Climate change and insects, and designing Canada’s lunar rover

"The Einstein Show" marked 100 years since his publication of four papers that changed the laws of physics

Cookie-cutter condos, glass business towers, minimal green space — there's clear evidence that many urban spaces have negative impacts on our mental health. But does it have to be that way?

Facebook faces a $2 billion lawsuit over hate speech; Expanse co-author Ty Franck on the role of nuclear fusion in sci-fi universes and the real world; making sense of the connection between respiratory virus outbreaks and invasive Strep A bacterial infections; a theatre director's bid to bring British holiday 'pantos' to Canada; Israeli documentary Tantura confronts an alleged massacre in a Palestinian village; and more.

Animals — what on earth are they thinking? A panel of scientists explore the notion of animal cognition from what your dog means when it wags its tail, to the incredible problem-solving skills of crows, as part of the Aspen Ideas Festival.

 

No President nor nominee in US history so openly and brazenly pursued a fascist dictatorship like Donald Trump does today. In fact, many of Trump's own handpicked senior advisers from his first term as President issue urgent warnings today about Trump's drive to dictatorship. For example:

1)    TRUMP'S LONGEST SERVING CHIEF OF STAFF MARINE GENERAL JOHN KELLY

John Kelly enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1970, and was discharged as a sergeant in 1972. Following college graduation in 1976, he returned to the Marines as an infantry officer. Kelly rose to Brigadier General and served in Iraq for the better part of 2 years. Kelly deployed again to Iraq in 2008 after promotion to Major General. Ultimately, in his last military post, from 2012 to 2016 he served as a four-star general leading the United States Southern Command, the unified combatant command responsible for American military operations in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

President Trump appointed Kelly the Secretary of Homeland Security in 2017. Trump promoted Kelly to Chief of Staff on July 31, 2017. At the time, Trump called Kelly a "great American" who has "done a spectacular job at Homeland Security" and "been a true star of my administration."

The New York Times published an interview with Kelly, on Oct. 22, 2024, available here. According to General Kelly: “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist. . . . He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.” Further, the General said that "a very big surprise for him was that we were — those of us who were former generals and certainly people still on active duty — that the commitment, the loyalty was to the Constitution, without question, without second thought. That was a big surprise to him that the generals were not loyal to the boss, in this case him.” Trump apparently failed middle school history.

2)      TRUMP'S HANDPICKED CHAIR OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF MARK MILLEY

Four star General Mark Milley became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 30, 2019, and served as the nation's highest ranking military officer for four years until September of 2023.  Milley first became a commissioned officer in 1980 after graduating from Princeton University. As chairman, General Milley acted as the principal military advisor to the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.

When Milley took his oath as Chair, Donald Trump said of his appointee: "In his new role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley will serve as my top military advisor. I have absolute confidence that he will fulfill his duty with the same brilliance and fortitude he has shown throughout his long and very distinguished career."

Today the retired General says of Trump: “He is the most dangerous person ever. [N]ow I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country, a fascist to the core.” In his retirement speech Milley stated: "“We don’t take an oath to a king, or queen, or tyrant or a dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don’t take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

3)    13 FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS IN SUPPORT OF THE GENERALS

In the wake of comments from General Kelly (and fully consistent with the comments of General Milley), 13 Trump appointees wrote a letter of support stating:

Donald Trump's disdain for the American military and admiration for dictators like Hitler is rooted in his desire for absolute, unchecked power. This is a man who threw his own Vice President – Mike Pence – at a violent mob in a desperate bid to hold on to power. When Donald Trump says he wants to be a "dictator" on "day one" and deploy the military against American citizens he deems “the enemy from within"--he means it. . . . We did not take the decision to come forward lightly. We are all lifelong Republicans who served our country. However, there are moments in history where it becomes necessary to put country over party. This is one of those moments.

All of these Trump Administration appointees, including many serving in senior positions, worked day-to-day with Trump and witnessed first hand how he governs and how he seeks to accumulate dictatorial powers.

4)     FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE JAMES MATTIS

Four star Marine General James Mattis served as Trump's first handpicked Secretary of Defense, from Trump's inauguration through early 2019. Mattis previously served as a Marine officer starting in 1971, and saw combat in Operation Dessert Storm, Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

General Mattis posits that Donald Trump is unfit because he places himself above the Constitution. More specifically, Mattis issued a statement after the J6 insurrection that said:

Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice. Our Constitution and our Republic will overcome this stain and We the People will come together again in our never-ending effort to form a more perfect Union, while Mr. Trump will deservedly be left a man without a country.

Mattis previously levelled serious objections to Trump's fitness as President due to his misconduct in the summer of 2020, in the wake of protests triggered by the police murder of George Floyd. He stated:

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. 

5)    FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE MARK ESPER 

After graduating from West Point, Mark Esper joined the United States Army and served during the 1990-91 Gulf War as an officer with the 101st Airborne Division. Former President Trump appointed him as the Secretary of Defense and he assumed office on July 19, 2019.

When asked about the former Generals assertions that Trump seeks to impose a dictatorship Esper stated: "It's hard to say that he doesn't. . . .he certainly has those inclinations. And I think it's something we should be wary about." Esper suggests voters look up the term "fascism" and determine on their own if Trump fits the bill. He also praised the Generals for raising the issue and gave them high marks for integrity and honesty.

The Esper interview with CNN is available here.

6)   FORMER VICE PRESIDENT PENCE

In an extraordinary development, Vice President Mike Pence refuses to endorse Donald Trump for President in election 2024. Pence stated that Trump should never sit in the Oval Office again because Trump put himself and his hold on power above the Constitution. The video above explains his position best.

CONCLUSION

The 18 patriots quoted above all say in unison that Donald Trump cannot rule our country again because he cannot adhere to the Constitution. Instead he will seek extra-Constitutional power and try to rule as a dictator. Trump himself promises to rule as a dictator on Day 1. These warnings come from life-long conservatives and from Trump's hand picked officials at the most senior levels of the Trump Administration. They saw Trump at work in the Oval Office daily--they know much more than us. They risk their lives and the lives of their family. We must heed these unprecedented warnings and take Trump at his word. The Constitution today demands that we all follow the distinguished leaders above and act courageously to protect our Great Constitutional Republic. History will judge us on this most important issue. We must not elect a dictator who promises to "terminate" the Constitution for power.

Virologist Beata Halassy says self-treatment worked and was a positive experience — but researchers warn that it is not something others should try.

When the Soviets called their enemies “fascists,” they turned the word into a meaningless insult. Putinist Russia has preserved the habit: a “fascist” is anyone who opposes the wishes of a Russian dictator. So Ukrainians defending their country from Russian invaders are “fascists.” This is a trick that Trump has copied. He, like Vladimir Putin, refers to his enemies as “fascists,” with no ideological significance at all. It is simply a term of opprobrium. Putin and Trump are both, in fact, fascists. And their use of the word, though meant to confuse, reminds us of one of fascism’s essential characteristics. A fascist is unconcerned with the connection between words and meanings. He does not serve the language; the language serves him. When a fascist calls a liberal a “fascist,” the term begins to work in a different way, as the servant of a particular person, rather than as a bearer of meaning

Aidan Toner-Rodgers† MIT November 6, 2024 This paper studies the impact of artificial intelligence on innovation, exploiting the randomized introduction of a new materials discovery technology to 1,018 scientists in the R&D lab of a large U.S. firm. AI-assisted researchers discover 44% more materials, resulting in a 39% increase in patent filings and a 17% rise in downstream product in- novation. These compounds possess more novel chemical structures and lead to more radical inventions. However, the technology has strikingly disparate effects across the productivity distribution: while the bottom third of scientists see little benefit, the output of top researchers nearly doubles. Investigating the mechanisms behind these results, I show that AI automates 57% of “idea-generation” tasks, reallocating researchers to the new task of evaluating model-produced candidate materials. Top scientists leverage their domain knowledge to prioritize promising AI suggestions, while others waste significant resources testing false positives. Together, these findings demonstrate the potential of AI-augmented research and highlight the complemen- tarity between algorithms and expertise in the innovative process. Survey evidence reveals that these gains come at a cost, however, as 82% of scientists report reduced satisfaction with their work due to decreased creativity and skill underutilization.

Microdosing has been growing in popularity alongside growing cultural acceptance of psychedelics and increased research into their potential as mental health tools. Most psychedelic drugs are illegal according to the federal government, however, so even though microdosing has inched its way into the mainstream lexicon, it simultaneously remains part of an underground culture.

Two Colorado scientists presented a program on the aurora borealis for a lodge in Canada.

It's hard out here for a pimp.

Myles Darrell will deliver a presentation as part of Roche Science Week activities on February 7th, with the presentation to focus on the preservation and protection of Bermuda’s native and endemic flora. A spokesperson said, “Bermuda’s conservation efforts began more than 400 years ago when legislation was passed to protect her sea turtles. Now, well into […]

Warwick Academy’s Year 3 Jabour and Vallis recently had a live Skype lesson courtesy of the Catlin Education outreach programme, which offered the opportunity for students to speak to a member of the Catlin Seaview Survey expedition in the Southeast Asian “Coral Triangle” via Skype in the classroom. Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop and members of the Catlin Seaview Survey […]

For the fifth consecutive year, the Bermuda Zoological Society event REEF Watch trained teams of corporate professionals, teenagers and families to conduct coral reef surveys, fish counts and assessments of our reef ecosystem. Scientists collecting dive slates Nineteen teams set out on Saturday, 23 September to sample reefs across the northern platform. With ID sheets, […]

RochesterInk Poetry Festival, October 2007 This talk might be subtitled, “Where Poetry Comes From,” because that’s what I’m most interested in. The best poems, the poems we want to reread and memorize and carry with us forever, are those that offer some kind of insight. They connect. They resonate. They touch on a deeper truth—a …

Read more "Poetry and the Subconscious"

The post Poetry and the Subconscious first appeared on Timothy Green.

Democratic politicians don't fear the mob. Notice that? Why? Because they don't need to. They control the mob. The mob operates with their permission. These are their foot soldiers. This is their militia. Continue reading →

The real threat is collusion. When journalists strike secret alliances with the very people they're supposed to be holding accountable, we are in deep trouble. Lies go unchallenged.  Democracy cannot function. And that's what we're watching right now. Continue reading →

This ruling class of administrative state, big tech, corporations: all of these people think that they can get rid of Trump and we'll go back to normal. They're wedded to a broken system that has sold out the American people. And now they're going to try to sell out the American people and the middle class especially. They're not going to fix immigration; they're not going to fix trade deals; they're not going to break up big tech; they're not going to do any of these things. Continue reading →

FBI CIA NSA are not only spying on American citizens but also are illegally unmasking their identities to journalists who support our fascist government Continue reading →

Censorship is antithetical to the scientific method because it requires free speech and open debate and skepticism Continue reading →

And so that is what I call the birth of this woke industrial complex. It is a new leviathan, a new monster, that is far more powerful than what Thomas Hobbes might have envisioned 400 years ago, and it is the biggest threat to individual liberty today. It is not big government alone. Its conservatives are reciting lines that they memorized in 1980, thinking that big government was the threat to individual liberty. Maybe it was in 1980. It's not today. It is this new hybrid of big government and big business and big government not just in the United States but big government in places like China, co-mingled with big business creating the actual threat to our liberty and our prosperity. Continue reading →

Bantam Tools Acquires Evil Mad Scientist to Accelerate Development of Next Generation Art and Handwriting Machines Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman of Evil Mad Scientist named CTO and COO of Bantam Tools  PEEKSKILL, N.Y, January 16, 2024 — Bantam Tools, the desktop CNC manufacturer that builds exceptional computer controlled machines for innovators, is excited to … Continue reading Bantam Tools Acquires Evil Mad Scientist →

Knowing that you've found signs of life beyond Earth may not be as clear-cut and simple as one might think.

With all the advances in private space exploration, why do taxpayers still pay for space science missions?

I think the next logical step is a pulled-tooth via skydiving.

~NSHA

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Google DeepMind has unexpectedly released the source code and model weights of AlphaFold 3 for academic use, marking a significant advance that could accelerate scientific…

Report 68 published by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) in November 2014. This report will help readers to understand the Learning Together methodology.

Science experiments are not considered completely valid unless they can be replicated. Replicating an experiment is pretty much impossible unless you've been steeped in the various factors of scientific theory. And even if you are thoroughly trained in those factors, it's easy to lose track when you're doing a casual experiment at home. That goes double when your aim is to debunk something that you find obviously wrong.

Sage the Bad Naturalist jumped into such a debunking experiment with both feet, and then got entangled in them. She spent an entire year trying to replicate a dubious TikTok, which turned into an embarrassing adventure in how not to do science. But negative results are still results, and the goal of science is always to learn something. She bravely admits all the things she did wrong, because scientists have to have humility to be accepted. What's funniest is how many things went wrong, and how they all piled up to the end. What she ended up with is an amusing and rather charming video on the dangers of throwing your heart (and time) into debunking something you saw on the internet. -via Metafilter

Vampire bats rely on amino acids from their blood diet to fuel their exercise, scientists discovered after observing the animals on tiny treadmills.

The discovery of an impeccably preserved Celtic burial chamber in southern Germany is a "stroke of luck for archaeology," scientists say.

There is a 50% chance that global warming will consistently exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next six years, according to a new report.

Princeton's 'extremely supportive' environment for new ideas laid the foundation for an aha moment about a toggle switch in the fruit fly brain. Do humans have one, too? 

The scientific feat is also "a breakthrough for practical applications because entangled molecules can be the building blocks for many future applications.” says physicist Lawrence Cheuk.

Physical chemist Giacinto Scoles, Princeton’s Donner Professor of Science, Emeritus, died in Sassenheim, the Netherlands, on Sept. 25 with his wife of nearly 60 years at his side. He was 89.

Daniel Osherson, Princeton’s Henry R. Luce Professor in Information Technology, Consciousness, and Culture, Emeritus, known for his  creative scientific explorations with collaborators in many disciplines, died at home on Sept. 4. 

A lecture on the legacy of Catholic women in the arts and sciences.

The Kahneman-Treisman Center is pleased to announce its newest initiative: Behavioral Science Desk. We know Princeton scholar-researchers from a range of disciplines are interested in finding ways to have their work intersect not only the insights of behavioral science but also real-world settings. The world's first and largest non-profit behavioral science innovation lab, ideas42(Link is external), is partnering with SPIA to bring Princeton students and faculty closer to research and design in the field in our new BSci Desk. Senior leaders from ideas42 will be available to students and faculty on campus as well as virtually, by appointment. See more at https://behavioralpolicy.princeton.edu/news/bscidesk

High school scientists dazzled us with their innovations—while new studies revealed insights about math mastery and how we can prepare young people for real-world challenges.

Scientific advancements helped humans push through both the pandemic and the atmosphere this year, and a long-awaited visit from some underground insects set the country abuzz.

The Event Horizon Telescope team has captured the first image of Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

And why it’s so hard to make blue ones.

Here’s how hot air can “fry” food.

We are proud to introduce the 2020—2021 NOVA Science Studio student-producers who covered a wide variety of science stories including fast fashion and sneaker sustainability, as well as the effects of food insecurity and its outsized impact on youth.

NASA nudges an asteroid, weird things emerge from water, and scientists tackle a new epidemic.