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☆ Opinion: With their leader still missing, who will control Wagner forces in Africa?
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-18 | by ( Joyce M. Davis | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Wagner forces appear to despise the Russian military, as Prigozhin’s reckless march from Ukraine toward Moscow made abundantly clear. That’s why when Wagner forces started withdrawing from Ukraine last month, many feared the same might happen in Africa. And who can guarantee Wagner forces won’t turn on African leaders who decide to side with Putin? “Don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere.”It’s not as if Russia could repatriate and replace Wagner forces with verifiably loyal Russian troops — even if it wanted to. And quite frankly, Africa will only emerge better-off if democratic governments emerge after Wagner forces are shown the door.

Persons: Joyce M, Davis, CNN —, Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Vladmir Putin, Dan Gleiter Prigozhin, Putin, Prigozihin, Putin wouldn’t, Khalifa Haftar, Faustin, Burkina Faso’s, Ibrahim Traore, Prigozhin, didn’t, Prigozhin’s Wagner, Assimi Goita, won’t, Haftar, ”, “, It’s, Sergey Kostelyanyets, ” Kostelyanyets, obeisance, Traore —, they’re, Abdel Fattah al, Burhan, They’re, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Sudan’s, Wagner weren’t, Washington, Wagner “, there’s Organizations: Patriot -, World Affairs Council, CNN, Wagner Group, Wagner, Central African Republic, Burkina, Guardian, Libyan, Russian Academy of Sciences ’ Institute for African Studies, Newsweek, Russia’s Ministry of Defense, Support Forces, Moscow, US Treasury Department, Twitter, Facebook, Central African Locations: Harrisburg , Pennsylvania, Africa, Crimea, Ukraine, Moscow, Libya, Mali, Sudan, Russia, Eastern Libya, Russian, Benghazi, Dubai, Touadéra, Prigozhin, Central African Republic, United States

☆ Webb telescope captures tantalizing evidence for mysterious 'dark stars'
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-17 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Dark matter, invisible material whose presence is known mainly based on its gravitational effects at a galactic scale, would be a small but crucial ingredient in dark stars. Based on the Webb data, these objects could be either early galaxies or dark stars, Freese said. Conditions in the early universe may have been conducive to formation of dark stars, with high dark matter densities at the locations of star-forming clouds of hydrogen and helium. Freese and two colleagues first proposed the existence of dark stars in 2008, basing the name on the 1960s Grateful Dead song "Dark Star." And then you can learn about the properties of dark matter particles by studying a variety of dark stars of different masses."

Persons: James Webb, Webb, Katherine Freese, Freese, Cosmin Ilie, Will Dunham, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: University of Texas, Austin, National Academy of Sciences, Colgate University, Thomson

☆ Silence Is a ‘Sound’ You Hear, Study Suggests
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-10 | by ( Bethany Brookshire | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

What is it that we hear when we hear nothing at all? Or are we just hearing nothing and interpreting that absence as silence? The “Sound of Silence” is a philosophical question that made for one of Simon & Garfunkel’s most enduring songs, but it’s also a subject that can be tested by psychologists. In a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers used a series of sonic illusions to show that people perceive silences much as they hear sounds. While the study offers no insight into how our brains might be processing silence, the results suggest that people perceive silence as its own type of “sound,” not just as a gap between noises.

Persons: Simon, it’s, ”, Rui Zhe Goh Organizations: National Academy of Sciences, Johns Hopkins University

☆ Scientists find new clue in what led to megalodon’s demise
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-03 | by ( Amaya Mcdonald | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Scientists previously theorized that megalodons were warm-blooded, but the new study is the first to provide concrete evidence to that effect. From this finding, they deduced the megalodon’s average body temperature was about 27 C (80 F). Like modern great white and mako sharks, megalodons were regionally endothermic, which means they had the ability to regulate temperature in certain parts of the body, according to the study. The timing of megalodons’ extinction coincides with the cooling of the Earth’s temperature, the researchers said. But learning more about the ancient shark could still help scientists better understand the threats similar marine animals face today.

Persons: CNN —, it’s, “, megalodon, Robert Eagle, Kenshu Shimada, ” Shimada, Megalodon, Michael Griffiths, ” Griffiths Organizations: CNN, National Academy of Sciences, UCLA, Eagle, DePaul University in, William Paterson University Locations: megalodon, DePaul University in Chicago, “, Megalodon, New Jersey

☆ Nvidia says US curbs on AI chip sales to China would cause ‘permanent loss of opportunities’
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Laura He | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Hong Kong CNN —Nvidia warned Wednesday that if the United States imposes new restrictions on the export of AI chips to China, it would result in a “permanent loss of opportunities” for US industry. The rules, as reported, could make it harder for companies like Nvidia (NVDA) to sell advanced chips to China. Fueled by a boom in demand for its AI chips, the company briefly hit a market capitalization of $1 trillion in late May. We do not anticipate any immediate material impact on our financial results,” Kress added. Chinese AI stocks suffered much heavier losses.

Persons: Colette Kress, “, ” Kress, ”, Biden, ” Jefferies Organizations: Hong Kong CNN, Nvidia, Wall Street, Financial Times, US Department of Commerce, CNN, Bloomberg, Chengdu Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Baidu, Biden, Micron Technology Locations: Hong Kong, United, China, Washington, Shenzhen, Chengdu, ChatGPT, Beijing

☆ Bayer claims early lead in Parkinson's stem cell therapy
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Ludwig Burger | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Some of this work is done by Britain's' Cambridge University, South Korea's Bundang CHA Hospital, International Stem Cell Corp's (ISCO.PK) Cyto Therapeutics in Australia, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harvard University and Japan's Kyoto University Hospital. For BlueRock's experimental therapy, researchers took induced pluripotent stem cells, which are modified to regain the ability to form any type of specialised tissue, and transformed them into dopamine-producing nerve cells. When surgically implanted into the brain of a person with Parkinson's disease, the therapeutic cells are designed to restore neural networks destroyed by the disease. Initial trial results showed the cells multiplied and started making dopamine, an important brain signalling molecule which is lacking in Parkinson's patients. Parkinson's, for which there is no cure and which affects more than 10 million people worldwide, causes progressive brain damage.

Persons: Wolfgang Rattay, Bayer, BlueRock, Britain's, Jennifer Doudna, Ludwig Burger, Miranda Murray, Mark Potter Organizations: Bayer AG, REUTERS, Bayer, Cambridge University, South Korea's, CHA Hospital, Cyto Therapeutics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Harvard University, Japan's Kyoto University Hospital, BlueRock Therapeutics, Mammoth Biosciences, Thomson Locations: Leverkusen, Germany, FRANKFURT, Australia, San Francisco Bay

☆ Chinese A.I. stocks fall as U.S. reportedly weighs curbs on chip exports
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Sheila Chiang | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

A Nvidia Corp. HGX H100 artificial intelligence supercomputing graphics processing unit (GPU) at the showroom of the company's offices in Taipei, Taiwan, on Friday, June 2, 2023. China's artificial intelligence stocks fell Wednesday after the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. is planning to impose new curbs on shipments of AI chips to China. According to the Journal, U.S. chip makers such as Nvidia will be affected by the move which could happen as early as July. China's CSI artificial intelligence index fell 3% on that news on Wednesday in Asia. The Shenzhen-traded shares of Inspur Electronic Information Industry slumped 10% and Chengdu Information Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences dropped nearly 8%.

Persons: OpenAI's ChatGPT, Bard chatbots, — Organizations: Nvidia Corp, Wall Street Journal, Journal, Nvidia, CSI, Industry, Chengdu Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Locations: Taipei, Taiwan, China, Asia, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hong Kong, U.S

☆ John Goodenough, Nobel laureate and battery pioneer, dies at 100
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] John B. Goodenough, 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner, speaks during a news conference at the Royal Society in London, Britain October 9, 2019. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File PhotoJune 26 (Reuters) - Nobel laureate John Goodenough, a pioneer in the development of lithium-ion batteries that today power millions of electric vehicles around the globe, died on Sunday just a month short of his 101st birthday. In recent years, Goodenough and his university team had also been exploring new directions for energy storage, including a “glass” battery with solid-state electrolyte and lithium or sodium metal electrodes. Goodenough also was an early developer of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathodes as an alternative to nickel- and cobalt-based cathodes. After completing a bachelors in mathematics at Yale University, Goodenough received an masters and a PhD in physics from the University of Chicago.

Persons: John B, Goodenough, Peter Nicholls, John Goodenough, “, Jay Hartzell, Britain's Stanley Whittingham, Japan's Akira Yoshino, Paul Lienert Organizations: Royal Society, REUTERS, University of Texas, Chemistry, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Yale University, University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, Thomson Locations: London, Britain, Austin, Jena, Germany, Detroit

☆ Climate change has fueled larger wildfires in California, scientists say
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The area burned from wildfires in California's northern and central forests increased fivefold between 1971 and 2021, an increase driven largely by human-caused climate change, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The 10 largest wildfires in California happened in the last two decades, five of which occurred in 2020 and eight after 2017. Scientists estimate the area burned during an average summer could rise as much as 50% by midcentury as hotter and drier conditions intensify the blazes. The researchers conducted a statistical analysis of temperature and wildfire data for summers in California between 1971 and 2021 and assessed models that showed how the last few decades may have looked without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. They discovered that burned area increased 172% more than it would have without climate change.

Organizations: National Academy of Sciences, U.S ., D.C, New Locations: California, Canada, U.S . East Coast, Philadelphia, Washington, New York City

☆ Transfer of holy icon shows Russian Orthodoxy's new sway under Putin
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Emphasising its importance to the faithful, Putin last month ordered Andrei Rublev's "Trinity" be transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church from Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery for a year. For some, though, there is unease at the sway of the Church - and concern about possible damage to the fragile icon. She quipped that Russian leaders over the centuries have turned to icons in tough situations with the hope of victory. "Masterpieces of Russian icon painting and national shrines should not be exposed to unjustified risk," members of a cultural council within the Russian Academy of Sciences wrote in an open letter to Russian Minister of Culture Olga Lyubimova. "The only space suitable for placing the icon 'Trinity' by Andrei Rublev is in the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery, which is confirmed by almost a century of practice."

Persons: Vladimir Putin's, Putin, Andrei Rublev's, Moscow's Tretyakov, the, Josef Stalin, Abraham, Regina Elsner, Sergius –, Bolsheviks, Kirill of Moscow, Kirill, Putin's, Ksenia, Leonardo da Vinci's, Mona Lisa, Tretyakov, Korobeynikova, Olga Lyubimova, Andrei Rublev, Lucy Papachristou, Guy Faulconbridge, Mark Potter Organizations: Trinity Sunday, Soviet Union, Church, Eastern European, International Studies, Kremlin, Putin, Reuters, Russian Academy of Sciences, Thomson Locations: MOSCOW, Moscow, Ukraine, Moscow's, Soviet, Mamre, Russian, Berlin, Russia, Trinity, St, Moscow –, Gdansk

☆ China issues guidance for basic elderly care system by 2025
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BEIJING, May 21 (Reuters) - China has issued guidance to all provinces to build a basic elderly care system by 2025, state-run Xinhua news agency said on Sunday, in the latest step to prevent a demographic crisis. "Promoting the construction of the basic elderly care service system is an important task for implementing the national strategy of actively responding to population ageing and achieving equalisation of basic public services," Xinhua said. It said the guidelines require all provinces to implement a list of basic elderly care services, based on factors such as economic and social development level and financial situation. Provinces must improve the basic pension system service and implement a long-term care security system that connects insurance, welfare and assistance, the statement said. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the pension system running out of money by 2035.

☆ Scientists say they have found a chapter of the Bible hidden under a section of text for more than a thousand years
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-22 | by ( Kenneth Niemeyer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A scientist said he found a chapter of the Bible hidden for more than 1,500 years. Researchers used ultraviolet photography to spot the text, which was hidden beneath multiple edits. Researchers said the manuscript was a "gateway" to understanding phases of the Bible's evolution. Words would be written on the material repeatedly until several layers covered the hidden words underneath. Kessel said in a news release that the text was an extended, unseen version of Chapter 12 in the Book of Matthew that was originally a part of the Old Syriac translations of the Bible some 1,500 years ago.

☆ Kremlin-funded university that trains Russia’s future leaders is firing all staff living outside Russia, in another sign of Putin crackdown: report
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Russia's top university for public officials is firing all its employees living abroad, per a report. RANEPA is known as Russia's breeding ground for future ministers, civil servants, and governors. The move comes amid Russia's ongoing crackdown on public dissent, which has ramped up since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. RANEPA is known as one of the top destinations for Russia's public servants and administrative class, churning out future regional governors, civil servants, and ministers. The UK Ministry of Defence also commented on a likely ban on senior Russian officials quitting their posts on Thursday.

☆ Russian scientists criticize arrest of hypersonic researchers in open letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Katharina Krebs | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —The arrest of three Russian scientists on suspicion of treason has been criticized by members of a Russian scientific institute, who warn the move has created a chilling effect in the community. The three Russian scientists, Anatoly Maslov, Alexander Shiplyuk and Valery Zvegintsev, were detained by the country’s security services in the past year, according to the open letter published this week by members of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITAM). The letter appealed to Russian authorities to “protect Russian aerodynamic science,” and warned that staffers not understand how to “do their job” for fear of being accused. In these circumstances, it’s simply impossible for our institute to work,” the letter also said. On Tuesday, TASS also reported Zvegintsev, ITAM’s chief researcher, had been placed under house arrest, citing a statement published by the court.

☆ Robert E. Lucas Jr., Nobel-Winning Conservative Economist, Dies at 85
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Robert E. Lucas Jr., a contrarian Nobel laureate in economics who undergirded conservative arguments that government intervention in fiscal policy is often self-defeating, died on Monday in Chicago. His death was announced by the University of Chicago, where he began teaching as a professor in 1975 and remained a professor emeritus until his death. The announcement did not cite a cause. In awarding the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1995 to Professor Lucas, the fifth winner in economics from the University of Chicago in six years, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences described him as “the economist who has had the greatest influence on macroeconomic research since 1970.”While he propounded a number of groundbreaking if sometimes controversial theories, Professor Lucas was best known for his hypothesis of “rational expectations,” advanced in the early 1970s in a critique of macroeconomics.

☆ 3 scientists behind Putin's 'unstoppable' missiles were jailed for treason. Russian researchers say they are now living in fear.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Three Russian scientists involved in missile development have been arrested, according to reports. The scientists are accused of treason, a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison. The missiles they helped create are among the most prized weapons in the Russian military's arsenal. The arrest of Shiplyuk, director of the institute's Siberian branch, was reported by Russian state media last August, and Maslov, its chief researcher, last July. They say younger scientists are being deterred by the arrests from pursuing similar research.

☆ Tombs filled with severed hands suggest warriors in ancient Egypt mutilated their enemies to get war trophies
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Experts have analyzed a pile of severed hands found in a 3,500-year-old temple in ancient Egypt. Their study suggests soldiers took the hands of slain enemies and presented them to their ruler. But archaeological records have suggested that severed hands were presented to kings after big battles. The severed hands could prevent the soldiers from fighting in the netherworld, for instance, per Bietak. Hands were likely removed soon after deathA colorised images shows the hands in the soil.

☆ A scientist scraped a black dot on his forehead and filmed it under a microscope, revealing dozens of crawling face mites
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Erin Heger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

He saw dozens of tiny face mites, aka Demodex mites, crawling around on the plate. This is more common in people with weakened immune systems that can't keep the population of Demodex mites under control. You can't get rid of face mites, and you shouldn't want toBecause Demodex mites live inside your pores, it's nearly impossible to scrub them out, Robinson said. Our face mites are a testament to that. Check out more footage of these face mites in the video below:

☆ Petermann Glacier in Greenland is melting away with the tide, which could signal faster sea level rise, study finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Brandon Miller | Cnn Meteorologist | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —A major glacier in northwest Greenland is interacting with the ocean tides, scientists reported Monday, resulting in previously unaccounted-for melting and potentially faster sea level rise. This is an important finding: The traditional view among scientists was that the grounding line did not migrate with the tides – and this introduces another major source of melting that could be accelerating sea level rise. Between 2016 and 2022, warmer tidal cycles melted a 670-foot-tall hole in the underside of the glacier along the grounding line — big enough that two Statues of Liberty could be stacked on top of one another inside it. The study raises more concerns for the already worrisome prospect of sea level rise, which threatens coastlines around the world. Greenland’s melting ice is the single largest contributor to sea level rise, according to NASA, which has been accelerating in recent years.

☆ Life in ocean's 'twilight zone' threatened by climate change
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The ocean’s mesopelagic zone, also called the “twilight zone,” is located between 656 feet and 3,280 feet (200 meters to 1,000 meters) below the surface. The twilight zone also a crucial habitat for marine life that dives in search of prey, like sharks, or lanternfish that hide in the twilight zone during the day and swim to the surface waters to feed at night. Small crustaceans known as Megacalanus princeps live in the ocean's twilight zone at a depth of 1,000 meters in the Northeast Atlantic. Natural Visions/Alamy Stock PhotoNew research warns that the climate crisis could reduce life in the twilight zone between 20% and 40% by the end of the century. “What we really need to protect the (twilight zone) is to stop, or at least slow down, the high rate of change that we are subjecting our planet’s climate to.”

☆ A drug company abandoned a treatment for ‘bubble boy disease.’ After a 5-year fight, this little girl is about to get it
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Elizabeth Cohen Lauren Mascarenhas | Elizabeth Cohen | Lauren Mascarenhas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +29 min

The Sulacks weighed their options: Have a transplant with a match that was less than ideal – far less – or wait for gene therapy to become available. The news release didn’t say anything else about the SCID gene therapy. Or was the company abandoning its plans for SCID gene therapy altogether? In February, 2021, the parents of more than 20 children who were waiting for the gene therapy treatment, including the Sulacks, wrote a letter to Gaspar. Insurance companies have sometimes balked at paying for gene therapy, which is typically given in one treatment.

☆ New image reveals violent events near a supermassive black hole
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] This image shows the jet and shadow of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy together for the first time. The supermassive black hole pictured resides at the center of a relatively nearby galaxy called Messier 87, or M87, about 54 million light-years from Earth. This black hole, with a mass 6.5 billion times that of our sun, was the subject of the first image of such an object ever obtained, released in 2019, with another black hole pictured last year. Seeing the entire scene in the vicinity of a supermassive black hole can be insightful. The EHT project has yielded the images of the two supermassive black holes.

☆ NASA detects first seismic waves within Mars' core
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Ashley Strickland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

During these events, InSight detected for the first time seismic waves traveling through the Martian core. “More than a hundred years later, we’re applying our knowledge of seismic waves to Mars. With InSight, we’re finally discovering what’s at the center of Mars and what makes Mars so similar yet distinct from Earth.”The NASA InSight Mars lander studied the interior of Mars for four years. Planetary core offers clues on evolutionEarth has a liquid outer core and a solid inner core, but the Martian core appears to be made entirely from liquid. “We’ve made the very first observations of seismic waves travelling through the core of Mars.

CNN —China is making “significant progress” building the country’s fifth research facility in Antarctica after a several years-long lull in construction, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The site – a research station China has hailed as a means to expand its scientific investigation in the Antarctic – could also be used to enhance the country’s intelligence collection, according to CSIS. In February 2020, a team of US inspectors visited the station, where they were hosted by station leader Wang Zhechao of the Polar Research Institute of China. China has established four scientific research bases in Antarctica since 1984, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Under the 1959 treaty Antarctic Treaty, to which China is party, activities on the continent are restricted to “peaceful purposes.”Military personnel are allowed to conduct scientific research, but may not set up bases, test weapons of carry out maneuvers.

☆ Volcano in remote Russian Far East spews 10-km-high ash plume
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Ash from the initial eruption reached 20 km into the sky, covered villages in drifts of grey volcanic dust and triggered an aviation warning. Lava flows tumbled from the volcano on Monday, melting snow and prompting a warning of mud flows along a nearby highway. As much as 8.5 centimetres (3.5 inches) of ash carpeted villages, the deepest in 60 years. Around 24 hours after the volcano began erupting, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Kamchatka, the geological survey said. A red notice issued by the Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT), remained in force.

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