1st casualty ...

Global warming is claiming its first victim ... New Orleans

New Orleans is locked into a watery future which could see it surrounded by ocean as early as this century, according to a new expert analysis, which says the city must start the relocation process now to avoid chaos.

The paper’s conclusions are stark, but it’s no secret that New Orleans is highly vulnerable to rising seas as the planet warms. Coastal Louisiana is one of the lowest lying regions in the world, and New Orleans, a city of 360,000 people, is particularly exposed. It sits in a bowl-shaped basin, mostly below sea level, in the middle of a rapidly shrinking delta.

The city is almost entirely surrounded by wetlands, which act as a buffer against hurricanes and storm surges. These are fast disappearing, however, as humans drain them for development, dredge canals in them for the oil and gas industry and construct river levees, depriving them of the sediments that stop them being submerged. Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost around 2,000 square miles of wetlands.

Flood waters from Hurricane Katrina cover streets, 30 August 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana
Vincent Laforet/AFP/Getty Images

We did it to ourselves. 

17MeV ...

The first tracks observed in John Wood's 1.5-inch (3.8 cm) liquid hydrogen bubble chamber, in 1954.

Tracking the ultra small is the holy grail of physics and the way to do back then was to use bubbles to do the job, hence, the bubble chamber, a simple device that changed how man viewed reality. 

A bubble chamber is a vessel filled with a superheated transparent liquid (most often liquid hydrogen) used to detect electrically charged particles moving through it. It was invented in 1952 by Donald A. Glaser,[1] for which he was awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics.[2] Supposedly, Glaser was inspired by the bubbles in a glass of beer; however, in a 2006 talk, he refuted this story, although saying that while beer was not the inspiration for the bubble chamber, he did experiments using beer to fill early prototypes.

While bubble chambers were extensively used in the past, they have now mostly been supplanted by wire chambers, spark chambers, drift chambers, and silicon detectors. Notable bubble chambers include the Big European Bubble Chamber (BEBC) and Gargamelle.

A bubble chamber

Function and use.

The bubble chamber is similar to a cloud chamber, both in application and in basic principle. It is normally made by filling a large cylinder with a liquid heated to just below its boiling point. As particles enter the chamber, a piston suddenly decreases its pressure, and the liquid enters into a superheated, metastable phase. Charged particles create an ionization track, around which the liquid vaporizes, forming microscopic bubbles. Bubble density around a track is proportional to a particle's energy loss.

Bubbles grow in size as the chamber expands, until they are large enough to be seen or photographed. Several cameras are mounted around it, allowing a three-dimensional image of an event to be captured. Bubble chambers with resolutions down to a few micrometers (μm) have been operated.

But this is not fine enough resolution when thinking about 17MeV, the "hypothetical" ghost boson that possibly connects to dark energy if the bubble chamber of today has the prerequisite resolution to  detect it.

The ghost ...

The X17 particle (X17 boson) is a hypothetical subatomic particle proposed by Attila Krasznahorkay and his colleagues to explain certain anomalous measurement results; these anomalous measurements are known as ATOMKI anomaly or beryllium (8Be) anomaly or X17 anomaly.[3][2][4][5] The particle has been proposed to explain wide angles observed in the trajectory paths of particles produced during a nuclear transition of beryllium-8 nuclei and in helium nuclei.[6] The X17 particle could be the force carrier for a postulated fifth force, possibly connected with dark matter,[6] and has been described as a protophobic (i.e., ignoring protons)[7] vector boson with a mass near 17 MeV/c2 [6] — which is about 33 times heavier than an electron, but still very light for a boson. This is where it gets the name "X17".[5]

The hypothesis originated from observations of unexpected wide-angle trajectories of electron-positron (e+e−) pairs produced during the nuclear transitions of excited Beryllium-8 nuclei. Similar resonant behavior was later reported by the same team in experiments involving Helium-4 and Carbon-12 nuclei. If confirmed, the X17 particle could represent the force carrier for a previously unknown fifth force of nature, often described in theoretical models as a "protophobic" (proton-ignoring) vector boson.

They're getting close but ...

In 2022, PADME collected data aimed at verifying the existence of a new particle with a mass of approximately 17 MeV/c², proposed to explain certain anomalies observed in a nuclear physics experiment conducted at the ATOMKI laboratory in Debrecen, Hungary, and named “X17.” Thanks to over 500 billion collisions, analyzed using advanced statistical techniques in a work that lasted nearly three years, researchers identified
an excess corresponding to the mass indicated by the ATOMKI experiment. 

The but ...

The lightness of the X17 boson, a vanishing light force carrier to the extreme, is the problem. How does one see this ghost in a sea of energy as conceptualized as Wheeler's quantum foam?

To see the ghost, you need a better bubble chamber ... The Quantum Computer, the analog device supreme, super cooled to near absolute 0, may have the prerequisite resolution to capture Casper and change how man views reality. If nothing else, it's worth a shot, right?

IBM quantum computer demo at ITU WTSA 2024 in Delhi

Bloch sphere representation of a qubit.

 
0 & 1 - Superposition, the quantum reality the QC actually sees, the ultimate analog error detection device, may be able to possibly find the ghost and prove that dark matter actually exists after all. :)

Two waves traveling in opposite directions across the same medium combine linearly. In this animation, both waves have the same wavelength and the sum of amplitudes results in a standing wave.

Two waves permeate without influencing each other

To be continued

Recycling 101

Illustration: NASA

Yours truly believes in recycling. Seems nature does too as she does this all the time as we are made of the remnants of stars and nothing goes to waste as nature's lazy and constantly repeats processes that work over and over again. Think spirals, sunflowers and galaxies as example number one. The principle of least action applies. Now, researchers are realizing black holes are recycled too based on signatures they are now seeing as we speak.

An international team of astrophysicists has found evidence that the universe recycles black holes, merging them to form even larger ones. Gravitational waves recorded in recent years show that some of the heaviest black holes within star clusters exhibit clear signs of being “second-generation” black holes—products of past collisions—and therefore could not have originated from the collapse of a massive star.

Impossible Black Holes

The evolutionary theory of stars explains that, at the end of the lives of the most massive stars, their cores compress until they form a point so dense that it curves space-time to infinity. This is the classic black hole, with masses 10 to 40 times that of the sun. There are also supermassive black holes, in the center of galaxies, with millions or billions of solar masses, whose origin is related to processes that occurred in the earliest moments of the universe.

Between these two extremes lies a contested category: black holes with masses between 40 and 100 solar masses. They are too heavy to be born after the death of a star, but they do not reach the necessary dimensions to emerge from the collapse of a gigantic cloud of matter. Conventional stellar physics considers them “impossible,” yet they appear frequently in detections.

Astrophysicists propose that these massive black holes could form by the merging of two or more smaller, ultradense objects. The idea was plausible, but it needed evidence. Until relatively recently, there was no way to obtain it.

Then gravitational wave detectors came on the scene. These instruments use lasers to measure the micro-distortion of space-time generated by the collision of extremely dense objects. The first detection, in 2015, confirmed a merger between black holes. Since then, each new signal has allowed for a better characterization of these structures and revealed that these collisions occur much more frequently than previously imagined.

A "normal" sized black hole, isolated in space.
Courtesy of Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach

The Second-Generation Signature

The study, published this month in Nature Astronomy, analyzed a transient catalog of gravitational waves generated by the world's three leading observatories. The database included 153 reliable detections of black hole mergers. Among them, 34 corresponded to particularly heavy objects.

By comparing all the signals, the team identified two distinct populations. The lighter black holes, up to about 40 solar masses, showed small, aligned spins, as expected for objects born from the collapse of a star. But from a certain point, around 45 solar masses, a completely different population appeared: heavier black holes, spinning rapidly and in chaotic directions—a statistical signature that can arise only when the object has already participated in a previous merger.

“This is the exact signature you would expect if black holes repeatedly merged into dense stellar clusters,” said Isobel M. Romero-Shaw, coauthor of the research, in a statement from Cardiff University.

So far researchers have not directly observed any of these “impossible” black holes. They do not appear in x-rays or in the visible spectrum, unlike supermassive ones. However, their collisions vibrate space-time, and that vibration reveals masses that stellar physics cannot explain.

Combine this with the fact researchers may have seen a black hole explode and
the notion of recycling becomes something else altogether. 

Did we just see a black hole explode? UMass Amherst’s physicists think so. This artist’s concept takes a fanciful approach to imagining small primordial black holes. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

In 2023, a neutrino telescope submerged deep in the Mediterranean Sea struck quantum gold, detecting a neutrino with 100,000 times more energy than even the Large Hadron Collider, Earth’s most powerful particle accelerator, can produce. Put simply, it seemed to be an impossible event. Now, physicists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst think this particle may be evidence of an explosion from a black hole that originated at the beginning of time. 

Somerthing's afoot - Sherlock Holmes.

 To be continued ...

This nation has lost it's way ...

An information packet and an American flag are placed on a chair at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Miami Field Office on Aug. 17, 2018, in Miami. Wilfredo Lee/AP

Vicious says it all. Nosferatu, aka Stephen Miller, does a number on folks wanting to get a green card
because they must now leave and apply in their home country.

Just another insult from the administration from hell. Let's puts the screws on people with legal status, already in this country, and force them to go thru a senseless drill that might preclude them from ever coming back given just how craven this administration truly is. This act makes me ashamed to be a citizen of a country I love because of the bastards residing in the White House.

WASHINGTON — Foreigners in the U.S. who want a green card will need to leave and apply in their home country, the Trump administration announced Friday, in a surprise change to a longstanding policy that sowed confusion and concern among aid groups, immigration lawyers and immigrants.

Marena Guzman, a 2022 Ph.D. graduate in molecular biosciences, recently moved back in with her parents to restart her DACA out of concern it could lapse.

For over half a century, foreign nationals with legal status have been able to apply for and complete the entire process for permanent residence in the United States — including individuals married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees and political asylum seekers, among others.

The announcement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said foreigners who are in the U.S. temporarily and who want to apply to become lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, have to return home and apply there, except in "extraordinary circumstances." USCIS officers would decide whether applicants meet those.

It gets "better".

It is the latest step by the Trump administration making legal immigration more difficult for foreigners already in the U.S. and for those hoping to come here.

Hundreds of thousands apply for green cards from the U.S. each year

"The goal of this policy is very explicit. Senior officials in this administration have said over and over that they want fewer people to get permanent residency because permanent residency is a path to citizenship and they want to block that path for as many people as possible," said Doug Rand, a former senior advisor at USCIS during the Biden administration, who added that about 600,000 people already in the U.S. apply each year for a green card.

USCIS did not say when the change would come into effect, whether individuals would be required to remain in another country throughout the entire process, or whether the policy impacts foreigners whose green card applications are already underway.

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"[12]

"The New Colossus" Emma Lazarus (1849–1887).

This nation has lost it's way ...

The Timber Doodle @ work. :)

The groove never disappoints. :)

Going sideways ...

Going sideways ...

The Democratic National Committee on Thursday released a nearly 200-page draft of an internal autopsy of what went wrong in the 2024 campaign, ending months of speculation that had emerged as an embarrassing public spectacle for the party as it seeks to regain control of Congress.

The report places blame for Kamala Harris’s defeat partly on former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s political operation, arguing that it failed to position her for success in the race after he dropped out. It also critiques the Harris campaign for failing to distance itself from Mr. Biden, and for failing to mount an effective strategy to make a dent in Donald Trump’s rising approval ratings.

Biden lied about being a one termer, period. Had he adhered to his promise, it would have been an open convention and whoever got the nod would have been POTUS. It's that simple. 

A second life :)

Photograph: Feifei Cui-Paoluzzo/Getty Images

A second life for dried up gas & oil wells looms. If the science works out, it's logical and cool to the max. :)

As states seek out much-needed supplies of clean, reliable energy, some are looking to an unconventional source: abandoned oil and gas wells harnessed for geothermal heat.

Millions of inactive wells are littered across the United States, the relics of earlier eras of fossil fuel production. A large number of the sites have no official owner, and many are still polluting groundwater and leaking heat-trapping methane. The country has barely scratched the surface in dealing with this problem.

Policymakers in both Republican- and Democratic-led states are exploring whether these sites could instead be converted into new wells for producing geothermal energy. The holes are already drilled in the ground, after all. And regions with widespread oil and gas development have rich subsurface data that geothermal firms need in order to determine where and how to build their carbon-free systems.

The concept is relatively new and largely untested, though scientists and startups are working to change that. States are also laying the groundwork for action by lifting regulatory hurdles and launching in-depth studies.

Something positive for a change. I needed that. :)

Law of the jungle???

China’s President Xi Jinping, left, and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, right, are meeting in a push to secure energy and business deals © Maxim Shemetov/POOL/EPA/Shutterstock

The CF in the WH says it all. War on a whim, the US owned by Israel, science and tech compromised, voting rights gutted, healthcare a mess and corruption to the max applies while Xi looks at a once great nation and laughs.
WWIII could happen knowing what America has as a president.
Something wicked this way comes.

Xi Jinping has told Vladimir Putin the world is in danger of regressing to “the law of the jungle” as he sought to portray China as a force of global stability just days after hosting Donald Trump in Beijing.

The summit between the Russian and Chinese leaders on Wednesday included talks aimed at reaffirming Sino-Russian ties as global energy markets and supply chains have been disrupted by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Speaking to reporters after their meeting, Xi said the two sides should promote co-operation in energy and technology, including in artificial intelligence, and work together to “improve global governance”.

“Unilateralism and hegemonism are deeply harmful, and the world faces the danger of regressing back to the law of the jungle,” Xi said in a veiled criticism of the US.

The title is taken from "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes",
a line said by the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Dirty Laundry

Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios.
Photos: Jim Lo Scalzo/Bloomberg and Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Dirty laundry and an expose of two entities bent on accruing ever more power and money with no regard for the public good applies. Tawdry says it all but is anyone surprised? Yours truly certainly isn't.

The biggest tech trial of the AI era — which ended anticlimactically Monday on procedural grounds — revealed a sector consumed by the same power struggles and profit motives its leaders once warned would corrupt artificial intelligence.

Why it matters: The trial cemented a growing public fear about AI: that the people racing to control the world's most powerful technology are driven less by humanity-saving ideals than by money, power and personal rivalries.

The big picture: OpenAI's founders originally positioned themselves as an alternative to Google DeepMind, fearing a single tech giant would monopolize transformative AI systems.

But testimony and internal documents showed the organization's leaders quickly became consumed by power struggles.

OpenAI executives worried in 2017 that Elon Musk "could become a dictator" and sent him an email with the subject line "honest thoughts." Musk responded saying "I've had enough" and later suggested the company be folded into Tesla.

Among the court documents were texts Sam Altman sent during his brief 2023 ouster, including him pleading repeatedly to attend board meetings and being rejected. The trial also confirmed reports that OpenAI met with Anthropic to discuss a potential merger at that time.

What they're saying: "Does anybody really believe that love of humanity is driving any of this? It's power," Anthony Aguirre, CEO of the Future of Life Institute, which focuses on AI governance, told Axios.

In essence, this was both a nothing burger and an airing out of dirty laundry at the public's expense.

10% vs 90% :)

A photo showing raised human hands.

Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

Handedness, yours truly is a lefty, 90% of the human race are righties but it seems it's baked in:)

About nine out of every ten humans on Earth are righties. This strange imbalance stretches across cultures, continents, and history itself. No other primate species comes remotely close to showing such a strong population-wide preference. 

Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Oxford suggests the answer may lie in two evolutionary changes that transformed our species more than any others: walking upright and growing unusually large brains. 

The researchers propose a two-stage explanation for human handedness. First came bipedalism. As early human ancestors began walking upright, their hands were freed from locomotion. 

This likely created new evolutionary pressure for specialized hand use during tasks such as carrying objects, manipulating tools, or gesturing. The study found that locomotion strongly influences handedness patterns across primates. 

The second phase came later with brain expansion

Using evolutionary models, the researchers estimated handedness in extinct human relatives. Early hominins such as Ardipithecus and Australopithecus likely had weak right-hand preferences similar to modern apes. 

However, the bias strengthened in species such as Homo erectus and Neanderthals before reaching its modern extreme in Homo sapiens. “It is with the emergence of the genus Homo, and particularly the onset of significant encephalization, that we observe a marked increase in MHI values,” the study authors added.

The significance of these findings

The study suggests human right-handedness may be deeply rooted in the same evolutionary changes that transformed how our ancestors moved and interacted with the world. 

However, some important questions remain unanswered. For instance, scientists still do not know why left-handedness survived throughout human evolution, or how much human culture helped strengthen right-hand dominance over time.

The study is published in the journal PLOS Biology.

But thereare other variables. Chirality and the handedness of the weak nuclear force
as it only works left handed. So does life. 

Two enantiomers of a generic amino acid that is chiral

Scaling it up ...

The Primitive Node ...

The initial stages of human embryonic development (embryogenesis)

How the Node Breaks Symmetry

The connection between the node and "left-handedness" relates to embryonic left-right asymmetry (how our internal organs are arranged) rather than hand preference.

• Nodal Flow: The ventral surface of the node contains hundreds of microscopic, rotating hairs called cilia. These cilia tilt and spin in a specific clockwise rotation, creating a leftward flow of extracellular fluid. This fluid movement pushes signaling molecules to the left side of the embryo.
• Gene Activation: This leftward flow triggers the localized expression of specific genes—most notably the Nodal gene and the Pitx2 transcription factor—strictly on the left side.
• Biological Outcomes: This chain reaction dictates that the heart, liver, and other asymmetrical organs develop in their proper anatomical positions.

In essence ...

Embryonic asymmetry: The left side gets all the best genes

This is why lefties like yours truly are still around. :)