to dispose of renewable-energy generation systems when they wear out in a few decades. Total waste from solar projects alone could reach 212 million tonnes a year by 2050, according to one scenario drawn up by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) last year.
China is currently the leader in production of renewable energy technology. China is on track to meet its goal to bring total wind and solar capacity to 1,200 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, up from 758 GW at the end of last year -- with the accompanying problem of phasing out old tech.
The China National Development & Reform Commission is now drawing up industrial standards and rules detailing the proper ways to decommission, dismantle, and recycle wind and solar facilities. The state planning agency said that China would have a "basically mature" full-process recycling system by the end of the decade. China will need to recycle 1.5 million tonnes of PV modules by 2030, rising to around 20 million tonnes in 2050.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* BRICS REVISITED (2): The number of BRICS countries and future potential members comes to a total of 18. If all were to join, that would certainly complicate the acronym considerably; more importantly, it would increase the population of the BRICS countries from 3.2 billion (41% of global population) to 4.6 billion (58%), versus 10% for the G7 members. The Big BRICS' share of world GDP would rise to 34% -- still behind the G7's but twice the share of the EU -- and would raise the bloc's share of world trade from 18% to 27%. China would still be the biggest player, however, accounting for 55% of the output -- contrasted with America, with 58% of the G7.
Even now, the bloc is deepening its existing relationships. Along with the annual summit of bigwigs, there is a growing list of meetings involving academics, firms, ministers, ruling parties and think-tanks from BRICS members and countries friendly to them. Some of these meetings look like junkets, but even at that, they serve a purpose. Oliver Stuenkel -- of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a Brazilian think-tank -- say: "These meetings are often dull, but they allow bureaucrats to globalize their network."
The BRICS bloc also has worked on more serious exercises. It has established two financial institutions, which have been called a "mini-IMF" and a "mini-World Bank". The mini-IMF is the "Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA)", which was agreed to at the BRICS summit in 2014. It is an as yet untested set of swap lines for central banks to get hard currency if they have balance-of-payments problems. The mini-World Bank is the "New Development Bank (NDB)". Since its establishment in 2015 it has lent $33 billion USD for almost 100 projects. Countries do not have to be BRICS members to sign up. Three new members have joined in the past three years: Bangladesh, Egypt and the UAE, with Uruguay in the wings.
BRICS members are enthusiastic about expansion, but expansion also highlights the disjointed nature of the BRICS club. Start with the economic differences. The GDP per person of the poorest member, India, is roughly a fifth of that of China and Russia. China and Russia run current-account surpluses, the others deficits. Russia, an important member of the OPEC+ cartel, and Brazil are net oil exporters; the other three depend on imports. China actively manages the exchange rate of its currency; the other four intervene less often. And so on.
These contradictions weaken the influence of the bloc. Noises have been made about a common BRICS reserve currency, but it can't happen: members guard their central banks. China dominates the CRA, limiting its effectiveness. The total lending by the NDB since 2015 is a third of what the World Bank Group committed in 2021 alone -- and worse, although the World Bank has a reputation for bureaucracy, it is much more transparent and accountable than the NDB. Somewhat embarrassingly, the NDB mostly issues loans in US dollars or euros, which somewhat undermines its members' claim to be trying to reduce the power of the greenback.
Politically, too, they are not on the same wavelength. Russia and China are autocracies indifferent to or contemptuous of civil rights, while Brazil, India and South Africa are energetic, if flawed, democracies. Public opinion in the three democracies has been steadily turning against authoritarian Russia and China; while the three have been more or less turning a blind eye towards Russia's war in Ukraine, it's been extremely awkward for them to do so.
The three also are more interested in remaining "non-aligned", engaging with the West as it suits them. South Africa, for example, has angered the West by, among other things, hosting a naval exercise with China and Russia on the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine. However, Ramaphosa doesn't want to push the West too far. Several of South Africa's main sources of foreign direct investment (FDI) are Western powers, and it hosts drills with NATO countries, too. He wants to keep South Africa's preferential trade terms with America, which some in Congress have said should be rescinded in light of his government's drift towards Russia.
Although Lula has made his dislike of American "hegemonism" clear, he still sees the need for good relations with the West, which is its main source of FDI and arms. Similarly, India continues to buy arms from Russia, it is diversifying its military ties and buying more from America and France. India also has long-running tensions with China and wants to maintain a balance between China and the West.
Finally, the three democracies are not so enthusiastic about BRICS expansion if it dilutes their influence. A South African official said: "We do not want to dilute control of the BRICS from the original five." The South Africans have been talking about expansion, but suggest new members be granted a subordinate status. The BRICS bloc is surviving, but it remains to be seen if it can thrive. [END OF SERIES]
START | PREV | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* HYDROGEN HUBS: As discussed in an article from SCIENCE.org ("US Hands Out $7 Billion For Hydrogen Hubs" Katherine Bourzac, 13 October 2023), the Biden Administration is now providing $7 billion USD in funding for seven regional "hubs" to produce hydrogen fuel.
Hydrogen is now generally produced by cooking methane under high pressure with steam, which results in a big carbon footprint. The hubs are intended to encourage cleaner hydrogen production. The program covers both producers and customers, with an aim to build up production facilities, storage tanks, pipelines, and other infrastructure.
One hub in the Pacific Northwest will focus on "green hydrogen", produced using renewable solar or wind power, electrolytically splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. That hub will partner with one in California to develop a hydrogen fueling network in the US West to service ports and heavy trucking industry. The hubs should also boost the market for hydrogen electrolyzers.
The Pacific Northwest hub is the only one that will solely focus on green hydrogen. Others will produce hydrogen from electrolyzers that rely on electricity from nuclear power plants -- sometimes called "pink" hydrogen -- while still others will focus on "blue hydrogen": making hydrogen with methane and capturing the CO2 emissions.
Environmentalists are not happy with blue hydrogen. Julie McNamara, deputy policy director in the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says that even if these projects successfully implement carbon capture and storage, starting with natural gas is a problem, saying: "There are high rates of methane leakage. McNamara also says that we need to be phasing out the fossil-fuel industry, not keeping it on life-support.
The funding for the hubs comes from the bipartisan infrastructure law. A tax break in a different law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, will also benefit the clean hydrogen industry, especially producers of green hydrogen. The decade-long tax credit will be awarded to hydrogen producers that meet a low carbon emissions standard, which may be troublesome for blue hydrogen producers.
In a press release, the White House says the awards will generate $40 billion USD in private investments and create tens of thousands of jobs. Industry observers say the success of the hubs will depend on how well they mesh with local communities, in terms of jobs, environmental improvements, and community outreach.
* POPULAR SOLAR: As discussed in a related article from REUTERS.com ("Solar Energy Shines In Global Survey With 68% Support" by Anthony Deutsch, a wide-ranging survey found that more than two-thirds of the world's population favors solar energy -- five times more than public support for fossil fuels.
The survey, conducted by Glocalities in collaboration with advocacy groups Global Citizen and The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, was based on interviews with more than 21,000 people in 21 countries between January and June 2023. The countries included Australia, Brazil, China, India, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and the USA.
Solar power, at 68%, was the most popular energy source, followed by wind (54%), hydropower (35%) and nuclear (24%). Only 14% of respondents favored fossil fuels. These results reinforce other surveys demonstrating enthusiasm for renewables; the EU's latest Eurobarometer from May:June 2023 found that 85% of Europeans support "investing massively" in renewable energy. In the USA, according to the Glocalities poll, solar energy was also the favorite power source at 58%, while fossil fuel was supported by 24%.
However, fossil fuels still accounted for 77% of global energy consumption in 2022. Global energy demand rose 1% in 2022 and record renewables growth didn't affect the dominance of fossil fuels. Further efforts are required.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Fighting continues in the Gaza Strip, with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops methodically crushing Hamas resistance. The IDF is circulating pictures of mass surrenders by Hamas fighters, stripped down to make sure they weren't wearing suicide vests. Protests continue against the IDF operation, but it will be completed. The protestors also say they will work to defeat Joe Biden in the 2024 election for not stopping the IDF operation -- but it's unlikely they will cost him a single vote. There seems to be an unholy alliance between Islamists and antisemitic Rightists at work in the trolling against Biden, and neither are getting much traction.
The Biden Administration has nothing to apologize for. Joe Biden pushed for and got a cease-fire, which held for a few days until Hamas decided to start shooting again. The Americans could not halt the operation if they wanted to, and given the brutality of the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October, likely don't want to.
Hamas will be crushed. The protesters say that will not solve the long-term problem, but few think it will: Hamas attacked Israel, Israel hit back, simple and inevitable as that. The reality is that we have no good idea of what the consequences of this little war are going to be. An editorial from ECONOMIST.com ("How Peace Is Possible", 7 December 2023) suggests that the war presents an opportunity, given the recognition that the old mindset of both the Israelis and Palestinians is outdated:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Israel's strategy of marginalising the Palestinians and their dreams is broken. Both sides have a chance to find new leaders with a new vision. And after years of neglect, outsiders may be ready to help, crucially including a group of Arab countries. ... Success depends on the two sides wanting peace and, much harder, believing in it.
END_QUOTE
War is not really in the advantage of either side: 1,400 Israelis were killed or kidnapped by Hamas, while the IDF has inflicted great suffering on Gaza. The editorial says there has been 16,000 Palestinian casualties, but that's taking the word of Hamas, which is unwise. Anyway, to get out of the impasse, changes will have to be made:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Peace ... requires new leaders, because the present ones are discredited. In Israel Binyamin Netanyahu is an obstacle to a genuine reconciliation, the sooner he goes the better. America could usefully signal that it expects Israel to hold elections soon. Polls suggest that he will be replaced by Benny Gantz, a former general who understands the toll of war. Gantz has not endorsed a Palestinian state, but neither has he ruled one out.
New Palestinian leadership is needed, too. Hamas is an avowed enemy of peace: for as long as it runs Gaza, Palestinian pledges to embrace peace will not be believable. On the West Bank, Mahmoud Abbas, who runs the Palestinian Authority (PA), is corrupt, ossified and lacks any democratic legitimacy. Amid the rubble of war, Gaza will need time to rebuild and re-establish some kind of stable administration. Moderate Arab countries should sponsor a transitional Palestinian leadership for the West Bank and Gaza that can begin building trust among its own people and, vitally, with the Israelis, before holding elections. By running both Gaza and the West Bank, it would become a more credible partner for peace.
END_QUOTE
Protracted discussion and dispute over what to do next also does not really serve the interests of either side. Decisive action is necessary:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Both sides will have to take on their own extremists, who would sabotage coexistence. The PA must shut down armed groups, foil terrorists and tackle corruption. Boosting the economy demands numerous agreements with Israel over trade, utilities and work permits. Palestinians need to know they are gaining freedoms and rights.
Land swaps can wait, but Israel should deal with the settlements too deep in the West Bank ever to be part of Israel. It must start policing them and stop them from expanding further. It needs to be clear that the 100,000 or so settlers who live in them will eventually have to move or come under Palestinian rule.
END_QUOTE
America should play an important role but -- as the trolls saying they want to bring down Joe Biden do not recognize -- really can't do the job alone:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
... the Arab world should play a decisive role. Under the Abraham Accords, negotiated during the Trump Administration, several countries recognised Israel. That was part of a vision for the Middle East based around trade and prosperity rather than ideology. Their money will be required to rebuild Gaza. Their soldiers can help provide security when Israel leaves the strip, which should happen as early as possible. If they work together, they can starve Hamas of money and shelter, diverting funds to reconstruction instead. Their heft can give a transitional Palestinian leader diplomatic cover while he establishes himself and his administration.
The key is early pressure exerted by America and Saudi Arabia on Israel and the Palestinians. The PA argues that peace could be kick-started if America and the European Union sent Israel a signal by recognising a Palestinian state upfront -- an idea endorsed by Spain, which holds the EU presidency. America should fulfil its promise to open a diplomatic mission for the Palestinians in Jerusalem. But full recognition of Palestine by the West and of Israel by Saudi Arabia should be held out as rewards for the future, as an incentive for progress.
END_QUOTE
Is a peace offensive really in the cards? Well, something has to be done, but whether it goes anywhere is another thing. The reality is that not so many people are concerned one way or another. I got into a chat with an astute Brazilian on X/Twitter, who started out with the honest statement that most people don't care about what's happening in Gaza. I replied that was true, fighting between the Israelis and Palestinians has been going on all my grown life -- "I am not young!" -- and this just another round.
He pointed to a noisy ongoing argument over what Arafat said a quarter-century ago, but most people just shrug. The fighting will go quiet, drop off the headlines, and be generally forgotten. I said I wasn't really worried about the Gaza crisis, being much more concerned about Ukraine. He concluded that people are going to focus on things that actually seem important to them, and Gaza does not. Certainly, Joe Biden need not fear for re-election.
* One Bill Palmer issues the "Palmer Report" on X/Twitter, with a missive issued on 9 December emphasizing how little threat Trump poses to Biden:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has been blocking hundreds of military promotions for much of the year. Days ago the Senate revealed that it had found a procedural way around Tuberville's stunt, and would soon be able to confirm most of the military promotions that he'd been blocking. Shortly before the Senate went ahead and confirmed those promotions yesterday, Tuberville announced that he no longer intended to oppose them. How convenient.
It's a reminder of what Right wing political figures actually care about. For the months that Tuberville was blocking these promotions, he didn't care that he was portrayed as a villain. He didn't care how much condemnation he got from the media. All he cared about was that the stunt made him look powerful in the eyes of his Right-wing supporters. After all, Right wingers only care about the perception of power and nothing else. Not good or bad. Not smart or dumb. Not right or wrong. Just powerful or weak.
Once Tuberville realized the promotions were about to go through anyway, he suddenly "announced" that he wasn't blocking them anymore. That's because he didn't want to look like he'd tried and failed to keep blocking the promotions. In the end, all he cared about was keeping up the perception that he was powerful enough to block the promotions.
It served as a timely reminder of what Right-wing politicians do and don't care about, and what actually motivates them. We have a tendency to take how a normal person would view such things, and apply it to Right wing politicians in a way that doesn't really fit. "He finally came to his senses!" No, that's not how it works. "Maybe he finally got tired of all the bad press!" No, he wanted the bad press. All he cared about was looking powerful. It's the one thing that universally appeals to Right wing supporters. At the end of the day, there is nothing else.
What applies to Tuberville also applies to Donald Trump. Right now, there's a ton of panic on our side about how Trump is going to retake power and become a dictator. Yeah well, guess who put that narrative out there? Trump and his people intentionally put this whole thing out there so that everyone would start yelling: "Oh no, Trump is going to become a dictator!" That's precisely the narrative that Trump wants out there. It makes him look powerful in the eyes of his remaining Right wing supporters. It convinces them to ignore his worsening cognitive problems, which make him look weak. It convinces them to keep donating to his faux-campaign. The notion that Trump might still be powerful is what keeps his base fired up. Short of that, Right wingers would see Trump as just a has-been who isn't as powerful as he used to be.
We need to be much more aware of how Right wingers actually view things, and of how Right wing politicians try to goad us into being the unwitting messengers for the messaging that they want their supporters to hear. Donald Trump is at a point of all time weakness. Every time we sound the alarm about how "dangerously powerful" he is, we're just making him more dangerously powerful. We have to stop empowering him in that way. We need to paint Trump as being weak. That is the one and only thing that will cause Right wingers to finally give up on him.
END_QUOTE
Palmer tends to overstate things, but here he's right. In 2016, Trump was on a roll, appallingly going from strength to strength. Now he's circling the drain at an ever-faster rate, facing criminal trials he can't win, showing ever more severe signs of dementia, and bleeding voters. GOP politicians continue to cling to him, seemingly unaware that they'll go down the drain with him. In reality, odds are they know he's going down, and will forget about him once they can safely do so.
To sure, the idea of a second Trump presidency is appalling, but it's not going to happen. Everyone who dislikes Trump will vote against him, while many of those who once supported him will not even admit they did so. Trump is just an old fat decrepit mutt, barking loud to give the impression he's bigger than he really is. Those who are frightened of Trump don't understand that they are making him out to be much bigger than he is, and that helps him. The 2024 election is certain to be a disaster for the GOP. The only question is how big a disaster.
* I got to poking around online and found a slideshow of images for "Roaring Twenties STAR TREK", consisting of clearly AI-generated depictions of STAR TREK re-imagined in 1920s style.
They were a mixed lot, some having little "retro" flavor, but the best of them definitely had the feel of STAR TREK theme music re-thought by George Gershwin. Incidentally, one of the big giveaways that the images were produced by GAI was the fact that the only really recognizable face was Spock, in his Leonard Nimoy incarnation. Others looked like amalgams of other STAR TREK characters, familiar but not exactly matching any one person. GAI does things like that.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* JOE BIDEN (3): At Archmere Academy, Joe Biden was a B-level student, but he was outgoing and energetic, becoming class president in his junior and senior years -- and also becoming confident in public speaking, generally mastering his stutter. He was intellectually curious, interested in history and in keeping up with current events in the USA and around the world. Joe dated a lot of girls, most often Maureen Masterson, Valerie's best friend; he still thought of becoming a priest, but Jean suggested that he cool his jets until he was older. He didn't drink or smoke and was mostly focused on sports, playing basketball, baseball, but above all football.
Archmere's football team had been in the cellar for years, but the school then hired on John Walsh, who had played for the University of Delaware, to teach history and coach football, with Joe playing on the team in his senior year. Walsh turned the team around and Archmere cleaned up that year, with Joe as a star player. One of his teammates, Tom Lewis, said that Joe ...
BEGIN_QUOTE:
... had incredible hands, and he was very competitive. If you played against him, you'd almost kill each other. He always had confidence, or made everybody believe he had confidence. Mr. Cocky. He'd never shy from a confrontation. Joe was the Money Man.
END_QUOTE
He got the nickname "Hands / Hans" for his sports dexterity, which was a big improved over earlier nicknames that had focused on his stuttering. His best friend Dave Walsh said of him: "He was a natural athlete at whatever he did." -- but added that he wasn't a typical jock, either: "He was an early environmentalist, and in high school in the sixties he was more concerned about desegregation in Delaware than I was." Joe would stay in touch with the Archmere football team all his life.
Along with considering the priesthood, Joe also thought of going into pro football, but since he was never more than a middleweight, that wasn't really an option. During Joe's senior year at Archmere, another Irish Catholic, John F. Kennedy, was running for President of the United States, and won the 1960 election against Richard Nixon. Joe found JFK an inspiring example, taking to heart Kennedy's famous inaugural address:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
END_QUOTE
Joe began to seriously consider a career in politics. He didn't have JFK's wealth or social connections, but he read up on the lives of senators and found they were often lawyers. In consequence, he entered the University of Delaware law school in the fall of 1961, majoring in history and political science. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* SCIENCE NOTES: As discussed in an article from SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.com ("Lab-Made Enzymes Could Chop Up the Virus That Causes COVID" by Simon Makin, 14 February 2023), there has been considerable work on using immune-system proteins called "antibodies" to fight disease. Some researchers are also investigating "enzymes" -- catalytic proteins -- for the same mission.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, University of Cambridge chemical biologist Alexander Taylor scrambled to create synthetic enzymes called "xeno nucleic acids (XNAzymes)", generated from synthesized RNA. He wanted to use XNAzymes to attack the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Working by himself during lockdown, in a few days Taylor generated five XNAzymes that targeted sequences in SARS-CoV-2's genome.
Previously, enzymes didn't do well at cutting long, highly structured molecules such as virus genomes; XNAzymes are specifically tailored and highly effective at the job. Popular CRISPR gene-editing tools can also target RNA, but the human immune system sometimes reacts poorly to the bacterial enzymes used. XNAzymes are not found in nature, making them less likely to trigger an immune system attack. They also don't rely on co-opting cellular machinery, which means they may have reduced side effects.
Taylor's research team has found that XNAzymes reduced replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in infected cells by up to 75%. The researchers used XNAzymes to target three parts of the virus's genome, making it harder for mutations to dodge the attack. The approach is readily adapted to other viruses, simply by recoding the targeting pattern. Taylor suggests that XNAzymes might be effective against numerous diseases -- potentially even targeting mutated cancer genes. The researchers haven't figured out a way to get XNAzymes into human cells, but that isn't seen as a show-stopper.
* As discussed in an article from SCIENCE.org ("Weird Alien World May Be A Planetary Sauna" by Jonathan O'Callaghan, 15 May 2023), NASA's "Transiting Exoplanetary Survey Satellite (TESS)" was launched in 2018, with the goal of finding planets in other star systems by their transits across the face of their parent star.
Amadeo Castro-Gonzalez -- an astronomer at the Spanish Astrobiology Center -- and fellow researchers inspected TESS data, to pick out an interesting find: a planet about 1.5 times bigger in diameter than Earth, designated "TOI-244 b", about 72 light-years from Earth. He believes it could represent a new class of exoplanets, something between a rocky planet and a gas giant: "We propose these are inflated super-Earths."
That conclusion was based on determination of the planet's mass, as obtained from highly precise measurements of its orbit. The researchers got time on the Very Large Telescope in Chile and used an instrument called ESPRESSO to look for shifts in starlight caused by tiny gravitational tugs from the planet. The planet turned out to be 2.7 times more massive than the Earth -- giving a density half as much as might be expected for a planet of its size.
The researchers ruled out explanations such as an ironless core, to conclude the low density can be explained by the presence of a steamy atmosphere, a "hydrosphere", about 500 kilometers (300 miles) thick. The planet follows a close 7-day orbit around its red dwarf star, and its temperatures are thought to rise to more than 2000 degrees Celsius -- enough to keep the atmosphere in a hot steam, but not enough to drive the water into space.
Castro-Gonzalez says the water exists in a supercritical state between a liquid and a gas: "It's a mixture of the two. It's not a typical state that we see here on Earth. A sauna is the best analogy." It would be a very hot sauna, with atmospheric pressures exceeding those of Venus at ground level. The team thinks TOI-244 b is the prototype of new kind of swollen water world.
The team is now looking for similar planets around other stars, and also want to confirm the presence of water in the atmosphere of TOI-244 b. They are hoping to obtain time on the NASA James Webb Space Telescope to aid in the search.
* As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("Saturn's Rings May Be No More Than 400 Million Years Old" by Nikk Ogasa, 22 May 2023), it has long been known that the planet Saturn's spectacular rings are a transient phenomenon, creating from the breakup of a moon or moons, and now slowly fading out. New research suggests they are no more than 400 million years old -- a long time by human standards, but much shorter than the 4.5-billion-year age of Saturn itself. Physicist Sascha Kempf -- of the University of Colorado Boulder, and the research lead -- says: "We're quite lucky to see a ring in the first place."
The rings of Saturn are made of vast numbers of icy particles, which become covered with dust as tiny meteoroids strike them, with the dust darkening the particles. This cosmic staining was key to the new analysis, as was the now-defunct Cassini Saturn orbiter's Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) instrument. From 2004 to 2017, the CDA pick up dust-sized micrometeoroids moving around Saturn, measuring their velocity, mass, charge and composition.
Kempf and colleagues identified about 160 particles, out of millions, that could have come from beyond the Saturn system. The researchers estimated the rate at which the incoming dust accumulates on Saturn's rings, and calculated how long it would have taken to darken the rings to their observed color. That led to the estimate of 400 million years.
Not everyone agrees with the estimate. Planetary scientist Aurelien Crida -- of Universite Cote d'Azur in Nice, France -- says the rings might well be as old as Saturn. Simulations of the rings' formation from the gravitational shredding of an early moon suggest their size is consistent with an age of billions of years. He adds that some unknown process might be cleaning the rings of the micrometeoroid dust, making them appear younger than they are.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* BRICS REVISITED (1): As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("The BRICS Bloc Is Riven With Tensions", 17 August 2023), In 2001, investment bank Goldman Sachs referred to the developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China as the "BRIC" block. The four countries liked the label, holding the first BRIC summit in 2009. A year later South Africa joined, with the label becoming "BRICS". It looked like a going thing at the time, but then it ran out of steam. The BRICS summits continued to meet, to issue muddled communiques slamming the treacherous West, with the treacherous West ignoring them.
The summits continue, the latest being on 22 August in Johannesburg. Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's president, was joined by Narendra Modi of India, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, and China's Xi Jinping. Russia's Vladimir Putin did not attend. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has an outstanding warrant for his arrest, and South Africa is a member of the ICC -- meaning the South Africans would have to arrest him.
The irony is that Putin was indicted by the ICC because of crimes related to the Ukraine War, while the Ukraine War has invigorated the BRICS group. Supposedly, now they stand shoulder-to-shoulder to push back against Western "oppression" intended to keep them down. Some middling powers have the urge to stand with them, with the bloc saying that more than 40 countries have either applied to join, or have expressed an interest in doing so.
A "Big BRICS" could be a challenge for the West, but there is less to the idea than meets the eye. China is leading the charge for BRICS expansion, with battered Russia following, but Brazil, India, and South Africa are skeptical. The "G7" countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with the European Union as a "non-enumerated member" -- have long and generally good diplomatic relations, as well as shared values. The BRICS are a much more mixed bag, and expansion would make them even more mixed. The Big BRICS would be noisier, but they would struggle to agree on anything.
The BRICS endures by service a number of functions. One is to provide a platform for members to criticize, often with justification, the way institutions such as the World Bank, IMF, and UN Security Council effectively dismiss the "global south". Oddly, the criticisms have grown louder as the BRICS' share of world GDP has increased, from 8% in 2001 to 26% today -- while the G7's share has fallen from 65% to 43%.
Simple membership in the BRICS is also seen as prestigious, particularly for the members that are struggling. On average the GDP of Brazil, Russia and South Africa has grown by less than 1% annually since 2013, compared to about 6% for China and India. However, being the only Latin American country and the only African country in the group respectively allows Brazil and South Africa to project influence: Ramaphosa has invited a good number of African leaders to the Johannesburg summit.
China wants to expand the BRICS to push back against Western hegemonism. As the Chinese see it, there is no other bloc that can challenge the G7. The Shanghai Co-operation Organization is limited to Eurasia, while the G20 is too dominated by its Western members. A Chinese official contrasts Beijing's desire for a "big family" of the BRICS countries with the West's "small circle".
Beijing has long pushed to expand the BRICS, having been instrumental in bringing in South Africa. It is believed that there are about 18 candidates for admission to the BRICS. For Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), joining the BRICS would fit with their efforts to recalibrate their relationship with the USA, their long-time ally, and to draw closer to China. Bangladesh and Indonesia, like India, are populous Asian democracies that claim to be non-aligned, and might also like some protection from Western criticism of their human-rights records. Argentina, Ethiopia, Mexico, and Nigeria are all among the largest countries on their continents. [TO BE CONTINUED]
NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* EV ARRIVAL: Electric vehicles (EV) have yet to really take off and have their naysayers, particularly on the Right -- but as reported by an article from REUTERS.com ("In 2024, Republican EV Attacks May Fall Short As Swing States Reap Investment" by Gram Slattery, Nichola Groom, 27 November 2023), the naysayers are starting to think twice.
Contenders for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, including former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, have claimed that EVs are a "hoax," they don't work, and they are strengthening China's economy at the expense of American jobs. However, while EVs have become a convenient target for Republican attacks, they are increasingly a source of tax revenue and employment in the swing states critical to the election. They present an opportunity for President Joe Biden and some Democratic congressional candidates to win big.
There has been about $128 billion USD in investments in domestic EV and battery manufacturing announced since the passage in 2022 of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). That law, pushed by the Biden Administration and supported by congressional Democrats, set up tax credits to boost domestic EV manufacturing.
Of that investment, $48 billion USD, about a third, has taken place in Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and Michigan -- four of the seven states regarded as "swing states" in the 2024 election, the others being Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Some polls have given Trump an edge in these states, but nobody can take the polls very seriously, particularly as Trump's legal problems gradually overwhelm him.
There's no reason to take chances of course, and the IRA is unambiguously giving Biden and the Democrats an edge. Clean Energy for America, a Democrat-leaning advocacy group, is running ads in Michigan, Georgia and North Carolina featuring workers talking about the benefits of the IRA.
Kirsten Engel, a Democratic candidate in a southern Arizona district dotted with EV facilities, said she plans to discuss how Democratic legislation has attracted EV jobs to the region, and that it had already come up in initial conversations with voters. She says: "It's a top issue in the campaign."
* Since 2015, EV and battery supply chain investments in America have topped $165 billion, most of it occurring in the first year of the IRA, according to the Environmental Defense Fund and consulting firm WSP. The IRA grants tax credits to purchasers of EVs assembled in North America, while also incentivizing clean energy projects, such as solar and wind farms. Cheap land, low power prices, local tax incentives and good infrastructure lured many of these projects to states that just so happened to be political battlegrounds.
As of late, high interest rates have reduced EV sales, with some manufactures scaling back expansion plans. However, domestic EV sales still continue to be strong, exceeding topping 300,000 units for the first time in the third quarter of 2023. EVs are expected to make up nearly 50% of car sales in America by 2030.
Republicans, always eager to stoke outrage, have denounced EVs, saying they see IRA subsidies as government overreach, while expressing concern that minerals vital for EV manufacturing, like graphite and manganese, often originate in China. Anna Kelly, press secretary for the Republican National Committee, said: "Joe Biden's electric vehicle obsession helps China, hurts American consumers and families, and is a pathetic non-solution to skyrocketing gas prices under his watch."
Not all Republican leadership has been so critical of EVs. Some have showed up at ribbon-cutting for IRA-funded projects, even though they voted against the IRA. Workers in towns where EV and batteries are being made aren't quite so negative about them, and certainly fuel prices have significantly moderated come winter. In short, political opposition against EVs is weak and faltering; it will not be an issue over the long term.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: In an exclusive interview in Kharkiv with Associated Press, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that winter will complicate fighting, after a summer counteroffensive that failed to produce desired results -- due to persistent shortages of weapons and troops. When ask if he took satisfaction in the results of the counteroffensive, he replied:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied. We are fighting with the second army [Russia's] in the world, I am satisfied. We are losing people, I'm not satisfied. We didn't get all the weapons we wanted, I can't be satisfied, but I also can't complain too much.
END_QUOTE
Zelenskyy also said he fears the Israel-Hamas war threatens to overshadow the conflict in Ukraine, as competing political agendas and limited resources put the flow of Western military aid to Kyiv at risk. American election-year politics are also threatening support for Ukraine. The massive expenditure of ammunition and limited supplies are other potential problems, while there is a renewed threat of widespread Russian aerial attacks on cities targeting energy infrastructure and civilians.
Zelenskyy said some positive results had been achieved in the year's fighting. Ukraine has driven back Russian attacks, and made limited territorial gains. Russia's Black Sea Fleet has been hit hard and is on the defensive. In addition, a temporary grain corridor established by Kyiv following Russia's withdrawal from a wartime agreement to ensure the safe exports is still working.
Zelenskyy is focused on boosting domestic arms production. A sizeable chunk of Ukraine's budget is allocated for that, but current output is far from enough to turn the tide of the war. Now, Zelenskyy wants the Ramstein Group to offer favorable loans and contracts to boost the manufacture of arms and munitions.
* Criticisms that the USA -- and the rest of the Ramstein Group of Ukraine's allies -- aren't doing enough are correct, to the extent that Ukraine needed everything yesterday. However, Ukraine can't get everything and can't get it yesterday; the USA has not been holding out. White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, responding to Zelenskyy's comments about military aid, said the USA has provided "unprecedented" support:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
I certainly can't dispute President Zelenskyy's estimation that they haven't achieved the success that they had hoped to achieve. But I can assure you that the United States has done everything we can.
END_QUOTE
He added that the Biden Administration wants to do more, but is faced with a Republican insurgency in the House of Representatives:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
... if we don't get that support from Congress, the message it is going to send around the world about how much Ukraine matters and how much the United States and our leadership can deliver to our partners around the world is going to be loud and clear and deeply unfortunate.
END_QUOTE
Separately, the admiral told reporters that the current priority in Ukraine support is air defense:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
We've been focused on driving forward three key lines of effort. First, we've been strengthening Ukraine's air defensive capabilities so that they can shoot down Russian missiles and their Iranian drones targeting critical infrastructure. That's why we provided Ukraine in recent packages with Patriot batteries, HAWK and Avenger air-defense systems, counter unmanned air systems equipment, and other critical air-defense assets.
Second, we've been helping Ukraine harden their critical energy infrastructure. We provided them with extensive amounts of defensive protection equipment, including wire mesh, rebar, and HESCO barriers, with our experts at DOD and at the Department of Energy and the US Agency for International Development advising Ukrainian officials on how to use this equipment most effectively.
And, third, we've been providing Ukraine with backup equipment and supplies, including high-voltage auto transformers, industrial-size gas generators, and mobile off-grid equipment to add resiliency and prevent people from losing heat and electricity if Russia's strikes get through and are successful.
END_QUOTE
HESCO barriers, incidentally, are prefabricated fortification units, consisting of big containers made of wire mesh and heavy canvas, filled with sand or dirt or gravel. In any case, the insistence that the Ramstein Group isn't doing enough to help Ukraine is understandable but exasperating -- all the more so because Kremlin trolls are doing everything to encourage it.
* In response to the question: "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" -- one Nate White penned a very British reply:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour, and no grace -- all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump's limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing -- not once, ever. I don't say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility; for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it's a fact. He doesn't even seem to understand what a joke is. His idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn't just talk in crude, witless insults, he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It's all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. We don't. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He's not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat; he's more a fat white slug, a Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a sniveling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff, the Queensberry rules of basic decency, and he breaks them all. Every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless, and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority, perhaps a third, of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think: "Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy" -- is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it's impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal -- even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W. Bush look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws, he would make a Trump -- and a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: "MY GOD! What ... have ... I ... created?!" If being a twat were a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.
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Trump, incidentally, pressed a case claiming presidential immunity for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected the argument, writing in her decision:
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Defendant's four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens. A former President's exposure to federal criminal liability is essential to fulfilling our constitutional promise of equal justice under the law.
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Of course, there was no way any such claim could be taken seriously and the decision was inevitable. Trump will of course appeal to the Supreme Court; hopefully, SCOTUS will refuse to hear the case. Possibly more interestingly, a DC appeals court judged that Trump was not immune to civil lawsuits over the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot. Suggestions have been raised that might lead to a class-action suit by the 81 million Americans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020. That's not going to happen, but it's a fun idea.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* JOE BIDEN (2): Joe Biden SR didn't stay with the HVAC firm very long, finding a more comfortable job selling used cars. The family lived in a rented apartment in Claymont, a suburb of Wilmington, with Joe JR attending a Catholic school, Holy Rosary, there. His school attendance in Scranton before the move had been spotty, because he'd had surgeries to remove his tonsils and adenoids -- a common practice in those days because they were inclined to infections, but much less so now because of wider use of antibiotics. The move had also been disruptive, so Jean had him repeat third grade, simplifying his life. He quickly settled in and made friends, playing sports.
In 1955, when Joe JR was 12, the family moved upscale to a house in the suburb of Belmont. He transferred to another Catholic elementary school, Saint Helena's. As was common and encouraged in such schools, Joe thought of being a priest, but Jean suggested he was jumping the gun: "If you still feel that way when you're older, then you can go, but you're much too young to be making that decision."
At Saint Helena's, Joe got along well, but there were occasional difficulties. Although he had done much to suppress his stutter, it hadn't gone away by any means. One day he was delivering a speaking exercise and stuttered, with the nun mocking him as: "Mr. Buh-buh-buh-buh-biden." Joe had a hot temper -- always did, always would -- and, infuriated, left the class and went home.
The school had phoned Jean when he left, and she was mad herself when he got home, not understanding what had possessed him to just get up and go home. When he explained what had happened, she got even madder, but not at him. She gathered up baby brother Frankie, a toddler at the time, and drove the two boys over to the school. There was a confrontation between Jean and the offending nun in the principal's office, with Joe in the anteroom while he held Frankie in his lap.
Jean was a petite woman, normally meek and respectful of the Church, but she wasn't feeling meek that day. She demanded that the nun repeat what she had said to Joe. The nun was evasive, but Jean was insistent, and the nun finally admitted: "Yes, Mrs. Biden, I was making a point."
Jean replied in a fury: "If you ever speak to my son like that again, I'll come back and rip that bonnet off your head! Do you understand me?!" Jean stormed out, picking up Frankie and telling Joe: "Joey, get back to class."
That was, of course, an exception to Joe's life at Saint Helena's; he continued to be competitive at sports, and was socially outgoing. The stuttering was still a problem, and he worked hard to deal with it. He got encouragement from his uncle, Jean's brother Ed Blewitt, known as "Boo-boo", who was also a stutterer. However, Boo-boo also served as a bad example to Joe; he was an under-achiever who had never made very much of himself. Joe liked his Uncle Boo-boo, but didn't want to end up like him, preferring to set his sights higher.
Joe, at the time, had his sights set on attending Archmere Academy, a prestigious Catholic high school near his home. It was expensive and Joe SR was hesitant, but Joe JR managed to get a foot in the door by starting out in a work-study program that had him working with the grounds crew. Joe JR was undersized for his age when started attending there, but he underwent a growth spurt and caught up. [TO BE CONTINUED]
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