Ukraine: The U.S. Wants a Costly Military Quagmire for Russia
October 15th, 2022Via: Caitlin Johnstone:
The US does not want peace in Ukraine, but rather seeks to create a costly military quagmire for Moscow just as US officials have confessed to trying to do in Afghanistan and in Syria. Which would explain why US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the US goal in Ukraine is actually to “weaken” Russia, and also why the empire appears to have actively torpedoed a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia in the early days of the conflict.
This proxy war has no exit strategy. And that is entirely by design.
Los Angeles Skid Row vs Philadelphia Kensington Hood
October 15th, 2022Via: CharlieBo313:
Clockwork-Like ‘Computer’ Discovered Inside Brainless Microscopic Organism
October 14th, 2022Via: ScienceAlert:
Tiny single-celled critters obviously don’t have room for a brain to tell them how to move in complex ways, so to get about, they usually roll, slither or swim.
But microscopic pond dwellers called Euplotes eurystomus have mastered a way to walk brainlessly – scurrying about like insects, with their 14 little appendages.
They appear to move a bit like the Dutch-designed kinetic sculptures called Strandbeasts, with clockwork-like connections cycling them through a pattern of set states that can be adjusted in response to their environment.
“There seemed to be this sequential logic happening with the movements,” says biophysicist Ben Larson from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). “They weren’t random, and we began to suspect there was some sort of information processing happening.”
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So rather than brains and nerves, these single-celled creatures are controlled by networks of signaling molecules.
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“This is a really fascinating biological phenomenon itself, but also could highlight more general computational processes in other types of cells,” says Larson.
Musk Demands Pentagon Pay for Starlink Usage in Ukraine
October 14th, 2022Update: Made You Look, Musk Will Keep Starlink Active in Ukraine
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Via: PC Magazine:
SpaceX may have to stop providing Starlink terminals in Ukraine unless the US government steps in to cover the costs, the company writes in a letter to the Pentagon.
According to CNN(Opens in a new window), SpaceX wrote to the US Defense Department on Sept. 8 requesting that the US government start paying for Starlink access in Ukraine, which has become crucial to helping the country’s military fight Russian forces.
“We are not in a position to further donate terminals to Ukraine, or fund the existing terminals for an indefinite period of time,” SpaceX reportedly told the Pentagon.
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However, the CNN report claims US and foreign governments already fund a large portion of the Starlink access in Ukraine—contrary to Musk’s past statements. SpaceX’s own letter to the Pentagon last month reportedly notes around 85% of the 20,000 Starlink dishes in Ukraine were paid, or partially paid, for by countries like the US, Poland, UK, or other groups, such as NGOs and charity organizations. These same governments and groups subsidized 30% of the internet access for Starlink in Ukraine.
Most Paycheck Protection Program Loans Forgiven Despite Massive Fraud
October 13th, 2022Via: NPR:
As COVID-19 shutdowns threatened businesses back in 2020, the U.S. government began issuing nearly $800 billion in potentially forgivable Paycheck Protection Program loans. The program was designed to help small businesses keep workers employed during the uncertain early days of the pandemic.
More than two years later, the overwhelming majority of these loans have transformed into government grants, as 91% have been either fully or partially forgiven, according to an NPR analysis of data released by the Small Business Administration on Oct. 2.
The SBA expects that figure to grow to nearly 100% as more forgiveness requests are processed this fall.
That’s despite claims from University of Texas researchers that about 1.4 million PPP loans show signs of possible fraud, like suspiciously high payrolls and multiple businesses listed at the same residential address. The SBA disputes these findings, but its own inspector general has estimated that at least 70,000 loans were potentially fraudulent.
Core U.S. Inflation Rises to 40-Year High, Securing Big Fed Hike
October 13th, 2022Via: Bloomberg:
A closely watched measure of US consumer prices rose by more than forecast to a 40-year high in September, pressuring the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates even more aggressively to stamp out persistent inflation.
The core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy, increased 6.6% from a year ago, the highest level since 1982, Labor Department data showed Thursday. From a month earlier, the core CPI climbed 0.6% for a second month.
The overall CPI increased 0.4% last month, and was up 8.2% from a year earlier.
Free Speech, Jacinda Ardern and the Tyranny of ‘Kindness’
October 13th, 2022Via: Off-Guardian:
Ardern belongs to a set of global leaders who were groomed for their positions through the World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leaders programme. Yes, that WEF – the elitist organisation where hard-nose billionaires and their handmaidens gather to set out policies aligned with powerful business interests.
The charm offensive that Ardern’s promoters undertook was an investment. She delivered on COVID and is now expected to sell more questionable policies to the public.
Students Break Acceleration World Record
October 13th, 2022Via: University of Stuttgart:
In 1.461 seconds from 0 to 100[km/h]: This is the new best time for the fastest accelerating electric vehicle and a new world record. On Friday September 23, 2022, the record was broken by 20 students from the University of Stuttgart with their self-built electric racing car, on a racetrack at the Bosch site in Renningen in the district of Böblingen in Baden-Württemberg.
Microsoft’s Army Goggles Left US Soldiers With Nausea, Headaches in Test
October 13th, 2022Via: Bloomberg:
US soldiers using Microsoft Corp.’s new goggles in their latest field test suffered “mission-affecting physical impairments” including headaches, eyestrain and nausea, according to a summary of the exercise compiled by the Pentagon’s testing office.
More than 80% of those who experienced discomfort had symptoms after less than three hours using the customized version of Microsoft’s HoloLens goggles, Nickolas Guertin, director of Operation Test and Evaluation, said in a summary for Army and Defense Department officials. He said the system also is still experiencing too many failures of essential functions.
Scientists Grow Human Brain Cells in Rats to Study Diseases
October 13th, 2022Via: AP:
Scientists have transplanted human brain cells into the brains of baby rats, where the cells grew and formed connections.
It’s part of an effort to better study human brain development and diseases affecting this most complex of organs, which makes us who we are but has long been shrouded in mystery.
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To make the brain organoids, Stanford University scientists transformed human skin cells into stem cells and then coaxed them to become several types of brain cells. Those cells then multiplied to form organoids resembling the cerebral cortex, the human brain’s outermost layer, which plays a key role in things like memory, thinking, learning, reasoning and emotions.
Scientists transplanted those organoids into rat pups 2 to 3 days old, a stage when brain connections are still forming. The organoids grew so that they eventually occupied a third of the hemisphere of the rat’s brain where they were implanted. Neurons from the organoids formed working connections with circuits in the brain.
Human neurons have been transplanted in rodents before, but generally in adult animals, usually mice. Pasca, a psychiatry professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, said this is the first time these organoids have been placed into early rat brains, creating “the most advanced human brain circuitry ever built from human skin cells and a demonstration that implanted human neurons can influence an animal’s behavior.”
