This is a truly original life concept:
It all depends on how you define life. If the key criteria are the ability to encode information, and the ability for those information carriers to self-replicate faster than they disintegrate, then hypothetical monopole particles threaded on cosmic strings - cosmic necklaces - could form the basis of life inside stars, much like DNA and RNA form the basis of life on Earth.According to the new study, cosmic necklaces could form in a sequence of symmetry-breaking phase transitions. In the first stage, monopoles emerge. In the second, strings. This can produce a stable configuration of one monopole bead and two strings, which in turn could connect to form one-, two-, and even three-dimensional structures - much like atoms joined by chemical bonds, the researchers say. A one-dimensional necklace would be unlikely to carry information. But more complex structures potentially could - and they could survive long enough to replicate, feeding off the fusion energy generated by the star.
Saturday, 5 September 2020
Life Form That Survives Inside Suns: A Wondrous New Idea - Bubbles on Strings.
Beach Creatures (Strandbeest) Video of Wind Walker Devices.
Here's an article on artist/engineer Theo Jansen who creates these animated creatures from PVC.
Friday, 4 September 2020
Tuesday, 1 September 2020
Covid Policy Killed People, lots of them, says UK National Statistics Office.
The estimates, made by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and analysts from several government departments, suggest there were 38,500 excess deaths in England connected to Covid-19 between March and 1 May. However, the report concludes 41% of those deaths were the result of missed medical care rather than the virus itself. Of the 16,000 deaths, the paper estimates 6,000 were as a result of a "significant reduction in A&E attendances and emergency admissions". .. Although the calculations found that 2,500 lives may have been saved by people adopting healthier lifestyles during lockdown, the modelling suggests there could be a further 26,000 excess deaths by March 2021 as a result of ongoing restrictions to medical care.
Monday, 31 August 2020
Saturday, 29 August 2020
Friday, 28 August 2020
Biggest ever bomb test declassified by Russia with wonderful analog control panels and complex chairs to sit upon.
Posted by VICE, this declassified and polished footage shows the context in 1961 for the 50 megaton explosion of Tsar Bomba. The chairs and analog control panels are wondrous things.
Sunday, 23 August 2020
Brennan in a Perjury Trap
Highlights from the Red State article: The Durham team's 8 hour interview by design was at CIA offices and that means in Virginia not Washington DC. Any false statements under oath can be addressed by Virginia courts. As to Brennan being "not a target", this is not something that investigators volunteer.
That brings you to the next point that the promoted statement from Brennan isn't a statement, it's all second hand. Brennan hasn't been shy in the past to tweet what he thinks but here he shelters behind indirection and a planted story that never quotes his actual words. Eight hours is a long time for an interview. As Brennan wasn't going to be a forthright source of new information, the conclusion is that facts had been verified beforehand through others and are being played back to Brennan to hear him speak the truth or to speak an actionable lie. There's quite a bit more at the link.
Saturday, 22 August 2020
Monday, 17 August 2020
Cracks appear in "All Good Blacks Vote Democrat" Narrative. Wonderfully done Baltimore Ad from Klacik for Congress.
After 53 years Democrat led ruination of Baltimore, cracks in the narrative appear. Beautiful Kimberly Klacik is running for congress and deserves to win by a landslide. A great ad follows her in red heels into the crumbling infrastructure of Baltimore, an area mostly home to Black Americans, and calls for an end of 53 years mismangement.
Sunday, 16 August 2020
Most of the world used Hydroxychloroquine early and saved lives. One chart.
Vitamin D: The cheapest, easiest, safest armour against COVID-19
For each standard-deviation increase in serum 25-hydroxy-Vitamin D, the risk of a severe outcome was reduced eightfold, and the risk of a critical outcome was reduced 20-fold.
My noble friend Lord Ridley, reporting this result in The Times a couple of days ago, wrote: “Of 49 patients with mild symptoms … only two had low levels of vitamin D; of 104 patients with critical or severe symptoms, only four did not have low levels of vitamin D.”
It's appropriate to boost your defences. The hydroxchlorquine/quercetin option to improve zinc uptake by cells in another example. Avoiding a battle makes more sense than just relying on good medical aid in a war zone.
People are fleeing San Francisco. Houses for sale doubled lately.
Doing good
If it be in thy power to do good
Hold not back thy hand.
My variation on Proverbs 3:27
This goes farther than but includes, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". The Bible includes the thought, "Do good to those to whom it is due".
Making Normal Illegal.
Mandated anti-social distancing and liquor prohibition had the same mother. The germ of a good idea, untested by its competitors, was given the levers of power. What follows is natural law, here quoting Wretchard the Cat:
To a great extent the bureaucratic empires performed as designed. They used the crises to capture budget increases and inflate their power while carefully avoiding anything politically incorrect.
People will gather and drink together, party and pray together, fall in love and play bridge together. If they are offside the law, then it is government that is on the wrong side.
"Blue-state politicians failed to learn the lessons of America’s failed experiment with liquor prohibition a century ago: Banning normal economic and social activity creates a black market."