'Any group with ties to Arabella Advisors is no grassroots organization'

In winter of 2022, Maine was accorded the honor of a visit from a Stellar’s sea eagle, a truly incredible raptor with an 8-foot-wingspan that may have been diverted from its migratory path as far away as Russia. Now, it’s the turn of this strange, long-necked “devil bird,” to send the state’s birdwatching community into […] The post Out-of-Place ‘Devil Bird’ Wows Spectators in Maine, the First Anhinga Ever Seen in the State appeared first on Good News Network.

Books Hard Science Fiction Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by “Hard SF”? Hard SF has never been a unified subgenre. Here are five overlapping varieties of story to which the label applies… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on August 5, 2024 Credit: NASA Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: NASA One of the essays I have long been considering is a piece on that subgenre known as hard science fiction. But before I could write an essay on hard SF, I had to figure out just what is meant by hard SF. Now it may seem odd that I, someone who thinks of himself as a fan of hard SF, who could point to his shelves of books by Poul Anderson, Robert Forward, and Hal Clement as evidence, cannot, when I come down to it, come up with a canonical definition of hard SF. I recently realized that there is no such thing as a unified subgenre; rather, there are a number of things that are often considered hard SF but that don’t necessarily share all that much in common. Wikipedia puts forth a definition: “Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic.” Interesting phrasing, that “concern”. Not “demonstration of,” or “adherence to,” but concern. Concern is nicely fuzzy. There is a lot of wiggle room in “concern.” Enough for at least five overlapping, intermingled, but sometimes separate hard science fictions. The first variety is orthogonal to the other four. It’s pure marketing, and has little to do with actual science content. Hard SF is used to denote the work of science fiction authors in a particular social circle largely but not entirely based on the US West Coast. Their books are usually at least a little bit science-ish, but really what’s being sold here is a set of overlapping conservative and libertarian political and social views. Do you like Larry Niven’s books? Well, you might like Greg Bear’s. Do you fancy Poul Anderson’s later SF novels? Consider Vernor Vinge’s. Purely marketing-based hard SF overlaps with the other varieties but does not fully contain any of them. The other four flavors of hard SF each engage with science and related activity in different ways. There is what one might call phase-diagram hard SF1, in which the well-informed author entertains the reader with stories illustrating little known or counterintuitive aspects of science as it is known at the time of writing2. The author tries their best to play fair with the reader, sticking to the known facts as best they can. Such impossible or dubious elements as are included will likely be present to facilitate getting the protagonist somewhere where they can appreciate phase equilibrium curves up close and personal… but those implausibilities won’t be the focus of the story. Not terribly distant from phase-diagram SF is the “here there be dragons” variety. This type of hard SF plays with possible science—fields lacking consensus and, in some cases, any concrete data. The stories explore what might happen if some as-yet-unsupported theory turned out to be true (or at least true as far as we know at the moment). The author is still playing fair, but the foundation of their story is conjectural and may later be shown to be impossible. Either of the above may also exemplify the sort of hard SF founded in the author’s confident misapprehension of science as known at the time of writing3. The author is trying very hard to write phase-diagram or here-there-be-dragons SF, but alas, their reach has exceeded their grasp. I have a certain fondness for this variety, partly because it facilitates snarky potshots at certain authors’ grasp of planetology, biology, or basic thermodynamics, but also because it’s possible to be educationally wrong. Understanding how and where someone erred often helps one avoid mistakes of one’s own4. Finally, there’s the sort of hard SF that embraces the superficial forms of either the phase-diagram or here-there-be-dragons type, but in which the author deliberately fudges the science. There are any number of reasons why this might seem the logical thing to do. This is my least favorite flavor, as it seems a bit dishonest, and also because authors are sometimes excessively convincing in their whimsy. It is left to others to explain why, for example, one cannot shed heat by radiating it away with a laser. Did I miss anything that gets lumped under the umbrella of hard SF5? Is there a coherent, unified taxonomy that makes sense of it all? Let me know in comments below.[end-mark] In his introduction to the 1965 Ace reprint of Hamilton’s Crashing Suns, Donald Wollheim fulminated that “today’s slide rule writers are too brainwashed to attempt” stories with “color, excitement and adventure.”To this day, I have no idea whether D.A.W. was vexed by a few specific authors or the state of the field in general. 1965 is the era of New Wave SF, hardly slide rule friendly. The lesson is that there is no lawn so large as to lack at least one person demanding other people get off it. ︎Strictly speaking, phase-diagram SF could include every mundane novel without egregious science errors that has ever been written. In practice, only weirdos try to claim that Singin’ in the Rain, The Count of Monte Cristo, or Hec Ramsey are SF. ︎We will leave aside for the moment the problem posed by Science Marching On. It renders unconvincing once plausible tales of Mercury’s eternal nightside and a 2020 discovery of a twelfth Saturnian moon. ︎Sometimes I think of all the people who, having read my true-life anecdotes, have learned not to strike a match while standing in a giant cloud of gasoline vapor, have never rudely mocked a home invader, and have not attempted to hand-feed a vicious dog. Although to be fair, mocking a home invader did accomplish its intended purpose, albeit through unforeseen means. My third instructive experience (vicious dog) vastly exceeded its goals. I recommend it to anyone who has at least one superfluous hand. Again: It’s important to learn what NOT to do. ︎“What is hard fantasy?” is a different essay. ︎The post Defining Our Terms: What Do We Mean by “Hard SF”? appeared first on Reactor.

But He Has an 'F' on His Passport!

Few natural phenomena catch our attention like volcanic eruptions. There is something staggeringly awe-inspiring about this primordial geological event. However, there is still much we do not know about them, especially when it comes to the behavior of magma before it emerges from the Earth.In recent years, scientists have turned to so-called “crystal clocks” to understand how long magma is stored underground before an eruption and how long it can take to travel to the surface. However, as a new explanation article by PNAS explains, they are a controversial topic.Quick boom or stalled storage?How do volcanoes work? Many of us probably think of volcanoes like some sort of geological pimple – liquid magma builds up deep underground until the pressure forces it to spurt from the top of a mountain. But the reality is more complicated.As magma rises through the Earth’s crust, it can cause earthquakes, release fumes, and provide other indications that it may be about to erupt. But scientists are uncertain about how the magma rises. One possibility is that it is a direct ascent, much like the magma-pimple concept above, which occurs over a matter of days. The other possibility is that magma rises towards the surface and then pauses, forming pools deep underground. This stalled magma may stay in place for thousands of years before it eventually revives and continues to rise.In this second case, the magma stalls because enough of it has cooled to temperatures below roughly 720°C (1,328°F), causing it to harden and become effectively stuck. Then, if there is an injection of new hot magma from below, the solidified rock melts and pushes upwards to erupt.If the first explanation is correct, then a grumble from a sleeping mountain may indicate an imminent eruption. But if the second explanation is correct, then the same grumble may be less concerning.The tick-tock of the crystal clocksSo how can we clear this up? Well one possible area of research has turned to analyzing crystals that form in volcanic rock from past eruptions.In 2014 a seminal paper was published that looked at these crystals to infer how magma behaved before it reached the surface. Authors Kari Cooper, University of California, and Adam Kent, Oregon State University, crushed volcanic rocks taken from recent eruptions of Oregon’s Mount Hood. They sifted out crystals, including plagioclase, that formed in the rock as the magma made its way to the surface.Plagioclase can be used in radiometric dating by measuring how much of the mineral’s uranium has decayed. As plagioclase is tough and cannot remelt, it offers a useful way to measure when magma started to form.Another type of crystal was also examined that can be used to estimate how long magma has been in a liquid state, the state that erupts more easily. This form of crystal clock includes plagioclase, as well as pyroxene, olivine, and quartz. An examination of the extent of diffusion between the layers of these crystals can provide insights into how long the minerals experienced eruption-level temperatures.As a result, Cooper and Kent found that the oldest plagioclase crystals in the 2014 samples were at least 20,000 years old, and that they had probably been at high temperatures for hundreds of years. They concluded that the crystals could only have remained at the highest temperatures for around 12 percent of the magma’s whole lifetime, suggesting the magma had been stalled in reservoirs under the volcanoes for 20,000 years.Cooper and Kent’s work marked a significant breakthrough for volcanologists and has inspired various other studies since then.Controversy among the clocksBut while it is hoped crystal clocks offer us a way to understand how magma behaves before it erupts, there are those who are more cautious. This resistance comes from the fact that it is extremely difficult to reproduce the types of conditions present deep below the Earth’s surface.Magma crystals are made up of many microscopic layers that are formed when each new injection of hot magma rises from below to heat the stalled rock. Each layer, so the theory goes, should be chemically unique as it is made from different magmas. Like the rings of a tree, a cross-section of a crystal should have nice distinct lines that demarcate each layer. But this is not the case in reality because, over time, atoms migrate between the layers, making their chemical composition more homogeneous. It also seems that the older crystals have more of this blurring effect.Researchers can recreate this process in laboratories using a method that measures the rate of atomic diffusion inside crystals while also examining the concentration and depth of uptake. This approach has produced a standardized way to date the speed at which crystals took to form. However, when examining crystal clocks, researchers have reported inconsistent diffusion rates when replicating original studies.This does not suggest the whole idea of crystal clocks should be thrown away, but it does indicate a need for caution. In particular, they should not be relied on alone, but rather seen as another tool in the broader toolkit.[H/T: PNAS]

One of the deadliest skin infections may have met its match as an exciting new family of compounds have shown unprecedented efficacy in clearing a fatal infection in mice. They target the gram-positive bacteria behind a flesh-eating disease known as necrotizing fasciitis that can be fatal in a matter of days.Gram-positive bacteria are characterized by their cell wall, setting them apart from gram-negative bacteria. Which group a bacterium falls into matters when it comes to allocating an antibiotic to someone’s illness, as some drugs will be more effective on one type than the other.Necrotizing fasciitis is a rare but life-threatening infection that can happen when bacteria get in through a break in the skin, be that a bite, burn, or scratch. It’s more commonly associated with gram-positive bacteria, with Streptococcus pyogenes being the most likely culprit.Limb amputation is often required to control the spread of necrotizing fasciitis, and about 20 percent of people die. Getting on top of this fatal infection by tackling the culprit, which is responsible for many other potentially life-threatening diseases, could save hundreds of thousands of lives each year. This latest study focused on S. pyogenes necrotizing soft tissue infections in mice, to see how treatment with a novel family of compounds influenced the progression of disease.The compounds are called GmPcides (for gram-positive-icide) and had already proven their efficacy on bacteria in a Petri dish. The mouse model revealed that the compound was once again effective, both in reducing the virulence of the bacteria and even speeding up post-infection healing.It’s not entirely clear how it’s able to do this just yet, but it’s thought that the GmPcide may affect the bacteria’s cell membranes.“One of the jobs of a membrane is to exclude material from the outside,” said study co-author and professor of molecular microbiology Dr Michael Caparon in a statement. “We know that within five to ten minutes of treatment with GmPcide, the membranes start to become permeable and allow things that normally should be excluded to enter into the bacteria, which suggests that those membranes have been damaged.”As well as letting in things the bacteria would sooner keep out, permeating the cell membrane can make it less able to harm the host, and less resistant to the human body’s immune response. And in case that’s not quite enough good news for you, it also proved to be effective across a range of bacteria.“All of the gram-positive bacteria that we’ve tested have been susceptible to that compound. That includes enterococci, staphylococci, streptococci, C. difficile, which are the major pathogenic bacteria types. The compounds have broad-spectrum activity against numerous bacteria.”So far the compound has been tested in mice, who are a common research subject because they are genetically so similar to us humans. So, while we can’t necessarily generalize findings from mouse studies to humans, it’s a very promising step in the fight against a deadly foe.The study is published in Science Advances.

Leaving streetlights on all night has an unexpected effect on the trees around them, causing them to sacrifice growth for better defense against insects.Street lighting has many benefits, but there is a price to pay for the loss of darkness. It certainly interferes with our view of the stars, and animals are suffering. When scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences noticed how little insect damage was occurring to tree leaves in urban areas, lighting was one suspect.“We noticed that, compared to natural ecosystems, tree leaves in most urban ecosystems generally show little sign of insect damage. We were curious as to why,” said Dr Shuang Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in a statement. We might expect that if urban insects are not chowing down on tree leaves as much, the cause would relate to the animals, not the plants. Perhaps light, or air pollution, was affecting the insects directly. Alternatively, the nocturnal illumination might help predators catch the herbivores, leaving fewer left to do their munching.However, Zhang and colleagues also explored the possibility that trees exposed to light through the night would focus on defending themselves through turning up the unsavory chemicals, rather than growth. They tested this by collecting nearly 5,500 leaves from Japanese pagoda (Styphnolobium japonicum) and green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) trees near streetlights in Beijing, and some placed further away from lights. All were the same distance from busy roads, so exposure to air pollution did not vary.Both species produced tougher leaves that made them harder to chew when exposed to 24-hour light. Unsurprisingly, this made leaves from more well-lit areas less attractive to herbivorous insects.Other differences varied by species. The Japanese pagodas exposed to more light had lower concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus, both vital nutrients.  Green ash trees, on the other hand, had more nitrogen when exposed to extra light, and less insect-deterring tannin, but their leaves were smaller.“The underlying mechanism for this pattern is not yet fully understood,” said Zhang. “It is possible that trees exposed to artificial light at night may extend their photosynthesis duration. Additionally, these leaves might allocate a greater proportion of resources to structural compounds, such as fibers, which could lead to an increase in leaf toughness.” The authors speculate the difference between species could be because green ash trees are less attractive to insects under ordinary conditions, and so may experience less pressure to redirect resources towards deterrence. Zhang and colleagues aren’t ruling out increased predation on the insects as a further contributing factor, but that would be harder to test.There’s a reason that trees don’t make their leaves tougher all the time. Energy invested in building defenses comes at the cost of growth, and ultimately seed production. You might not care if insects struggle to feed, but if it means you get less summer shade, the issue might seem more relevant, particularly in a city prone to overheating. The authors also observed: “It's noteworthy that leaves with higher toughness tend to decompose at a slower rate, potentially affecting the nutrient cycling rate negatively.”Moreover, Zhang noted: “Decreased herbivory can lead to trophic cascading effects in ecology. Lower levels of herbivory imply lower abundances of herbivorous insects, which could in turn result in lower abundances of predatory insects, insect-eating birds, and so on. The decline of insects is a global pattern observed over recent decades. We should pay more attention to this trend.”Zhang acknowledges a study on two species in a single city may not be universally applicable. Nevertheless, it adds to existing arguments for turning streetlights off for part of the night, or having them on motion sensors so they only shine when needed.The study is published in Frontiers in Plant Science.

Check the look of dismay/disdain on Kasie Hunt's face as she decried Donald Trump having called Kamala Harris, during his Atlanta rally on Sunday, a "low-IQ individual." On today's CNN This Morning, Hunt claimed that Trump's statement was "definitely race-related." Really? Shall we take a stroll down the list of people of pallor whose intellect Trump has disparaged? Let's begin with the infamous tweet in which Trump used the very same term regarding the very white Mika Brzezinski: "low-I.Q. Crazy Mika." Other examples of white people whose intellect Trump has derided: Jeff Sessions: A "dumb Southerner" Karl Rove: "Stupid" [five times] Glenn Beck: "Stupid" "dumb as a rock" Lindsey Graham: "Dumb mouthpiece" John McCain: "dummy," "graduated last in his class" Arianna Huffington: "dummy" Brit Hume: "dope, know nothing" There are others, but you get the picture. When it comes to insulting people's intelligence, Trump is the Don Rickles of politicians.   Hunt put it to former Biden aide Meghan Hays that Trump's "low-IQ" attack on Harris could actually backfire. Hays was only too happy to agree, saying that the kind of people that Trump needs to persuade in the swing states tend to be non-Trump, Nikki Haley-type women voters who won't look kindly at a women being disparaged as "low-IQ." We must be in deep in the thousdands of occasions where CNN has predicted "backlash" or "backfires" for Trump since 2015. But let's ask this: Hasn't CNN called people they don't agree with "stupid"? Like CNN analyst Ana Navarro said Latinos backing Trump have a "very stupid attitude" -- is that racist?  Trump could certainly focus, as we have previously noted, on the treasure trove of of far-left policy positions that Harris has taken. But in saying it's "race-related" for Trump to call Harris "low-IQ," Hunt chose to ignore his long history of questioning the smarts of his opponents--of all races. Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 8/5/24 6:18 am EDT DONALD TRUMP: CNN we're going to defeat Crazy Kamala, Ka-ma-la, you know, there's about 19 different ways of saying it. She only likes three. She was here a week ago, lots of empty seats. But the crowd she got was because she had entertainers. She refuses to even say the words illegal alien, or radical Islamic terrorists. She is considered more left-wing than Crazy Bernie Sanders, look at her, she's worse than Bernie.And she happens to be, really, a low-IQ individual. KASIE HUNT: A low-IQ individual. That was a selection of the various ways in which Donald Trump is going on offense against his new rival. . . .  I mean, Meghan Hays, this low-IQ stuff, I mean, it's definitely race-related, right? And this is a thing that, when when it was clear that Joe Biden was leaving the race, one of the notes I got from a Republican in Trump's orbit was that this is going to mean that he is not going to be able to resist going to these places. What do you think? I mean, if you're the Democrats, are these the kinds of attacks, in some ways you would say, well, that's going to actually backfire? It's going to help us. How do you look at it?  MEGHAN HAYS: No, I definitely think it helps the Democrats, I think going back to this in five or six states, with 10,000 people in each state that are going to determine this election. And most of these people are independent women and they're like the non-Trump people, the Nikki Haley voters that we were calling them earlier in the cycle.  These are not people who are going to take kindly to calling a woman having low-IQ, calling out her race, making personal attacks against her. That's not going to win you voters. That energizes your base, and it might be great it for fundraising, but it is not what's going to win you the election.

When the news broke that “Ava” Kris Tyson sent highly sexualized texts between himself and a 13-year-old fan of the MrBeast franchise, the internet was in an uproar. Tyson, who came out as transgender last year and left his wife and child to pursue a new life as a woman, has now been labeled as a “groomer.” Despite standing behind Tyson throughout his transition into womanhood, MrBeast himself, Jimmy Donaldson, is finally taking action against him. “Over the last few days, I’ve become aware of the serious allegations of Ava Tyson’s behavior online and I am disgusted and opposed to such unacceptable acts,” he wrote in a post on X. MrBeast explained in his statement that he would hire “an independent third party to conduct a thorough investigation” to ensure he has “all the facts.” He also removed Tyson from the company and channel. However, Sara Gonzales and her panel on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered” are skeptical that Tyson was actually operating under Donaldson’s nose rather than right before his eyes. In one clip of the MrBeast team in Tyson’s house, there is child porn-inspired art called “Loli” hanging on the wall. The art was created by Shadman, who uses live child models. “They call it ‘Loli,’ a type of highly sexualized anime where grown women are depicted as children,” Gonzales explains, disgusted. BlazeTV contributor Jaco Booyens doesn’t think Tyson is the only one to worry about. “In any given moment in the United States, there’s 750,000 predators actively communicating with children online. Any given moment. Right now, as we’re speaking, there’s ¾ of a million predators communicating on social media,” Booyens explains. “The average groomer at any given time is grooming 32 children,” Booyens says, adding, “This is not an isolated incident by this guy.” Booyens also points out that MrBeast didn’t seem to mind that Tyson was leaving his family to pursue his dream of being a “woman.” “This is not the first MrBeast sexual swirl around that team,” he says. “Birds of a feather flock together.” Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred take to news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Markets around the world, including in the U.S., tanked on Monday as investors began openly expressing concerns about a possible U.S. economic recession.As they had on Friday, global markets were severely in the red on Monday. The Dow opened down more than 1,000 points and as of mid-morning hovers about -2.6% overall. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is down over 560 points or 3.36%.'Four years ago today, Trump claimed the stock market would 'crash' if Joe Biden was elected.'The Asian markets, many of which are about 12 hours ahead of the American markets, suffered even worse losses on Monday. The Nikkei 225 in Japan tumbled 12.4% — more than 4,450 points — its largest single-day loss in history. The second largest was "Black Monday" in 1987."That was a crash. It smelled like 1987," said Neil Newman, head of strategy at Astris Advisory in Tokyo, according to CNN.On Monday, Taiwan's Taiex likewise fell 8.4% and South Korea’s Kospi 8.8%.These catastrophic numbers have intensified talks about a looming recession in the U.S. Even leftwing outlets like the Daily Beast have acknowledged the possibility."To put it mildly, the spike in volatility-of-volatility is a spectacle that underlines just how jittery markets have become," said Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management, according to ABC News. "The real question now looms: Can the typical market reflex to sell volatility or buy the market dip prevail over the deep-seated anxiety brought on by this sudden and sharp recession scare?"The Federal Reserve will now almost assuredly cut interest rates next month to stabilize the volatile markets. For now, economists are blaming the global market turmoil on the dismal jobs report the U.S. Department of Labor released on Friday. So-called experts had anticipated a report showing that the policies that Biden and Harris have affectionally called "Bidenomics" had created 175,000 jobs last month, but the real number was much lower, just 114,000, causing the unemployment rate to jump to 4.3%, the highest rate since October 2021 and nearly a full point higher than it was at the beginning of the year.As recently as May, an account touting the supposed accomplishments of Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated the soaring stock market and took aim at former President Donald Trump's skepticism about a Biden-Harris administration's ability to address economic issues."Four years ago today, Trump claimed the stock market would 'crash' if Joe Biden was elected (The stock market has reached the highest levels ever recorded in history under President Biden)," Kamala HQ tweeted on May 24.Trump certainly has his doubts that Biden and Harris are up to the task, dubbing the market tumble on Monday the "KAMALA CRASH.""Of course there is a massive market downturn. Kamala is even worse than Crooked Joe. Markets will NEVER accept the Radical Left Lunatic that DESTROYED San Francisco and California, as a whole. Next move, THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF 2024! You can’t play games with MARKETS. KAMALA CRASH!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.Harris for President spokesperson James Singer, in turn, pointed the finger at Trump for the abysmal jobs report. "Donald Trump failed Americans as president, costing our economy millions of jobs, and bringing us to the brink of recession," Singer said."We’ve made significant progress, but Vice President Harris knows there’s more work to do to lower costs for families." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!