The dark seabed of the Pacific Ocean’s Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) is littered with what look like hunks of charcoal. These unassuming metal deposits, called polymetallic nodules, contain metals such as manganese and cobalt used to produce batteries, marking them as targets for deep-sea mining companies. Now researchers have discovered that the valuable nodules do something… Continue reading Bizarre Mineral Clumps Make ‘Dark Oxygen’ on Deep Seafloor
PA Supreme Court Effectively Preserves Requirement to Date Mail-Ins
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently declined to decide, prior to the November election, issues related to mail-in ballots in the state. It rejected a request by left-leaning groups to force counties to count mail-in ballots that lack a date or have an incorrect date next to the voter signature on the return envelope. That simple… Continue reading PA Supreme Court Effectively Preserves Requirement to Date Mail-Ins
Kamala Harris’s Record on Abortion Rights Shows Strong Support
Throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, he leaned on the outspoken former prosecutor and senator he selected as his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the White House’s voice of unflinching support for reproductive health rights. Now, as Democrats rebuild their presidential ticket just a few months before Election Day, Harris would widely be expected to take… Continue reading Kamala Harris’s Record on Abortion Rights Shows Strong Support
Stealth Edit: FBI Quietly Revises Violent Crime Stats
When the FBI originally released the “final” crime data for 2022 in September 2023, it reported that the nation’s violent crime rate fell by 2.1%. This quickly became, and remains, a Democratic Party talking point to counter Donald Trump’s claims of soaring crime. But the FBI has quietly revised those numbers, releasing new data that… Continue reading Stealth Edit: FBI Quietly Revises Violent Crime Stats
The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View
Susan Kassin, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, showed images from previous observatories compared to JWST’s. It was like having the optometrist flip a lens so that the last lines on an eye chart come into focus. “Thank you, Webb — it’s a $10 billion difference,” she said. People chuckled and nodded. JWST… Continue reading The ‘Beautiful Confusion’ of the First Billion Years Comes Into View
Buying the News: How Leftwing Donors Are Taking Over Local Journalism
American journalism has experienced a spectacular collapse in the last 25 years – daily newspaper circulation has declined from over 60 million subscribers to just over 20 million. And the trend is accelerating: According to the Pew Research Organization, the average monthly number of unique visitors to the websites of the country’s top 50 newspapers plummeted 20% in one… Continue reading Buying the News: How Leftwing Donors Are Taking Over Local Journalism
How Can Math Help Beat Cancer?
When we think about medicine’s war on cancer, treatments such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy spring to mind first. Now there is another potential weapon for defeating tumors: statistics and mathematical models that can optimize the selection, combination or timing of treatment. Building and feeding these models requires accounting for the complexity of the body,… Continue reading How Can Math Help Beat Cancer?
Even a Single Bacterial Cell Can Sense the Seasons Changing
Every year, in latitudes far enough north or south, a huge swath of life on Earth senses that winter is coming. Leaves fall from trees, sparrows fly to the tropics, raccoons grow thick winter coats, and we unpack our sweaters from storage. Now scientists have shown that this ability to anticipate shorter days and colder… Continue reading Even a Single Bacterial Cell Can Sense the Seasons Changing
Massive CrowdStrike Tech Outage Highlights Global Vulnerabilities
Massive CrowdStrike Tech Outage Highlights Global Vulnerabilities Companies and governments alike need to step up cybersecurity practices in the wake of massive technology failures associated with a CrowdStrike update By Richard Forno & The Conversation US The Microsoft Corp. Windows Recovery screen displayed at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York, US, on… Continue reading Massive CrowdStrike Tech Outage Highlights Global Vulnerabilities
What Can Cave Life Tell Us About Alien Ecosystems?
If instruments do someday detect evidence of life beyond Earth, whether it’s in this solar system or in the farther reaches of space, astrobiologists want to be ready. One of the best ways to learn how alien life might function can be to study the organisms called extremophiles, which live in incredibly challenging environments on or… Continue reading What Can Cave Life Tell Us About Alien Ecosystems?