If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. More internal documents originating from X have emerged, revealing some of the dynamics and ways used by the US government to, through one kind or another of roundabout pressure, nudge social platforms in the direction of censoring speech around Covid topics. How this happened on the now former Twitter is what the documents reveal, and it all goes back to 2021 when a former Biden administration “Covid response” adviser, Andy Slavitt (who was at the point of these interactions still using the White House email address), put major Covid vaccine-maker Pfizer’s board member Scott Gottlieb in touch with Todd O’Boyle. Alex Berenson, who has an active lawsuit against the Biden administration’s censorship attempts, has reported on this, suggesting that it was O’Boyle’s role was to, as a senior lobbyist for Twitter, interact with the White House. “I wonder if you would be open to a 20 minute call with Scott Gottlieb and me about a policy matter,” reads one email Slavitt sent to O’Boyle. All this was happening just as the debate around Covid vaccines was heating up. Specifically, there was rising skepticism about the effectiveness of these jabs, and this was the time when the infamous “booster shots” made their debut. This, according to the documents, sprung Pfizer (who clearly benefited from selling as many “boosters” as possible) to action, with Gottlieb at one point telling O’Boyle there was concern about “false narratives on key public health issues.” That’s one way of saying that criticism of the vaccine needs to be suppressed as misleading. Next in this particular chain of events – a part of a bigger controversy that some consider to be no less than a US government-Big Tech collusion – was O’Boyle letting Twitter’s US public policy head Lauren Culbertson know about Gottlieb’s sentiment. Culbertson then shared this with other Twitter execs, indicating that – although the Pfizer board member’s remarks, as well as those made by Slavitt, were carefully worded – they were in fact directly related to the Biden administration’s pressure to shut up vaccine skeptics on Twitter. But it wasn’t the only form of pressure social platforms were experiencing at the time. Some observers – and victims of censorship – see repeated threats of “reform” or “review” of Section 230 (which protects internet services from legal liability) as something the White House used to “prime” these companies to become susceptible to other kinds of pressure. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post New Documents Link White House Advisor Slavitt to Pfizer and Twitter Amid COVID-19 Speech Debate appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

SCOTUS: Down Goes Chevron!

Feedback Taken: Tractor Supply Company Ends All “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” Programs

“Roger!” has become a go-to expression to acknowledge a message, most often uttered over the phone or a radio transmitter when doing something vaguely important. However, the origin of this cool sign-off is less well-known. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with a guy named Roger.The term can be traced back to the early days of radio when crackly lines and muffled voices meant communications had to be short and sweet. Particularly in World War 2, when two-way radio communications had a big break, “Roger” was widely used by the British and Americans to acknowledge a command or statement. This is because “R” was represented by the word “Roger” in the old phonetic alphabet. To say “R” was shorthand for saying “received,” as in “message received.” Simply, “Roger” is much easier to hear in the heat of battle than “Received” or even just “R.” Additionally, as explained in a blog post by Jakub Marian, the tradition of using “R” as an abbreviation for “received” has some link to a time before World War 2 when Morse code was the most widely used form of communication. During the Second World War, the most common phonetic alphabet used by the British and American militaries was: “Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox, George, How, Item, Jig, King, Love, Mike, Nan, Oboe, Peter, Queen, Roger, Sugar, Tare, Uncle, Victor, William, X-ray, Yoke, Zebra.”Since the 1950s, however, the phonetic alphabet has changed. The standard one used by NATO operators goes as follows: “Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu.”It’s not crystal clear why “Roger” stuck around and wasn’t replaced with “Romeo,” but it perhaps has something to do with the way the Second World War had a profound and lasting influence on culture. It was also used prolifically in the transcripts of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, an event that was beamed across every corner of planet Earth. It's estimated that around 650 million people watched the first Moon landing, approximately a fifth of the world’s population at the time. Countless humans must have sat around their television screens or radio sets and heard the phrase, embedding it in their brains as a symbol of cool, calm, and collected communication. With that level of exposure, it's no wonder the expression didn't sink into obscurity. 

Engineers at Northwestern University have found a new concrete manufacturing process that stores carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere by using a carbonated solution. The concrete is just as strong and durable as traditional versions and is easy to make.When it comes to types of water – still or carbonated – you probably think about the options offered by a waiter in a restaurant. However, these two options also play a role in the construction industry.Traditionally, concrete is made through a mix of cement and water, which makes a paste. This paste is then mixed with aggregates in the form of sand and gravel. As these ingredients mix, they harden and bind with the aggregate to create the solid mass that we use in construction.However, this is not a green industry. The ordinary production of Portland cement, the most common type, is a massive contributor to CO2 emissions. In fact, the global production of cement is the third-largest source of anthropogenic carbon emissions (8 percent), only behind fossil fuels and land-use change.But there are alternative options. In fact, carbonated concrete has a high potential to store CO2 because of its inherent alkalinity, which can turn the greenhouse gas into solid crystals consisting of mostly calcium carbonate (CaCO3). These crystals have a longer lifespan than structures made of cement, so they represent an ideal way to store CO2.  The idea of using this solution was first posited in the 1970s but received limited attention until recent years.The process of storing CO2 in such a way comes in two forms: hardened concrete carbonation or fresh concrete carbonation. In the former, solid concrete blocks are injected with CO2 gas at high pressures, and in the latter process, the gas is injected into the mixture when water, cement, and aggregates are combined.However, the techniques for achieving these processes have their limitations. They have both had low carbon capture efficiency despite how often they are used, and the process also weakens the concrete. That is, until now.In laboratory experiments, Northwestern University engineers achieved a CO2 sequestration efficiency of up to 45 percent. This means that nearly half of the CO2 injected into the concrete during manufacturing was both captured and stored.“The cement and concrete industries significantly contribute to human-caused CO2 emissions,” said Northwestern’s Alessandro Rotta Loria, who led the study detailing the solution, in a statement.“We are trying to develop approaches that lower CO2 emissions associated with those industries and, eventually, could turn cement and concrete into massive ‘carbon sinks.’ We are not there yet, but we now have a new method to reuse some of the CO2 emitted as a result of concrete manufacturing in this very same material. And our solution is so simple technologically that it should be relatively easy for industry to implement.”So how did they do it? In their approach, the engineers used the fresh concrete process but, rather than injecting the gas into the mix at the same time, they injected it into the water alone with a small amount of powder. By adding this carbonated suspension to the rest of the ingredients, they had created a concrete that absorbed CO2 during its manufacturing.“The cement suspension carbonated in our approach is a much lower viscosity fluid compared to the mix of water, cement and aggregates that is customarily employed in present approaches to carbonate fresh concrete,” Rotta Loria added.“So, we can mix it very quickly and leverage a very fast kinetics of the chemical reactions that result in calcium carbonate minerals. The result is a concrete product with a significant concentration of calcium carbonate minerals compared to when CO2 is injected into the fresh concrete mix.”If this wasn’t an achievement in itself, further analysis showed that the new concrete could rival the strength and durability of regular concrete.“A typical limitation of carbonation approaches is that strength is often affected by the chemical reactions,” said Rotta Loria. “But, based on our experiments, we show the strength might actually be even higher. We still need to test this further, but, at the very least, we can say that it’s uncompromised. Because the strength is unchanged, the applications also don’t change. It could be used in beams, slabs, columns, foundations — everything we currently use concrete for.”“The findings of this research underline that although carbonation of cement-based materials is a well-known reaction, there is still room to further optimize the CO2 uptake through better understanding of the mechanisms tied to materials processing,” study co-author Davide Zampini concluded.The study is published in Nature.

Unless someone happens to have had an unusually extreme early bedtime for the entirety of their life, we’ve all seen plenty of sunsets in our time. Given the wealth of them that end up on Instagram stories, they look pretty great too – but have you ever wondered what they look like from space?It’s not like most of us can pop up there and find out (although you never know) but thankfully, astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) like to snap a few pictures whilst they’re there, giving us a brand-new perspective on a regular part of day-to-day life on the planet.One of the most spectacular images of a sunset from space was captured by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut and geophysicist Alexander Gerst, during his second stint on the ISS as part of the Horizons mission.Sunset from space is as dreamy as it comes.Image credit: ESA-A.Gerst via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)In the image, taken on October 18, 2018, clouds in Earth’s atmosphere can be seen illuminated in that classic sunset pink-ish orange, though the dark night sky is also visible creeping up close behind them.But that’s not the only view possible – an image snapped by a member of NASA’s Expedition 49 crew back in 2016 also shows a fiery perspective of the layers of Earth’s atmosphere during sunset over South Atlantic.Aboard the ISS, sunset can also be viewed sideways.Image credit: ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space CenterThe bright orange-red line is within the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere and home to clouds, smoke, and dust particles. It’s the latter two that give sunsets their distinctive color, which explains why the red seen in this image is quite so vivid.Though the ISS was halfway between South America and South Africa at the time, from the station’s altitude astronauts are able to see over 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) to the horizon. Easy enough, then, to capture the influence of Patagonian Desert dust, which is blown out towards the ocean by strong winds.Since the ISS orbits the planet once every 90 minutes, that means those onboard can witness 16 such striking sunsets a day – and the same goes for sunrises, though most of the time they’re missed by astronauts because of sleep or work.Thankfully, Gerst’s photography steps up to the plate once again to show what others can’t see. During the Horizons mission, the astronaut captured a timelapse of a sunrise, with two photos taken every second.The result is somewhat reminiscent of an eclipse at first (at least, the view we have of one on Earth), with a faint line of light growing across the screen until a big burst of light (aka the Sun) comes into view and begins to light up the land below. And there you have it, now you know what a sunset and sunrise look like from space. Everybody say “thank you astronauts!”

In a world first, scientists have grown 3D brain organoids using cells from more than one person. Called “Chimeroids”, the intricate systems contain cells from up to five people; but future versions could push this into the hundreds, allowing scientists to create models that capture the wealth of human genetic diversity.Organoids, often referred to as mini versions of an organ, are cell clusters created to mimic a 3D organ as closely as possible. Brain organoids have previously been grown from human stem cells and, in a recent advance, from fetal brain tissue. In the past, 2D “cell villages” have been cultured using cells from 44 different human donors. But translating these chimeric cell clusters into a 3D organoid has proven a challenge – until now.The reason organoids are so useful for research is that they mimic all the complex conditions inside a living organ in a way that simply can’t be achieved by looking at a flat sheet of cells grown in a dish. There’s even been a suggestion that they could be used to replace animal testing for vaccine research.This becomes even more clear when we’re talking about the brain. As Aparna Bhaduri explains in a News and Views piece to accompany the new study, the human cortex – the outermost layer of brain tissue – is very different from that of animals, so even our best model species can’t really help us understand its nuances.A Chimeroid, created using donor cells from multiple people, not only brings all the benefits of an organoid, but captures more of the diversity that exists within the human species. In the case of the brain Chimeroids, the authors suggest that an important use could be in researching how different people react to a particular drug.“This is a really good advance,” Robert Vries, who was not involved in the work, commented to Nature News. Vries heads up HUB Organoids, a Utrecht-based company that performs organoid research.The team behind the new study had to take a novel approach to culturing the organoids. Adding lots of different donor stem cells together at the same time, as was done for the 2D cell villages, doesn’t work here – you end up with one cell line overpowering the rest. Instead, they learned that the key was to create separate organoids from each stem cell line first, then at a certain growth stage break them up and recombine them into a Chimeroid.After around 3 months of growth, the Chimeroids had reached a size of around 3-5 millimeters (0.1 to 0.2 inches) and contained the same cell types that would be present in a developing fetal brain.To explore their idea about testing drugs on the Chimeroids, the team used ethanol and valproic acid, both of which can negatively impact brain development. Ethanol was selected to model fetal alcohol syndrome, which presents very differently in different children. Valproic acid is a medicine used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder, but it is not recommended for use in pregnancy due to its effects on the developing brain.When the Chimeroids were exposed to these two drugs, the researchers found that cells from different donors responded in different ways. Further work is now needed to ensure that these differential effects are down to the diverse genetic makeup of the cells, but some other scientists have already started their own experiments using these methods.“It’s a really powerful technology, and a powerful approach,” biologist Tomasz Nowakowski, who was not on the study team but is now testing out their methods, commented to Nature News. “It’s a technical tour de force.”Meanwhile, senior author Paola Arlotta from Harvard University explained what the next steps could be: “What if one day we could use Chimeroids as avatars to predict individual responses to new therapeutics before testing these in a trial? I like to imagine that future.”The study is published in Nature.

Trilobites that date back 508 million years have been found preserved in volcanic matter, revealing never-before-seen details in 3D form. Their fossilization was so rapid that tiny shells have been preserved in situ, and soft tissues including mouthparts and internal organs can still be seen.The trilobites were entombed in pyroclastic flow, which is the hot, dense material that comes hurtling out of volcanoes sometimes reaching speeds as high as 200 meters (656 feet) per second. Typically, it burns up any life in its path, but that can change in a marine setting.“The surface of the sea on which the ash flowed would have been lethally hot and, yes, would have incinerated animals at the shallowest depths,” study co-author Dr Greg Edgecombe of the Natural History Museum, London, told IFLScience. “The ash would have mixed with seawater as it picked up and entrained the trilobites, which were living on the sea bottom. This mixing through a column of seawater must have cooled the ash sufficiently.”Collected in the High Atlas of Morocco, the ancient wonders have been nicknamed “Pompeii” trilobites due to their remarkable preservation in the ash. They’re incredibly old, but they aren’t the oldest trilobites ever found.     At around 508 million years old, they’re younger than the oldest trilobites, which date back to about 521 million years old. There are also older trace fossils in the form of burrows, called Rusophycus, that are thought to be the work of trilobites and exceed 528 million years in age.However, the comparative whipper snappers are still remarkable for the degree of preservation they exhibit.“What makes our specimens unique, and indeed especially pristine, is three-dimensional preservation of their appendages,” continued Edgecombe. “The appendages are not flattened or reoriented or broken. They were preserved in close to life orientations. And because they are preserved as void space in the rock matrix, we can image them tomographically to see them in 3D.”Microtomographic reconstruction of the trilobite Gigoutella mauretanica in ventral view.Image credit: © Arnaud MAZURIER, IC2MP, Univ. Poitiers“Appendages preserved in shale can beautifully preserve their setae but the fossils are compacted to the point of almost being 2D and we have to use destructive sampling to mechanically excavate upper parts of an appendage in order to see lower parts. Our specimens are as perfect after study as they were before.”This never-before-seen detail means we are now seeing trilobites closer to real life than we have ever seen them before, complete with a slit-like mouth, and unique cephalic feeding appendages. Ain’t she a beauty?The study is published in the journal Science.

Choko José Luis Matos is a familiar face on the streets of Bucaramanga, Colombia, but his story is far from ordinary. Living homeless, Choko has found companionship and love in his two dogs, Shaggy and Nena. These loyal dogs are more than just pets to him—they are his family. Choko’s dedication to his furry friends... The post Homeless man throws a birthday party for his dogs unaware that doing so will change his life appeared first on Animal Channel.

Et tu, Elon? X restricted one of former President Donald Trump’s campaign accounts during the CNN 2024 presidential debate Thursday. X users reported finding warning labels when they attempted to view the “Trump War Room” account within 20 minutes of the first 2024 presidential debate between Trump and President Joe Biden. In response to this, Dan Schneider, the vice president of MRC Free Speech America, went so far as to say that “the radicals embedded within X fumbled worse than Joe Biden last night.” He added, “It is outrageous that a social media company would censor a political candidate, especially in the middle of one of the most important moments for voters to decide who they want to vote for.” Users who attempted to view the Trump War Room account were met with a warning label: "Caution: This account is temporarily restricted[.] You're seeing this warning because there has been some unusual activity from this account. Do you still want to view it?" It’s unclear exactly why the issue occurred, but it was reportedly resolved within an hour. Outrageous that Big Tech is censoring a presidential account in the middle of the debate!https://t.co/3FulImx6aH will take action for all candidates who are silenced by the tech thugs https://t.co/iZ59NhloiM — Dan Schneider (@Schneider_DC) June 28, 2024 Trump communications aid Bobby Levy posted a screenshot of the same notice appearing on his own account, asking: “Hey @elonmusk, what was this about literally the second the debate started?” Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called “hate speech” and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using MRC Free Speech America’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.