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Microorganisms in parched regions extract needed water from colonized rocks

(University of California - Irvine) Cyanobacteria living in rocks in Chile's Atacama Desert extract water from the minerals they colonize and, in doing so, change the phase of the material from gypsum to anhydrite. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and Johns Hopkins University gained verification of this process through experiments, and the work points to possible strategies for humans to stay hydrated in harsh environments.




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Graphene sets sail in microgravity

(SCALE Nanotech) ESA-backed researchers demonstrate the laser-propulsion of graphene sails in microgravity. The light sails use a scalable micro-membrane design that minimizes their mass and hence increases their thrust upon light irradiation. To demonstrate the new sail concept, the scientists gained access to ZARM Drop Tower. There, the sail prototypes were set in vacuum and microgravity, and 1W-lasers caused their acceleration up to 1 m/s2.




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Highly efficient hydrogen gas production using sunlight, water and hematite

(Kobe University) Hydrogen is a possible next generation energy solution, and it can be produced from sunlight and water using photocatalysts. A research group from Kobe University has developed a strategy that greatly increases the amount of hydrogen produced using hematite photocatalysts. In addition to boosting the high efficiency of what is thought to be the world's highest performing photoanode, this strategy will be applied to artificial photosynthesis and solar water-splitting technologies via university-industry collaborations.




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International scientific conference to debate new lifestyles to mitigate climate change

(Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) More than 500 researchers from all around the world will gather virtually tomorrow Wednesday May 6 at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) to discuss and propose how society should adopt more sustainable and low-carbon forms of lifestyle that contribute to mitigating climate change.




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DDT, other banned pesticides found in Detroit-area black women: BU study

(Boston University School of Medicine) A new Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study published in the journal Environmental Research finds detectable levels of DDE (what DDT becomes when metabolized in the body) and other banned organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in the blood of over 60 percent of a cohort of black women of reproductive age in the Detroit area, with higher levels in women who smoked cigarettes daily, drank more alcohol, and drank more water.




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Fly ash geopolymer concrete: Significantly enhanced resistance to extreme alkali attack

(University of Johannesburg) Fly ash generated by coal-fired power stations is a global environmental headache, creating groundwater and air pollution from vast landfills and ash dams. The waste product can be repurposed into geopolymer concrete, such as precast heat-cured structural elements for buildings. However, a critical durability problem has been low resistance to extreme alkali attack. UJ researchers found that high temperature heat-treatment at 200 degrees Celsius can halve this harmful mechanism in fly ash geopolymer concretes.




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A radar for plastic: High-resolution map of 1 kilometer grids to track plastic emissions in seas

(Tokyo University of Science) Plastic waste often ends up in river bodies and oceans, posing a serious threat to the marine ecosystem. To prevent the accumulation of plastic debris, we must find out where plastic emission is prevalent. To this end, scientists in Japan have come up with a new method to track plastic emissions from inland areas to sea. This method is useful to identify the 'hotspots' of plastic emission and can even help to implement appropriate measures to avoid plastic pollution.




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Icelandic DNA jigsaw-puzzle brings new knowledge about Neanderthals

(Aarhus University) An international team of researchers has put together a new image of Neanderthals based on the genes Neanderthals left in the DNA of modern humans when they had children with them about 50,000 years ago. The researchers found the new information by trawling the genomes of more than 27,000 Icelanders. Among other things, they discovered that Neanderthal children had older mothers and younger fathers than the Homo-Sapien children in Africa did at the time.




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Examining heart extractions in ancient Mesoamerica

(University of Chicago Press Journals) A recent study confirms that Mesoamerican priests ripped the hearts out of their still-living victims in three different ways. New forensic evidence, historic witness accounts and native representations now show that the most common form of native heart extraction was from beneath the rib cage, second was forceful chest penetration between two ribs and at mid-chest level between the nipples, and thirdly, a mid-chest opening of one single blow, extracting the heart from the front.




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Study reveals rich genetic diversity of Vietnam

(Molecular Biology and Evolution (Oxford University Press)) In a new paper, Dang Liu, Mark Stoneking and colleagues have analyzed newly generated genome-wide SNP data for the Kinh and 21 additional ethnic groups in Vietnam, encompassing all five major language families in MSEA, along with previously published data from nearby populations and ancient samples.




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Deformed skulls in an ancient cemetery reveal a multicultural community in transition

(PLOS) The ancient cemetery of Mözs-Icsei d?l? in present-day Hungary holds clues to a unique community formation during the beginnings of Europe's Migration Period, according to a study published April 29, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Corina Knipper from the Curt-Engelhorn-Center for Archaeometry, Germany, István Koncz, Tivadar Vida from the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary and colleagues.




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Marooned on Mesozoic Madagascar

(Stony Brook University) In evolutionary terms, islands are the stuff of weirdness. It is on islands where animals evolve in isolation, often for millions of years, with different food sources, competitors, predators, and parasites...indeed, different everything compared to mainland species. As a result, they develop into different shapes and sizes and evolve into new species that, given enough time, spawn yet more new species.




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The story of three African slaves during Spanish colonialism, as told by their bones

(Cell Press) In a study appearing April 30 in the journal Current Biology, scientists tell the story of three 16th century African slaves identified from a mass burial site in Mexico City. Using a combination of genetic, osteological, and isotope analyses, the scientists determined from where in Africa they were likely captured, the physical hardships they experienced as slaves, and what novel pathogens they may have carried with them across the Atlantic.




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African skeletons from early colonial Mexico tell the story of first-generation slaves

(Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) Three 16th-century skeletons from a mass burial in Mexico City highlight the role of the transatlantic slave trade in introducing and disseminating new pathogens to the Americas. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico analyzed skeletal features, genetic data and isotopes to explore the life history of three enslaved Africans and explore the wide-ranging impacts of massive forced migration.




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Infectious disease modeling study casts doubt on impact of Justinianic plague

(University of Maryland) Many historians have claimed the Justinianic Plague (c. 541-750 CE) killed half of the population of Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. New historical research and mathematical modeling challenge the death rate and severity of this first plague pandemic, named for Emperor Justinian I.




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Demographic expansion of several Amazonian archaeological cultures by computer simulation

(Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona) Expansions by groups of humans were common during prehistoric times, after the adoption of agriculture. Among other factors, this is due to population growth of farmers which was greater than of that hunter-gatherers. We can find one example of this during the Neolithic period, when farming was introduced to Europe by migrations from the Middle East.




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Arctic Edmontosaurus lives again -- a new look at the 'caribou of the Cretaceous'

(Perot Museum of Nature and Science) Published in PLOS ONE today, a study by an international team from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and Hokkaido University in Japan further explores the proliferation of the most commonly occurring duck-billed dinosaur of the ancient Arctic as the genus Edmontosaurus. The findings reinforce that the hadrosaurs -- dubbed 'caribou of the Cretaceous' -- had a geographical distribution of approximately 60 degrees of latitude, spanning the North American West from Alaska to Colorado.




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Minimum energy requirements for microbial communities to live predicted

(University of Warwick) A microbial community is a complex, dynamic system composed of hundreds of species and their interactions, they are found in oceans, soil, animal guts and plant roots. Each system feeds the Earth's ecosystem and their own growth, as they each have their own metabolism that underpin biogeochemical cycles. Researchers from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick have produced an extendable thermodynamic model for simulating the dynamics of microbial communities.




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New freeze-resistant trichinella species discovered in wolverines

(US Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service) A new freeze-resistant Trichinella species has been discovered in wolverines by Agricultural Research Service scientists and their colleagues. Trichinella are parasites that cause the disease trichinosis (formally referred to as trichinellosis), which people can get by eating raw or undercooked meat from infected animals.




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Mats made from nanofibers linked to a red wine chemical could help prevent oxidation

(Texas A&M University) Spoiling foods, souring wine and worsening wounds have a common culprit -- a process called oxidation. Although the ill effects of these chemical reactions can be curtailed by antioxidants, creating a sturdy platform capable of providing prolonged antioxidant activity is an ongoing challenge.




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A review on phytochemistry, pharmacological action, ethanobotanical uses and nutritional potential

(Bentham Science Publishers) This comprehensive review presented by researchers from K.S. Rangasamy College of Arts and Science, Tiruchengode, Tamil-Nadu, India, gives readers a brief overview of phytoconstituents, nutritional values and medicinal properties of the plant.




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Global trade in soy has major implications for the climate

(University of Bonn) The extent to which Brazilian soy production and trade contribute to climate change depends largely on the location where soybeans are grown. This is shown by a recent study conducted by the University of Bonn together with partners from Spain, Belgium and Sweden. In some municipalities, CO2 emissions resulting from the export of soybean and derivatives are more than 200 times higher than in others.




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Building blocks of the cell wall: pectin drives reproductive development in rice

(University of Tsukuba) Researchers from the University of Tsukuba have revealed that pectin, a carbohydrate found in plant cell walls, plays a vital part in the development of female reproductive tissues of rice plants. It was found that the presence of a gene involved in pectin modification increased plant fertility relative to a modified plant with the gene removed. These findings could have major implications in crop variety development and genetic modification.




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QUT researchers to head to Antarctica in preservation efforts

(Queensland University of Technology) Robots that fly, swim and drive are being designed and built by internationally renowned Australian scientists from QUT.




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Bone proteomics could reveal how long a corpse has been underwater

(American Chemical Society) When a dead body is found, one of the first things a forensic pathologist tries to do is estimate the time of death. There are several ways to do this, including measuring body temperature or observing insect activity, but these methods don't always work for corpses found in water. Now, researchers are reporting a mouse study in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research showing that certain proteins in bones could be used for this determination.




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First results from NASA's ICESat-2 mission map 16 years of melting ice sheets

(University of Washington) By comparing new measurements from NASA's ICESat-2 mission with the original ICESat mission, which operated from 2003 to 2009, scientists were able to measure precisely how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years.




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Seafloor currents may direct microplastics to biodiversity hotspots of the deep

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) Microplastic particles entering the sea surface were thought to settle to the seafloor directly below them, but now, a new study reveals that slow-moving currents near the bottom of the ocean direct the flow of plastics, creating microplastic hotpots in sediments of the deep sea.




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Data from 2 space lasers comprehensively estimate polar ice loss and sea level rise

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) Ice sheet losses from Greenland and Antarctica have outpaced snow accumulation and contributed approximately 14 millimeters to sea level rise over 16 years (2003 to 2019), a new analysis of data from NASA's laser-shooting satellites has revealed.




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Scientists find highest ever level of microplastics on seafloor

(University of Manchester) An international research project has revealed the highest levels of microplastic ever recorded on the seafloor, with up to 1.9 million pieces in a thin layer covering just 1 square meter.




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Ocean acidification prediction now possible years in advance

(University of Colorado at Boulder) CU Boulder researchers have developed a method that could enable scientists to accurately forecast ocean acidity up to five years in advance. This would enable fisheries and communities that depend on seafood negatively affected by ocean acidification to adapt to changing conditions in real time, improving economic and food security in the next few decades.




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Arctic 'shorefast' sea ice threatened by climate change, study finds

(Brown University) A new study shows that coastal sea ice used by Arctic residents for hunting and fishing will be reduced as the planet warms.




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Study: Climate change has been influencing where tropical cyclones rage

(NOAA Headquarters) While the global average number of tropical cyclones each year has not budged from 86 over the last four decades, climate change has been influencing the locations of where these deadly storms occur, according to new NOAA-led research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.




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URI professor: Climate change increases risk of fisheries conflict

(University of Rhode Island) A team of experts, led by a University of Rhode Island researcher, examined how climate change is affecting the ocean environment and found that the changing conditions will likely result in increased fisheries-related conflicts and create new challenges in the management of global fisheries.




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Oceans should have a place in climate 'green new deal' policies, scientists suggest

(Oregon State University) The world's oceans play a critical role in climate regulation, mitigation and adaptation and should be integrated into comprehensive 'green new deal' proposals being promoted by elected officials and agency policymakers.




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FSU researchers study Gulf of Mexico in international collaboration

(Florida State University) Florida State University and partner universities investigated current baseline conditions in the southern Gulf to create a series of maps and guides that detail the distribution of carbon, nitrogen and the carbon-14 isotope.




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China reports one new coronavirus case, 15 asymptomatic cases

China reported one new coronavirus case for Friday, unchanged from the day before, data from the national health authority showed on Saturday. One new imported case was recorded on May 8, the National Health Commission said in a statement.





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A Wisconsin chief justice faced backlash for blaming a county's coronavirus outbreak on meatpacking employees, not 'regular folks'

Chief Justice Patience Roggensack faced backlash for her comment, with some people calling it "elitist" to separate meatpackers from "regular folks."





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Despite lockdown, no letup in Chicago's murder rate

The streets of Chicago may be largely empty as residents hunker down from coronavirus but some of the city's most deprived neighborhoods are still echoing to the sound of deadly gunfire and raucous partying. While significant falls in crime have been one of the few positive side effects of lockdowns in much of the United States and elsewhere, they have barely made a dent in the homicide rate in Chicago, a city that has long recorded the most murders in the country. Chicago police say 56 murders were committed in April despite statewide stay-at-home orders -- only a fraction lower than the 61 for the same month in 2019 -- while last weekend, the first of the new month, four people were killed and 46 others shot and wounded.





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Michael Flynn Confessed. Justice Department Now Says It Doesn’t Care.

It may not be a pardon. But the Justice Department has dropped charges against Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.Retired Army Lt. Gen. Flynn, an important figure in the war on terror who gave Trump’s 2016 run military validation, will avoid prison time after the Justice Department provided a deliverance on Thursday that Flynn had long sought. It is also the second redemption that Trump has provided the general, who served as his first national security adviser for less than a month. “The Government has determined, pursuant to the Principles of Federal Prosecution and based on an extensive review and careful consideration of the circumstances, that continued prosecution of this case would not serve the interests of justice,” wrote Timothy Shea, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and a former senior aide to Attorney General William Barr. Shortly before the filing, lead prosecutor Brandon Von Grack abruptly withdrew from the case.The Justice Department filing, in essence, portrays Flynn as the victim of an FBI frame-up job, and his lies to the FBI as legally marginal. Shea wrote that Flynn’s lies needed to have been “not simply false, but ‘materially’ false with respect to a matter under investigation.” Later in the filing, Shea referred to those lies as “gaps in [Flynn’s] memory,” rather than deliberate falsehoods Flynn conceded. “Even if he told the truth, Mr. Flynn’s statements could not have conceivably ‘influenced’ an investigation that had neither a legitimate counterintelligence nor criminal purpose,” Shea wrote.It was an astonishing turnaround since 2018, when a federal judge said to Flynn in a sentencing hearing, “arguably, you sold your country out.” That judge, Emmet Sullivan, could still decide to reject Shea’s filing and continue with Flynn’ sentencing. Michael Bromwich, a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department inspector general, tweeted that the extraordinary move represented “a pardon by another name” and called it a “black day in DOJ history.”Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said the decision to drop charges was “outrageous” and revealed “a politicized and thoroughly corrupt Department of Justice.” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) added, “If Barr’s Justice Department will drop charges against someone who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and who the White House publicly fired for lying to the vice president, there’s nothing it won’t do, no investigation it won’t taint.”Neither Flynn nor his attorney, Sidney Powell, responded immediately to requests for comment.Speaking to reports on Thursday afternoon, Trump said he had no prior knowledge of the Justice Department’s decision. “He was an innocent man,” Trump said, of Flynn. “Now in my book he’s an even greater warrior.”The dropped charges follow a years-long groundswell from Trump’s base, and particularly Fox News, to clear Flynn. His advocates claim that Flynn was set up by the same disreputable FBI figures who they believe persecuted Trump over phantom collusion with Russia.Flynn’s guilty plea, in December, 2017, has been no obstacle to the narrative, particularly since Flynn sought afterwards, unsuccessfully, to withdraw his plea. His sentencing, initially set for February, had also been delayed.Last month, agitation for a Flynn pardon intensified after documents emerged from two of Trump’s most hated ex-FBI figures, counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and attorney Lisa Page, discussing Flynn’s fateful January 2017 interview with the FBI. Page asked when and how to “slip it in” to Flynn that lying to an FBI agent is a crime, something that Flynn’s advocates believed showed the general being railroaded from the start. But veteran FBI agents and prosecutors have pointed out that the FBI is not legally obligated to inform an interview subject that lying to them is illegal. “Michael Flynn was very familiar with the FBI,” said Stephanie Douglas, a former executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch. “He would certainly have been aware of his obligation to provide candid and truthful information. His claim he was tricked and manipulated doesn’t sound valid to me.” Shea, in his Thursday court filing, suggested the FBI officials were “fishing for falsehoods merely to manufacture jurisdiction over any statement.” In Shea’s view, Flynn’s lies were less germane to the prosecution than the FBI “lack[ing] sufficient basis to sustain its initial counterintelligence investigation,” and its pre-interview position that it ought to close the investigation before speaking with the then national security adviser.Former FBI deputy head Andrew McCabe said on Thursday that the suggestion there was no reason to interview Flynn was “patently false, and ignores the considerable national security risk his contacts raised.” He said Flynn’s lies added to the FBI’s concerns about his relationship with Russia. “Today’s move... is pure politics designed to please the president,” he added.U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen, who was appointed by Barr to review Flynn’s and other high-profile cases, said on Thursday that he concluded “the proper and just course” was to dismiss the case. “I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed,” he said.The FBI Didn’t Frame Michael Flynn. That’s Just Trump’s Excuse for a Prospective Pardon.While serving as national security adviser, Flynn misled FBI interviewers about conversations he had with the then-Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak. In one of those late 2016 conversations, according to court filings, Flynn asked the Russians to avoid escalatory actions in response to sanctions and diplomatic expulsions then President Barack Obama enacted as reprisal for Russian electoral interference. Shea, in his filing, called Flynn’s Kislyak calls “entirely appropriate on their face.”The national security adviser’s lies prompted the holdover attorney general, Sally Yates, to warn the White House that Flynn had given the Russians leverage to blackmail him. But it would take weeks before Trump fired Flynn over “an eroding level of trust” concerning misleading Vice President Mike Pence on the Kislyak contacts. By May, Trump was said to have regretted dismissing the general.  Flynn in 2017 agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The general avoided charges for taking $530,000 in unregistered money from interests connected to the Turkish government—something he only declared with the Justice Department after his downfall as national security adviser. During a sentencing hearing in 2018, a federal judge castigated Flynn for disgracing the uniform Flynn wore for three decades. “Arguably, you sold your country out,” Judge Emmet Sullivan said. Two years earlier, on stage at the Republican national convention, Flynn had led a chant of “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton. Protesters outside Flynn’s courtroom did not let the general forget it. Trump’s enduring bond with Flynn is a testament to the importance of the role the general played in 2016.A host of national security officials, many aligned with the Republican Party, rejected Trump in 2016 as unfit to be president owing to his nativism, his penchant for brutality and his benign view of dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Flynn was the exception. And the general was an exceptional figure. As the intelligence chief for the Joint Special Operations Command during the mid-2000s, Flynn is one of a select few people who can be said to have personally prosecuted the most sensitive missions of the war on terror. Michael Flynn Putting Mueller Deal at Risk in ‘Dangerous’ New TrialIt was a pivotal credential in another way. Flynn emerged from the war on terror endorsing Trump’s view that the security apparatus, abetted by hidebound liberals and cowardly conservatives, had neutered the war on terror by refusing to see it was a civilizational conflict with Islam. “Islam is a political ideology” that “hides behind this notion of being a religion,” Flynn told the Islamophobic group ACT for America shortly after the 2016 convention. His hostility to Islam informed his sanguine view of Russia, which both Flynn and Trump saw as naturally aligned with the U.S. against what they called “Radical Islamic Terror.”It also meant that Trump and Flynn shared a common bureaucratic enemy. James Clapper, then the director of national intelligence, was a lead architect of an intelligence assessment finding Russia intervened in the election on Trump’s behalf. In 2014, Clapper fired Flynn as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. It was deeply embittering. Just four years earlier, Flynn had been hailed as an innovator after claiming U.S. military intelligence had misunderstood the Afghanistan war. While Flynn portrayed himself as a martyr, victimized by the ‘Deep State’ for daring to warn about radical Islam, Clapper and other intelligence leaders had fallen out with Flynn over what they considered an incompetent management style and an iffy relationship with the truth. Reportedly, Flynn believed Iran was involved in the 2012 assault on a CIA compound in Benghazi that killed four Americans, and claimed incorrectly that Iran was responsible for more American deaths than al-Qaeda. Aides referred to such untruths as “Flynn facts.” Flynn facts did not disturb Trump. They validated his instincts on national security. Trump rewarded Flynn by making him national security adviser, one of the most important positions in the U.S. security apparatus. It was the first time Trump redeemed Flynn. Thursday’s dropped charges represent the second. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.





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Navy nominee: Service is in rough waters, cites leadership

The U.S. Navy is in “rough waters” and suffering from leadership failures, the diplomat tapped to be the next Navy secretary told a Senate committee Thursday. Kenneth J. Braithwaite, the ambassador to Norway and a retired Navy rear admiral, faced repeated questions about recent crises that have rocked the service, including the firing of an aircraft carrier captain who urged faster action to fight a coronavirus outbreak on his ship and the subsequent resignation of the acting secretary who fired him. Braithwaite said that Navy culture has been tarnished and trust in the service's leaders has broken down.





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Gregory McMichael worked in local law enforcement for over 30 years and previously investigated Ahmaud Arbery

Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis, were charged with murder and aggravated assault in relation to the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery in February.





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‘A Start Towards Victory’: Gregory and Travis McMichael Charged With Murder of Ahmaud Arbery

SAVANNAH—Gregory and Travis McMichael have been arrested and charged with murder and aggravated assault in connection with the February killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Thursday. According to police, the white father and son, 64 and 34, chased Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, after he ran by Travis McMichael’s home in the Satilla Shores neighborhood of Brunswick on Feb. 23. He was unarmed and jogging at the time. “This is a start towards victory,” Thea Brooks, Arbery’s aunt, told The Daily Beast on Thursday. “This only the beginning though, but this is what we were all hoping for.”The McMichaels said they believed Arbery was a burglar responsible for a series of break-ins in their neighborhood and that they pursued him in their pickup truck while armed with a shotgun and a .357 magnum. The GBI alleges the McMichaels confronted Arbery, and that Travis shot him. A local prosecutor previously indicated a third man, William Bryan, took part in the chase and filmed the incident.‘It’s Murder’: This Shooting of an Unarmed Black Man Is Roiling GeorgiaAt least two shots hit the 25-year-old, the Glynn County Coroner’s Office told The Daily Beast last week.Video that Brooks said depicted her nephew’s death elicited a furious reaction nationwide, and residents of the area protested the initial failure to prosecute a case on Tuesday.“It’s murder. It’s heartbreaking to even look at. The whole city has seen it,” Brooks told The Daily Beast after the video was released this week.The Georgia NAACP echoed her words in a Thursday response to the McMichaels’ arrest: “The murderers of Ahmaud Arbery have been arrested.”Gregory McMichael, a former cop and investigator with a local prosecutor’s office, previously told The Daily Beast he “never would have gone after someone for their color.” He also said the “closest version of the truth” about the incident was captured in a letter effectively clearing him and his son that was written by a prosecutor who recused himself from the case, George Barnhill. McMichael also admitted he had no direct evidence that Arbery was a thief. “But he’s the guy who’s there without permission,” he said from behind the closed front door of his son’s home.The owner of an unfinished home just down the street from Travis McMichael's home, Larry English, told The Daily Beast earlier this week that he had surveillance footage that appeared to show Arbery stopping to look at the foundation of his still-under-construction home. While Gregory McMichael claimed to police that Arbery had been caught on surveillance video, it was not immediately clear what video he was referring to. English told The Daily Beast he had no knowledge of the McMichaels seeing his surveillance footage. McMichael’s ties to law enforcement helped fuel a haze of suspicion around the killing from the beginning. Barnhill was one of two area prosecutors who looked into the incident before recusing themselves. A third prosecutor—District Attorney Tom Durden—sought a GBI probe ahead of the arrests this week.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.





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Russian hackers accessed emails from Merkel's constituency office: Der Spiegel

Russia's GRU military intelligence service appears to have got hold of many emails from Chancellor Angela Merkel's constituency office in a 2015 hack attack on Germany's parliament, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Friday, without citing its sources. A spokesman for the German government had no immediate comment. Der Spiegel said federal criminal police and the federal cyber agency had been able to partially reconstruct the attack and found that two email inboxes from Merkel's office had been targeted.





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A standard for real-time calculation of pollutant emissions allocated to the use of ICT

(École de technologie supérieure) The first ever standard for real-time calculation of pollutant emissions allocated to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) was recently introduced, thanks to the work of the IEEE ICT Emissions Working Group Committe, chaired by Mohamed Cheriet, a Professor in the Systems Engineering Department at École de technologie supérieure. Under the auspices of the IEEE Standards Association, the Working Group Committee is made up of researchers from diverse backgrounds and many different countries.




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J-IDEA launches coronavirus pandemic hospital planning tool

Imperial's disease outbreak centre J-IDEA has launched a pandemic hospital planning tool to help cope with extreme surges in demand from coronavirus.




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AI being developed to help cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic

A new study led by The Royal Marsden involving Imperial will use artificial intelligence (AI) to help cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.




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Citizen-science project measures impact of coronavirus pandemic on mental health

What impact has the lockdown had on our mental health, and what determines how people cope with isolation?




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Sleeter receives funding for historical simulations on diplomacy

(George Mason University) Nathan Sleeter, Research Assistant Professor, Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM), is directing a project in which RRCHNM will create three classroom simulations based on events from the history of diplomacy for secondary education instructors.




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AGS honors expert and emerging geriatrics leaders of 2020

(American Geriatrics Society) The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) annually honors researchers, clinicians, educators, and emerging health professionals who have made outstanding contributions to high-quality, person-centered care for older people. This year's award recipients include more than 20 leaders representing the breadth of disciplines championing care for us all as we age.




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LECOM's Dr. James Lin named AGS Geriatrics Clinician of the Year

(American Geriatrics Society) The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) today named James Lin, DO, MS, MHSA, president of the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) Institute for Successful Aging in Erie, Pa., its 2020 Clinician of the Year. Lin will be honored at the AGS 2021 Annual Scientific Meeting (#AGS21), May 13-15, 2021, in Chicago, Ill., following the cancellation of the AGS 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting due to COVID-19.