by Harley Schlanger, LaRouche Organization: The War Hawks are gathering in Italy for the G7 summit, and are preparing for a NATO war council in D.C. on July 9.  Can they be stopped?  The Schiller Institute emergency press conference on June 12, which featured senior military and intelligence analysts, was described by Helga Zepp-LaRouche as […]

The judge overseeing Alex Jones’ bankruptcy ruled that he could keep broadcasting on Infowars and that only his personal assets must be sold. His social media accounts won’t be seized. “There’s been lots of talk about whether Mr. Jones has regained control of the business, but the reality is he never really lost it,” Judge […] The post Judge Rules Alex Jones Can Keep Broadcasting appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Animals have standards, too, and this bull showed his dad that he’s a man with a high bar of preferences. When Earl the Bull met some cows that Dad thought he might be interested in, he exhibited an absolutely hilarious response. This funny video features a bull taking a few steps in the direction of some cows and, after he’s met them, immediately turning around to get back on the truck. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pubity (@pubity) “No, no you can’t get back on the bus,” his dad said in the video. Earl was totally over it. He had a ton of options and yet, he was ready to go. I think there are a few theories to explain Earl’s potential behavior. First, this bull may have already had a cow girlfriend at home — in which case he didn’t need to meet all these ladies. Second, maybe Early is just a homebody. It’s hard to be forced on a date, especially out of your comfort zone. And finally, as one viewer pointed out, it is Pride Month. Maybe Earl’s just not interested in the ladies. This image is from Pexels by Ing Joseph. The comments brought some serious hilarity to this bull-meets-cows situation. “This is just an udder disappointment,” said one punny viewer. Another poster suggested that Earl said something like, ““Nothing here but a bunch of heifers.” It did seem that Earl was rather frustrated with the cow pick his dad provided. Looks like dad isn’t the best wing man after all. “Earl is the type to check the weather app at a party,” commented another viewer who seemed to agree with me on the Earl/Homebody theory. Whatever the reason, Earl seems to be very comfortable heading home. Can’t ask for very much more than that! The featured image for this post is from Pixabay. The post Bull Meets His New Cow Girlfriends… But His Reaction Isn’t What Dad Expected! appeared first on InspireMore.

A New York City drug dealer decides to get out of the business, but has to flee from mobsters. Cast: 1984 memories I’m pretty sure this movie never played in my towns theater. I’ve never CONTINUE READING... The post 84 From ’84: Alphabet City appeared first on The Retro Network.

With the reality of climate change pushing society to consider alternatives to fossil fuels, a potential new source of renewable energy has appeared in a somewhat unusual form: algae.A highly diverse group of organisms, algae are also photosynthetic, meaning they use sunlight, water, and carbon to produce oxygen and energy. If scientists are somehow able to exploit that process, that could potentially mean not only a new source of renewable energy, but also one that removes carbon dioxide whilst doing so.  And that’s exactly what researchers from the Optical-Bio Microsystems Lab at Concordia University have recently achieved. “Photosynthesis produces oxygen and electrons. Our model traps the electrons, which allows us to generate electricity,” said Kirankumar Kuruvinashetti, first author of the study describing the finding, in a statement.The model in question is known as a micro photosynthetic power cell, or µPSC. It consists of two chambers, one an anode and the other a cathode, each measuring just 2 centimeters by 2 centimeters and only 4 millimeters thick and separated by a specially designed membrane. Algae are suspended in a solution in the anode chamber and once photosynthesizing, they begin releasing electrons, which are captured by microelectrodes running on both sides of the membrane. The microelectrodes conduct the electrons, generating a current.At present, the power generation isn’t enough to compete with other sources of renewable energy, like photovoltaic cells – though it does make enough for low and ultra-low power devices. The researchers, however, believe that the process still very much has potential, and that comes in three main ways.First, it would be a particularly “clean” energy source. Not only does the process not emit any carbon, but “it’s a negative carbon emission technology: it absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and gives you a current. Its only byproduct is water,” explained Kuruvinashetti.The method also doesn’t require direct sunlight to work – great news for its prospects in Britain – even though it’s slightly less intense when it does so.The researchers also believe that using algae in this way is safer and more sustainable than some other existing renewable energy production processes. “Our system does not use any of the hazardous gases or microfibres needed for the silicon fabrication technology that photovoltaic cells rely on,” said corresponding author Muthukumaran Packirisamy.“Furthermore, disposing of silicon computer chips is not easy. We use biocompatible polymers, so the whole system is easily decomposable and very cheap to manufacture.”See, algae aren’t so bad after all.The study is published in Energies.

After its “birth” in the Big Bang, the universe consisted mainly of hydrogen and a few helium atoms. These are the lightest elements in the periodic table. More-or-less all elements heavier than helium were produced in the 13.8 billion years between the Big Bang and the present day.Stars have produced many of these heavier elements through the process of nuclear fusion. However, this only makes elements as heavy as iron. The creation of any heavier elements would consume energy instead of releasing it.In order to explain the presence of these heavier elements today, it’s necessary to find phenomena that can produce them. One type of event that fits the bill is a gamma-ray burst (GRB) – the most powerful class of explosion in the universe. These can erupt with a quintillion (10 followed by 18 zeros) times the luminosity of our Sun, and are thought to be caused by several types of event.GRBs can be subdivided into two categories: long bursts and short bursts. Long GRBs are associated with the deaths of massive and fast-rotating stars. According to this theory, the fast rotation beams material ejected during the collapse of a massive star into narrow jets that move at extremely fast speeds.The short bursts last only a few seconds. They are thought to be caused by the collision of two neutron stars – compact and dense “dead” stars. In August 2017, an important event helped support this theory. Ligo and Virgo, two gravitational wave detectors in the US, discovered a signal that seemed to be coming from two neutron stars moving in for a collision.A few seconds later, a short gamma-ray burst, known as GRB 100817A, was detected coming from the same direction in the sky. For a few weeks, virtually every telescope on the planet was pointing at this event in an unprecedented effort to study its aftermath.The observations revealed a kilonova at the location of GRB 170817A. A kilonova is a fainter cousin of a supernova explosion. More interestingly, there was evidence that many heavy elements were produced during the explosion. The authors of a study in Nature that analysed the explosion showed that this kilonova seemed to produce two different categories of debris, or ejecta. One was composed primarily of light elements, while another consisted of heavy elements.We’ve already mentioned that nuclear fusion can only feasibly produce elements as heavy as iron in the periodic table. But there’s another process which could explain how the kilonova was able to produce even heavier ones.Rapid neutron-capture process, or r-process, is where the nuclei (or cores) of heavier elements such as iron capture many neutron particles in a short time. They then rapidly grow in mass, yielding much heavier elements. For r-process to work, however, you need the right conditions: high density, high temperature, and a large number of available free neutrons. Gamma ray bursts happen to provide these necessary conditions.However, mergers of two neutron stars, like the one that caused the kilonova GRB 170817A, are very rare events. In fact, they may be so rare as to make them an unlikely source for the abundant heavy elements we have in the universe. But what of long GRBs?A recent study investigated one long gamma ray burst in particular, GRB 221009. This has been dubbed the BOAT – the brightest of all time. This GRB was picked up as a pulse of intense radiation sweeping through the Solar System on October 9 2022.The BOAT sparked a similar astronomical observation campaign as the kilonova. This GRB was 10 times more energetic then the previous record holder, and so close to us that its influence on the Earth’s atmosphere was measurable on the ground and comparable to a major solar storm.Among the telescopes studying the aftermath of the BOAT was the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It observed the GRB about six months after it exploded, so as not to be blinded by the afterglow of the initial burst. The data JWST collected showed that, despite the event’s extraordinary brightness, it was caused by a merely average supernova explosion.In fact, previous observations of other long GRBs indicated that there is no correlation between the brightness of the GRB and the size of the supernova explosion associated with it. The BOAT seems no exception.The JWST team also inferred the number of heavy elements produced during the BOAT explosion. They found no indication of elements produced by the r-process. This is surprising as, theoretically, the brightness of a long GRB is thought to be associated with the conditions in its core, most likely a black hole. For very bright events –- especially one as extreme as the BOAT –- the conditions should be right for the r-process to occur.These findings suggest that gamma ray bursts may not be the hoped-for crucial source of the universe’s heavy elements. Instead, there must be a source or sources still out there.Robert Brose, Assistant Professor at the School of Physical Sciences at Dublin City University (DCU), Dublin City UniversityThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In 1846, astronomer and mathematician Urbain Le Verrier sat down and attempted to locate a planet that had never been seen before by humans. Uranus (growing up) had been moving in unexpected ways, as predicted by the Newtonian theory of gravity.Though the discrepancies were small, there was a difference between the observed orbit of Uranus and the way Newtonian physics predicted its orbit to be. In July, Le Verrier proposed that the difference could be explained by another planet beyond Uranus, and made predictions as to the orbit of this previously unknown body. Being a mathematician first and an astronomer second, he wasn't interested in finding it with a telescope now that he'd found it in maths, and the task of searching for it was left to German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle. On September 23, 1846, Galle looked at the spot Le Verrier had predicted the planet would be, and found to be within 1 degree of the spot... the planet Neptune.Don't worry, we're getting to planet Spock.So, having discovered a new planet by looking at the orbit of another, Le Verrier was called upon to take a look at a planet whose name doesn't also mean butt hole: Mercury. Mercury, being so close to the Sun, is the most difficult planet in our Solar System to observe (assuming there is no Planet Nine out there). Le Verrier was tasked with plotting Mercury's orbit using Newtonian physics.But he couldn't. No matter how much he tried, Mercury's eccentric orbit didn't make any sense. According to Newtonian theory, the planets move in elliptical orbits around the Sun, but observations showed that Mercury's orbit wobbles more than could be accounted for by the gravity exerted by the other known planets.Like with Uranus, he believed that this was due to another planet that was altering the planet's path. He eventually named the planet Vulcan because he was a huge Star Trek fan after the Roman god of fire.Soon astronomers began to report observations of this planet, the first being by Edmond Modeste on March 26, 1859. Nine months later (he was, at best, an amateur astronomer) he alerted Le Verrier when he saw an article on his work. Based on Modeste's observations, Le Verrier calculated the predicted orbit of the planet, which he believed would make a transit two to four times each year.Others reported observing Vulcan, but could be explained by sunspots, known planets and observations of nearby stars. Le Verrier refined his calculations based on other observations, but nonetheless it was never seen in any way that you could describe as concrete.The planet wasn't some brief fad, however, but endured for around 70 years. In 1879, newspapers carried reports that Vulcan would transit the Sun, based on calculations by esteemed astronomer Theodor von Oppolzer. It never showed. It was searched for during pretty much every eclipse during this time, but never seen.So, why haven't you learned of Vulcan when you were studying the eight planets? Because it very much didn't exist. The planet which was born out of mathematics by Le Verrier was undone by a new theory of physics: Einstein's theory of general relativity.Einstein's theory was able to predict the path of Mercury without any extra planets affecting its wobble. The theory puts gravity as a result of the curvature of spacetime by massive objects, with objects closer to the massive objects being more affected. So the changing, or wobble, of Mercury's orbit could be explained by the theory, while the outer planets - which are less affected by the curvature - are little affected by the new calculations, given their distance from the Sun.As such, Einstein's theory could explain both the orbit of Mercury and the orbit of Earth, Mars,  and Jupiter without recourse to extra planets.

Putting together the puzzle of Earth’s history is made all the more difficult with the knowledge that pieces will inevitably be missing – or so palaeontologists thought. A team led by researchers from Stanford University has discovered a single site that records the development of life over an astonishing 120 million years.Paleontologists' view of the past is usually just a series of snapshots, brief moments in time when conditions were right at a particular location for animals or plants to fossilize. Even when that does occur, geological processes usually disrupt what is left behind, leaving us with only fragmented records. That’s been the case for the Paleozoic, a particularly important, but poorly preserved era.At least, until the team discovered rocks recording life on the ocean floor from 490 to 370 million years ago on the banks of the Peel River in Canada, which further north joins the Mackenzie Delta into the Arctic Sea.The Peel River depots start in the Upper Cambrian, a time when oxygen was too scarce to allow much animal life, and end in the Middle Devonian, when fish had taken over the seas. Aside from some short interruptions, the entire Ordovician and Silurian eras are included. "It's unheard of to have that much of Earth's history in one place,” said lead author Erik Sperling in a statement. "There's nowhere else in the world that I know of where you can study that long a record of Earth history, where there's basically no change in things like water depth or basin type."Sperling's paper focuses on what the site reveals about the rise of oxygen; the early Earth had little to no oxygen in its atmosphere or oceans. The Great Oxidation Event 2.5-2.2 billion years ago changed this, but there was still not enough oxygen to support today's fast-moving, active life.The timing of the second big change, when oxygen concentrations came to approach those today, is also a matter of considerable uncertainty. It may have occurred as early as 800 million years ago, or possibly as little as half that time ago. Resolving this question will tell us a lot about the capacity of different types of life to survive in low-oxygen environments.The paper concludes the atmosphere did not approach its current state until later than many scientists have previously thought. "The early animals were still living in a low oxygen world," Sperling said.Further study should also tell us a great deal about the species then living in these seas, which were not on the edge of the Arctic Circle at the time as they are now. Such an uninterrupted record can also act as a calibration tool for other deposits, helping to provide a more accurate indication of their timing. “In order to make comparisons throughout these huge swaths of our history and understand long-term trends, you need a continuous record," Sperling said. Valuable as the currents findings are – and future findings may be – this information was not won easily. The location is so inaccessible Sperling and colleagues had to fly to the site by helicopter and fight their way through thick brush with machetes. Once there, fieldwork was only possible for a short time before winter set in.The study is published in Science Advances.An earlier version of this article was published in July 2021.