The Secret Electrostatic World of Insects
October 29th, 2024Via: Wired:
Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators, collect pollen, and more. New experiments explore how evolution may have influenced this phenomenon.
X.ai: Inside the Largest AI Training Cluster in the World
October 29th, 2024Off topic, but this might be of interest if you want to see what the business end of Grok AI looks like.
Also, that cable management… Woh.
Via: ServeTheHome:
Can I See Your ID?
October 28th, 2024— cryptogon (@cryptogon) October 28, 2024
Janet Yellen Asked About Concerns Over U.S. Dollar’s Status as the World’s Reserve Currency
October 28th, 2024? NEW: Janet Yellen is asked about her concerns over the US dollar’s world reserve status.
Before she can respond, the Treasury department sign crashes to the ground.
Choose #Bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/64grGhBR7e
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) October 28, 2024
Up to $41 Billion in World Bank Climate Finance Unaccounted for, Oxfam Finds
October 28th, 2024More billions in U.S. taxpayer money down the drain.
Via: Oxfam:
Up to $41 billion in World Bank climate finance —nearly 40 percent of all climate funds disbursed by the Bank over the past seven years— is unaccounted for due to poor record-keeping practices, reveals a new Oxfam report published today ahead of the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Washington D.C.
An Oxfam audit of the World Bank’s 2017-2023 climate finance portfolio found that between $24 billion and $41 billion in climate finance went unaccounted for between the time projects were approved and when they closed.
There is no clear public record showing where this money went or how it was used, which makes any assessment of its impacts impossible. It also remains unclear whether these funds were even spent on climate-related initiatives intended to help low- and middle-income countries protect people from the impacts of the climate crisis and invest in clean energy.
California May Lose Two More Refineries That Produce 14% of Gasoline in the State
October 27th, 2024Via: Just the News:
Short on the heels of another major refinery closure, Valero signaled it is considering closing its two California refineries that produce over 14% of the state’s gasoline. Refinery closures already have the state importing 8% of its gasoline supply, which means the state could soon have to significantly increase its imports of refined products such as gasoline, on top of its existing reliance on the Middle East and South America for the majority of its crude oil.
Life-Sized Dolls in Japanese Village as Population Declines
October 27th, 2024Via: Japan Today:
Riding his tricycle with cheerful abandon, Kuranosuke Kato is the only child in his tiny, depopulated Japanese village overrun by life-sized puppets.
The two-year-old was the first baby in two decades for Ichinono, one of more than 20,000 communities in Japan where the majority of residents are aged 65 and above, according to the internal affairs ministry data.
Revitalising rural areas is one of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s key campaign pledges as he fights to retain a majority in a general election on Sunday.
Ishiba has called Japan’s low birth rate a “quiet emergency”, one that is starkly evident in places like Ichinono, a bucolic hamlet home to fewer than 60 people.
“If the village is left as it is now, the only thing that awaits us is extinction,” said 74-year-old Ichiro Sawayama, head of its governing body.
Many developed nations are facing the same demographic time bomb, but Japan, which allows relatively low levels of immigration, already has the world’s second-oldest population after Monaco.
Silence pervades the air in Ichinono, where residents have handcrafted stuffed mannequins to create a semblance of a bustling society.
Some puppets ride swings while others push a cart of firewood, smiling eerily at visitors.
“We’re probably outnumbered by puppets,” Hisayo Yamazaki, an 88-year-old widow, told AFP.
Astronomers Discover Complex Carbon Molecules in Interstellar Space
October 26th, 2024Via: Science Alert:
A team led by researchers at MIT in the United States has discovered large molecules containing carbon in a distant interstellar cloud of gas and dust.
This is exciting for those of us who keep lists of known interstellar molecules in the hope that we might work out how life arose in the Universe.
But it’s more than just another molecule for the collection. The result, reported today in the journal Science, shows that complex organic molecules (with carbon and hydrogen) likely existed in the cold, dark gas cloud that gave rise to our Solar System.
Furthermore, the molecules held together until after the formation of Earth. This is important for our understanding of the early origins of life on our planet.
Israel Launches Airstrikes on Iran
October 25th, 2024Via: Fox:
In the largest attack by Israel on Iran in history, Jerusalem on Friday launched a wave of retaliatory airstrikes against Iran after the Islamic Republic fired a barrage of missiles toward Israelis earlier this month.
Local Israeli news outlet Channel 12 reported that in a direct attack on Iran, Israel sent 140 Air Force planes to the skies for the assault that has reportedly targeted military facilities containing missile exports, drones, ballistic missile transmitters and Iran’s air defense systems.
The local outlet further reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps headquarters in Tehran was hit by strikes, though Fox News has not been able to independently verify this.
Explosions were first heard near Iran’s capital of Tehran and nearby Karaj, Reuters said, citing local media.
Marines Testing Counter-Drone Rifle Aiming System With Automatically Moving Stock
October 25th, 2024Via: The War Zone:
The U.S. Marines are testing a system for standard service rifles that automatically fine-tunes the point of aim with the help of a powered buttstock as a new option to help shoot down drones. The service is in the midst of a broad push to acquire new capabilities to help every Marine better protect themselves from ever-growing uncrewed aerial threats.
